Download free samples  from the book!
   Book Introduction
   Top Sales People
   Getting Buyers        Attention

 Home 

 Bio

 Site Map

 Contact

B2B Sales Training

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How is your book different than other sales training materials?

This material is unique in several aspects;

First, this material is written specifically for the business-to-business (B2B) salesperson. Because of this fact, it focuses on the longer sales cycles involved when selling to businesses, as well as the relationship development aspects of business selling.

Second, this material is written for the experienced or advanced salesperson. This program assumes that the reader has received basic sales communications training. The Trusted Seller was written to give B2B salespeople better insight into their buyers and the way that they make decisions.

Third, this program was developed wholly from the perspective of the buyer. This is the first and only program that I am aware of that is specifically written from the frame of reference of the B2B buyer. It is a unique and refreshing perspective, that in and of itself makes this program one of the most worthwhile investments on the market today.

Consider some of the more popular sales training methodologies. None of these conventional sales philosophies alone address the unique dynamics of the B2B buyer-seller relationship. Popular models that promise you’ll boost sales, double your new accounts, blah, blah, blah –– all of these hold glaring inadequacies in the B2B environment. Let’s take a look:

• Traditional sales strategies don’t cut it. Traditional sales training programs focus on single transactions. The programs don’t take into account a buyer-seller relationship that exists prior to (and after) the sale. Buyers today don’t allow sales reps to strip away their objections one-by-one before they’ll agree to place orders. Far too much is at risk for the buyer. The buyer’s decision affects too many people within the buying organization. Traditional sales techniques work for selling in the retail environment to a consumer or to an end user, but they don’t work in the world of B2B selling.

  In fact, although most sales training programs encourage reps to focus on a single transaction when selling, this approach actually hurts more than it helps when it comes to selling successfully in the business selling environment.

  You’d be amazed at the number of meetings that take place during which the buyer sits uncomfortably while the salespeople in attendance fish for orders. For reasons that will become painfully clear as you move through this book, buyers rarely commit to orders at the conclusion of a single meeting. Buyers simply cannot make impulsive purchasing decisions with so much at stake and so many internal customers to satisfy.

  Business selling calls for timely, thorough follow-up in moving through the business purchasing cycle. That’s why salespeople generally fail in the B2B environment when attempting to “close the sale” –– they fail to take multiple small steps over a period of time.

• Relationship selling techniques by themselves aren’t enough either. Relationship sales training usually emphasizes communications techniques. But while buyer-seller communication training is great, it’s still only part of the equation.

  Most sales reps in the B2B world are terrific. They’re easy to like and get along with. But being comfortable when communicating with someone on the other side of the desk isn’t what influences a buyer to make a purchasing decision. (And, just for the record, my experience reveals that the terrific, outgoing, easy-to-josh-with rep isn’t always the one who ultimately wins the business!)

  Instead, when it comes to B2B sales, it’s ultimately the seller’s actions that make (or break) the sale. What matters are the behaviors that salespeople exhibit. Buyers evaluate seller behavior in order to make predictions about the service levels they can expect after the sale.

  Unfortunately, many salespeople believe that taking prospects to dinner or to play golf equates to relationship selling. You wouldn’t believe how many sellers confuse terrific meals and pleasant conversation with selling! The reality is this: Relationship selling is about business relationships, not personal relationships. And, to tell the truth, there are a whole lot more salespeople who take me to dinner than there are salespeople who have my business. Fancy meals, golf and purchasing really don’t have that much to do with each other. In B2B sales, it’s something beyond the relationship that influences purchasing decisions.

• Consultative selling (alone) fails, too. With consultative selling, the rep asks a number of probing questions in order to ascertain the buyer’s exact needs and reveal the buyer’s unrealized pain. Naturally, because the buyer has no problem whatsoever with revealing confidential, proprietary information to a complete stranger, he spills his guts in detail. Sitting with rapt attention, the seller zeroes in on the buyer’s unrealized pain with one important difference: The seller is now armed with the detail required to clench the sale. The background music escalates to a full crescendo and… BOOM! It’s the hallelujah moment at which the buyer begs to buy. Right? Oh, wait… if that’s not your experience when employing consultative selling techniques, then perhaps you, too, are now in on a little secret: Consultative selling alone doesn’t work in the B2B environment.

  In theory, consultative selling makes sense –– the buyer provides pertinent details that help the seller make informed suggestions regarding how to grow the business, provide better products, etc. But in practice, it just doesn’t work as advertised in the B2B world. Its inherent principles make sense in the context of business selling, but consultative selling isn’t the answer by itself.

  From a buying perspective, I don’t have the time (nor the energy) required to help sellers collect the data they need to make relevant suggestions regarding my business. The detail requested is frequently confidential. My company’s financial or intellectual property could prove very valuable to the competition. Like other buyers, I’m not inclined to give this to anyone unless I’ve decided that person is trustworthy and unless I’m reasonably certain that I’ll order from this vendor.

