Sales is about building a mutually beneficial relationship between a buyer and a seller. In the past, this was often depicted as an unbalanced relationship, where the seller’s goal was to convince the customer to buy a product or service by any means necessary—essentially “pushing” a product to the buyer. Fortunately over time, this has evolved into a more balanced relationship, where both the seller and the customer stand on more equal ground, and customers can choose the product or service—a solution—that meets their needs. This more collaborative approach, known as “value selling,” naturally follows the two preceding steps of value creation and value pricing.
Value selling is not just about selling a product or service once; Instead it is focused on creating a long-term relationship that encourages customers to return to your company and become advocates for your brand and solutions. Therefore, value selling involves the efforts a company makes to collaborate with its customers and sustain the relationship built at the time of the first purchase and well beyond. Creating a unique and successful customer experience has become a key mission for most companies.
Selling is both art and expertise. Over the years, techniques have evolved significantly, and the entire sales ecosystem has transformed considerably. Today multiple sales channels can be utilized simultaneously, while training and sales techniques are continuously developed. As a result, salespeople now work less as isolated individuals and more as integral members of sales teams. In this short chapter, the objective is not to describe the latest sales techniques but rather to explore the various connections between marketing and sales and how each can learn from the other.
There are multiple dimensions to Value Selling. To begin with, the transformation of selling practices from product-pushing to solution-selling has taken more than a century of development, including advancements in social sciences, information technology, market research, and marketing methodologies. As a result, today’s selling techniques are significantly different from those of the past. This transformation has been driven by many innovators, and now Artificial Intelligence is undoubtedly joining this wave of evolution.
A famous book published in 1936 by Dale Carnegie, “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, revolutionized the approach for salespeople, who developed their skills to listen efficiently to their customers.
The focus shifted to allowing customers to share their needs and ensuring they felt heard. Carnegie’s approach emphasized empathy and listening techniques to learn directly from customers about their needs and expectations. Investing time to listen to customers, even when the conversation seems unrelated to the product under discussion, is a clear recommendation. By carefully listening and giving customers the space to express their needs, salespeople can gain deep insights into the real motivations behind a purchase—the “why” of the decision. This approach goes beyond simple sympathy or empathy; it creates opportunities for customers to share their most important expectations. Compared to the competition, a salesperson who masters these techniques gains more understanding of their customers and becomes a trusted partner or advisor. Indeed, empathy alone can make a significant difference.
Continuing with the theme of customer attention, many techniques recommend carefully understanding customer needs, especially in complex deals involving multiple stakeholders. “Solution Selling: Creating Buyers in Difficult Selling Markets” by Michael T. Bosworth (1993) is one such method to ensure customer needs are well understood, particularly in complex transactions.
Today, many sales techniques are now deployed to learn from customers. For instance, market segmentation can help ensure customers are welcomed and addressed appropriately. Tools to validate needs can reassure customers of the salesperson’s attention to their requirements. Marketing has much to gain by ensuring sales can develop valuable relationships with customers. Personalization of the transaction is one of those benefits that emerged as a significant trend in many countries, starting with the movement initiated by Dale Carnegie.
Early in the sales process, most customers have not yet clearly defined their needs and are eager for information and assistance to structure their projects. They may not even have a specific purchase project in mind. At this stage, the role of a salesperson is to act as an advisor, helping the customer identify their needs and develop a purchase plan. Importantly, this is also an opportunity for a skilled salesperson to lay the groundwork for future sales arguments.
However, the salesperson is not the only possible advisor. Studies have shown that other individuals, such as peers who already use the product or solution, experts, and influencers, often have greater influence on customer decisions. In short, while salespeople can recommend solutions and convey messages, other roles may be more effective at solidifying concepts or guiding customers’ decisions. In many markets, leveraging experts, influencers, and organizing trade shows are simple yet impactful strategies to engage with customers effectively. Consequently, a wise salesperson will involve these individuals to communicate essential messages.
Marketing can also play a critical role by providing key information to support sales efforts. Market data, competitive analysis, and expert documentation can significantly enhance day-to-day sales activities. Specifically, identifying experts or event sites can be particularly valuable in complex sales scenarios.
In the effort to understand customer needs, the concept of “solution” has emerged. Michael Bosworth’s book, Solution Selling (1993), challenged the traditional product-centric approach by introducing the idea of the “solution.” Rather than simply promoting a product, the focus shifted to how a solution could meet the customer’s needs. This represented a complete paradigm shift with significant implications. From the customer’s perspective, the goal is to understand how the solution will deliver capability to help them achieve their objectives. For marketing, it requires adopting the customer perspective to evaluate and compare solutions from both the company and the competition. The salesperson’s role is to ensure that the proposed solution matches the customer’s needs.
