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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
Sales managers have the most difficult job in the business world. They are responsible not just for revenue, but also for the hiring, coaching, training, and deployment of the employees who must generate it. Before the advancements that inspired Scientific Selling, sales managers had few tools to help them succeed at these disparate yet essential tasks. Today, however, the scientific approaches described in this book allow sales managers to more effectively measure, refine, and improve every aspect of the sales environment. Using easily-understood examples, graphics, charts, and explanations, Scientific Selling describes how to: * Predictably improve sales results. * Attract and retain top sales performers. * Sharply decrease employee turnover. * Spend sales training dollars more wisely. * Better target sales coaching efforts. * Move into consultative selling more quickly. * And much more. Scientific Selling features over a dozen case studies illustrating exactly how scientific measurement and testing have improved sales performance within different kinds of sales groups inside multiple industries.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Preface
Chapter 1: The Science of Selling
The Changing Nature of Selling
The Crisis in Sales Management
The Advent of Scientific Selling
Chapter 2: The Science of Behavioral Assessment
Behavioral Assessment
Behavioral Surveys
Business Applications of Behavioral Science
The Effectiveness of Behavioral Assessment
How to Choose a Behavioral Assessment Method
Chapter 3: The Science of Sales Skills Assessment
The History of Sales Skill Assessment
The Advent of Sales Process
The Limitations of Sales Process
Evolution of Sales Skills
Limitations of Solution Selling
The Selling Skills Assessment Tool (SSAT)
Chapter 4: The Science of Hiring Sales Talent
How Most Companies Hire (and Why It Fails)
The Scientific Approach to Hiring
How to Implement Scientific Hiring
Chapter 5: The Science of Sales Training
Why Sales Training Fails
Why Sales Training Doesn't Get Measured
Scientific Measurement versus Conventional Wisdom
Applying Science to Sales Training
Customizing Sales Training
Chapter 6: The Science of Sales Coaching
Sales Coaching and Behavioral Assessment
Sales Coaching and Skills Assessment
Cross-Cultural Aspects of Sales Coaching
Chapter 7: The Science of Sales Management
Reducing Sales Personnel Turnover
The Right Job for the Right Person
The Importance of an Upward Career Path
Effective Use of Sales Technology
Building a Culture of Innovation and Entrepreneurship
What Is Creative Leadership?
How to Implement Creative Leadership
Fostering Entrepreneurship
The Importance of Nonentrepreneurial Creativity
Using Science to Manage Change
Chapter 8: The Science of Sales Process
Customer-Focused Selling
Chapter 9: How Scientific Is It?
What Makes Assessments Scientific
The Predictive Index (PI)
The Selling Skills Assessment Tool (SSAT)
Studies of Behavioral Assessments
Chapter 10: The Future of Scientific Selling
Cognitive Science
Human Analytics
Predictive Analytics
Neuroscience
A Final Word
Index
Copyright © 2012 by Nancy Martini. 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:
Martini, Nancy, 1959-
Scientific selling : creating high-performance sales teams through applied psychology and testing / Nancy Martini with Geoffrey James.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-118-16797-7 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-118-22641-4 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-23960-5 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-26429-4 (ebk)
1. Selling—Psychological aspects. 2. Success in business. I. James, Geoffrey, 1953- II. Title.
HF5438.8.P75M32 2012
658.8'102—dc23
2011046751
This book is dedicated to Steve Satin, my husband, best friend, and biggest fan, and to our combined five kids—Mark, Lindsay, Allison, Ben, and Ashley—I love you all.
Acknowledgments
This book reflects the effort and support of many people who were both directly and indirectly involved in making this book come to life.
At the top of the list to acknowledge is my coauthor Geoffrey James, who helped bring our joint vision to life with endless hours of writing, editing, interviewing, and guidance. A colleague and friend, we often joke about “thinking alike” and the book is evidence that it is so. Thank you for all your hard work and wise insights.
A big thanks to my agent Lorin Rees of the Rees Agency in Boston, he is a pleasure to work with and made the entire experience seamless. From phone calls to sharing pizza, his sage advice was always welcome.
A special thanks to my editor Dan Ambrosio of John Wiley & Sons, Inc., for his initial call and all the interim conversations to get the book launched, for driving to NYC to meet for coffee to answer my endless list of questions, and for all the ongoing support, an awesome professional.
