A Seat at the Table

How Top Salespeople Connect and Drive Decisions at the Executive Level

Greenleaf Book Group, 2009

15 min read

10 take-aways

Audio & text

What's inside?

How can you sell to senior execs? Hint: No one looks forward to sales calls, but trusted advisers are always welcome.

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Do you enthusiastically look forward to having someone stop by to sell you something? Probably not. But how do you feel when a trusted adviser comes in to help enhance your strategy? You’re grateful for the counselor’s time and valuable advice. If you want the welcome mat to be out when you call, heed sales expert Marc Miller, who shows salespeople how to change their image from product hustlers to strategic consultants. Even if some of its strategies seem hard to achieve, getAbstract believes that this book is useful for salespeople who handle big-ticket products and services with extended “sales cycles,” those who sell entirely new products or methods, or those selling commodities who need to shift customers’ concerns from price to value.

Summary

To Customers, Value Counts

Many executives have low opinions of salespeople. They may see them as hustlers pushing products and services whether or not they provide value or help attain strategic goals. What salespeople care about – selling – is not what executives care about – value. To break this mold, become intrinsic to your customers’ strategic success so they see you not as a salesperson but as a businessperson who is “worthy of a seat at their table” and who adds value to their firm.

To make customers welcome you, enable them to realign their work with their bottom-line strategies, and develop solutions focused on their strategic goals. That means getting out of the products and services business (where you represent an expense) and into the investments business (where you offer “productivity and differentiation”). Companies achieve productivity, the uppermost need in every executive’s thinking, through differentiation. Learn your customers’ strategies, and match your products and services to them. To use this “big-picture” approach, demonstrate real knowledge about a client’s business and avoid nattering on about the traits of your products and services. This...

About the Author

Marc Miller is founder and CEO of a firm that offers organizations ideas, products and services to improve sales. He also wrote Selling Is Dead, which covers selling complex business solutions.

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R. A. 10 years ago

great summary...looking forwared to the rest of it
M. B. 10 years ago

This is another approach to move from a product transaction seller to a solutions trusted advisor. This is no longer the trend but the industry norm. Although this process is good there are others out there that maybe a better fit for your industry or role. I like the Challenger Sale

Marc Miller