Solutions are not just defined by their purchase price; many other economic factors can influence the buying decision, such as overall performance, return on investment, or residual value. For example, consider two solutions, one of which offers greater reliability and significant uptime. Even if this solution has a higher acquisition price, it might still be the preferred choice because of its long-term benefits.
The creation of a sales pipeline structures sales into multiple steps, starting with prospecting, then moving to leads, and advancing to opportunities once the budget is confirmed, continuing through various stages until the deal is concluded. Therefore, building a sales pipeline is essential for developing a funnel of opportunities, where some leads mature into either won or lost deals.
Sales funnels are now commonly managed by CRM systems that support the sales team. For instance, Salesforce.com provides a detailed approach to sales pipeline stages:
https://www.salesforce.com/ca/hub/sales/what-are-the-stages-of-a-sales-pipeline/
One of the major benefits of managing sales funnels for sales teams is the ability to handle multiple customers simultaneously, each at different stages of the sales pipeline. Moreover, for sales management, it’s crucial to maintain a constant and stable flow of sales activity, with clear visibility into which deals are likely to close at any given time.
Managing sales activities is also highly valuable for marketing to assess market presence, analyze competitive forces, and continually improve sales tools while sharing best practices across the teams. This structured process involves multiple stages, from lead creation to opportunity identification, needs assessment, and many others, right up to the final decision. It’s considered wise to incorporate additional steps to ensure there is ongoing follow-up with the customer, even long after the solution has been initially implemented.
Early Prospecting
At the beginning of the process, when prospecting, customers are not yet organized to make a purchase. They are open to receiving information and usually seek support to assess their needs. Until they have structured their budget, needs, or requirements, they remain open to informal support. For smart salespeople, this is the best time to develop valuable relationships with customers. During this early period, customers are eager for information and help to define or structure a project and validate their needs. Providing honest and useful information at this stage can be very beneficial. Some anchors for a future decision can be established and referenced later when the argument is most relevant. Salespeople who engage with customers early in the process often find them again later, happy to reconnect with their first contact who was so helpful during their time of uncertainty. Ultimately such salespeople position their company to win long before a deal is ready to be signed.
Advisory Role and Customer Engagement
When the customer’s budget is assigned, and initial requirements are defined, it’s time to involve additional resources to assist in making recommendations. Customers will value this effort as they move closer to a purchasing decision. By adopting an advisory role early in the process, especially by involving existing customers who appreciate your solutions, you can foster long-term trust.
It is important to note that the sales pipeline does not end with the sale itself. The ultimate goal is to delight the customer and build a long-term relationship, encouraging the customer to repurchase from you and recommend your solutions to others.
To achieve this, sales teams need tools and methods to address the various phases of the sales pipeline. They might require scripts, examples, resources, or support from colleagues. In this regard, marketing can play a crucial role in these interactions, facilitating the sharing of best practices across the team.
Before the introduction of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, salespeople managed their customer interactions with great attention in a highly personal manner. When a salesperson left the company, it often posed a significant challenge, as crucial customer information would typically leave with them. The primary role of a salesperson was to close deals, earning recognition as a respected sales champion—a hero. 
However, times have changed. While salespeople can still be seen as heroes, they now work within teams, collaborating with multiple colleagues depending on the complexity of the deal, and strategizing together to win customers.
This shift is largely due to the increasing complexity of deals, which now require multiple sales professionals to bring together their diverse skills and expertise with the shared objective of closing the deal. Consequently, this transformation has also affected customers, who now work as teams comprising individuals with different roles and varied needs.
Over the past two decades, numerous authors have proposed methods to better understand customer needs and identify the decision-making process—specifically, who the decision-makers are and how they make their choices. By using this approach, sales teams can master the timing of the final customer decision. In the past, a common mistake was to misidentify a single person as the decision-maker, only to later discover that the actual decision-maker had already been approached by competitors. Another frequent error was presenting a final offer to a customer, only to have a higher-level executive unexpectedly request a larger discount at the last minute. These solution-selling techniques make such mistakes much less likely to occur.
The evolution from individual salespeople as solitary heroes to today’s collaborative sales environment has been gradual. Nowadays, salespeople are no longer lone heroes handling every aspect of the final decision by themselves. Success now often comes from teams that effectively communicate and leverage their combined skills, knowledge, and resources, making them collectively more powerful than any single individual.
Sales disciplines refer to those moments when sales teams coordinate and share information among themselves. Typically, this might involve a kick-off meeting held once a week to discuss future deals, review past deals, and align strategies among the team members.
Such meetings also present an opportunity to update one another on new solutions for sales.
