Dealstorming: The Secret Weapon That Can Solve Your Toughest Sales Challenges by Tim Sanders
Tim Sanders is a technology pioneer, conference keynote speaker and bestselling author of four other books including the New York Times bestseller “Love Is the Killer App: How To Win Business & Influence Friends,” which has been translated into over a dozen languages. His other books are “Today We Are Rich,” “The Likeability Factor” and “Saving the World at Work.”
He is a cofounder of the research consultancy Deeper Media, Inc.
And, little known fact – he once played in a rock band!
The Host’s Perspective:
The first chapter of “Dealstorming” is appropriately titled “It’s Getting Tougher Out There.”
In the chapter, Tim Sanders explains four primary reasons why the level of sales complexity is rising so much, so quickly:
First, sales are no longer belly to belly, where a strong sales pitch leads to a nodding head and and a signed contract. There are a lot more moving parts now, including the rising number of people involved in a B2B purchase and an increasing number of steps in the selling process.
Second, today’s prospects have abundant information at their fingertips to assist them in their purchase. With the advent of self-service research, the tables have turned on the B2B seller, who previously drove the conversation by being the sole party doling out key information that the buyer wanted.
Third, the products most of us are selling are increasingly complex. As a result, all these “cutting-edge” solutions being sold seem to require computer science and business degrees to understand. That’s also part of the reason why buying committees have to be formed – so that they can pool their expertise just to keep up with the pace of progress and understand the offerings.
Finally, the proliferation of competitors enabled by the rapidly falling costs of launching a startup is adding to the complexity. Thanks to the cloud, the crowd, and off-the-shelf digital technology, the number of competitors chipping away at your territory is growing exponentially.
So what is dealstorming and how does it address the challenges of the increasingly complex sales? Dealstorming is Tim Sanders’ term for a structured, scalable method that can break through any sales deadlock. He calls it a “Swiss Army Knife for today’s toughest sales challenges”. It’s a seven step problem-solving technique that he has developed over the last fifteen years into a repeatable, cyclical process that has been proven to be very successful.
In the book, Tim Sanders explains that in too many companies, the sales function is very siloed – often the most siloed department. These days, that’s increasingly a bad idea.
If your sales department is more lone wolf than pack animal, your organization is doing it the hard way. Based on various studies, world-class sales organizations were twice as likely to collaborate across departments to pursue and win big deals.
“Dealstorming” shows in great detail how to go about implementing this collaborative sales approach within your organization that can produce enormously profitable results when done correctly.
If the growing complexity of sales is making you bang your head against the wall and you’re ready to try something different that is proven to work, you might want to read “Dealstorming.”
Listen to the Interview:
Show Notes
“Dealstorming: The Secret Weapon That Can Solve Your Toughest Sales Challenges” by Tim Sanders
“Love: What Life Is All About” by Leo F. Buscaglia
“Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World” by General Stanley McChrystal, Tantum Collins, David Silverman, and Chris Fussell
“Customer Capitalism “ by Sandra Vandermerwe
“Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior” by Leonard Mlodinow
“The Challenger Customer” by Patrick Spenner (Marketing Book Podcast interview)
“Invisible Influence” by Jonah Berger (Marketing Book Podcast interview)
“Pre-Suasion” by Robert Cialdini (Marketing Book Podcast interview)
Tim Sander’s Website (TimSanders.com)
“DealStorming” (Third Chapter Excerpt)
Introducing “Dealstorming”:
* If Marketing wants to change the game, stop producing case studies and start producing stories, because the two are not the same!!
If you enjoy the show, please rate it on iTunes or Stitcher and write a brief (one sentence) review. That would help more people like you to discover the show.
