Name: New Solution Selling
ISBN: 9780071435390

What Hacker News says

mindcrimeJun 2023

(if I was solving a real pain point, ppl would have been much more responsive).

I would not bet on the veracity of this statement. There are lots of reasons why people might not respond, even though you are addressing a legitimate pain point. There's a reason why selling software is difficult. It could be as simple as you need to learn more about selling, of find a natural sales-person to partner with.

OTOH, it is possible that you missed the mark on your initial assessment and wound up having people tell you what they thought you wanted to hear, to avoid conflict, or for all of the other reasons people tell "innocent lies".

My advice would be to take a few days, read The Mom Test and The Four Steps to the Epiphany and maybe The New Solution Selling and then spend some time pondering what to do.

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mindcrimeMar 2023

One could write a book on this. In point of fact, there are a lot of books on this topic. I'd suggest you consult The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank, the series by Jeff Thull that begins with Mastering The Complex Sale, and The New Solution Selling by Keith Eades.

As for some specific, tactical gambits you can use, here's one I've gotten some mileage out of: browse LinkedIn for people who used to work for companies you want to find out more about. Cold contact them, explain that you're researching $COMPANY and that you were hoping they could share some insights. I find that this is often better than contacting current employees, because the ex-employees don't get that defensive "guards up" thing from this kind of engagement, since you're not - by definition - trying to sell them anything.

Then, armed with whatever information you glean from these calls (which ideally will include some suggested names of people to contact!) you can make contact with the target $COMPANY.

Even better, if the call with the ex-employee goes really well, they may offer to (or be willing to, if prompted) actually make an introduction to somebody they are still in touch with at the target. This can go a long way towards greasing the wheels and getting an "in" there. It won't always happen, but it does sometimes IME. Or if they aren't willing to actually make an introduction, they may at least agree to let you name-drop their name, as in "Hey, Bob, I was talking to Susy who you used to work with, and she mentioned your name as somebody I should talk to about X..."

Just don't do the "name drop" thing without explicitly getting permission from the person in question first. Doing otherwise is unethical and if the person you ping happens to call their good friend Susy and she says "I did talk to that guy, but I certainly didn't give him permission to use my name" then you're going to find yourself persona non grata real quick.

Anyway, if you read some of the books I mentioned above, one common theme you'll see revolves around doing a lot of research on your target companies before making contact. Doing that takes more effort, but it's also more likely to pay off, since people are more likely to respond to people they perceive as offering legitimate value as opposed to people sending blast spam.

Note: but don't do the generic thing of trying to make it sound like you did your research without actually having done any! Think about how you feel when you get messages that start with something like "Hey, Centigonal, I've been researching Centigonal Inc and I love what you guys are doing in your space, and I think I could help you generate an extra 10,000 high quality leads every month..." Blah, blah, blah. To me, those things are 100% "auto delete on sight" since the person not only obviously didn't do any research, but on top of that they lied about it. Dishonesty is not the best way to initiate a relationship.

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claforteFeb 2018

I recommend Solution Selling or The New Solution Selling. I was an engineer with limited sales experience and it gave me a good base for enterprise sales.

But I'd advise you try your best to shortcut the long and complex sales cycle unless you have lots of upfront cash to burn.

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mindcrimeSep 2015

I'm a fan of The Challenger Sale, The New Solution Selling and all three books by Jeff Thull: Mastering The Complex Sale, Exceptional Selling and The Prime Solution. I really like Thull's approach, especially his "always be leaving" mindset, as opposed to the old "always be closing" idea. Thull's thinking is much more focused on providing an authentic and honest experience, and genuinely trying to help the customer - as opposed to stuff about how to "trick" the customer into saying yes.

I also like a lot of what I've read from Jeffrey Gittomer and Grant Cardone.

Oh, and The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes as well. He (Chet H.) did a series of videos with Anthony Robbins that is really good. I really recommend watching those.

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aikDec 2012

Few books from this year:

The New Solution Selling -- The first sales book I ever read and extremely enlightening. It demystified much of the sales process for me.

The Intelligent Investor -- Timeless ideas on investing.

Steve Jobs -- I had no intention of reading this book but found it incredibly interesting. Very insightful.

The Intelligent Entrepreneur -- This book followed 3 HBS grads from pre-HBS to entrepreneur success, and attempted to draw some overarching conclusions on what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. Very interesting.

Name of the Wind -- The only fully fiction book I read this year. Great book. Waiting on the 3rd to come out before I read the second in the series.

Dreaming in Code -- I'd heard great things about this book but I felt it was very lacking in insight. Some interesting moments but overall a disappointment. Perhaps it is because I read it after ~6 years of professional programming experience + 4 years of school + a number of other programming books?

Teaching Minds -- Roger Schank's latest book on education. In this one he outlines key cognitive abilities that education should be centered around rather than subjects. Very interesting.

A Concise Guide to Macroeconomics -- I had read very little macroeconomics, and this book provided a very readable and quick guide on the basics.

Bounce (by Matthew Syed) -- Great book about how great performers became great performers. This goes back to the nurture vs nature debate, and sides very heavily on the nurture side. Syed was an olympic ping pong player from the UK.

The Willpower Instinct -- I'm still reading this one (with my wife), and find it to be unbelievably insightful. If you have any desires to change any habits or behaviors, this book is incredible.

The Innovator's Solution -- The book after The Innovators Dilemma. Very insightful, just like the previous one.

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mindcrimeFeb 2011

For reference, a related question from Quora: http://www.quora.com/What-are-good-or-classic-books-on-selli...

I asked around the sales crew here at my $DAYJOB about this a few days ago, and heard good things about SPIN Selling and The New Solution Selling, FWIW.

Sales people also always seem to cite Cialdini's Influence.

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