The last post introduced the idea that two basic selling styles dominate the salesperson’s efforts to capture customers. We can see what the two styles are if we look closely at the idea of the conversation between customer and salesperson that happens through the sales cycle. The end game of the conversation for the customer is to obtain a product or service that will solve some form of immediate need. The end game for the salesperson is that they supply the solution to the customer, rather than a competitor.

Multiple interactions occur between the two parties throughout the sales cycle. The customer is engaged in a buying process and the salesperson is reciprocally pursuing a sales process. This is a business transaction and both customer and salesperson will be using certain sets of skills. The customer needs value, and the salesperson must show that they can provide it. Value will be determined by capability and price.

The skills that the salesperson uses can be learned or acquired through experience. The degree that he or she can use them effectively will partially determine whether they will win the sale. There will be others who present different solutions – each will have their own spin, highlighting strengths and minimizing weaknesses. The skill of the salesperson to boldly present what he or she believes to be the truth will lead to gaining the customer’s confidence.

But there is another important factor that determines selling style. The better the relationship between two negotiating parties, the more chance the deal will go through. Salespeople who have the ability to gain the respect and the loyalty of their customer will have a much more solid platform off which to build on their true selling skills. This kind of skill is usually inherited and driven by the intrinsic personality of the salesperson. In Opportunity Portfolio Management we refer to the style of relying on selling skills as being opportunity focused. The style relying on relationships to win sales is being relationship focused.

Salespeople naturally are inclined to one of the two styles, but the most successful ones are comfortable with either, and moreover, have the ability to blend the two styles to match a particular stage or point in a sales cycle. This idea is at the heart of Opportunity Portfolio Management and represents a key opportunity for salespeople, whether seasoned or newcomers, to test themselves in their strategic interactions with the customer. We’ll talk about how to do that in future postings.

Newton’s third law says that “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Even though I did physics for over nine years of my life, I’m very rusty on that stuff. But when I started putting together the material for sales automation done right I realized that even though he didn’t know it at the time, Newton was onto something important concerning the sales cycle.

Over ten years ago I was trying to answer the question “what are the dynamics of the sales cycle—what variables change as the sales opportunity progresses through the period of time we call the sales cycle.” This was important to get to grips with because we were trying to find a way for a computer to understand those dynamics with some helpful information from the salesperson. To cut a long story short, and not to take away the punch from future postings, we developed a model that said that the sales cycle can be divided into three phases, and each phase was distinctly different, requiring special skills from the salesperson.

After we came up with this idea, I revisited Neil Rackham’s books on selling and his research on how people buy stuff, from jet planes, to computers, to houses – in fact, to anything. He found that the buying process almost always followed a three stage (phase) model. We had concluded that selling followed a three phase approach too. That’s where Newton comes in – selling is a reaction to the action of buying.

Now, I figure that if I had started off with Rackham’s ideas, coupled with a knowledge of the Third Law, I could have written SADR in half the time.