content program in our opinion that money could buy, but itbecame clear that our training dollar investment totally hinged uponour ability to get our people to act differently on sales calls. In theend, coaching is ‘where it’s at.’ No program is better than anotherwithout coaching. You coach an average program and you will getmore out of it than if you have an outstanding program that is notcoached at all.” 
ACTION POINTS➔ Make sure coaching happens. Develop a coaching process to achievebehavioral change. (See also Sales Trap 22, “Sales Managers AreGood  Coaches”).  Secure  the  commitment  of  managers  from
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senior  management  to  front-line  management  to  coaching  andreinforcement. 
➔ Limit  the  number  of  people  in  coaching  classes. Don’t  overload  thecoach. Coaching more than three people at any point in time isnot recommended for a first-line manager who already has a largespan of control. Coaching and feedback tasks are time-consuming. 
➔ Measure  and  monitor  the  results  of  coaching. Take  a  baseline  mea-surement of the behaviors of each participant as soon as possibleafter each training session. (This is usually done by the first-linemanager.)  Measure  the  behavioral  change  of  each  participantevery thirty days.
➔ Recognize  and  reward  behavioral  changes. Reinforce  the  coachingprogram  by  acknowledging  new  behaviors  that  salespeopleexhibit.  Award  plaques.  Create  an  atmosphere  and  culture  thatgenuinely believes in improving sales performance through behav-ioral change and personal development.
SALES  TRUTH  7:  Sales  skill  training  effective-ness is about coaching, not content.
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sales trap 8:Beginners Should Start With Comprehensive Training
More is better. That’s the widespread belief when it comes to train-ing  beginners  in  sales.  The  assumption  is  that  because  beginnershave so much to learn, they should get it all at once. During theirinitial  sales  training  period,  beginners  are  often  given  a  compre-hensive skill-based training program covering many strategies andtactics, so that they can pick and choose which ideas to implement.It’s then assumed that they will be able to go out in the field and dowhat is expected. This is a fallacy.
I call this approach to training beginners “the Blitz,” named afterthe blitz bombing of London by the Nazis in World War II. TheBlitz approach blankets beginners with everything they could everneed to know about sales. It’s total immersion. And it’s devastating.Why?  Because  comprehensive  training  overwhelms  beginners.It’s ineffective because beginners are not able to take in all the newmaterial.  For  sales  training  effectiveness,  introduce  one  skill  at  atime and reinforce it.
John Cuny, currently a consultant with Ernst & Young and for-mer manager of training and development for Xerox, explains thathe tries to keep his sales skill–based training simple. “The informa-tion  included  in  our  Buyer-Focused  Selling  program  used  atDocument University in Leesburg, Virginia, is almost overwhelm-ing. It’s good content, but it is almost too much in too short a time.I tend to favor a ‘less is more’ approach rather than a ‘more is bet-ter.’ People can only learn so much at one time.”8
Dr. Richard Ruff, president of Sales Momentum in Scottsdale,Arizona, said it this way: “Your best sports coaches recognize thatthey  get  behavioral  change  quicker  from  their  players  when  theyfocus on one particular behavior at a time, whether it be blocking
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out in basketball, tackling in football, or tossing up the tennis ballin a serve. Most people, generally speaking, have difficulty trying tochange  several  things  at  once.  And,  sales  training  programs  thatinclude so many behaviors and strategies to learn are less likely towork in the long run than programs that key in on just a few thingsfor the consultant to change.”
People are more motivated to learn when they are not delugedwith things to think about. Knowledge isn’t successfully transferredto behavior when it’s hidden in a comprehensive training class. Thisis  because  behavioral  change  is  harder  than  knowledge  transfer.And  behavioral  change  takes  time.  Sales  training  that  focuses  onone or two skills at a time provides ample opportunity for begin-ners to work more effectively in the field. Anything more than thatoverloads them. Perhaps Leon Edelsack, former senior vice presi-dent  of  Westinghouse’s  communication  division,  said  it  best:  “Idon’t want our people to experience a data dump because it is likedrinking water from a fire hose. It is too much and it doesn’t sat-isfy anyone.”
ACTION POINTSFor training organizations:➔ Avoid the “data dump. Take a “less is more” approach to sales skill
training. New hires can’t drink water from a fire hose.
➔ Change behavior one skill at a time. To be effective, training shouldfocus on one behavior at a time—for example, asking lots of ques-tions versus giving lots of information. 
