We undertook a proprietary, global 12-year study of more than 28,000 B2B selling professionals and 50,000 competitive deal reviews. This research was conducted to help sellers better understand and replicate high performing sales behavior.
These winning behaviors focused on increasing customer loyalty and winning competitive market share on a more predictable, consistent basis. We uncovered that most teams are comprised of four distinct types of sellers.
Stage I and II sellers (80% of all sellers) have not evolved much past “information provider” status. Stage III and IV sellers (20%) are the most advanced and go beyond mere “solution selling” to becoming true compete sellers and customer advisors. These high performing sellers all exhibit game-changing sales habits.
These are the people who have conversations about your company’s products and services. They react to demand and compete on service and product offerings.
Stage II sellers also react to demand, but they know how to elevate the conversation to bigger business issues. They compete through value positioning.
These are the people who understand how to read the political landscape of who to call and how to apply the right sales strategy. They don’t merely react to demand. Stage III sellers have conversations that lead to demand creation and compete through political support.
These are the exceptional sellers who’ve become so adept at all essential underlying skills that customers rely on them as trusted business advisors, putting your company in an entirely different league from the competition. They create demand by establishing a cultural value for what they’re selling.
Through identifying these stages, we started developing a way to move sellers upward. This has resulted in the Holden Adaptive Platform. This program, built on adult learning principles, can help every seller improve.
Contact us to learn how our research-based strategies can transform your team.