Selling Is Dead: Moving Beyond Traditional Sales Roles and Practices to Revitalize Growth

by Jason Sinkovitz and Marc Miller

A manifesto for reinventing the sales function Selling Is Dead argues that selling teams and growth-motivated organizations must change to remain competitive. It presents a new selling framework based on research that indicates that buyer behavior can be modeled and that large sales and small sales are fundamentally different. This new framework provides salespeople with a practical structure for giving buyers significantly more value for their dollar-value...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471721115
• ISBN13: 9780471721116
• Release Date: June 2005
• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
• Length: 305 Pages
• Weight: 1.17 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.5" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

If your product/service is not mission critical -- buy this book

This is THE best book I've ever read (and I have shelves full of them) on the sales process as it applies to products and services which fall outside of being mission critical to the buying organization. If a company has to have some form of what you sell even though they don't have to have your's this book would be of some value. If your offering falls in to the elective category - people like it, think it would helpful, has a wow factor - by which I mean it is a nice to have but the buying organization doesn't absolutely have to have it in some form to continue doing business this is a must have book. The writing style is a bit stiff to the point of being slightly academic at points but this is a reflection of the process which has yielded their step by step methodology. If you've been in elective style sales such as much of the software world you will find that this book helps you think more systematically. I have found help in making this my primary sales process resource and in making the "Advanced Selling" podcast my primary personal motivation resource. If you are a student of sales you will welcome this addition to your library.

Provocative & Practical For Enterprise-level Selling

'Selling is Dead' offers insightful & provocative perspectives for sales organizations to capitalize on large selling opportunities. It offers readers a disciplined framework in selling. There are two key points of the framework that I cannot agree more: 1)To plan sales activities from prospects' point of view & decision making process, and 2)To develop sales people into 'business people who sell'. These two points may seem to be common sense, but I find many sales organizations overlook them or may find them challenging to be executed successfully; Miller concisely illustrated practical steps (along with some good case studies) to make them happen. Taking Rackham's 'SPIN' process to a new level, Miller elaborated a new systematic questioning process called 'FOCAS' (Fact, Objective, Concern, Anchor, Solution), which I also find to be pragmatic for enterprise-level sales situation.

Strong Contribution to Effectiveness in Complex Sales

"Selling is Dead" is one of 10 best books on sales effectiveness published in the United States in the past 20 years. It makes a strong contribution to sales effectiveness for sales reps and sales managers who are involved in complex sales in major accounts. It is especially valuable for companies that sell innovative solutions. Because of its focus on selling innovative solutions, the book cites examples that tend to be skewed toward sales of technical solutions and especially of information technology. But the book also carries useful advice for selling less innovative products and services. Of course selling isn't dead, literally. But it's changing in major ways, the authors say. Sales teams are underperforming because they are ineffective. The cost of sales people has risen much higher than their productivity. If selling isn't exactly dead, it's broken. The authors say the main reason is that sellers are generally unable to cope with the quickening pace of innovation. "Sales teams rarely falter when selling commodities because buyers see commodities as safe, comfortable, existing applications," they say. "However, once a company's core business has matured and the market for those commoditized offerings has become saturated, organizations must turn to innovation for growth and survival. Unfortunately, there is powerful evidence that the transition of sales teams from selling commodities to selling innovative new platforms is difficult and fraught with failure. The real challenge in selling is selling innovation." The authors' answer, in part, is to develop sales people into "business people who sell." The authors rightly give credit to Neil Rackham for his prior contributions in "SPIN Selling," "Major Account Sales Strategy" and other ground-breaking work. They then build beyond Rackham's work to distinguish between appropriate selling behavior for what they call "continuous" and "discontinuous" products. Continuous products are already well known in their marketplace. Some level of demand already exists for them. Many customers are familiar with such products and are likely to know when they need them. They may already have set a budget and established a selection process to acquire them. Discontinuous products, on the other hand, did not previously exist in their target market. They are so new that no budgets are set for them and decision processes are not in place to evaluate them. Most prospects have no idea they need them. Such products represent the greatest selling challenge and also the greatest profit opportunity. They are highly differentiated. Because they are not subject to direct competition, they command premium prices. The challenge for the seller is to help people recognize that they need them enough to outweigh the cost and perceived risks of buying them. For sales of discontinuous solutions, the authors propose that sellers use a structured questioning process the authors call FOCAS. The acronym, like Rackham

Selling is Dead - couldn't agree more

This book reiterates what I've long thought - that selling, at least in the traditional (pushy, gimmicky) sense, is completely outmoded for today's much more complicated exchanges between buyers and sellers. The title caught my eye and I found that Selling is Dead addressed the issue of growing complexity (especially when dealing with innovative sales offerings) in a useful and very applicable way. The authors not only explain the theory behind the work, but also provide plenty of case studies to illustrate, and different questioning strategies for the different types of sales offerings. For anyone who A) realizes that selling is dead and wants to take advantage of a better way to exchange offerings or who B) doesn't realize that selling is dead and can't understand why the old tricks aren't working. Great read, and enjoy the humor between the theory!

Finally! - Real Tools for the Sales Toolbag

I have read dozens of "sales" books in the past 10 years. Normally I would skip over a book like this but the title caught my eye so I dove in. After reading the first few chapters, I quickly realized Miller's book was different. There are real strategies and tools in Miller's words. The idea of separating key accounts from everyday sales is not a new idea but a very important strategy for all businesses. A lot of people and books talk about strategies for this but few give you specific and effective tools to do it. The key strategy set forth in the book is backed by research and case studies giving validation to the concept. But more importantly, I found this book to be very focused on how to use the research and case studies to develop sales strategies AND salespeople. I would recommend this book to those who truly want to develop their own skills or their team's skills. This book is a solid read and well worth the time!