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Getting into Your Customer's Head: The Eight Roles of Customer-Focused Selling by Kevin Davis, Kenneth H. Blanchard
Most people know selling is much more difficult than it was just a few
years ago. But do you know what you can do to grow your sales in
today's tougher market? Getting Into Your Customer's Head provides the
answer. This book will help you anticipate buyers' thoughts and
feelings so you can stay in step with them - which is one giant step
ahead of your competition.
Getting Into Your Customer's Head will help you increase sales by
matching new selling strategies to today's tougher buying behavior:
This book presents eight unique selling roles and a clear plan of
action needed for each step of the sale. The student, doctor,
architect, coach, therapist, negotiator, teacher, and farmer roles all
have specific techniques for moving you and your customer smoothly
through the buying process. For example, the student role shows you
how change affects your customers and how you can use this knowledge
to open closed doors. The doctor diagnoses "little problems" and
uncovers "big needs." The architect designs customer-focused solutions
that lock out competition.
Using the proven approaches in this book will sharpen your competitive
selling skills. Techniques such as finding the "power broker" (the
real decision maker) in a complex sale provide valuable tools for
selling smart and winning the sale.
Getting Into Your Customer's Head teaches you how you can prevent
customers from defecting to the competition with new techniques that
build customer loyalty. And the "No Tricks" method of negotiating
shows you how to win profitable agreements without cutting price.
The information in my book and training programs is based on 25 years
of sales, sales management and training experience. Kevin Davis
Selling Systems LLC has worked with hundreds of companies and many
thousands of salespeople in a wide variety of industries. Companies
such as BellSouth, Fujitsu, Siebel Systems, Corporate Express, Zeneca
and IKON Office Solutions have used our sales training and sales
management training programs to:
Increase sales,
Improve profits,
Enhance customer relations and
Elevate the professionalism of their sales team
Foreword
As a student of effective business behavior for the past thirty years,
my goal has always been to take the B.S. out of the behavioral
sciences. One of the maxims I've discovered at the core of every
successful organization is an intense focus on the customer. This
holds true of businesses of all types and sizes and for my own
business as well.
In my organization, I know that I'm ultimately responsible for the
satisfaction of every customer we have. I don't just preach customer
satisfaction; I have to practice it like everybody else.
That is why I value Getting Into Your Customer's Head so highly. Kevin
Davis identifies how to sell effectively in a way that also greatly
enhances customer satisfaction. He describes in detail how you can
think and feel like a customer - that is, how to get into your
customer's head. He then shows you exactly what you must do to meet
your customer's needs better than your competition.
As you will read, Kevin has determined that today's buyers follow a
predictable eight-step buying process, and he has created eight easily
understood selling roles to match each step: Student, Doctor,
Architect, Coach, Therapist, Negotiator, Teacher, and Farmer. It's a
sophisticated sales approach made simple.
This book provides a blueprint for anyone who wants to attain a higher
level of sales success. It is invaluable for anyone who has customers,
including salespeople, small business owners, professional services
providers, managers, and, yes, even corporate executives.
As we prepare to enter the next millennium, one thing is certain: To
do more than survive - to thrive - you must add more value to your
business relationships. I predict that those who heed this book's
message will increase their sales and in the process gain a
competitive advantage for the future.
Ken Blanchard, Ph.D.
Co-author, The One-Minute Manager
Introduction
Buying is where selling should start. Every time you make a sale,
someone buys. Do you know as much about buying as you do about
selling?
In our rapidly changing world, selling is becoming more difficult
because buyers are changing. The lives of your best customers, those
who have known and valued you the most, have been changed personally
and professionally. In today's fiercely competitive marketplace,
buyers are slashing costs to get by, which means there's more pressure
now to make better buying decisions. For you to win the sale, you must
be more persuasive.
Today's new buyer doesn't know you well and doesn't have the time to
get close. His competition is growing tougher; he has to do more with
less. Yesterday's buyer was more likely to rely on your
recommendations, particularly if you had a long-standing relationship.
Today's new buyer is:
more demanding
more price conscious
more knowledgeable about buying
less loyal to suppliers
overwhelmed by choices
more uncertain about the future
more at risk if a mistake is made
Today's buyer is much more, in a word, cautious.
In some ways, buyers' caution makes selling more difficult. However,
with caution comes predictability - and therein lies your opportunity.
