| Scenario
Selling Summary
In
the book's final chapter, we replay the core themes of the book. This
provides a summary which may be useful to pull together the many separate
and interdependent parts which make up the Scenario
Selling concept. It may also be valuable as a “quick start”
guide.
Death of the Salesman?
There
is increasing pressure for all parties to a sale to prove their value
or be eliminated. Some experts make compelling arguments that we don’t
need salespeople at all. The Internet provides a 24-hour storefront and
customer service access. Many sales positions have been eliminated as
companies reduce or de-emphasize their sales force in favor of technology-based
alternative channels, particularly the Internet.
Technology and Selling
Technology will not replace all salespeople, but it will continue to replace
many sales functions and change the way that salespeople create value.
Why
Consultative Selling Must Be Surpassed
It’s increasingly true that professional selling involves planning.
(You’re either planning or you’re pitching.) The current paradigm
for professional selling, consultative selling, doesn’t easily accommodate
the use of technological planning tools in the sales process. Attempts
to integrate the two end up causing delays, providing a poor customer
experience, and killing sales. There must be a better way.
Fast-Professional Selling Is No Longer a Paradox
Conventional selling suggests that selling is either fast and impersonal
or slow and professional.
Competitive pressures and consumer expectations demand that we find a
way to bridge the gap. If professional selling is going to survive it
must evolve to become both fast and professional. But how?
Many people equate selling faster with high-pressure/less professional
selling. We’ve talked to many professionals who said, “I can’t
do it faster. It’ll make it look too easy. They’ll think I
don’t do anything.” This is particularly true of and difficult
for sales consultants and advisors who bill for their time.
Some salespeople are concerned that performing the sales process start
to finish faster might make customers think that they are not receiving
the best possible service or product…that the salespersons value
is directly related to time. But one of the paradigm shifting rules of
the Digital Age is that value creation is now inversely related to the
time involved.
The manufacturing world got a rude awakening on this subject in the 1980s.
The quality movement proved that this is not true. In fact, adding time
can lead to increased errors and reduced quality, resulting in a less
effective and more costly process for all involved.
Just-in-Time Methods and Tools
Fast-professional selling can be accomplished through the application
of lean thinking (just-in-time) principles
and tool. When you integrate technology into professional selling, you
do more than simply add tools. You fundamentally change the process. Professional
selling in the future must become technology-based to bridge the fast-professional
divide.
Reengineering
Is Required
This requires reengineering both the methods and tools of selling. Re-engineering
is a process that requires us to start over. When we start over with selling,
what principles do we base our new model on?
Selling as a Social Science
We have to start out by defining what selling is. To provide selling the
legitimacy it deserves we based it on our definition of scientific principles.
We view selling as a social science, like psychology, economics, and management
science. It’s a helping profession in which professional helpers
(salespeople) work with consumers to help them solve problems and make
decisions. What types of problems do people need help with that require
the assistance of professional helpers?
The TOP (Type of Problem) Model
Problems can be broken down into four basic types based on the amount
of information and experience required to solve them. The four types are:
Simple, Complicated, Complex, and Hyper-Complex. The types of problems/decisions
where human helpers provide the greatest value are ‘experiential’—complex
and hyper-complex problems. What’s required to understand and solve
these problems?
The Relationship Between Goals and Possibilities
You can’t put goals before possibilities when people don’t
know what they want. When you’re dealing with complex problems,
people don’t know what they want!
Complexity and Selling
Technological
advances reduce (or replace) the value that salespeople provide for most
types of problems. Most salespeople don’t have the knowledge, tools,
and skills to help clients solve complex problems.
It’s difficult (and maybe impossible) to replace the role of human
helpers when people are trying to solve highly complex problems. Scenario
Selling represents the only type of sales problem-solving model where
people cannot be replaced by technology.
A Learning Approach
Traditional linear (strategic) problem solving tactics are ineffective
when trying to solve complex problems. A learning approach is required.
Scenario Selling changes selling from a sellerdirected (teaching) process
to a buyer-directed (learning) process. Selling is a learning process
for both the buyer and the seller. Selling requires a buying decision
to take place. Decision-making is the result of a learning process. The
types of problems that clients need a salesperson’s help with require
a collaborative learning approach.
Seller as Buying Facilitator
How does the seller’s role change when we redefine selling as a
learning process? A collaborative learning approach to selling changes
the salesperson’s role from expert resource (seller as consultant
or teacher) to expert facilitator. Fulfilling this new role requires new
knowledge, skills, and tools.
Knowledge and Skills Required
A collaborative learner-centered approach to selling may look unstructured,
but requires a higher level of skill and preparation than a teacher-directed
approach to selling. It requires understanding of and belief in the process.
Tools Required = Decision Flight Simulators
Collaboration requires a shared space between the buyer and seller—a
place for them to work, make changes, and create together. Interactive
multimedia tools like computers and projectors provide an ideal medium
for collaboration. Collaboration with multimedia technologies turns the
sales process into a session of visual interactive play, not child’s
play, but serious play. Decision Flight Simulators describes a new class
of tools designed to help clients and advisors work together during a
planning-selling process.
Improving the Customer’s Sales Experience
Collaborative play redefines the customer sales experience. In the increasingly
competitive global marketplace, there is no place for sales processes
or people that make buying difficult or painful for consumers. Buying/selling
methods that make the process engaging, enticing, and entertaining will
have a distinct advantage over those that don’t.
Scenario
Selling Principles
Scenario Selling has the following characteristics:
-
Done Just-in-Time.
-
Uses computer technology.
-
Uses simulation.
-
Done in front of customer.
-
Solves a complex or hyper-complex, systems problem.
-
Uses possibility planning, not goal-based planning.
-
Incorporates customer in any necessary analysis of situation.
Accelerating Trust
It is true that time can build trust. But it is not true that trust takes
time. It’s a matter of misperception regarding what comes first—the
feeling of trust or the act of trusting. Trust can be built stronger and
faster with the proper application of E.S.P. (Environment, Skills, and
Process).
Why Scenario Selling Is Inevitable
Given the pace and volume of change, learning is the key to staying competitive
for both individuals and organizations. The biggest challenge today is
not getting an education, it’s keeping one. We need to keep updating
our knowledge and skills throughout our entire working lives.
To succeed today, all businesses and their employees must continually
reshape themselves, shift, and flex to fit a rapidly changing world. They
must adapt, adjust, and adopt new technologies and procedures.
Why Scenario Selling Is Imperative
Technological advances are changing the way people create value. Salespeople
must adapt and evolve if they are to survive. Professional selling has
evolved from consultative to collaborative. ‘Selling to’ is
out. ‘Selling with’ is in. Salespeople need new knowledge,
skills, and tools to make this transition.
Scenario
Selling describes the theory, methods, and tools required to collaborate
effectively with customers. It redefines the role of the salesperson and
the skills required to survive and thrive in the Digital Age.
Are you ready to make the investment?
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