Sales approaches mostly come from the USA and have a long tradition. Because in the USA, marketing and sales are on at least an equal footing with product development. In Europe, the product or offering has always been \u2014 and was always \u2014 in the foreground. How something is sold was rather secondary, or the task of people who talk a lot and don’t take the truth too seriously. But selling is a craft, and the sales approach is the core of every sales system. In Europe, IT companies in particular use systematic sales approaches in selling. In many industries, the methodical approach is unknown and is not used.<\/p>\n\n
Yet sales has changed greatly over the last 50 years \u2014 from a product-centred approach towards a customer-centric, advisory-based and increasingly digital sales process.<\/p>\n\n
1970s \u2013 Product-oriented selling<\/strong> 1980s \u2013 Solution-oriented selling<\/strong> 1990s \u2013 Relationship-oriented selling<\/strong> 2000s \u2013 Consultative selling and the beginning of digitalisation<\/strong> 2010s \u2013 Inbound selling, social selling and data-based sales<\/strong> The chronological overview is intended to provide a basic understanding of the changes in selling. In the following, we briefly present a few central sales approaches in order to offer an insight into this rather unknown field.<\/p>\n\n Consultative Selling<\/strong><\/p>\n\n Mack Hanan published his book back in the 1970s. In this book, Hanan presented a new sales paradigm: instead of simply selling products, the salesperson should act as an advisor who helps the customer solve business problems and create added value \u2014 often measured in return on investment (ROI) or productivity gains. Later approaches went into added value more. But the exciting thing about this approach is that it forces the salesperson to determine the ROI for the customer as precisely as possible. A task that is not entirely trivial.<\/p>\n\n Important features of consultative selling:<\/p>\n\n Strategic Selling<\/strong><\/p>\n\n This approach was developed in the 1980s and made known by the consultancy Miller Heiman Group (today part of Korn Ferry). Strategic Selling was developed specifically for complex B2B sales situations with multiple decision-makers. The approach helps salespeople navigate the sales process strategically by:<\/p>\n\n A central element of this sales approach is the comprehensive gathering of data about the customer and the subsequent analysis. The method is now widespread, but has come in for criticism that the effort is too great. Particularly due to the growth of the buying centre over the last 40 years, the analysis work can quickly get out of hand. But many later sales approaches build on the basic ideas of this approach.<\/p>\n\n SPIN Selling<\/strong><\/p>\n\n This sales approach was developed in the late 1980s and published by Neil Rackham.<\/p>\n\n SPIN Selling is based on an extensive empirical study in which Rackham, with his company Huthwaite Research Group, analysed over 35,000 sales conversations in more than 20 countries. The aim was to find out what top salespeople do differently, especially in complex B2B sales.<\/p>\n\n SPIN = four types of question: S \u2013 Situation: gather information about the current situation<\/p>\n\n P \u2013 Problem: uncover problems or weak points<\/p>\n\n I \u2013 Implication: make the consequences and effects of the problem clear<\/p>\n\n N \u2013 Need-Payoff: work out the benefit of the solution that the salesperson offers<\/p>\n\n Key statements: Successful deals result not from pressure techniques, but from the targeted building of value for the customer.<\/p>\n\n Compared with Strategic Selling, this sales approach went more deeply into customer-data gathering and types of question. In addition, the sales conversation is divided into different phases in which the salesperson should behave differently.<\/p>\n\n Power Base Selling<\/strong><\/p>\n\n This sales approach was first published in 1990 by Jim Holden. The approach builds on the concept of ‘power structures’ (power bases) within customer organisations. Holden recognised that in complex B2B sales, not only rational arguments are decisive, but above all relationships with influential people in the company \u2014 the so-called ‘power sponsors’.<\/p>\n\n Core elements of Power Base Selling:<\/p>\n\n Distinction between:<\/p>\n\n This is one of the few sales approaches that has an answer to the growth of the buying centre and puts the political dimension of purchasing decisions in focus. Many sales approaches assume that the higher ROI or the better value promise is already sufficient.<\/p>\n\n Challenger Sale <\/strong><\/p>\n\n Challenger Sale was developed in 2011 by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson.<\/p>\n\n The sales approach is based on a large- The 5 salesperson types according to the study:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n Features of the Challenger Sale:<\/p>\n\n The Challenger approach contradicts traditional methods such as relationship selling, as it shows that challenging, confrontational behaviour in particular is often more successful than pure relationship work \u2014 especially with complex, advice-intensive purchases. As convincing as the arguments are, this approach struggles in the Swiss sales landscape. Quite a few companies have failed with it. What the authors did not take into account or mention is that this approach works above all in horizons 2 and 3, and especially for open customers. This is the case considerably more often in the USA, and the target group is significantly larger. For standard sales in Switzerland of existing offerings in horizon 1, this sales approach quickly becomes too challenging \u2014 also because sales competencies in many companies are estimated to be considerably higher than they really are.<\/p>\n\n Finally, it is not enough simply to choose a sales approach and train it. Every company should critically review the different elements for itself and choose a combination that can actually be implemented by the employees, that is not too elaborate, but that also leads to more success and, above all, to learning and enabling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sales approaches mostly come from the USA and have a long tradition. Because in the USA, marketing and sales are on at least an equal footing with product development. In Europe, the product or offering has always been \u2014 and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-991564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sales"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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