Your title need not be "salesperson" for you to benefit from this
book. All professional service providers, including independent
consultants, architects, lawyers, accountants, advertising/public
relations executives and physicians, must sell their services to
create and keep clients. Even corporate managers must sell their ideas
to fellow managers and employees to gain influence and career
advancement. Small business owners and entrepreneurs must either sell
or die. Everybody sells something.
Because buyers have changed, salespeople must change to meet the new
needs of their customers. Recently the Forum Corporation, a
Boston-based consulting firm, surveyed 342 Fortune 500 companies in a
variety of industries to discover what traits in salespeople were the
most annoying to their customers. The top five sources of customer
frustration with salespeople were:
Difficulty in communication
Salesperson's lack of knowledge of customer's company
Overaggressive selling
Slow delivery
Salesperson's overpromising and then not delivering
All these frustrations can be avoided if you use a sales approach that
matches how today's new buyer buys. By applying the skills described
in this book, you can greatly reduce, or even eliminate,
customer/client frustration.
Why Should You Listen to Me?
I have been in sales since 1979 and have sold both tangible and
intangible products and services. I was an award-winning salesperson,
major account executive, sales manager, and district manager for
Lanier Worldwide, the office-equipment division of $3.5 billion dollar
Harris Corporation. As an independent sales consultant since 1989, I
have helped many of America's finest companies to increase their sales
effectiveness.
These companies are engaged in a wide variety of businesses, and range
from industry leaders such as ADP, Bell South, Business Week,
Dresser/Masoneilan, F.W. Dodge/McGraw-Hill, Pacific Telesis, and
Standard & Poor's Corporation to promising growth companies such as
A.E.I. Music Network, Pinnacle Data Corporation, and Bay Alarm
Company. Since 1992 I have worked with Blanchard Training &
Development, a worldwide leader in high quality management services.
My specialty is the design and presentation of customized sales
training programs to Blanchard clients.
The services I deliver provide me with a unique vantage point to
objectively observe both buyers and sellers. First, I work with each
client's salespeople to carefully study how they sell and how their
buyers buy. In this way I gain knowledge about the client's industry.
I also draw on my knowledge of selling, gained from over 12,000 hours
of personal research, which includes my reviewing thousands of books,
seminars, videos, audio cassettes, and articles focused on sales,
sales management and buyer behavior. Then, by blending in-depth
knowledge of my clients with leading-edge sales expertise, I am able
to create customized training solutions. Thousands of salespeople have
benefited from my workshops. This book is the result of my work to
date and the feedback of thousands of sales professionals.
My entire professional career has been devoted to selling, studying
selling, and working closely with salespeople to help them achieve
more. I know what you want. You are reading this book because you want
new skills and strategies, easy to remember and apply, that will give
you the edge. If you're a sales professional, you're probably tired of
so-called experts, some of whom have never sold before, who tell you
what to do but not how to do it. Theory doesn't produce sales, skills
do. This book was written to give you the skills you need to create
satisfied clients during good times or bad.
Buy-knowing Vs. Buy-learning
People buy in two ways. When a buyer feels he already knows what he
needs to know, he quickly reaches a decision to buy. I call this
method of purchasing "buy-knowing." There's no great challenge in
selling a buyer something he already knows he wants. That's easy.
However, most buyers today fall into another category, one that is
more complex because it involves acquiring knowledge and weighing
alternatives to arrive at the best buying decision. I call this method
of purchasing "buy-learning."
For businesses and consumers alike, the first-time purchase of a
significant product or service is typically accomplished with a
buy-learning process. People buy either to solve a problem or take
advantage of an opportunity. The increasing velocity of change means
that many current needs and their solutions are new, and that buyers
do not have experience in dealing with them. All this uncertainty adds
up to today's new buyer, who is more cautious and, hence, a more
frequent user of the buy-learning process.
Two different research projects have been conducted at opposite ends
of the buying spectrum, one on consumer buying habits by Columbia
Business School, and the other on major account buying habits by
Huthwaite Research. Interestingly, both studies arrived at the same
conclusion: When the buyer feels the need to buy but senses the risk
of making a mistake, he or she will seek to resolve uncertainty with a
rational buying process.
