The sales techniques and selling ideas here have all been effective at some stage. Many are still widely used. Think about what you are selling, the market that you're selling into, the people you meet in the selling process, and use what will help you sell better. If you are managing sales people, the best results generally come if you allow sales people to work to their strengths; in a way that is natural to them.
New sales techniques, sales training and selling methods are continually developing. This free sales training section covers sales and the selling process from its early beginnings, through to the most modern selling techniques and ideas. See for example the Sales Activator® sales training system, and Sharon Drew Morgen's Buying Facilitation® selling methods.
Sales and selling terms, and early sales and selling theories appear first in this article; the most advanced sales methods and ideas are at the end of the section. While early sales processes still contain some useful techniques and fundamentals, successful selling today relies on modern selling using collaboration, facilitation, and partnership. Tips on selecting sales training providers, sales training programs, selling courses and sales management training are in the sales training providers section.
Successful selling also requires that the product or service is of suitable quality for its target market, and that the selling company takes good care of its customers. Therefore it's helpful for the sale person (or anyone else in business for that matter) to work for a professional, good quality organization. Product development, design and production, service delivery, and the integrity of the selling company's organization are also necessary for successful selling, and typically are outside the formal control of the sales person, hence why internal selling is an increasingly important aspect of the modern sales role.
Effective sales people are interpreters and translators (and increasingly educators too) who can enable the complex systems of the buying organisation and the selling organisation to work together for the benefit of both.
Tips on how to gain selling experience and learn sales skills (for people new to selling or seeking to teach themselves sales skills for a career in selling) are at the end of this article.
This simple chart illustrates the fundamental shift in selling theory which occurred particularly during the 1980s, reflecting the development of an increasingly competive market-place and a better-informed buying and purchasing audience.
The advent of the internet and globalization during the 1990s meant that old styles of selling, based on one-way persuasion and control theories were finally obsolete for all mainstream business activities.
The development of selling ideas and methods is progressive. Selling inevitably reflects the changing world of business and communications.
Please note that where reference is made to the customer 'organization' this reflects a business-to-business scenario, however, the principles in all other respects apply for business-to-consumer, or for person-to-person sales scenarios.
values/expectations of the sales organization and the selling process
The columns compare traditional old-style selling versus modern selling ideas.
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Typical 1960s-80s selling, and still found today.
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Essential to sustain successful business today.
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standard product
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customised, flexible, tailored product and service
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sales function performed by a 'sales-person'
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sales function performed by a 'strategic business manager'
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seller has product knowledge
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seller has strategic knowledge of customer's market-place and knows all implications and opportunities resulting from product/service supply relating to customer's market-place
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delivery service and supporting information and training are typical added value aspects of supply
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strategic interpretation of the customer organisation's market opportunities, and assistance with project evaluation and decision-making are added value aspects of supply
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good lead-time is a competitive advantage
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just-in-time (JIT) is taken for granted, as are mutual planning and scheduling; competitive advantages are: capability to anticipate unpredictable requirements, and assistance with strategic planning and market development
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value is represented and judged according to selling price
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value is assessed according to the cost to the customer, plus non-financial implications with respect to CSR (corporate social responsibility), environment, ethics, and corporate culture
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the benefits and competitive strengths of the products or service are almost entirely tangible, and intangibles are rarely considered or emphasised
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the benefits and competitive strengths of the product or service now include many significant intangibles, and the onus is on the selling organization to quantify their value
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benefits of supply extend to products and services only
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benefits of supply extend way beyond products and services, to relationship, continuity, and any assistance that the selling organization can provide to the customer to enable an improvement for their staff, customers, reputation and performance in all respects
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selling price is cost plus profit margin, and customers have no access to cost and margin information
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selling price is market driven (essentially supply and demand), although certain customers may insist on access to cost and margin information
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seller knows the business customers' needs
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seller knows the needs of the business customers' customers and partners and suppliers
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sales person sells (customers only deal with sales people, pre-sale)
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whole organization sells (customers expect to be able to deal with anybody in supplier organization, pre-sale)
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sales people only sell externally, ie, to customers