For people who want to be top performers:➔ Focus  on  one  behavior  to  change  at  a  time. Practice.  Get  feedbackfrom someone (your sales manager, your training manager, or ahigh-relationship  customer)  regarding  how  well  you  are  doing
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with that particular behavior. Remember: Rome wasn’t built in aday, and neither was the top performer. 
SALES  TRUTH  8:  Adults  learn  best  when  theycan relate strategies, tactics, skills, and infor-
mation to  what  they  do  every  day,  so  train
beginners with “less is more” in mind.
4PRINCIPLE
createvalue 
VALUE is defined as Benefits minus Cost (V = B – C).Cost doesn’t just mean the price of the service, how-ever. Today’s customers look at total cost, both directand indirect costs.
Direct costs are the dollar price plus other charges(installation for a piece of equipment, postinstallationservice,  etc.).  Indirect  costs  include  such  things  ascareer risk to the person or group of people making thedecision, the hassle involved in changing, and corpo-rate or other business risks associated with the change. The  price  that  today’s  customers  will  pay  for  aproduct  or  service  must  provide  them  with  benefits
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equal to or greater than the dollars they pay. Most customers willnot pay a higher price for a competing product unless they perceivethat  the  value  of  that  product  outweighs  the  cost.  Unfortunately,many customers do not perceive the added value that justifies thecost in many commodity products today. 
Consultative  salespeople  are  challenged  to  figure  out  a  way  tocreate value so that customers are willing to pay a little more for theproducts or services they offer. If they can’t do this, they are forcedto reduce their price in order to provide value.
Consultative selling of business services is especially interestingas a study in value creation, since these companies don’t offer tan-gible  products.  Consulting  firms  such  as  McKinsey,  for  example,basically  offer  the  intellectual  property  produced  by  their  consul-tants. In order to solve customer problems, these consultants needto be able to think creatively, be self-confident, and have access toproprietary  databases.  The  counsel  and  advice  offered  by  leadingsales,  marketing,  and  consulting  firms  is  almost  solely  focused  oncreating  customer  value—in  other  words,  addressing  customerneeds and problems in depth. Sometimes salespeople believe theyare creating value, only to discover later that the customer doesn’tperceive the same value (see Sales Traps 10 and 11).  
Of course, creating value for the customer is not always easy. Aswe mentioned under Principle 1, “Adopt an Outside Focus,” creat-ing customer value requires strong coordinating efforts between thesales and marketing departments. It’s ultimately up to the first-linemanagers and the field salespeople to implement value creation. 
BUSINESS ACUMEN AND KNOWLEDGEStrong business acumen is also necessary if the salesperson is to cre-ate  value.  Salespeople  who  want  to  create  value  will  need  to  viewtheir clients from a holistic perspective. Top business schools pro-mote this holistic approach by requiring an interdisciplinary rigor.Salespeople need to look at the big picture and see how marketing,
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finance, and accounting interrelate with one another and with thepending sale at hand. By understanding these interrelationships, thesalesperson with a competent business knowledge will be able to cre-ate sufficient customer value so that the customer will be willing topay more (see Sales Traps 12 and 13).
SALES BEHAVIOR THAT CREATES VALUEWhether customers see value in a sales offering can often be tracedto the behavior of the salesperson (and his or her management). AsSales Trap 11 explains, top sales performers create value, they don’tjust communicate it. Some people think that they create value whenthey really don’t. Sales Traps 9 through 18 are examples of the mis-taken beliefs and partial truths that these salespeople hold. Becausethey don’t fall into Sales Traps 9 through 18, top performers createvalue from the customer’s perspective, and so they generate moresales than average performers. In order to excel at creating value,salespeople need to hone their sales skills (especially their probingskills). They need to figure out the real issues that their clients face.Clients may not be able to communicate their real concerns. Theconsultative salesperson needs to help the client articulate these con-cerns  by  probing  deeply  and  conveying  an  understanding  of  theissues. One senior executive of a multinational corporation said itwell: “We want to hire the best, develop the best, and be the best. Ihave always believed you have to try harder to stay ahead, not tryharder to get ahead.” 
*  *  *
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sales trap 9:You Won’t Make the Sale Unless You Reachthe Decision Maker
For  years,  salespeople  have  been  taught  that  to  make  a  sale,  theyhave to reach the decision maker (the person with power, usually atthe  top  of  the  organization).  That’s  a  fallacy  based  on  the  wronginformation. 