This rational buying process, what I call buy-learning, unfolds in a
series of predictable steps that can be anticipated by salespeople.
Your prospect's motivation to buy may be emotional, but how he or she
buys is rational. Just as you have a selling process, buyers have a
buying process. Your challenge is to shepherd the buyer through each
step of the buy-learning process until he or she is satisfied with
what you have to offer.
After a product is purchased and put to use, the customer becomes more
knowledgeable about it, and over time relies less on the seller for
information. This growth in your customers' knowledge, and their
comfort in knowing what it is that they are buying, gradually leads to
repeat purchases using the simpler buy-knowing process. You can expect
your initial sale, however, to be time consuming, because you need to
allow a fearful or skeptical buyer time to gain confidence that your
offering is best.
For professional salespeople, the days of the three-martini lunch and
order- taking are over. Today's new buyer expects more value from
salespeople. He or she is demanding that you refocus your expert
knowledge on identifying and solving new problems. If you sell to
businesses, these problems can't be found in the purchasing
department; they exist in the buyer's core business processes, such as
product development, manufacturing, sales, and customer service.
A new sales approach is required to meet the demanding needs of
today's new buyer. To meet customer needs, you (the salesperson) must
be more proactive by:
studying your prospect's business
getting appointments with key executives
diagnosing larger problems
Once you're in the door and you've found a problem, you're only part
way home. You also need:
excellent competitive selling skills to show why you're the best
negotiating skills to reach a mutually beneficial agreement
post-sale satisfaction skills to enable your customer to achieve
value
master the politics of today's more complex sales
The new sales approach described in this book will help you not only
make a sale but also stay a key person in your buyer's life.
Customer-Focused Selling
We see the world not as it is, but as we are conditioned to see it.
Who we are influences what we see. Two people can look at the same
thing and see something totally different. Yet each person assumes
that the way he or she sees things is the way things are.
In the world of selling, we have been conditioned to see things
through a salesperson's eyes, and our sales behaviors are based on
these perceptions. But your buyers have a different frame of
reference. They have their own point of view. The key to success in
selling is your ability to get into your customer's head, to see
things from the buyer's perspective, and match how you sell with how
your buyer buys. I call this approach Customer-Focused Selling.
As you focus on your buyer's needs, going through each step of the
buy-learning process with him or her, you will need to take on eight
sequential customer-focused selling roles: that of a student, doctor,
architect, coach, therapist, negotiator, teacher, and farmer. Each of
these roles is described in detail in an upcoming chapter.
Because the mind usually thinks in pictures instead of words, it's
helpful for you to have a vivid image that describes how to match
selling techniques with buying behavior. In this way, you'll be able
to remember and apply much more of what you read. That's why I created
these selling roles.
The Eight Roles of Customer-Focused Selling.
Sales Role #1: The Student studies the 3C's (customer, competition,
change) and approaches high probability prospects. Five keys to
getting appointments with senior decision-makers. Nine questions to
ask yourself when studying your prospect.
Sales Role #2: The Doctor diagnoses discontent and uncovers important
needs. How to eliminate price objections. Diagnostic questions that
intensify buying desire.
Sales Role #3: The Architect designs customer-focused solutions that
set the ground rules in your favor. Identifying customers'
"must-haves" and "nice-to-haves". Three steps to influencing
specifications. Using creativity to gain competitive advantage. Eight
questions to ask yourself during the Research step.
Sales Role #4: The Coach applies competitive sales strategies and
presents a compelling solution. Four reasons why we lose sales. 7 keys
to scouting your opponents. Positioning yourself to win. Repackaging
weaknesses into strengths.
Sales Role #5: The Therapist understands and resolves the buyer's
fears. The seven causes of buyer fear and how to resolve them.
Sales Role #6: The Negotiator prepares and applies win/win strategies
to reach an agreement. Seven common customer negotiating tactics.
Eight sources of negotiating power and how to get more. Ten keys to
successful sales negotiations. 11 questions to ask yourself before
every sales negotiation.
Sales Role #7: The Teacher sets customer expectations and teaches the
customer to achieve maximum value. What customers expect from you
immediately after they buy. The three biggest challenges you face with
new customers and how to overcome them.
Sales Role #8: The Farmer nourishes customer satisfaction in order to
grow the account. The #1 killer of customer satisfaction. Eight keys
to cultivating satisfaction and growing your accounts. How to get the
most value out of this program. Two characteristics possessed by all
peak performing salespeople.
