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Why Change Selling Blog

 

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4 min read

Why Salespeople Fail- Failure to Listen & Premature Elaboration

By Mark Gibson on Oct 27, 2021 11:23:06 AM

Earlier this month, I immersed myself in two and a half days with Mike Bosworth in his Story Seekers workshop and was once again reminded of what makes great salespeople great - their ability to connect emotionally with buyers and to truly listen.

I cannot easily summarize the 2.5 days in 600 words, but I can give you a couple of core ideas.

I've been a Mike Bosworth fan since I read Customer-Centric Selling in January 2005, but I had not read his prior work, “Solution Selling” published nearly 30 years ago, based on his experiences at Xerox and involvement in the SPIN project. Mike was one of the most successful reps in Xerox history at the time and gained much experience in selling, managing and training salespeople before most of us started our sales careers.

While reading his latest book, co-authored with Ben Zoldan, entitled, "What Great Salespeople Do", I could feel myself nodding as I could either see myself in the stories, or agreed with his ideas and training philosophy.





One of Mike’s startling revelations in the opening of the training course is that after nearly 30 years of sales training in both Solution Selling and Customer-Centric Selling (and most of the other mainstream sales methodologies), not much has changed for the bottom 80% of the sales force, who sell 20% of the revenue.



The outcome of these training courses was that the best salespeople got better from using the techniques and processes, but the core group typically stopped using the techniques within a month or two of the training and reverted to prior behavior. Mike points out that in fact the old 80/20 rule is no longer true in fact it’s now 13% of salespeople selling 87% of the business. (Sales Benchmark Index)

Topics: mike bosworth story seekers sales enablement storytelling
4 min read

Your Brain on Story

By Guest Blogger - Deborah Braun on Feb 12, 2014 12:00:00 AM

Remember the old egg in the frying pan image for the big
anti-drugs campaign in the late 80’s, this is your brain, and now this is your brain on drugs?

 

Your brain on story is the complete opposite, as both hemispheres are engaged, neurons are firing, and listening and retention of information are at peak levels.

Topics: story seekers