Miller Heiman : The New Successful Large Account Management

The New Successful Large account Management is the third book in the Miller Heiman series of strategic selling. The focus is on the large customers which constitute more than 50% of the total revenue.

One of the main messages is how important it is in the new competitive environment to climb as high as possible on the Buy-Sell hierarchy in order to maximize the relationship and value potential moving away from the commoditized product selling status.

The Buy-Sell hierarchy consists of 5 levels:
- Deliver commodity that meets specifications
- Deliver good products and services
- Provide good service and support
- Contribute to business issues
- Contribute to organizational issues

The whole book is centered on building an account plan that can deliver this promise and which contains the following elements:

- Field of Play
- Account team
- Buy-Sell hierarchy
- Strategic players
- Trends and Opportunities
- Strengths and vulnerabilities
- Charter statement and Goals
- Focus investments and Stop investments
- Revenue target

Large account management is a team effort that transcends the pure selling function: it increasingly becomes an entrepreneurial , external business unit driven style of activity.

As in the previous Miller Heiman books the same principles are advocated:

- importance to strive for win/win value creation
- importance to follow a process driven and constantly reviewed methodology

Miller Heiman: The New Conceptual Selling

"The New Conceptual Selling" complements "The New Strategic Selling" as it deals with the tactical implementation of the sales strategy. It provides guidelines and tools for the sales professional how to prepare, conduct and assess sales calls.

The sales call is split into 3 different parts:

- Getting information

- Giving information

- Getting commitment

The main focus points are:

- Product versus Concept sales

- The four question types

- Golden silence

- Basic issues

- Joint venture versus unilateral selling

- Valid business reason

- Differentiation and Unique Strengths

- Best/minimum action commitment

- Credibility

The main principles are the necessity for the sales person to do everything from the buyer’s point of view and to always strive for a Win/Win result.

The usual Miller Heiman teaching method is followed: theory is complemented with personal workshops during which a practical case is prepared.


 

Jim Holden: The Selling Fox

The third book in Holden's Power Base series zooms in on the tactical aspects of fox-like selling. It is a field guide for the top-performing sales professional providing techniques and methods needed to become a selling fox. This book is very different from the 2 previous ones - Power Base Selling and World Class Selling - which take a high-level, strategic view of modern selling. The Selling Fox comes down to the field, showing how selling foxes react in real live situations. It is an important complement to the Power Base theory as any selling activity inevitably involves hands-on face-to-face contact with the prospective customer. 

Main topics:

- Closing, trial close, blocking and trapping
- Indirect sales strategy
- Loss recovery plans and techniques
- De-installing a competitor
- Qualifying opportunities

The ultimate aim of the book is to teach how to become a Selling Fox using assessment tools and personal development plans.

Jim Holden: World Class Selling

World Class Selling builds on the "Power Base selling" bestseller introducing the concept of Value Chain Management and the need for integrated sales, marketing, human resources and technology functions as required by the currrent day market place. The book is written according to the new technique of personal dimensioning which helps to convey the messages more powerfully.

A key concept throughout the book is the Four-Stage Customer model which describes 4 stages in the value chain model:

- Commodity Value Level

- Solutions Value Level

- Business Value level

- Strategic Value level

The aim for every company should be the move their sales approach up the value chain helping customers deliver more value to their customers. The strategic level involves building partnerships which takes sales well beyond the transaction level, getting involved in helping building the value strategy of the customer. In order to be able to do this the supplier needs to transform its organisation towards a truly value centered structure where marketing and sales cooperate at the value level, technology ensures a cost-effective automation of the value driven sales processes and human resources guarantees the right sales currency and competencies are available.

Throughout the whole book the political dimensions of the value-centric transformation are at the forefront, with special attention to the role of foxes and the power base.