Good tips here--enterprise sales can be... interesting...
Best book I've ever read on selling big ticket items: SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham. Engineers would love it (and it's short!)
Basically, you sell million dollar computer systems with the following process:
>> (S)ituation -- what are they doing now?
>> (P)roblem -- what is the problem with that?
>> (I)mplications -- how much is that problem actually costing them? -- as a number, it's always bigger than people think, particularly if it involves people doing some manual process somewhere
>> (N)eed Payoff -- Imagine your life if you fix this problem and imagine your life if you don't. Wouldn't you much rather lead the former?
The instant rapport quick close doesn't work in these cases (in fact, it hurts you)--you need to demonstrate real value, real ROI (as mentioned in the article) and you've got to do that by taking the problem and blowing it up really big, then offering two paths and letting your prospect make the obvious choice. Or something like that :-)
As I'm getting more into sales I've just read a couple of books about the topic.
SPIN Selling is one of them but as an engineer I liked Solution Selling by Michael Bosworth even more, as it gives you a similar, but even more detailed process to follow.
Best book I've ever read on selling big ticket items: SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham. Engineers would love it (and it's short!)
Basically, you sell million dollar computer systems with the following process:
>> (S)ituation -- what are they doing now?
>> (P)roblem -- what is the problem with that?
>> (I)mplications -- how much is that problem actually costing them? -- as a number, it's always bigger than people think, particularly if it involves people doing some manual process somewhere
>> (N)eed Payoff -- Imagine your life if you fix this problem and imagine your life if you don't. Wouldn't you much rather lead the former?
The instant rapport quick close doesn't work in these cases (in fact, it hurts you)--you need to demonstrate real value, real ROI (as mentioned in the article) and you've got to do that by taking the problem and blowing it up really big, then offering two paths and letting your prospect make the obvious choice. Or something like that :-)