Playing Bigger Than You Are E-Book

William T. Brooks

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 275

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Beschreibung

The small or mid-sized business' guide to outselling the big boys Often, small or mid-sized businesses don't think they have the resources or the talent to compete with the larger competitors in their industry. But just because they don't have the advertising budgets or purchasing power of their bigger counterparts doesn't mean they can't play ball. For sales organizations, service matters much more than size. If your sales business is competing with much bigger fish, the odds are stacked against you. Pressured and powerless, frustrated and overwhelmed, you might be tempted to give up. But smaller businesses often find advantages over their bigger competitors. * Includes proven tactics to help small businesses tackle bigger competitors * Author William T. Brooks is also the author of The New Science of Selling and Persuasion and How to Sell at Higher Margins Than Your Competitors * Shows you how to steal market share from bigger vendors with bigger resources Just because your business can't flood the market with salespeople or contend on economy of scale and purchasing power, that doesn't mean you can't compete. The secret is Playing Bigger Than You Are.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Preface

About the Authors

Chapter 1 - Selling to Giants Will Transform Your Business

The Business Is Out There, Waiting for You

Many Giant Organizations Will Make It Easy for You

Why Some People Should Not Sell to the Giants

Moving Ahead

Chapter 2 - Small Businesses Are Uniquely Qualified to Sell to Giants

Suppliers Just Like You Are Needed

What Are the Giants Looking For?

A Special Note about Sustainability

Small Businesses Are Uniquely Qualified to Meet These Requirements

Choosing Your Battles

Chapter 3 - Finding Friendly Giants

Friendly Giants Are Out There

Before You Pick Up the Phone or Complete Supplier Qualification Forms

Golden Rules

Chapter 4 - How Corporations Buy

Variety in Purchasing Procedures

Purchasing and the Supply Chain

Essential Performance Factors

Typical Procedures

Understanding the Purchasing Department

Vendor Prequalification

Chapter 5 - What’s Preventing You from Winning Big?

It’s Easy to Lose Perspective

The Myth of the Brand

It’s OK to Start Small in a Big Organization

Having a Strategy Is the Best Way to Ensure Success

Are You Talking to the Right People, and in the Right Way?

Being Afraid Limits Your Options

Chapter 6 - The Mental Side of Selling to the Giants

Traits of the Giant Slayers

What Values Have to Do with Success

Selling to the Giants Takes Creativity—Don’t Block Yours

Enthusiasm: The Secret Ingredient

Chapter 7 - Positioning Yourself to Sell to the Giants

Why Is Your Personal Positioning So Important?

Trade Shows and Other Association Activities: Acres of Diamonds

Staying in Touch

Getting (and Keeping) Your Foot in the Door

Precall Planning: Being Prepared

Chapter 8 - Learning the Buyer’s Language

What Decision Makers Need (and Want)

Five Types of Wants

Why You Must Pay Attention to Needs and Wants

Who Influences the Buying Decision?

Words That Sell

Purchasing Parlance: The Unique Vocabulary of Purchasing

Chapter 9 - Developing Your Sales Presentation

Everything Up Until Now Was Prework

Preparation: Precall Planning

Professionalism—and the Importance of the First 19 to 34 Seconds

Your Presentation

Questions for Senior-Level Decision Makers

Proof

Performance

A Word About Team Selling

Chapter 10 - Making a Successful Bid

He Who Writes the Specs Gets the Checks

All Contracts Are Negotiable

Avoiding Big Tactical Mistakes

Chapter 11 - You’ve Won It, Now Build On It

Making the Most of Your New Account

Developing Strategic Relationships

Account Maintenance versus Account Management

Returning to the Critical Roles of Quality and Delivery

Is Every Account Automatically Qualified for More Sales?

