Our new book - Selling to the C-Suite - which I co-authored with Nic Read will be published by McGraw Hill and available in approximately 60 days - September 2009! It can already be pre-ordered at amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com and borders.com. Selling to the C-Suite is written from a combined 60 years of experience selling on corporate frontlines around the world. It is not only a comprehensive report of US-centric executive buying behaviors, but is the only truly global study of its kind for selling around the world. A number of sales executives and professionals around the world were given pre-release copies of the book and we were overwhelmed by their enthusiastic endorsement of it. Of the more than 40 comments we received, here are just two of them:

"The business world is drowning in a flood of sales books. The trouble is that most of these books are about how to sell, without a clue about how customers buy, and so they do more harm than good. This book is different. It is firmly rooted in how people buy and so it works. And an added bonus that particularly appeals to me; the book is based on research which makes it rare and welcome."

- NEIL RACKHAM, Author of SPIN Selling and thought leader on sales effectiveness.

"I finished this book in one sitting; it is easy to read and I was very impressed. It holds practical advice on how to get to the decision-makers in the context of sales but also applies in many other situations where the objective is influence. Having learned these lessons the hard way while transforming a Chinese State Owned Enterprise into a globally competitive business, I wish this book had been available when I first started!"

- GEOFF WATSON, Vice President, Alcoa China.

Here is a look at the Table of Contents for Selling to the C-Suite:

The book is based on empirical research. We couldn't find any books written on this topic that held anything more than personal anecdotes of what the writers of those books did in their glory days. While trips down Memory Lane may hold some value, they only tell you the salesperson's opinion about how executives buy. Nic and I wanted to dig deeper and get inside the heads of living, breathing executives to see what's really going on in there during the decision-making process. So we commissioned groundbreaking research of our own, and joined other projects where executive buying habits were the focus of study. Our efforts were joined by Hewlett Packard in North America, the Hewlett Packard Business School in Beijing China, Target Marketing Systems, the Kenan-Flagler School of Business at the University of North Carolina, and the Center for Business & Industrial Marketing at Georgia State University. After ten years delving into the executive brain, this book now reveals what C-Suite leaders in 500 diverse companies and government bodies said in response to those interviews and surveys.

Answers to the following five questions are direct benefits of reading this book:

• When do executives get involved in the buying process for major purchases?
• How do salespeople gain access to senior executives?
• How can salespeople establish credibility with executives?
• How can salespeople create value at the executive level?
• Is executive buying behavior consistent across cultures?

As business-to-business salespeople (the primary audience) do more of the things that senior executives respond to, they can command greater credibility, close more business and make more money.

Thousands of sales professionals have already field-tested these concepts. Nic and I decided the best way to test the research was to turn it into a training workshop and have salespeople around the world put it to the test, which they did in 2002. This book is a distillation of sales best practices tested in the real world.

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CCL is a one-day, fast-paced interactive workshop that focuses on helping professional salespeople develop an understanding of the impact of client loyalty and then to create loyalty-based relationships at executive levels in client organizations.

In these economic times, client retention is one of the most important areas that require focus by professional salespeople. It is far less expensive to retain existing clients than it is to acquire new clients. In addition, it has consistently been shown that loyal clients will contribute more in profitability over the long term, if executive-level relationships with those clients are cultivated.

Learning is supported by a compelling business case about a global manufacturer, RTC Technologies, and how the lack of cultivating client loyalty could result in losing future sales opportunities to a number of competitors, as well as the more important loss of a long-term client relationship. Participants study and review the case study as part of the pre-course assignment and then apply activities against the case study during the workshop.

Study and review of the case study are both instrumental to the success of the workshop. One of the reasons that the workshop is able to be delivered in one day is that all the participants are "on the same page" with respect to their knowledge and understanding of the case. Robust discussions about the case take place throughout the workshop.

An integral part of the workshop's success is the credibility of the facilitator. Each CCL workshop is delivered by an experienced facilitator with significant business-to-business sales experience. The workshop requires facilitators to apply their expertise throughout the day. Inevitably, sales issues not covered by the workshop content arise and each facilitator must rely on his or her sales or sales management experience to address those key issues. As a result, the workshop is very facilitator dependent and, for that reason, CCL facilitators are carefully selected, trained and certified to ensure their ability to address questions and problems that arise throughout the day.

The concepts and models used in CCL are, in part, based on the results of interviews and surveys with CXO-level executives to learn what it takes for salespeople to stand out from a sea of look-alike competitors. The developer of the CCL workshop has participated in original research over a ten-year period with the assistance of Hewlett-Packard Company, the Kenan Flagler Business School of the University of North Carolina and the Center for Business and Industrial Marketing at Georgia State University.