These regular gatherings help to build visibility into team performance and facilitate managing activities across the sales organization. Furthermore, they also serve as a platform to address challenges posed by competitors. Although these meetings are formal due to their scheduled nature, they maintain an informal style that fosters open communication. Indeed, they are some of the most efficient and valuable training opportunities, where teams discuss real sales scenarios, share strategies for success, and quickly exchange information about competitive moves. As a result, these sessions help clarify critical sales topics without delay.
There are numerous books that discuss the transition from product-focused to solution-oriented sales practices. Especially in complex sales scenarios, where individuals collaborate as a team, common, shared, and agreed-upon practices are essential. These resources are instrumental in encouraging team members to work together, maximizing overall team performance far beyond the capacity of any individual.
“How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie (1936)
Carnegie’s book is a foundational text in sales, focusing on the importance of interpersonal skills. Specifically, it highlights the value of building relationships, understanding others’ perspectives, and the art of persuasion in the sales process.
“SPIN Selling” by Neil Rackham (1988)
Rackham’s book transformed the approach to selling complex products. He introduced the SPIN method, which emphasizes asking probing questions to uncover the buyer’s situation, problems, and the implications of those problems. By understanding these factors, salespeople can better address the buyer’s needs and highlight the benefits of their offerings. As a result, this method shifted the focus from a hard sell to a consultative approach.
“Selling to the C-Suite: What Every Salesperson Needs to Know to Sell Successfully to Top Executives” by Nicholas A.C. Read and Stephen J. Bistritz (2009)
This book provides guidance for selling to high-level executives, a challenging task due to their complexity and decision-making power. It offers strategies for establishing credibility and gaining approval from top-level executives. The key takeaway is that successful selling in this context demands a strong grasp of business strategy and the ability to effectively communicate the value of the product or service to executives.
“Solution Selling: Creating Buyers in Difficult Selling Markets” by Michael T. Bosworth (1993)
Bosworth’s “Solution Selling” places emphasis on deeply understanding the customer’s problems and providing customized solutions rather than simply promoting products. This approach is particularly effective in complex, high-pressure sales scenarios where addressing customer pain points is crucial. The key principle is that successful selling involves identifying customer needs and presenting your offering as the ideal solution to those needs, rather than focusing solely on product features.
“Strategic Selling: The Unique Sales System Proven Successful by the World’s Best Companies” by Robert B. Miller and Stephen E. Heiman (1985)
Miller and Heiman’s “Strategic Selling” is a fundamental text in complex sales. It introduced the idea of selling to multiple decision-makers and offered strategies for mapping out these stakeholders, understanding their influence, and addressing their individual needs. The book emphasizes the importance of a strategic approach in complex sales, involving the identification of all decision-makers and influencers, and tailoring the sales process to meet their specific requirements.
“The New Solution Selling: The Revolutionary Sales Process That is Changing the Way People Sell” by Keith M. Eades (2003)
This updated version of Bosworth’s original “Solution Selling,” offers new tools and techniques to address today’s competitive and complex markets. It refines the solution-focused approach by emphasizing the importance of aligning the sales process with the buyer’s journey. The key concept is that successful selling involves not only identifying solutions but also ensuring they align with the buyer’s specific processes and decision-making stages.
“The New Strategic Selling: The Unique Sales System Proven Successful by the World’s Best Companies” by Robert B. Miller, Stephen E. Heiman, and Tad Tuleja (1998)
This updated version of “Strategic Selling” expands on the original concepts by addressing modern challenges like globalization and technological change. It reinforces the importance of a structured, strategic approach to managing complex sales cycles. The core idea is that successful selling in a complex environment requires a deep understanding of the customer’s organization and the ability to skillfully navigate multiple stakeholders.
Of course, many other books are essential readings. Please feel free to share the recommendations you’d like to see on this site.
Marketing and Sales have evolved hand in hand gradually, developing solid techniques where the boundaries between the two can become blurred. In today’s environment, sales teams must demonstrate how their solution brings value to their customers and must also use marketing techniques to support and help customers determine their real needs.
Ultimately, the entire approach to value selling should aim to answer the “why” question of the customer: why an investment should be made. Although answering the “what” and “how” questions is certainly practical and useful, but not as crucial as addressing the “why” question.
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Numerous techniques have been developed to support sales activities and continuously optimize the sales funnel and sales process, fostering strong collaboration across the various functions of sophisticated sales organizations. Several of these techniques are discussed throughout this chapter.
Value selling is not simply the final step after solution creation, pricing, and selling. In reality, it is a continuous cycle—where value creation is rooted in the current market, existing solutions, and the techniques used to sell them. Marketing and sales techniques are in constant dialogue, learning from and informing each other. For example, advancements in listening techniques have greatly benefited both marketing and sales, helping teams better understand and respond to customer needs.
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