THE PROBLEM WITH GOING TO THE TOPThere’s no value created by going to the decision maker. Value cre-ation comes from understanding the customer’s needs on both a day-to-day  level  and  a  global  level.  Let  me  explain  what  I  mean.  If  anenterprising young sales consultant attempts to secure an appoint-ment with the president of a company to sell a piece of office equip-ment, he or she is misdirecting the sales effort. 
Of  course  the  president  is  consulted  when  the  company  buysequipment. But generally this kind of day-to-day decision involvesfactors that the president isn’t knowledgeable enough about to enablehim or her to make the decision. He or she will defer the responsi-bility to the staff. (Even if the president were knowledgeable, he orshe probably wouldn’t make a decision without first consulting withthe staff.) 
The people who work with the office equipment every day arethe  ones  who  have  the  problems  the  equipment  is  intended  tosolve. They’re in the best position to determine the benefits of aproduct. Because they’re the ones who will get the most value outof the new equipment, the salesperson should focus first on them,not on the president. If the president is against purchasing equip-ment  for  financial  reasons  (the  global view),  the  salesperson  willhave  to  address  that.  But  the  president  is  not  the  one  with  theeveryday understanding of the problems (the day-to-day view). Tocreate value, salespeople would be wiser to invest their time visiting
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with the staff members who will actually use the products or ser-vices every day. 
Let’s take another example. A consultant discussing sales train-ing  issues  with  the  president  of  a  multibillion-dollar  companyshould  not  expect  him  or  her  to  have  in-depth  knowledge  of  thespecifics, such as the sales skill modules. Nor should the consultantexpect him or her to be aware of the merits of one particular pro-gram relative to another. Senior managers within a company tendto function as strategists with a global view, not as tacticians. Theyview  their  division  or  their  company  from  100,000  feet.  Sincesenior managers need to work in a team atmosphere with the peo-ple  who  have  the  view  of  the  problem  from  10  feet,  it  is  highlyirregular for any senior manager of a medium-size or large com-pany to make a unilateral decision without consulting and confer-ring with these people.
WHAT WORKS BETTERA more effective strategy for managing the decision process withinthe account is to develop breadth and depth. Depth means a detailedunderstanding  of  the  customer’s  needs  and  concerns—that  is,  adetailed  understanding  of  the  problems  faced  by  the  people  whoview them from 10 feet away. Breadth refers to the global view fromthe  customer’s  perspective,  an  understanding  of  the  “big  picture”concerns that keep senior managers in the account up at night. Anexcellent salesperson is able to provide solutions at both the breadthand  depth  level.  Salespeople  who  master  the  breadth  and  depthstrategy  manage  the  decision-making  hierarchy  more  effectively,which creates value. 
Sales researcher Neil Rackham refers to the need for salespeople
to develop needs at three levels in the account:
∆ Focus of receptivity: These are the person(s) within the account
who are willing to meet with you.
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∆ Focus of dissatisfaction: Referred to as the “users,” these are
the people with the day-to-day problems to be solved.
∆ Focus of power: These are the decision influencers and deci-
sion makers.
When you meet with the people who are at the focus of dissatis-faction, the idea is to “find a sponsor who will either introduce youto or represent you at the focus of power.” Rackham goes on to cau-tion the sales consultant not to be discouraged “if your sponsor willnot let you meet directly with the decision-maker.”1
It is not always necessary for you to be able to schedule a meet-ing with a decisionmaker; it can be just as effective to have someoneelse to schedule that meeting for you. Besides, in a large and com-plex sale, there is probably no such thing as one decision maker.
Here’s a story that serves as an example of this.
A  friend  of  mine,  Steven,  had  a  university-orientedproject that he knew would interest the chancellor of aMidwestern  state  university  (focus  of  power,  focus  ofdissatisfaction). Steven was unable to set up a meetingwith the chancellor. He had written letters and madetelephone calls, with no results, and he had contactedalmost everyone he knew. 
Steven asked me if I knew the chancellor. I didn’t, butI  knew  an  associate  dean  (focus  of  receptivity)  andcalled him. The associate dean told me that he didn’tknow the chancellor well, but that he played racquet-ball with a friend named Ted, who was a direct reportto the chancellor (focus of receptivity, but possibly alsofocus of dissatisfaction and focus of power). 
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I asked the associate dean to arrange a meeting betweenTed (the direct report to the chancellor) and my friendSteven. The associate dean set it up. When Steven metwith Ted, he probed to assess Ted in terms of his beinga focus of receptivity, focus of dissatisfaction, and focusof power. Ted turned out to be a diamond in the rough.He not only believed that Steven offered a solution thatcreated value for the university, but also offered to setup a meeting of the chancellor, himself, and Steven todiscuss the project. From there, the sale proceeded wellfor Steven. 