Within the PI Worldwide offices in Wellesley, there is a wonderful group of people who contributed either directly on content or indirectly in putting up with me during this process. I'd like to acknowledge Todd Harris, PhD, for his help in reading sections of the book and contributing his valuable input as needed. I'm thankful to Cindy Lynes for being there when the book idea was “born” and supplying Geoffrey with various materials along the way, and to her marketing team of Tara Kelley, Anna Dreyser, and Sarah Messer for all the fun they will have promoting the book. I'd like to recognize Judy Olivo for booking interviews, scheduling meetings, and for keeping people out of my office and keeping me in. Although behind the scenes now, my friend and past CFO of PI Worldwide, Mike Giarratano, is an ongoing source of straight talk and no nonsense thinking. A big thanks to Frank Hunnewell, our COO, for taking charge and helping to run the company, without you this book could not have happened.
I'd like to acknowledge the PI Worldwide staff members who work hard every day to bring the science of the PI and the SSAT to the world, in no particular order: the Technology team with Thomas Zacharia, Chris Pecorella, Calton Chakwizira, Bob Comisky, John French, Bob Schiebel, and Harry Moulis; the Finance team led by Joe Rossi, VP of Finance, Lorraine Rawson, Steve Sharp, Lisa Cooper, Sue Flanagan, Mike King, and Samantha Ellinwood; the Administrative team with Arlene Smith and Cathy McGrath; the Legal team with Mary Beth Cotter and the Science team with Claire Rickards; Helen Hailer, our HR Director; the PI Worldwide University team with Paula Silva; and finally the Sales Team, who not only provide these tools to their clients but also live the science of selling: Rooney Russell, Kathleen Teehan, and from the original Global Sales Alliance team—Megan Holsinger.
Along with our corporate team, the global network of PI Worldwide licensees and consultants around the world were instrumental in helping with client interviews and data for this book. It is my pleasure to first acknowledge those who were interviewed: Dave O'Brien, Kathleen Teehan, Dave Lahey, Mike Stewart, Doug McCann, and Jennifer Mackin. I would also like to recognize the licensees in this network that help bring client results every day with the PI in 62 languages active in 143 countries around the world:
These licensees are supported by an incredible team of 350 consultants around the world, and although I cannot list them all here, the Top 20 globally must be recognized—kudos to each one for the dedication and results they create daily for their clients: Ruedi Affentranger and Stephanie Affentranger Kveton, PI Europe; Morten Løkkegaard, PI Europe; Fiona Brookwell, PI Europe; Rooney Russell, PI Worldwide; Michael Kirk-Jensen, PI Europe; Freidemann Stracke, PI Europe; Dave O'Brien, Predictive Group; Michael Wohl, The Oliver Group; Vic Coppola, P.I. Associates; Dave Osborne, Predictive Success; John Ranalleta, ADVISA; Mike Maynard, Predictive Group; Kathleen Teehan, PI Worldwide; Marc Aubé-Chousseaud, PI Europe; Steve Caldwell, Predictive Group; Nelien Krijtenburg, PI Europe; Scott Kiefer, The Oliver Group; Jim Klunick, WIPFLI; Jim Jones, PI Midwest; and Steve Picarde Jr., PI Midlantic.
I'd also like to acknowledge the thousands of sales reps that I have taught over the years at Global Sales Alliance and the hundreds of clients and consultants I had the honor of working with. Many have become lifelong friends and colleagues. A special thanks to Robert Burnside, Ray Kotcher, Kelley Skoloda and all the fine folks at Ketchum, Dave DeFillipo, Lisa Shapiro, Christi Pedra, Nancy Leeser, Nadia Altomare, Joe Riley, Bill Roche, Donna Thaxter, Bruce Liebowitz (in memory), Nancy Weeks, Gary Caine, Nancy Michaels, Stephen Carr, and last but not least—Jeb Bates, longtime consultant, colleague, and friend. After years of traveling the sales circles, I want to recognize my esteemed colleagues who carry a strong voice in the industry—Dave Stein of ES Research, Gerhard Gschwandtner of SellingPower and his wonderful daughter Larissa Gschwandtner—for the many fine discussions on sales and the future of selling.
For years I was part of a mastermind group and many of those days were spent brainstorming with colleagues about sales, strategy, and sales performance; to the original Global Sales Alliance team—I'd like to acknowledge Bob Frare, Ed Robinson, and Steve Waterhouse, proof that competitors working together can make one plus one equal three.
