Value Forward Selling: How to Sell to Management [Paperback]

 

 

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I bought this book on an impulse as a result of some hype in an e-mail newsletter I receive. As I was waiting for it to arrive I began to question my decision but I was very pleasantly surprised!

This book is packed with some really valuable tools and ideas. Don't be put off by the gimmicky sounding title - this is not another `same old stuff repackaged' book. It should just be called `How to Sell to Top Management'. Step by step, right down to suggested phraseology, it takes you through an innovative approach to selling at the top.

I read Parinello's `Selling to VITO' some years ago and applied many of his ideas with great success, and more recently I've read and applied Keith Eades `New Solution Selling', which has also worked well. I would describe DiModica's book as an excellent, expanded and updated version of `VITO', and a great companion to the better known `Solution Selling'.

Solution Selling is a great process and, for organisation and structure, beats this. Value Forward Selling puts a lot of flesh on the bones of the Solution Selling process - and if that's not something you're familiar with, it acts as a crash course in everything you need to know about selling to senior management.

Whilst some of DiModica's scripting needs de-Americanizing for a non-US reader, the core concepts are sound. The central idea is that received wisdom in sales just homogenises everyone. To be different, and not just compete on price, you've got to deliver value and address business pain - essentially raise revenue, reduce cost or minimise risk.

Whilst this idea is identical to Solution Selling, DiModica's book is packed with much more practical explanations of what to do and say all the way through the sale. I particularly liked his Sales Value Proposition, his methods to generate management sales leads, ideas for penetrating the executive `no-talk' zone when cold calling, the suggested format for first meeting and follow-up presentation and how to structure a proposal.

Here's the proof that it works: I more than doubled my calls to appointments ratio by implementing the Sales Value Proposition approach. My calls to follow up on a letter have been met with Chief Execs and MDs saying things like 'Yes, I've got your letter here in front of me' and 'So you want to come down and see me?'

Another technique to get to hard-to-reach executives has got me in to see someone I've been trying to meet with for six months.

He has some interesting ideas on how to get inside an executive's head. For example, research that shows the majority of executives gather information on ways to improve their businesses from vendors, not from trade press or brochures. So they will see people if they perceive them as offering value-adding information. He also has some convincing explanations for why pursuing people at supervisor level can be a waste of time, eg: if your product is priced higher than the supervisor's salary, they subliminally judge it negatively.

I started to change my sales approach whilst I was still reading the book and I'm seeing great results. This would be especially valuable for salespeople just beginning to operate at senior level, but is still full of insights for veterans.

Some recommendations can't be carried out if you work for a big company (like change the langauage on your company web site to reflect your Sales Value Proposition), but DiModica does stress how his techniques can enable smaller players to compete against their market's big competitors because they can implement the whole `program'.

My one criticism would be that, whilst it's full of good examples from DiModica's own selling career, he does make reference to the many salespeople he's trained and I would have liked to have read about some of their successes with his techniques. This would give a broader range of examples - although DiModica has had a pretty varied career selling jewellery, software, catering services and consulting to large and small companies.

This is a very, very practical guide to professional selling in the boardroom. Highly recommended.

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