From the Inside Flap
Selling is everyone's business. We're all affected by it every day of our lives, surrounded by things that have been bought and sold, each one satisfying a different, specific need. So if selling makes the world go round, then why does it have such a lousy reputation? Many customers are wary of those who call on them, and salespeople often feel adrift and unsupported in their roles.
Many companies, focused myopically on the bottom line, have ignored the importance and potential of the selling function. But no amount of cost cutting and streamlining operations can grow revenues. Today, selling is at the very heart of a winning business.
In Championship Selling, three of North America's most respected sales leaders offer new ways of understanding the sales function, and of engaging the whole company around top-line growth. From the boardroom to the front lines, this fresh approach focuses on developing selling skills into critical instruments of success and business building.
Championship Selling offers a powerful, yet remarkably simple, vision of what it means to sell, as well as innovative approaches and tools for establishing mutually productive relationships with customers. It outlines proven principles, processes, and exercises to help salespeople and their companies evolve from a transactional mentality to a transformational one, for better long-term results. Transactional selling--the desperate attempt to get a foot in the door, close the deal and move on--is a thing of the past. Championship Selling focuses on listening to, and working with, the customer to build strategic solutions that create enduring value for both sides.
Championship Selling
- Provides a clear blueprint to follow for building a championship organization around the selling function to vault past competitors into new levels of sustainable advantage.
- Introduces the Performance Pyramid, a roadmap that sales professionals, executives, managers, and trainers can use to develop customer-centric thinking.
- Features numerous examples, as well as self-assessment scorecards, sample action plans, and other practical tools to help readers hone their selling skills, and create succinct, compelling messages tailored to the customer.
- Includes "10 Questions for Reflection" at the end of each chapter in Part Two to help you build your own plan for sales success.
- Shows you how to accelerate growth--and sustain it--by following the Championship Selling game plan.
About the Authors
Founder, President & CEO of Optimé International, Tom Blake has nearly three decades of experience in leadership, development and sales, including 18 years with Procter & Gamble. Tom's blend of candor, enthusiasm and inspiration has helped numerous organizations achieve breakthrough results in business and personal development. Tom and his wife Suzanne live in Toronto and have four children and two grandchildren.
Tom Hodson is Executive Vice President of Optimé International, where he spearheads the company's strategic consulting practice, advising top companies throughout North America on sales and marketing issues. Prior to joining Optimé, Tom enjoyed a successful 16-year career as a top sales and customer marketing leader for Procter & Gamble. Tom and his wife Joanne live with their four children in Calgary, Alberta.
Tony Enrico is Vice President of Optimé International's U.S. consulting practice. Before joining Optimé, Tony spent 15 years with Johnson & Johnson, where he was consistently recognized as a top performer in a variety of sales and senior leadership roles. Tony and his wife Michelle live with their two sons in Coto de Caza, California.