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sales people need to be able to sell internally to their own organization, in order to ensure customer needs are met
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strategic emphasis is on new business growth (ie, acquiring new customers)
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strategic emphasis is on customer retention and increasing business to those customers (although new business is still sought)
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buying and selling is a function, with people distinctly responsible for each discipline within selling and customer organizations
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buying and selling is a process, in which many people with differing jobs are involved in both selling and customer organizations
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hierarchical multi-level management structures exist in selling and customer organizations
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management structures are flat, with few management layers
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authority of sales person is minimal, flexibility to negotiate is minimal, approvals must be sought via management channels and levels for exceptions
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authority of sales person is high (subject to experience), negotiation flexibility exists, and exceptions are dealt with quickly and directly by involving the relevant people irrespective of grade
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selling and buying organization are divided strictly according to function and department, inter-departmental communications must go up and down the management structures
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selling organization is structured in a matrix allowing for functional efficiency and also for inter-functional collaboration required for effective customer service, all supply chain processes, and communications
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supplier and customer organization functions tend to talk to their 'opposite numbers' in the other organization
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open communications to, from and across all functions between supplier and customer organization
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the customer specifies and identifies product and service requirements
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the selling organization must be capable of specifying and identifying product and service requirements on behalf of the customer
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the customer's buyer function researches and justifies the customer organization's needs
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the selling organization must be capable of researching and justifying customer organization's needs, on behalf of the customer
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the customer's buyer probably does not appreciate his/her organization's wider strategic implications and opportunities in relation to the seller's product or service, and there will be no discussion with the seller about this issues
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the seller will help the buyer to understand the wider strategic implications and opportunities in relation to the seller's product or service
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the buyer will tell the seller what the buying or supplier-selection process is
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the seller will help the buyer to understand and align the many and various criteria within their own (customer) organization, so that the customer organization can assess the strategic implications of the supplier's products or services, and make an appropriate decision whether to buy or not
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Nowadays, more is demanded from the selling process by consumers, professional buyers and organizations choosing their suppliers. The analysis below refers both to the development in recent decades of what customers require from the selling function, and also to the progression of a relationship between supplier and customer.
This is different historical perspective of the way that selling methods and theory have changed. The grid tracks the sales function from its beginnings to what sales means and entails in the modern age.
1. pure transaction
Since time began. Pure transaction is effectively one step removed from stone-age barter.
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Basic selling. Standard commoditised products, price and reliability - there is little to build on, business may be spasmodic, hand-to-mouth and unpredictable. There is no relationship other than the transaction.
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2. relationship and trust
Since the beginning of selling as a profession, popularised by Dale Carnegie, among others, early-mid 1900s
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Continuity, consistency, sustainability, and some understanding of the customer's real issues are seen to have a value by both selling and buying organization. Intangibles such as continuity on communications and contacts, matched styles of trading, mutual flexibility and adaptability, are regarded as relevant benefits by the customer, which can justify a price premium, and therefore offer protection against 'cheaper' competitors, and build loyalty to supplier.
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3. management and information
Operated instinctively in isolated examples in business relationships for centuries, but not generally seen in selling methodology, sales training and strategic application until the 1960s-1970s.
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The provision of management and information support by seller to buying organization, and the exchange and cooperation in these areas represent a significant increase in depth and effectiveness of selling reletionships. A longer-term supply arrangement - a requirement for and outcome of this level of selling - is seen as an advantage by seller and buyer, because it brings extra intangible benefits of co-operation and support other areas of the customer's business, eg., training, technology, product development - which improve the customer's own competitive strengths and operating efficiencies. The supplier is seen as part of the team, and is likely to be more involved in some of the the customer's own internal systems, meetings, planning, etc.
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4. partnership
A sophisticated open approach to selling which mainly first developed in the 1980s, probably in response to the increasing complexity of business relationships, technology, global markets, etc., and the increasingly fast pace of change. Organizations could be more effective and adaptable by devolving operating responsibilities to suppliers. Very different to merely buying and selling products and services.
