The Seller’s Challenge: How Top Sellers Master 10 Deal Killing Obstacles in B2B Sales, Book by Tom Williams and Tom Saine, Review
About The Book:
The Seller’s Challenge Book by Tom Williams and Tom Saine is about: What is the purpose of The Seller’s Challenge? It’s to share advice and explore options, to overcome myths and wrongful perceptions, and to plot, a different course of action—one that may require new skills and will certainly require different approaches to understanding and engaging your customers.
This book is intended to help you overcome “10 Deal Killing Obstacles in B2B Sales.”
Here are some of the obstacles, problems, and challenges addressed in The Seller’s Challenge.
- “How can I win an important deal without conceding to price discount demands that erode my profit and compromise my revenue?”
- “Status quo is my main competitor. How do I sell effectively against it?
- “My biggest challenge is working effectively with Procurement. How can I map a winning sales strategy that allows me to work with Procurement?”
- “What steps must I take to sell effectively to multiple buyers, buying groups, and committees?”
- “How do I handle expected and unexpected RFPs?”
- “Gatekeepers are my nemesis. What’s the best way to handle them?
The Seller’s Challenge: How Top Performers Master Deal-Killing Obstacles in B2B Sales
There is a common question that troubles all sellers at different points in their careers: “So, what do I do now?” It may be uttered out of fear, or confusion, but it’s that moment of paralysis where they realize they’re about to lose an opportunity in which they’d invested so much time to win.
The Seller’s Challenge identifies 10 of the most frequently cited deal-killing obstacles sellers encounter. The challenge may be selling to change-resistant buyers, deploying a sales plan for a biased and unfair RFP process, selling to committees with numerous stakeholders, competing against an entrenched supplier, or engaging Procurement agents who are obsessed with driving price discounts.
If you look closely, there are caution signs that will guide the seller toward the best course of action. The Seller’s Challenge is a “tactical field manual” that taps current research, best practices and real-life examples to help sellers craft action plans that optimize productivity and drive success. It’s all about what top-performing sellers do – how they research, plan and implement activities that maximize their chances of winning.
We will share the harsh realities, myths, data, best practices, game-changing approaches, and guerrilla tactics that will elevate a seller’s prospects of winning good business. The Seller’s Challenge is composed of 10 independent chapters – each devoted to an obstacle that haunts sellers worldwide. The book includes many addendums in the form of checklists and worksheets that simplify the content.
Come to join our community of sellers. Become a voice for the selling profession.
Tom Williams Tom Saine
Editorial Reviews:
“As a sales leader in the medical device sector, I am commonly approached by candidates wanting to know how to get into this fast-paced, relationship-driven, financially rewarding, and patient outcomes-focused industry.
I have now found the perfect book for each of them to read and use as a reference throughout the lifecycle of their sales career. Even as a tenured seller, I found this book to be a fantastic resource. While it contains some great fundamental reminders, this is the first sales book I’ve seen take the ‘art of sales’ to a new level thanks to detailed, real-life stories, chapter takeaways, and checklists/worksheets to be used when the situation arises.
The best part about this book is you can read a chapter before a big RFP or Value Analysis Committee and be ready for battle without having to reread the entire book. The authors (Tom Williams and Tom Saine) did their homework on this one!”
Al Kepler, Vice President ENT, Smith & Nephew
“Gaining a seat at the executive table has become tougher and tougher, The Seller’s Challenge provides a brilliant roadmap to help sales professionals rise above the status quo. In complex business environments with multiple decision-makers and influencers, sales professionals will learn new strategies to enhance their skillset fueling their long-term success. A definite read and continual reference guide for sales professionals.”
Larry Levine, Author of Selling From The Heart–How Your Authentic Self Sells You, Co-host of the Selling From The Heart podcast
“I have just finished reading The Seller’s Challenge by authors Thomas Williams and Thomas Saine. When I read sales books, I am always looking for the parts of the book that alter or enhance my thinking. The Seller’s Challenge really got into my sales brain with its deconstruction of 1) Gate Keepers and 2) Procurement. Brilliant work here and jam-packed with great stories, graphs, detail, and recommendations!
The Seller’s Challenge profoundly appealed to my analytical self. I love sales books that pull long-held arguments on sales topics apart and then reconstruct them with navigation and management tips. Buy this book and pull out a box of highlighters….you are going to need them!”