Tips for Maximizing Your Accounts with the Giants

Conclusion

Index

Copyright © 2010 by William T. Brooks & William P. G. Brooks. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Brooks, William T., 1945-2007

Playing bigger than you are : how to sell big accounts even if you’re David in a world of Goliaths / William T. Brooks, William P. G. Brooks. p. cm.

eISBN : 978-0-470-54181-4

1. Selling-United States. 2. Small business-United States. 3. Selling-Terminology.

I. Brooks, William P. G. II. Title.

HF5438.25.B.85-dc22

2009016552

This book is dedicated to the memory of its biggest advocate: my late father, Bill Brooks. It was a great pleasure to finish his final book. This book is also dedicated to The Brooks Group’s committed staff members, without whom we never would have been able to “play bigger than we are.” I’d also like to thank Jeff Davidson, who was a strong contributor to this book. Corrie Lisk-Hurst also deserves much credit for helping us publish this book, as she was instrumental in its development.

Preface

There was only one thing Bill Brooks loved more than winning a big deal: hearing about another salesperson scoring an even bigger one (unless that person was competing for the same business, of course!).

He would have been thrilled to see this, his final work, come to fruition. Playing Bigger Than You Are: How to Sell Big Accounts Even If You’re a David in a World of Goliaths is a book designed to show you how to win the biggest deals—and why you should go for them—no matter how small your operation is.

There are two kinds of Goliaths.

First, they’re corporate behemoths (and even governments). A “small” expenditure by a Goliath might make your (or your company’s) decade. But Goliaths are also your larger competitors—those who have bigger budgets, more staff resources, and demonstrated expertise in supplying products or services for giant corporations.

Take heart, all you Davids out there. This book outlines strategies and specific techniques that will help Davids—like you and us—gain opportunities with the Goliaths of business. This book is also about holding your own against your most sophisticated competitors by playing bigger than you are—and smarter than they are.

Too many small businesses pay attention to the reasons they can’t make deals. This book forces readers to focus instead on the many reasons major corporations prefer smaller vendors and how to take advantage of this preference.

Everything in this book comes from experience. The Brooks Group is a small business by virtually any definition. By employing the ideas in this book, we’ve become the sales training provider of choice for many Goliaths. And we’ve beaten the Goliaths of our industry at the sales and sales management training game, time and time again.

How do you know if you’re ready to sell to Goliaths? The answer to this question is in the first chapter of this book. You’ll also learn why small businesses are uniquely qualified to sell to giants and find out not only which giants are the right ones to pursue but also where to find them.

Once you know whom you’re pursuing, you need to know how they buy. Large corporations and government agencies often have complex and mysterious purchasing processes. This book discusses how corporate buyers make purchasing decisions and then turns to the topics of making successful sales presentations and eventually building on your successes.

If you’re like many salespeople, you’re preventing yourself from winning business from the giants, feeling daunted by the challenge. The middle chapters of this book will help you understand your own potential barriers to success, then show you how to position yourself properly to sell to giants.

The book investigates the ways Goliaths approach the process of making purchasing decisions. Many relatively recent shifts in the purchasing—or supply management—arena favor the Davids, if they understand how big companies think.

So, dive in. And start winning bigger accounts.

WILLIAM P. G. BROOKSGreensboro, North Carolina

About the Authors

Author of dozens of sales and sales management training, hiring, and selection articles, Will Brooks has worked with hundreds of companies across dozens of industries to help them improve their sales and sales management training, development hiring and retention practices. Having worked closely with his father, the late William T. “Bill” Brooks, for more than a decade, Will is now carrying forward many of Bill’s time-tested and proven consulting theories and practices into the 21st century. Will continues to work with clients to develop and test new concepts and theories relative to the sales improvement arena. Playing Bigger Than You Are is a prime example of how looking at a sales strategy from a different angle can open opportunities for sales-driven companies of any size. The Brooks Group, Brooks’s 20-person sales consulting company, currently works with several branches of the military, as well as many large, well-branded and nationally known companies to help them drive more sales, more strategically.

1

Selling to Giants Will Transform Your Business

The Business Is Out There, Waiting for You

Do you know that only a tiny percentage of the United States’ 23 million small businesses currently serve the nation’s largest corporations and organizations? That’s really amazing, because small companies just like yours (and mine) offer products and services that huge organizations can—and do—buy! Unfortunately, the vast majority of us not only lack a system for successfully marketing to major corporations, we also don’t display the personal confidence in our own abilities that will satisfy these corporations’ requirements.

Most small businesses don’t see it, but it’s a fact: Your biggest competitors are seizing business opportunities that absolutely, positively could be ours.