Winning the Complex Sale: the politics of selling to multiple
decision-makers. Why selling is becoming more complex. Why you need
multiple sources of information. Identifying the players on the
complex buying team. Developing your complex sales strategy.
Getting Into Your Customer's Head is an award-winning book:
Named as one of the top 30 business books by Soundview Executive
Book Summaries, which annually considers some 1,500 new titles in
selecting its elite list.
Named One of the Top Sales Books by Selling, which annually selects
the top five sales books.
Selected as a "featured selection" by the Money Book Club.
"We look at 1,500 business books every year; Getting Into Your
Customer's Head is one of the best."
Jeffrey Olson, Editor,
Soundview Executive Book Summaries
"This program gives you the essentials to selling in tough,
competitive, markets. Kevin Davis shares with you the practical,
proven approaches of a top sales professional. Get it, read it, apply
it every day."
Brian Tracy
Speaker & Author, Advanced Selling Strategies
"I've seen first-hand in our sales force how Kevin Davis's approach
enables salespeople to win the big sale. Don't just read this book,
study it."
John Derham
Senior Vice President of Sales
BellSouth Business Systems
"This book gives you the essentials to selling success in tough,
competitive markets. Kevin Davis shares with you some of the
practical, proven approaches of a top sales professional. Get it, read
it, apply it every day."
Brian Tracy
Speaker and author
Advanced Selling Strategies
"With all the talk about relationship-oriented selling, there have
been very few books that spell out "how-to" create lasting
relationships with customers. Kevin Davis shows the reader that every
customer requires a different relationship style. The book offers a
practical methodology that will give the reader a significant
competitive advantage."
Gerhard Gschwandtner
founder and publisher
SellingPower
"Getting Into Your Customer's Head is the best selling process book I
have ever read. I would put it in the league of management books
written by Peter Drucker!"
Truman Netherton
Chief Operating Officer
A.W. Chesterton Company
"Getting Into Your Customer's Head got my salespeople to refocus on
our customers' buying process with a customer-centered, yet,
methodical approach to selling. We found the sections on analyzing our
market position and value proposition particularly beneficial."
Brent M. Jackson
Executive Vice President
Sales & Marketing
IXOS Software, Inc.
"Getting Into Your Customer's Head is a powerful sales process that
truly reflects how high-performing salespeople naturally sell. The
model is robust, yet easy to learn. That's why we're incorporating it
into our corporate sales skills training program as the way all IKON
salespeople will sell to customers in the future."
Peter Toennies
Vice President, Training & Development
IKON Office Solutions, Inc.
"Kevin Davis' sales methodology is a must for any organization wanting
to get the most out of their account management system. It has helped
us create, manage, and win more complex, multi-level sales
opportunities.
Chuck Novotny
Eastern Zone Vice President
QuadraMed Corporation
"If you've ever felt bewildered as to why a customer didn't buy from
you, this book has the answer. It's a common sense approach to
dissecting the sales process that we've found meaningful to all
functional organizations in our company."
Mark VanZanten
Corporate Vice President, Sales
Fujitsu Microelectronics, Inc.
"Sales success is tied directly to getting into your customer's head.
Kevin Davis' strategies and techniques guide you through to the
ultimate goal of enhanced customer enthusiasm and increased
commissions."
Jack Morrone
Vice President, Sales
Pitney Bowes Management Services
"Simply perfect. Kevin Davis' unique methodology and process for
understanding the customer will show salespeople how to differentiate
themselves from the competition. By applying this approach, everyone
involved - customers, suppliers and salespeople - will get what they
want in terms of value, quality and benefits."
Thomas Smith
Executive Vice President, director of professional education
CB Commercial Real Estate Group, Inc.
Author, Winning in Commercial Real Estate Sales:
An Action Plan for
Success
"Getting Into Your Customer's Head has credibility as its foundation.
Kevin Davis has been on the front lines as a very successful sales
representative and sales manager and brings the experience of the real
world to this book. Lanier, with its line of digital products, is
developing long-term consultative relationships with our customers,
and Getting Into Your Customer's Head will be highly useful to our
sales force as we make this transition."
Wesley Cantrell
President and CEO, Lanier Worldwide