Now, if the buyer seeks out the sales rep, this method can work. Or, if there is already a relationship with the seller in place, this method of sales can be used. But if your goal is to develop new accounts in the B2B environment, this method simply demands too much participation from the buyer.

So, when it comes to developing new business accounts, none of these sales strategies work on a reliably predictable basis. And that probably explains why most salespeople fail to influence me to do business with them. What influences buyers to place orders is something else –– something elusive that, at first, I couldn’t quite wrap my arms around.

What’s going on? Eventually, the need for an answer consumed me. I spent my free time analyzing study after study on buyer-seller relationships, examining a wealth of literature on trust, interviewing the buyers who purchased materials from me at the co-op and interrogating other buyers with whom I’d developed relationships over the years. I wanted to know if what I experienced was the norm or whether other buyers were affected similarly.

What I found was that the winning sales efforts were consistent from salesperson to salesperson and from deal to deal. You can predict the behaviors exhibited by the best salespeople. And if they can bat 500, so can you.

My program centers on 10 key behaviors –– the same behaviors that top-performing sales reps demonstrate to win favor with buyers. You’ll not only learn specific ways to incorporate these behaviors into your daily sales efforts; you’ll also learn how you can influence a buyer’s perception of your trustworthiness and, ultimately, win buyer loyalty. You can manage (even manipulate!) the buyer-seller relationship by exhibiting specific behaviors at certain times and understanding how certain activities work for (and against) you with respect to B2B sales.

If you’re pumped because you’ve finally found Trick the Buyer – 101, douse the flames. This method is for salespeople who want to dramatically improve their sales results while maintaining their integrity. Fit the profile? Read on.

2. How long will it take for me to see improvements in what I’m doing?

The material in this book is no miracle cure. There are no simple or immediate solutions that will dramatically increase your sales overnight.

What I can promise is that you will be introduced to new and unique ideas about how and why buyers make their purchase decisions. And that if you implement the concepts in this program, you will absolutely improve your business relationships in the short term, and that those better relationships will yield improved sales performance within months.

3. How will your book benefit me and my profession?

My goal with this program is to give you a better understanding of the person you’re trying to sell to: the B2B buyer. Selling to someone at the business level is very different than selling to a consumer or end user. People purchasing on behalf of an organization or business have a more expansive set of expectations to meet, and they approach the buying process differently than end users do.

If you want to excel at selling in the B2B environment, you must understand the buyer’s motivations, expectations and the processes through which buying decisions are made. Furthermore, you must know what behaviors buyers look for when evaluating sellers, determining trustworthiness and awarding loyalty. And yours truly is going to share these secrets with you.

In short, I’m going to give you all the tools you need to dramatically improve your new business development results, improve your standing with current customers and keep your business relationships healthy for a longer period of time.

Sound too good to be true? Well, it isn’t. I have a very different perspective on the buyer-seller relationship than what you’ve probably ever heard before. I guarantee you that my perspective offers you some very new –– and very important –– insights into how to be a more effective seller.

When you are finished with my program, you will be armed with a full understanding of what it takes to improve your business relationships. What it takes to earn the trust and win the loyalty of business buyers!

4. How did you find out what the buyer is thinking and how to meet their needs?

As I was researching and developing the materials that you are reading about, I held the position of Senior Vice President of Purchasing for a billion-dollar-plus national purchasing cooperative. I am a B2B buyer. I have lived the buying process, I understand it, and I can give you a better perspective on why things don’t always go your way and what you can do about it!

My role within the purchasing cooperative has served as a wonderful vantage point for observing buyer-seller dynamics. Vendors seek me out because I purchase and resell their goods to our member companies; we represent a new sales channel for the vendor, a new business opportunity. Our member companies, on the other hand, need the equipment we acquire on their behalf. The members, or co-op customers, seek us out because we aggregate their purchases and lower their cost of acquiring this same equipment. We work solely for the benefit of our member companies.

From this perspective, I’ve seen not only which vendors were selected (and for what reasons), but I’ve also been “sold to” by hundreds of companies attempting to solicit our favor and representation. Furthermore, I’ve been in the unique position to solicit feedback from dozens of other buyers regarding their myriad experiences with other salespeople. Member purchasing agents gladly share intimate details with me of their decision-making processes and other proprietary information because of my role within the co-op.

5. Why are you sharing this information with others?

So, you ask: Why would someone who runs a purchasing division for a huge national purchasing cooperative take so much interest in the ladies and gentlemen sitting across the desk from him? What makes someone even start the process of analyzing buyer-seller relationships and why one professional seller wins out over the others? Simple. Prior to my eight years of running a purchasing organization, I spent 15 years in B2B sales and marketing.

I’ve experienced life as a successful salesperson, a successful sales manager, and now a successful purchasing manager. My interest in studying salesperson behavior stems from the fact that selling is my first love!