There is a special place in my heart for the Daniels family and our board of directors, for their dedication to behavioral science, the commitment to grow this fine company, and the confidence in turning over the reins to a professional management team. A special tribute in memory of Arnold Daniels (founder) and Dinah Daniels (daughter and past President and CEO) for their contribution to scientific selling and the opportunity to carry this fine company forward—they are missed. To Sally Daniels and Elisabeth Daniels DePristo for believing in the future of PI Worldwide, caring about this company and all the people in it, and allowing us to embrace growth with a passion. I'd like to acknowledge and thank our PI Worldwide board members—Ed Neville, attorney, the voice of reason and always a willing ear; Mike Roberts, our longest serving board member, bringing experience and insight to the table; Frank Haydu, a much appreciated mentor and friend. I sincerely appreciate the full support you all gave to this project.
I think I have been selling since I was about three years old and must thank my father Bill Martini for his invaluable early lessons on sales and life that certainly led to the philosophies in this book. In recognition of my mother, Ginny Martini, for being an incredible mother and friend, always there to cheer me on. Much of my early education came from being the baby of the family, I learned how to get things by persuasion—a big hug and thank you to my siblings for the opportunities to learn on them—Barbara Bardsley, Donald Martini, Steven Martini, Richard Martini, and Sue Martini.
Finally, I am deeply grateful to be married to the man of my dreams, Steve Satin, who brought laughter and joy back into my life. And for my two children Mark and Allison who make me proud every day, and to my three stepchildren who I am honored to know and love, Lindsay, Ashley, and Ben. You are all what makes my world go round.
Foreword
Very few people in the world of business understand what selling is all about. In fact, there's a historical prejudice against salespeople and the act of selling that goes back decades.
When I was a computer programmer in the 1980s, everyone in engineering thought the sales guys were glad-handers whose only talent consisted of an unending ability to schmooze. We were absolutely certain our technology was so manifestly wonderful that the only useful function the sales team could provide was to show the customers where to sign on the dotted line.
Ironically, what our sales guys were selling were million-dollar computer systems at the beginning of the PC revolution. Those guys were heroes, as evidenced by the fact that they actually were capable of making any sales at all. And yet, I'm embarrassed to say that we engineers treated them like they were bozos.
Some things never change. The other day, I was sharing a ride with an unemployed programmer. When I explained that I now wrote about sales and selling, she said, and I quote: “I think sales guys are slimy.” I could, of course, have mounted a spirited defense of the profession but instead I just said: “Hey, now you know why your company went out of business.”
That shut her up. Wish somebody had done the same to me, back in the day.
However, it's not like engineering types have the market cornered on prejudice against sales folk. After I got out of engineering, I worked in the marketing group for a Fortune 50 corporation. And, guess what? The marketers were just as dismissive of sales professionals as the engineers had been.
Over a six-year period, I watched (and helped) that marketing group spend over a hundred million dollars on (1) brochures that nobody read, (2) videos that nobody watched, (3) incomprehensible market research reports, and (4) presentations full of biz-blab and arrant gobbledegook.
While we were wasting money like it had an expiration date, we marketers chortled among ourselves about how naive and silly the sales guys were. The phrase we used was “marketing drives sales” as if we were somehow in control, and the sales team were order-taking mules that would go wherever we pointed them.
I wince whenever I remember how I thought back then.
Here's the truth. The only reason that company was surviving was that the sales guys were cutting HUGE deals for highly customized hardware, software, and services. It was incredibly complex stuff to sell…and their job was made even more difficult by the fact that they had to explain away the nonsense coming out of the marketing group.
I wish I could say that kind of thing didn't happen anymore. But I can't.
Every time I explain in my sales blog that “strategic marketing” is an oxymoron, I get dozens of whiney comments from marketing professionals, sometimes using the actual phrase: “marketing drives sales.” Those guys are as clueless as I ever was and the sales guys who have to work with them have my deepest sympathies.
Now, you'd think that top executives wouldn't be as dumb as engineers and marketers. But you'd think wrong.
Over the past decade, I've interviewed dozens of top executives and when the subject of sales and selling comes up, the vast majority held the same kind of distorted opinions.
I've heard CEOs of billion-dollar companies say stuff like: “I have no idea what goes on in the sales group.” I once heard a CFO blather for 15 minutes about how much his sales team was spending on their expense account, an amount that turned out to be less than .1 percent of the revenue they were creating. Incredible.
Ludicrous, isn't it?
Consider: The entire business world, indeed the entire system of global capitalism, is entirely dependent upon sales professionals. (Even a mass-market consumer retail product has a supply chain that requires dozens of sales reps.) And still, they “can't get no respect.”
