Insight Selling

To find out what separates winning sellers from runners-up, Mike Schultz and John E. Doerr analyzed over 700 business-to-business purchases by buyers with $3.1 billion in combined annual purchasing power. Comparing winners with second-place finishers, they found that winners sell in a radically different way. Even as buyers treat offerings as interchangeable, insight sellers still win at strong prices and margins. Their model has three levels drawn from what buyers said tipped the decision: connect, linking customer needs to solutions and relating to buyers as people; convince, showing maximum return, acceptable risk and the best option; and collaborate, bringing new ideas and acting as one team with the buyer. They also argue that much popular sales advice can hurt results.

Gord Smith, a partner at Hitachi Solutions, praised it as a rare sales book destined to last.