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The activities of the buying and selling organization become almost seamless wherever they are connected; the supplier is virtually part of the customer's organization and treated as such. 'Out-sourcing' generally requires this degree of collaboration, which involves a level anticipation, innovation and integrated support that is very difficult to un-pick, even if it were in the customer's interests to do so. Partnership level selling is not a legal or contractual arrangement; it describes the relationship, which operates virtually as a formal partnership would do. There is typically an enormous depth of understanding and cooperation which is not written down or detailed in a contract. Partnership selling relationships generally need time to develop - probably between 1-3 years depending on the size and complexity of the seller and buyer organizations.
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5. education and enablement
2000 and beyond. The dimensions, scope and impact of this new type of selling are not yet fully developed and defined.
There are signs however that the sellers who can give most to their customers - especially in areas that the customers didn't even know they had a need or an opportunity - will be the most successful.
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The educational and 'giving' activities of the selling organization extend the aspects of anticipation and information found in the partnership level. Also incorporated are aspects of facilitative and enabling support, which are for example well represented by Sharon Drew Morgen's 'Buying Facilitation' methodology. The seller gives to the customer any and all help it can reasonably offer as might improve the customer's understanding, interpretation and commercial development of issues relating to the supply area. This is a hugely sophisticated level of selling which was difficult to see anywhere in the last century. Sellers and selling organizations take the role of teacher, guide, mentor, enabler; which can influence and help customers far beyond commercial and financial outcomes, into previously unimagined strategic business development and considerable change. Internet organizations such as Google are examples of this sort of selling, which at its best can actually give more than it takes.
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Much of the early development of selling skills and conventional sales training theories is attributed to American writer, speaker and businessman Dale Carnegie (1888-1955). Carnegie, from humble beginnings and several early career failures, started his training business in the early 1900s, initially focusing on personal development. Later, Carnegie's 1937 self-help book 'How to Win Friends and Influence People' became an international best-seller, and probably the major source of the ideas and theory which underpinned traditional selling through the 20th century. Carnegie's book remains a highly regarded and widely read work on human motivation, relationships and 'influencing' others.
Carnegie's ideas contain a huge amount of useful learning relating to understanding other people and their motives. As such the theories are well worth reading. In this respect, Carnegie's concepts, and other similar methods based on them, are helpful in understanding that people are all different and therefore all have different perspectives (and different to those of the seller, or influencer). This is a vital concept within selling - to appreciate that people have their own views, feelings, values, and aims. The more we can understand the other person's situation, aims and feelings, the more likely we will be able to develop rapport and trust with them, and then hopefully to arrive at suitable solutions and agreements with them. As far as this goes all is well.
However, as with all early and 'traditional' sales persuasion techniques and methodologies, the purpose of 'influence' is in the hands of the 'influencer' (or seller), and this purpose (product or service) may or may not be in the best interests of the customer. In other words, early thinking (and much current thinking still unfortunately) primarily focuses on influencing the other person (customer) to adopt an opinion or to take action in the direction which favours the influencer, irrespective of whether this is in the genuine best interest of the other person. Indeed, some modern criticism suggests that Carnegie's and other similar traditional selling methodologies and sales training systems lack honesty and integrity, which in my view many do.
Traditional methods - most of which continue to draw on the ideas and concepts contained in Dale Carnegie's 1937 book, tend to encourage sales people, or others seeking to persuade and influence, to use knowledge about the other person's (or customer's) perspective as a means of gaining their trust and flexibility, so that the customer can be led in a certain direction. Used unethically this amounts to manipulation and is therefore wrong and not sustainable.
Carnegie and others who have interpreted and developed his early ideas, commonly provide a good framework for understanding other people's needs and motives, but arguably the matters of ethics, honesty, integrity, sustainability, are omitted.
The purpose of using the techniques, and what to do with the understanding was, and remains, open to use or mis-use by the seller.
The question is - as sales-people - is our purpose (and responsibility) to exploit people - or to help people?
Therein lies the major difference between early (and still-practised) traditional selling, and modern collaborative, facilitative ideas, which in my opinion are the most effective, sustainable and ethically sound concepts for today's business world.
Look at the old ideas like Carnegie's, learn the Seven Steps of the Sale, understand consultative and needs-creation selling - they all contain useful learning and processes - but most importantly, ensure you work within a strong and ethical value-system. These days selling should more than ever focus on helping people, which of course has additional implications for your choice of organization, and the products and services that you choose to represent.
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