If you look around, you see people at all levels of most corporations who (best case) are scratching their heads and wondering what the sales team actually does or (worst case) actively treating their sales professionals as persona non grata.
Needless to say, all this confusion and rancor does not make it easier to sell. Quite the contrary. In my experience, these antisales attitudes are most predominant inside companies that are about to fail. The companies that survive and thrive, especially in hard times, have corporate cultures that deeply respect the sales function.
Unfortunately, such companies often seem to be few and far between.
Ever since I've been writing about sales and selling, I've discussed this perception problem with dozens of sales gurus and trainers. Their reaction varied from “that's just how it is” to “people will come around when the numbers go up.”
Yeah, right.
It wasn't until I interviewed Nancy Martini that I got an answer that made sense. She said: “The reason sales teams don't get respect is that companies measure the wrong things.”
It's not that sales teams weren't being measured. It was that the metrics (like revenue and conversion rates) weren't granular enough to be useful in creating sales teams or in explaining the “why” behind sales performance. It's like measuring grains of sand with a yardstick. Yeah, you can do it, but it doesn't give you any actionable data.
The lack of actionable metrics meant that selling was condemned to remain a “black box” that nobody understood. And when people don't understand something, it creates fear, doubt, and misunderstanding. And that's why sales gets a bad rap.
Scientific selling (the concept, not the book) changes all of that.
Scientific selling makes it both possible and practical to measure potential, train teams and individuals precisely, and measure the results. Scientific selling not only makes sales teams better able to make the big metrics (which is obviously still essential), but it also makes it easier for sales managers to explain to the rest of the company what sales is all about.
More importantly, scientific selling reveals the truth that's been hidden for so long, which is that selling is a specialized skill that can only be done by certain types of people, and deserves the respect of everyone in every company.
In short, the solution to the image problem is a heavy dose of science.
That's why I'm excited about this book and about my participation in making it happen. Nancy is pioneering something that is, and will continue to, change the culture of selling and how the world perceives it.
And that's huge.
—Geoffrey James
Preface
I love selling. Everything about it works—it's interesting, captivating, challenging, strategic, and you are measured every day. Today you have to be good to make it in sales.
Along with my interest in selling, I've always been profoundly curious as to why some people succeed in sales and others don't. That's why I'm a convert to the scientific approach to selling. Science provides exciting insight and concrete answers to predictable sales performance.
By “scientific,” I'm not talking about pseudoscience or laying a gloss of scientific-sounding words over the same old folk wisdom that's been pushed in sales training courses for the past century and a half.
I'm talking about hard science—a quantitative, statistically valid measurement of human behavior, making changes in that behavior, and remeasuring the results. I'm talking about actual mathematics, and PhD-level research.
I didn't always feel this way. Time was that I thought selling was pretty much all about the art of making the sale.
This book is a manifesto for the scientific approach to selling. But it's also a story about how I made the transition to a scientific worldview and how that transition has impacted my work life and my ability to sell.
By the time I started college I knew that I wanted to be in sales. I tried to sit still for business classes, but I couldn't help thinking that I ought to be out there selling something. So, like many salespeople before me, I left academia after two years in order to start doing what I knew I was fated to do: sell.
And, just to test myself and my resolve, I picked an industry that's one of the most difficult and demanding: life insurance. I figured that “if I can make it there, I can make it anywhere.”
The company that hired me represented exactly what everyone hates about the sales profession. My sales manager, for example, spent the Monday morning sales meeting telling us that we were idiots and yelling at us to make bigger numbers. The sales training consisted of a series of tricks designed to manipulate people to say “yes” even if they had no fit for our product.
I remember sitting there, listening to that derogatory nonsense, and simply thinking—are you kidding me? I also noticed that the company was losing about 90 percent of its sales team every year, so I figured that if I wanted to be successful, I should probably go out and do the exact opposite of what we were being told to do.
Our group was supposed to go to college campuses and sell policies to students, using the techniques that they taught us. I figured, however, that students had a limited need or affordability for insurance, so I talked to students about the life insurance needs of their parents.
That got me lots of introductions to people who really DID need life insurance protection for their families. So there I was, all of 22 years old, selling life insurance to parents in their fifties who were making more in a week than I would make that year.
But the age difference didn't matter because I believed in the product and truly believed that the parents really needed it. And the parents didn't really care that I was the same age as their kids because I knew my product and understood what they needed, and why.
So that was my first big lesson in sales as an adult—that selling isn't about tricks and techniques, it's about understanding people's needs and figuring out how to satisfy them.
