Steve Martin's Video: Selling Value

Steve W. Martin's Heavy Hitter Sales Keynotes:


1) Persuading the C-Level to Buy
   Every salesperson claims their product will help the customer save money, become more profitable, or improve efficiency. As a result, these claims are seldom believed and very rarely acted upon by senior executives. Today, it takes a comprehensive strategy to win over the CEO, COO, CFO, and CIO. The strategy should enable the salesperson to differentiate himself from the competition through value—Strategic value, Operational value, Political value, and Psychological value. In this presentation, we review the following:   

·        The Grand Strategy to Win over the C-Level

·        The Four Different Types of Departmental Buying Types

·        Penetrating the Organization at Various Levels of Responsibility

·        Navigating to the C-Level: Identifying the Bully with Juice

·        Tactics to Defeat Arch-enemies

·        Strategies When You’re Stuck at the Wrong Level

·        The Human Nature of the C-Level: A Personal and Psychological Profile

·        Selling the Four Values of Your Solution: Strategic, Operational, Political, and Psychological

·        Presenting Your Solution: Using Logical Arguments, Emotional Appeal, and your Character

·        Organizing the Presentation to the C-Level: How to Gain Credibility and Consensus

·        Connecting with The C-Level through Sales Neurolinguistics (how the customer's mind uses language)

2) The Psychology of Selling
   Why aren’t we selling more? For a moment, put yourself in the position of your customer who is going to meet with multiple vendors, listen to their presentations, read their marketing collateral, and take a look at their web site. Given that, how will you behave with each vendor? Most companies are well versed on the logical arguments for selecting their product and we typically equate persuasion solely with satisfying the analytical mind. However, even the most well-thought-out decision is ultimately determined by emotional and subconscious influences. This presentation reveals the true decision maker --human nature-- the people, personalities, and politics of companies.

·        Rapport and Relationships Fundamentals

·        Understanding How People Communicate

·        Recognizing How Your Customer is "Wired" to Communicate

·        Mastering Sales Linguistics (how the customer's mind uses and interprets language)

·        Conducting Sales and Calls Presentations

·        Messaging to the Executive’s Mind (letters, emails, phone calls)

·        Product, Fantasy, and Politics Themes

·        Customer Fantasies and Political Realities

·        Understanding and Anticipating Your Customers' Thought Process

·        Strategies to Uncover all the Information and Discern the Truth

·        Maximizing Your Sales Intuition

3) Sales Warfare Strategies
   How salespeople spend their time ultimately determines their success. In this presentation, strategies to penetrate complex organizations and dovetail with their internal politics are discussed. Salespeople learn how to influence key decision-makers and Tactics for building winning relationships at all levels of the organization along with real-world techniques to defeat competitors (and stop wasting precious time). This presentation is perfect for companies that must build long-term customer relationships.

·        Should We Pursue the Deal?

·        Understanding the Organizational and political Structure of the Account

·        Determining Departmental Buying Types

·        Formulating the Grand Strategy to Win the Account

·        Translating the Grand Strategy to Tactics

·        Assessing Account Position

·        Account Maneuvers to Improve Competitive Position

·        The Five Steps to Ensure Victory

·        Win-Loss Analysis

Breakout Topics:

1) Enterprise Sales Strategy
   The winning enterprise account strategy is a psychological operation based upon understanding, predicting, and influencing human nature. The victor understands how the account is organized and knows how the decision makers will make their buying decision. This requires tactical flexibility, knowing when to use the optimum maneuver--a surprise attack, calculated retreat, coordinated counterattack, or assuming a defensive position--at the appropriate time. In this section, we learn how to create the winning enterprise sales strategy. Topics include:

·        Should We Pursue the Deal?

·        Understanding the Organizational and political Structure of the Account

·        Determining Departmental Buying Types

·        Formulating the Grand Strategy to Win the Account

·        Translating the Grand Strategy to Tactics

·        Assessing Account Position

·        Account Maneuvers to Improve Competitive Position

·        The Five Steps to Ensure Victory

·        Win-Loss Analysis

2) Building Customer Relationships through Effective Communication
   We examine the six layers of the human communication model and the interactions between the layers that enable a person to discern a message’s accuracy and truthfulness. Study the inner-workings of the mind to understand the intangible, intuitive human element of the sales process. We analyze how to create rapport with the key members of the customer’s selection team. Topics covered include:

·        Rapport and Relationships Fundamentals

·        Understanding How People Communicate

·        Messaging to the Executive Level

·        Recognizing How Your Customer is "Wired" to Communicate

·        Understanding and Anticipating Your Customers' Thought Process

·        Strategies to Uncover all the Information and Discern the Truth

3) Sales Intuition Development to Manage the Complex Sale
   The sales cycle is the formalized information exchange between a customer and a salesperson. It consists of a series of steps that are designed to gather information about the customer and present information about the salesperson’s solution. Successful salespeople enhance this process by drawing upon past sales experiences and have intuitively developed models to close major accounts. Topics covered in this section include:

·        The Seven Premises of the Complex Sales Cycle

·        Survival, Successful, and Significant Customers

·        Categories of Buyers

·        Product, Fantasy, and Politics Themes

·        Bonding with the Bully with the Juice

·        Strategies to Find and develop a Coach

About Steve W. Martin:

   Steve W. Martin is the foremost expert on “Sales Linguistics,” how customers use language during the complex decision-making process.

   Early in his career, he was introduced to neurolinguistics. When he transitioned into sales, he realized that he could build models to create successful relationships based upon customers’ language and thought processes. Without any sales experience to speak of, he was the number one salesperson in his company for the following four years.

   Steve became a top sales producer for a billion-dollar software company and was promoted into management to imprint his “selling model” on other salespeople within the organization. As vice president of sales later, Steve successfully trained his salespeople on the sales strategies and communication skills that are necessary to close large complex accounts. Steve Martin has been personally responsible for over a quarter of billion dollars of high technology sales while working for leading edge Silicon Valley companies over the past twenty years.

   He is the author of critically acclaimed “Heavy Hitter” series of books about enterprise sales strategies for senior salespeople. Heavy Hitter Sales Psychology: How to Penetrate the C-Level Suite and Persuade Company Leaders to Buy (2009) is the first book to truly explain what to say and do in meetings with C-Level executives. The book is based upon extensive interviews with over 500 C-level executives. Heavy Hitter Sales Wisdom: Proven Sales Warfare Strategies, Secrets of Persuasion, and Common-Sense Tips for Success (2006) is considered mandatory reading by Selling Power Magazine and Customer Relationship Magazine. Heavy Hitter Selling: How Successful Salespeople Use Language and Intuition to Persuade Customers to Buy (2004) is recommended reading by the Harvard Business School and has been featured in Forbes and the Wall Street Journal.

   Steve is also the author of The Real Story of Informix Software and Phil White: Lessons in Business and Leadership for the Executive Team, based on his six years there.

   Steve is a regular contributor to the Harvard Business Review, Sales and Marketing Management, and the Software Sales Journal. His “Heavy Hitter Sales Blog” is the top-ranked business-to-business sales blog and one of the most popular sales blogs according to Alltop.com and Blogs.com.

   When not working with his clients, Steve teaches sales strategy at the University of California Berkeley, Haas Business School MBA Program and at the University of Southern California Marshall Business School MBA Program (respectively ranked 5th & 6th in the nation by US News and Report).