Patrick Tinney, Author of Perpetual Hunger and Unlocking Yes
About The Authors:
Tom Williams is the Managing Director of Strategic Dynamics Inc., a firm that helps organizations accelerate revenue generation. He was formerly Vice President of Worldwide Sales, Marketing and Product Service for an organization that sold high-technology medical products and services through a variety of distribution channels, the CEO of two specialty hospitals, the Vice President and General Manager of an ancillary services division, and the President of a medical services company.
Tom has a B.S. in Biology from the University of Detroit, and a MAM (Master’s degree in Management), and an MBA from the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University. He is also a registered and certified Respiratory Therapist.
Tom is a certified facilitator in most of the Miller Heiman Group methodologies. He routinely sells their services, conducts program facilitation, and provides consulting with their various sales methodologies.
he is recognized for his expertise in call planning and execution, opportunity management, negotiation, key account management, funnel management, sales coaching, and selling to the C-suite. Tom is also the co-author of Selling to Hospitals and Healthcare Organizations: A Glossary of Business Acumen and Personnel.
Tom Saine is a Senior Consultant with Strategic Dynamics Inc. with a Ph.D. in Communication from Northwestern University. He is a former senior executive for ARAMARK Corporation. While with ARAMARK, Tom served as Associate Vice President for Major Account Sales, Vice President of Client Retention, and Vice President of Sales.
His background in sales management for ARAMARK includes supervising direct sales for the U.S. and Canada, developing the division’s strategic plan, and creating a master plan for retaining business.
Prior to his years at ARAMARK, Tom was on the faculty of the University of Florida and the University of Denver. Tom has published extensively on group communication, decision-making, negotiation, and organizational communication. In 2007, he joined the team at the Miller Heiman Group as a Senior Consultant helping customers optimize sales growth and productivity.
Tom assists executives in forging strategic sales plans and enhancing the skill sets of their frontline sales team. Tom has extensive sales enablement experience in such areas as key account management and retention, sales strategy, prospecting skills, closing deals, and negotiating complex contracts.
My Review:
Appearance:
I’ve purchased the paperback of the book on Amazon, I don’t like the cover design, but the book has a good quality of paper and printing, except for the “stories” which were a little hard to read for me.
Content:
I have been working in sales and negotiation for years and I truly was excited to read this book.
Generally, when I begin reading a practical book, I start highlighting the important paragraphs, because I’d like to share my reviews here on 3ee.info and I want to remember to mention those sections, but in “The seller’s challenge” book, I noticed If I want to highlight I need to highlight the entire book, why? Continue reading.
The Seller’s Challenge is a B2B sales book, written by 2 famous Sales experts. They have started with a short introduction and then continued with the main subject (without wasting your time).
In each chapter they begin with a challenge in Business to Business sales along with a story to clarify the situation for the reader, then an explanation of the obstacle that a salesperson has faced along with the resolution and strategy on how to handle the concern.
The Seller’s Challenge book is an Informative, Knowledgeable, and Practical book for sales professionals who are working with other businesses as a supplier or contractor. This book successfully described 10 real challenges, with clear, step-by-step guidelines like who are stakeholders and how to identify them, or their role of decision making in PO(Purchase Order), also in sales calls, teaches you how important is Active Listening and Questioning.
There’s a great strategy of questioning (what, how, when, etc.) to find the right party (stakeholder, decision-maker, etc.) and focus on the value of your product while you’re on the phone, instead of wasting your time with someone who has no or little influence on Purchase Order.
Status Quo (to keep the things the way they presently are)
is one of the best parts of the book, and authors from the beginning of the first chapter are talking about (the importance of) status quo, and how it would fail the sales, but they mentioned the definition of this phrase on page 102 which I thought it would be more useful mentioning it earlier in the book since the status quo is important in sales.
Next, you will find six myths about the status quo, how to develop a sales strategy to attack the status quo, signs of the status quo, and how to handle it on time, etc which would turn any failed sales into a satisfying result if not successful sales.
Both Authors are well-known professionals with their own services/products, in the entire book they stayed professional and they didn’t use this book as a commercial material for advertising their business, which will be appreciated by all audiences.
This book is highly recommended to all professionals, business owners, service or product providers, contractors, or raw material suppliers, especially to salespersons who don’t want to leave a deal on the table because they don’t know how to handle one of these challenges.
Did You Know: (Book Articles)
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