Mastering the complex sale again…

Well the invitation to vendors regarding show-case sites didn’t illicit an overwhelming response, though that could be a reflection on the breadth of readership rather than anything else. That said I did get an unexpected email from Jeff Thull the other week after my note about his ‘Mastering the Complex Sale’ book, which was a timely reminder for me to offer a few thoughts based on actually having read it in its entirety rather than the first few chapters.

The fact the book is now liberally scribbled over is a pretty tell-tale indication there’s a lot of useful material. As I mentioned before the book is predicated on the principle that ‘customers are not experienced in diagnosing complex problems, designing complex solutions, and implementing complex solutions.’ which entirely fits with what we see in our day to day work as CRM consultants. Given that the wealth, health, and ultimate survival of organizations will increasingly come down to their ability to apply the myriad of technologies at their disposal effectively, this observation is not without significance.

For the sake of brevity in this post I’ll pick up on just a couple of other strands from Jeff’s work. The first is the emphasis on performing a formal cost calculation to quantify the benefits the solution will provide. Most salespeople shy away from this, or perhaps aren’t capable of doing it. You can get away with this to some extent in boom times, but in the tougher trading environment we are starting to experience this I suspect is going to be increasingly critical.

The second aspect I liked was what I’d characterize as Jeff’s depiction of the ‘noble’ salesperson who only sells to those that can truly benefit from the solution, who will walk away if they can’t provide the most appropriate solution, and who sticks around when the sale is complete to ensure the promised benefits are actually delivered. This is in stark contrast to the sell at all costs sort-term-ism that typifies the IT industry today. I suspect what we will see in coming years is a new generation of IT vendors that differentiate simply on their proven ability to deliver genuine business benefits.

Ultimately I guess I find Jeff’s book compelling because it mirrors much of our own raison d’etre – i.e. to bridge the gap between CRM technology and ultimate profit. And while on the topic of CRM, Jeff did note that he had plenty to say on the topic of CRM failure in his book ‘The Prime Solution’, so once I’ve finally cracked Michael Porter’s ‘Competitive Advantage’ which has stared at me reproachfully from the bookshelf for way too long, I’ll be interested to see what he has to say.

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