Synopsis

B2B buyers have changed. The buying process has become a complicated maze of decision-makers, influencers, online information, procurement, and more.

The availability of quality information and algorithms through digital channels has made it much easier for buyers to gather information independently, meaning sellers have less access and fewer opportunities to influence customer decisions. In fact, Gartner research finds that when B2B buyers are considering a purchase, they spend only 17% of that time meeting with potential suppliers. When buyers are comparing multiple suppliers, the amount of time spent with any one sales rep is only 5% or 6%.

“Echo Selling” is a new set of skills preferred by a new generation of buyers who increasingly rely on confirmation from their circle of influencers. Echo Selling reaches those influencers with a compelling buying rationale and value-driven mindset. This book reinvents sales teams and sales careers. Selling now begins with personal marketing through email and social selling that incorporates branding with engagement - nurturing prospects until they have enough validation from their circle of influencers that they are ready to have a discussion.

OUTLINE:

A) The Concept
a. Echo Selling - overview / definition / examples
b. Demonstration: talking indirectly through mutual contacts.
c. The buying process: understanding the buying process journey
d. How the sales process taught by trainers no longer aligns
e. The B2B buyers has changed into the B2C buyer

B) The Tactics
f. Creating a compelling buying Rationale
g. Communicating your rationale: the elevator pitch
h. Adjusting your pitch for lead sources and sales specialties
i. Preparing answers to the 3 important client questions

C) The Strategy
j. The heart of Echo Selling: the cross-channel communication cadence
k. Social Selling and Echo Selling
l. Email Marketing and Echo Selling
m. Phone Prospecting and Echo Selling
n. Networking and Echo Selling
o. Optimizing your approach

Sales arguments

• Email Marketing: 6K / LinkedIn: 4,300 / Newsletter: 5K readers / Content Distribution Partners
• Echo Selling will have a forward written by a sales leader, CEO or Chairman and will quote at least 6 popular sales leaders from national or international companies (all past clients and/or investors).
• Steve frequently network with current and past corporate clients and remains in contact with corporate decision makers as they move to new jobs.
• Steve regularly works and communicates with salespeople, sales managers and trainers in the US, Europe and Asia and occasional work with clients in Latin America.
• The author and his company have created videos which they use in the delivery of their training services - and can leverage the ability to create videos for promoting the book.

Similar titles

• “The Challenger Sale” by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson, Portfolio/Penguin 2011 - The Challenger Sale is specifically about discovering a new way to sell and it combines concepts with specific tactics that a seller can use immediately. Whereas Echo Selling explains how the buyer has changed and is now following a new buying process; requiring a new set of activities to do the job of selling, and providing examples salespeople across all industries and verticals can use and specific actions all sellers
• “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by Robert B. Cialdini, HarperCollins 2006 - Echo Selling will be similar in that it looks at persuasion. However, Steve’s book specifically applies to buying and selling behavior.
• “Getting Past No: Negotiating in Difficult Situations” by William Ury, Bantam (1993) - Echo Selling is not only about an individual seller and buyer - it is how a salesperson, leveraging the resources of their entire organization, can influence all of the influencers and decision makers in the customer’s organization.

Audience

The target reader and the target book buyer are 2 different groups: a salesperson who is either new-to-sales, experienced but new-hire, or experienced seller in a changing environment/marketplace/ or territory and a salesperson, their company / boss (manager), and the trade organization the company belongs to.