2006 Q1 Book Review
Hope is Not a Strategy
by Rick Page
This book incorporates the best practices from successful practitioners in the areas of consultative, competitive, political and team selling into a single, strategic process for winning sales by selling solutions.
According to the author, the models of buyer-seller relationships are changing rapidly, with the latest impacts coming from five major selling transformations. These transformations include product commoditization, disintermediation, e-commerce, customer relationship management and business partnering. Each transformation is explored in detail.
Particularly noteworthy is the shrinking half-life of technology resulting in the window of competitive advantage for products getting narrower. This means that differentiation often lies in the extended solution, including services, integration, partnerships, supply chain, financing – or trust.
This book provides a very good overview of the complex sale and recommends specific approaches that lead to solutions for the client. The chapter on linking solutions to pain or gain should be of particular benefit to any reader.