Needless to say, I'm not the first (or the last) to make that discovery, but it turns out that this realization is the foundation of scientific selling, because if you apply science to the wrong behaviors, you'll get the wrong results.
Not that the insurance company ever figured that out. Quite the contrary, they kept flogging those tired old techniques, with only the vaguest sense that they weren't very effective. Meanwhile, they suffered a huge turnover, and an incredible amount of lost productivity.
After completing my first full year in insurance, I was the National Rookie of the Year among a group of over 150 sales reps across the nation. Imagine, though, how different the situation would have been if they had been able to measure what I was doing, and what the handful of other highly effective reps were doing.
And imagine that the insurance company had possessed a way to implement the same behaviors more widely, and then remeasure to confirm that these new techniques were proving effective.
There's no question in my mind that that insurance company would today dominate the entire industry.
After I sold insurance for a while, I looked around for another challenge. I decided that after trying to sell something intangible, like insurance, I'd like a chance to sell something tangible. So I went to work for an alarm company.
As many sales professionals know, selling tangibles (like alarms) is a fundamentally different kind of activity than selling something that can't be held, touched, or felt.
With intangibles, you're always selling a solution and you have a lot of latitude about how you craft it. With tangibles, there's always a danger of your product becoming a commodity, in which case, the only wiggle room you have is price. And selling the lowest price is a recipe for low margins and price wars.
Since my experience was in selling a completely different kind of product, it wasn't surprising that my new employer felt strongly that I needed to move slowly and learn a lot before I actually tried to make a sale. After all, my new employer had seen plenty of new hires fail, and he didn't want to cope with another expensive failure.
The head of this company believed strongly that, in order to sell tangibles, you need to emphasize the features that make your product better. He therefore expected me to spend three months getting trained on all the product features, spending time with the installers, going along on sales calls with a seasoned sales rep, and so forth.
But the truth is, I was actually ready to sell the product right from the get-go.
On my second week, I drove past a local restaurant that I could see was being remodeled. I pulled my car over, went inside, asked for the manager and said, “You're tearing up the walls, so this is a good time to consider putting in an alarm system.”
The restaurant manager said his main worry was passing inspection. So I called one of the installers, had him come over and see what needed to be done, and the manager wrote me a check.
The next day I went into the CEO's office and told him I made my first sale. He said, “No, you didn't” and proceeded to explain that I couldn't possibly know enough about the product to sell it.
Then I handed him the check. As he stared at it, I explained that alarm systems aren't about electronics and features, they're about peace of mind. That manager wanted peace of mind that his restaurant would pass inspection. And he was willing to pay for that peace of mind.
Now, I intuitively understood that because I'd been dealing with peace of mind issues in my previous job. However, my new employer had no way of seeing that, and instead, had hired me hoping I had potential. Hoping. He had no way whatsoever to discover whether or not I had what it takes.
What's worse, he didn't even know himself what attributes were required to be successful selling alarms. He thought it was all about being technically savvy and being able to talk about features and functions. The real requirement was more along the lines of what I had aplenty: an ability to make people feel secure that they're making the right decision.
My new boss could have saved himself a lot of bother if he had just been able to measure my abilities from the start and compare them to other successful sales professionals in that field. He would have quickly discovered that, when selling peace of mind, being product savvy, while important, was far less important than being people savvy.
As I continued in my sales career, I started networking at local Chamber of Commerce meetings. One day, a CEO came over to me and said, “I notice that your sales volumes are crazy high and I don't understand how you do that. Can you give me some advice?”
I wasn't terrifically interested in mentoring a CEO, but we ended up having lunch and he brought up a couple of situations that were in his pipeline. I gave him some pointers, and he was so impressed that he asked if he could pay me to do more. He also said he had some CEO friends who could use my help with sales advice.
I told him “Thanks, but I already have a job,” but later, when I got a chance to think about it, it occurred to me that it might actually be fun to do sales consulting and sales training and it would give me the opportunity to impact more businesses and more people.
I founded a company called NetWorks, and began teaching networking skills and lead generation. That quickly evolved into a more comprehensive sales training program that addressed all the steps in the sales process and eventually became Global Sales Alliance. The business grew rapidly, moving quickly from regional, to national, to international.
However, while I knew I was teaching valuable techniques, there was this nagging feeling that it wasn't always as effective as it could be. The process of selling was easy to teach but I was limited in the amount of data I had about the sales reps and their ability to execute on the knowledge. It became clear to me that different sales reps found the “Customer-Focused Selling” (which is what the training eventually evolved into) either difficult to execute or easy to execute, depending on their basic personality.