The research described in the paragraph above is an integral part of the book I co-authored with Nic Read - called Selling to the C-Suite. Salespeople who experience the CCL workshop will find out what CXO-level executives told us about what professional salespeople had to do to establish long-term relationships with them. Most importantly, they will find out what CXO-level executives told us about the benefits they actually received when they formed "partnerships" with strategic suppliers, versus what they thought they would receive when they initiated those partnerships.

The CCL workshop helps salespeople close the loyalty gap - by giving them tools to consistently demonstrate the value they do, in fact, deliver to client organizations.

For more information on the CCL workshop, click on this link: http://www.sellxl.com/index.php?pr=CCL

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I recently co-authored (with Karen Jackson) an article entitled: Selling to Executives: How to Stop Losing and Keep Winning! that was published in a recent edition of the Journal of Selling & Major Account Management.

The article discusses the four reasons that professional salespeople lose deals. Those four reasons are:

• Lack of relationships at the executive level
• Client is unconvinced of the service provider's level of commitment and/or credentials
• No clear strategies exist to effectively address the executive's risk sensitivity
• Inability to effectively articulate a compelling value proposition that accelerates the client's goals, objectives or aspirations

The article is contained on my website in two parts and is available for download at no charge - see the following two links:

http://www.sellxl.com/index.php?pr=How_to_Stop_Losing_1
http://www.sellxl.com/index.php?pr=How_to_Stop_Losing_2

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Making Rain: The Secrets of Building Lifelong Client Loyalty
By Andrew Sobel

Book Review by: Stephen J. Bistritz, Ed.D.

In my last SellXL Newsletter, I reviewed Andrew Sobel's new book: All for One: 10 Strategies for Building Trusted Client Partnerships. In my opinion, Sobel is one of the best current authors in providing insight into how to manage, cultivate and develop lasting client relationships.

Beginning with the book Clients for Life: How Great Professional Develop Breakthrough Relationships (which he co-authored with Jagdish Sheth). Sobel has taken us on a journey of best practices of how to develop lasting client relationships.

In Making Rain: The Secrets of Building Lifelong Client Loyalty, Sobel draws on extensive interviews with client executives to provide provocative insights on how to shed the expert-for-hire label and develop long term advisory relationships with executives. He argues that any professional can learn to "make rain" on an on-going basis with existing clients by developing a special set of skills, attitudes and strategies. These tips come from a recognized leader in the professional services space, but will enable any consultant, salesperson or service professional create sustainable client loyalty.

Based on building relationships, it starts with the key components of knowledge, service and demonstrative value: these are the building blocks that attract clients, according to Sobel. The book provides practical advice on how to go beyond a trusted advisor relationship with client executives and become the indispensable advisor. The principles behind his tactics are very simple: get to know your client, gain respect for that knowledge and win the personal respect of multiple executives within the client organization.

Clients are loyal to those professionals who create and deliver value, as well as building personal trust. Making Rain shows how to demonstrate those three ingredients of client loyalty at every stage of the business relationship. First, it illustrates how to break out of the expert-for-hire label and consistently win repeat business with the same client. Then you'll hear about the essential attributes of extraordinary client advisors, the six factors that create immediate personal rapport with a new client and the breakthrough strategies that can distinguish both you and your organization at the start of a business relationship.

In my opinion, there are very few worthwhile books about building client relationships and both of Sobel's books (Clients for Life and Making Rain) offer unique insights and deliver substantial value to the reader. Their main focus is how to differentiate yourself as a valued business professional in an increasingly competitive marketplace. In Making Rain, the historical case studies involving masters like Benjamin Franklin and Leonardo daVinci are educational and often very funny; but, in addition they offer tremendous insight into creating a network of loyal clients and colleagues.

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About Steve Bistritz

Steve Bistritz is founder and president of Learning Solutions International, an Atlanta-based sales training and consulting company that helps professional salespeople do a better job of creating, maintaining and leveraging relationships with senior-level client executives. Steve also has a powerful opportunity management workshop offering that has been described as "the next generation in opportunity management". Steve is available as a speaker for sales meetings and client conferences around the globe. He speaks on a variety of topics including the following:

• Selling at the Executive Level
• Establishing Credibility with Client Executives and Becoming a Trusted Advisor
• Developing Alignment with Key Client Executives
• Effectively Assessing Sales Opportunities

Click here to see video clips of Steve delivering his presentation on Selling at the Executive Level.

You can contact Steve by calling him in Atlanta (eastern time zone in the US) at (404) 256-1801 or sending him an email using steveb@sellxl.com

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