I love sales. To be more specific, I love the strategy of sales. Campaign planning, prospect identification, target marketing, presentation making, feedback gathering, proposal preparation, deal negotiation, account development and relationship building. I just flat-out love the entire process of developing new business. And, equally as important, I’ve proven myself very good at it.

In fact, I was hired at an executive level within the co-op because of my expertise in sales and marketing. The cooperative was already successful before I came on board; they needed someone to increase member participation. Management’s perspective was that they could teach me how to do complex purchasing deals –– they knew how to do that. Co-op management wanted me to start a new division that would sell equipment and contracted services to its established member base. (Up until that point, the organization had focused on selling only software to its established members.)

What I found intriguing was the challenge of negotiating deals in the capacity of a purchasing agent. I’d never done that before. They wanted me to negotiate deals that could be resold to co-op members. I’d not only be the one negotiating deals, I’d also be donning my familiar salesperson hat to market these same deals to member companies. Attracted by the promise of running my own division, although a bit daunted by the co-op’s aggressive goals, I took the job. That was eight years ago.

Our program was incredibly successful the first year. Vendors that came into our program boasted as much as a 300 percent sales gain in the independent operator market that the co-op served. Eighteen months into the rollout, every vendor in the industry wanted to be part of our program. The minute we earned the distinction of the best new source of incremental business in the industry, every vendor selling into our market wanted to set a meeting to find out how they, too, could cash in. So, overnight (after 18 months of hard work), I became the target of every sales force in the industry.

Things look different from the other side of the desk. Sitting in the buyer’s chair has been incredibly enlightening. I’d been successful as the hunter, but prior to my co-op experience, I’d never been the hunted. Because of the nature of the co-op, and the size of the new business opportunity it represented, I knew that I would be courted by the best. And we were, in fact, pursued by very experienced salespeople. But what I found was that most sales reps weren’t very good at new business development. Incredibly smart? Yes. Working for well-known, successful companies? Yes. But good at new business development? No.

Frankly, the realization troubled me. After all, I’d sat through the same sales training programs they had. I found myself reassessing everything I’d learned. I examined and then re-examined my personal experiences, trying to pinpoint my disappointment with the salespeople calling on me. I found myself thinking back to the other really successful salespeople I’d known. What was missing? What the hell was the secret to new business development?

But these observations, combined with about three years of research, helped me arrive at the following conclusions:

1. Most of what’s covered in traditional sales training courses plays only a small role in your overall success in building buyer-seller relationships in the B2B world.
   
   
2. The relationship you develop with a buyer influences how successful you’ll be in selling to that organization.
   
   
3. This same buyer-seller relationship is tied directly to the level of trust that you’ve developed with the buyer.
   
   
4. Most importantly, you can influence (or even manipulate) the buyer’s perception of your trustworthiness by demonstrating certain specific behaviors.
   
   
5. When you consistently exhibit this set of specific behaviors, you dramatically improve your relationship with the buyer, and, consequently, you greatly enhance your sales results.

With this insight, I want to give back to the sales profession. I feel that I have made a valuable observation that has resulted in a business case that could dramatically improve the state of buyer-seller dealings for a large percentage of B2B partnerships.

Purchase "The Trusted Seller" Today

6. Will the advice in the book be easy to implement into my daily routine?

The concepts presented in this book are based on my personal observations, countless buyer interviews and on the research I conducted to verify my conclusions. This work resulted in a set of 10 behaviors that are exhibited by the best salespeople on a consistent basis.

These behaviors are easy to work into your daily routine. Once you understand why each of these 10 behaviors is so important to your success as a B2B salesperson, and why they are so influential to the buyer’s opinion of you as a seller, integrating them into your selling routine will be a snap. Simple awareness and the desire to improve your sales results are the principle ingredients to success!

My commitment to you is that if you consistently exhibit these behaviors when dealing with professionals empowered to purchase, measurable results will be sure and steady.

7. Why should I believe what you are telling me?

Twenty-five years of personal experience on both the buying and selling sides, countless conversations with major business buyers (including professional purchasing agents, engineers, business owners and department heads with buying authority) and months of research. That’s what it took to figure out exactly what the very best salespeople were doing to establish enviable business relationships. It all comes down to 10 critical behaviors and four important milestones in the buyer-seller relationship.

I’ve dedicated years to uncovering the mystery of why some salespeople are consistently so much more successful than the rest of the herd. And what I’ve uncovered is more reveling than you can imagine. In fact, my observations were so unexpected, that months of research on the topics of buyer-seller trust and loyalty were required to validate the material.

It will seem obvious, it will seem perhaps too simple, yet I promise it is completely new in its layout and design. A program that is absolutely guaranteed to improve your B2B sales performance!

8. Will you really honor your 90 money back guarantee?

If you are a seller in the B2B marketplace, I know my program will make you a more successful salesperson! In fact, I am so confident that I will offer you an absolute money back guarantee! If you don’t like this material for any reason, simply return it within 90 days for a “no-questions asked” full refund.