That's where scientific selling first came into my view of the sales world.
One of my favorite clients in the early days was a company called PI Worldwide, publisher of the Predictive Index (PI) since 1955. After working with them briefly I said, “every one of my clients needs this PI thing to understand their sales reps, why would anyone function without it?”
My clients that used the PI had huge business results including reducing turnover and increasing sales revenue. Clients were using PI to assess the character traits of new hires and existing employees. After I was trained in the PI system, I found that I could predict who would be most likely to implement CFS by looking at their PI results. I therefore found myself frequently recommending the PI to my clients.
Even so, I noticed that behavioral assessment wasn't always enough. I ran across some cases that had a compatible PI profile for sales, but who didn't seem willing or able to actually perform the specific skills that would increase their sales performance. I therefore decided this was an area ripe for research, and worked with an expert to devise a way to test for the specific skills that were required to sell effectively.
And that was the genesis of the Selling Skills Assessment Tool (SSAT).
My company, which at that point consisted of about eight trainers, had great synergy with the products of PI Worldwide because the behavioral and skills measure was a unique power pack for managing sales growth. This was firm proof that selling can be, and should be, measured scientifically.
To make a long story short, PI Worldwide acquired my company in 2006 and I became CEO in 2007. Today, PI Worldwide is the premier firm that uses scientific behavior and skills data to measure and drive sales performance.
Despite the success of PI Worldwide in the marketplace, this book is NOT an introduction to the company's products. While they're used as examples, this book deals with the science that lies behind them, and how that science can be applied to selling, regardless of the specific assessment tools that are actually used.
The shift toward scientific selling and away from the mystical and anecdotal concept of what selling is all about is, in my view, the most significant development in selling over the past decade, even during a period of history that has seen massive changes in nearly every aspect of the selling.
It's not that scientific selling has had an enormous impact, yet. While there are hundreds of companies practicing it, they're just the tip of a proverbial iceberg. The real impact of scientific selling will occur when it's the rule, rather than the exception.
This book looks forward to that day.
Chapter 1
The Science of Selling
We are focusing on cultural and structural change because our business is growing and changing all the time, and the economy has forced some changes and we're expecting more in the future. Our business used to be a low-level sale, and we had a “one sales style fits all” philosophy. Over time, though, there emerged many different customer types, who wanted to interact with us in different ways. As a result, we've had to change the way managers recruit and design their team, all based upon a better understanding of the work that needs to be done.
—Shane McCarrey, Manager of Human Relations and Development, ABS Global
This book is about the application of science to the business of selling. There are many other books about selling that have “science” in their titles. However, in every case that we've examined, the science was simply that: part of the title. The term was tacked onto the title in order to give those books some borrowed credibility, even though they were full of the same “how I sold a million-dollar deal in a day” anecdotes that are, unfortunately, common to the genre.
By “science,” we mean real science that is based on gathering observable, empirical, and measurable evidence and analyzing that evidence according to specific, generally accepted principles of reasoning and logic. We mean real science that follows the scientific method, consisting of the collection of data through experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses. In this book we are emphatically not going to discuss pseudosciences that require a huge dollop of faith in order to be believed.
This book is also a manifesto for the scientific approach to selling. It contains numerous case studies of how that scientific approach has helped companies and shows exactly how the application of real science improves everything in the sales environment—from management to coaching to training to creating long-term sustainable sales results. It also describes how the further application of new areas of scientific inquiry, like neuroscience and cognitive science, will further change the business of selling.
The Changing Nature of Selling
This scientific revolution in sales and sales process is taking place in the midst of the most extensive transformation of the role of sales managers, teams, and individuals in the history of business. For decades, the role of sales rep remained static. Sales reps provided information to customers and wrote up orders, greasing the wheels of commerce with a hefty dollop of schmooze.
That began to change around 2002, as the Internet (following the dot-com era of experimentation) started to become an integral part of the business landscape. A series of new technologies, ranging from e-mail to automated supply chains to cloud computing to smartphones to web conferencing to search engines to social media, were thrust into the workplace. While some of these technologies existed previously, the Internet freed their disruptive potential, which has rippled through every aspect of the modern corporation.
Nowhere has the transformation been more significant than in the way that companies buy and sell from each other, and sell to consumers. So much has changed, in fact, that it's probably impossible to enumerate everything that's different from just 10 years ago. However, we believe that the following trends represent the highlights of this massive set of changes:
