What The Customer Wants You To Know: How Everybody Needs To Think Differently About Sales

Bestselling author Charan, who is famous for clarifying and simplifying difficult business problems, believes that the best way to increase sales is to start with the customers problems first rather than beginning with the product or service for sale.

From the bestselling author of "What the CEO Wants You to Know"ahow to rethink sales from the outside in
aWe have to face the truth: "the process of selling is broken," Customers have more choices and are under intense pressure. Yet few companies are facing this reality. When they donat, a lingering malaise sets in.a
More than ever these days, the sales process tends to be a war about priceaa frustrating, unpleasant war that takes all the fun out of selling.
But thereas a better way to think about sales, says bestselling author Ram Charan, who is famous for clarifying and simplifying difficult business problems. What the customer wants you to know is how his or her business works, so you can help make it work better. It sounds simple, but thereas a catch: you wonat be able to do that with your traditional sales approach.
Instead of starting with your product or service, start with your customeras problems. Focus on becoming your customeras trusted partner, someone he can turn to for creative, cost-effective solutions that are based on your deep knowledge of his values, goals, problems, and customers.
This book defines a new approach to sellingawhich Charan calls value creation sellingathat while radical is nonetheless practical. VCS has been battle-tested in companies in a variety of industries, such as Unifi, Mead-Westvaco, and Thomson Financial. It will enable you to:
a Gain a deeper knowledge of your customeras problems
a Understand how your customeras company really makes decisions
a Help your customer improve margins and drive revenue growth
a Connect sales with other key functions such as finance and manufacturing
a Come up withnew customized offerings
a Make price much less of an issue
VCS gets you out of the hell of commoditization and low prices. It differentiates you from the competition, paving the way to better pricing, better margins, and higher revenue growth, built on win-win relationships that deepen over time.
Someday, every company will listen more closely to the customer, and every manager will realize that sales is everyoneas business, not just the sales departmentas. In the meantime, this eye-opening book will show you how to get started.