ACTION POINTS➔ Not reaching the decision maker doesn’t mean failure. What’s impor-tant is that the decision maker is presented with your ideas in aconcise  and  articulate  manner.  You  don’t  always  have  to  be  themessenger.
➔ Develop other relationships within the account. Develop relationshipswith people in the account who are receptive to your approach orknowledgeable about the problems the product may solve. Wideand deep relationships within the account are useful, since peopleand positions change over time.  
SALES  TRUTH  9:  Develop  other  areas  in  theaccount  and  let  them  influence  the  decision
maker.
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sales trap 10:Rank Decision Criteria Relative to Competitors
Many salespeople believe that you need to identify and rank the cus-tomer’s decision criteria. This is a fallacy that misses the mark in cre-ating value for the customer. Just because the customer ranks yourofferings as stronger than your competitors’ according to certain cri-teria does not mean you will get the business. What matters is whetherthe areas in which you’re stronger are the areas that the customer ranksas the most important.
AN EXAMPLE 
Three  banks,  Bank  1,  Bank  2,  and  Bank  3,  are  com-peting for a lending project. Bank 1 is perceived by theclient to be strong relative to the competition in termsof rate, flexibility, and reputation. (Banks 2 and 3 areperceived as weaker on these three criteria.) But whathappens if rate, flexibility, and reputation aren’t impor-tant to the customer? Let’s say, for instance, that whatreally matters to the client is the loan officer’s exper-tise  and  the  bank’s  expertise.  If  this  is  the  case,  thenBank  1  may  very  well  lose  the  business  to  Bank  2  orBank 3 if Bank 1 is perceived as weaker in loan officer’sexpertise and bank expertise, since these are the areasthat matter most to the client.
SALESPEOPLE DON’T ASK CUSTOMERS TO RANK CRITERIAMy field observation studies reveal that sales consultants normallydo not ask the customers how they rank their decision criteria. Theyshould. Questions that they need to ask include:
∆ Which criteria are most crucial?
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∆ Which criterion is most critical? 
∆ Which are desirable? 
∆ Which are relatively unimportant?
Even when the salespeople ask for this information, only 18 per-cent of the time do they ask the customer to make comparisons andindicate which critical criterion is more important than other criti-cal criteria.2
WHY IDENTIFYING CRITERIA ISN’T ENOUGHThe  standard  advice  given  to  salespeople  has  been  to  identify  thecriteria upon which the customer will base the decision. In addition,some managers recommend that these decision criteria should thenbe prioritized. 
This advice is faulty because it is based on two wrong inferences.
TRADING OFF ONE CRITERION FOR THE MOST IMPORTANT. The first wrong infer-ence is that the customer knows how to prioritize the criteria. Oftencustomers  don’t  think  formally  about  how  they  rank  criteria.Therefore, you have to get them to think about it by asking ques-tions such as, “Which one of these two criteria, delivery or price, isthe most important?” One critical decision criterion may be moreimportant to the customer than another critical criterion. In otherwords, customers may be forced to trade off one critical criterion foranother because only one solution provider can meet their number-one criterion.
OMITTED CRITERIA. The second wrong inference is that the customer willuse all critical criteria in the decision-making process. In fact, thecustomer may omit a critical decision criterion from the decision-making process. For instance, the customer may not be able to dis-tinguish among the various competitors on the criterion of service.
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Therefore, the customer will not be able to use this criterion in mak-ing a final decision—not because it isn’t important to the customer(it is), but because the customer doesn’t see how it will help in select-ing between the competing alternatives. It’s not objective. Rackhamrefers to these types of criteria as “soft” in his book Major AccountSales Strategy.
DIFFERENTIATING OFFERINGSIf customers can’t see a criterion as objective, they can’t use it to dif-ferentiate the sellers’ offerings. Subjective criteria, by definition, aredifficult to measure. Therefore, in addition to understanding how acustomer  ranks  the  critical  decision  criteria,  the  consultant  musthelp the customer to quantify the subjective criteria. Don’t just rankthe criteria; make the criteria objective. 
If the customer can’t quantify service, for example, he or she mayexclude  it  from  the  decision-making  process.  What  does  the  cus-tomer mean by service? Is it measured by the number of hours ittakes the loan officer to return telephone calls? Or by the numberof invoicing errors? Is it measured by the frequency of visitations? It’s not enough to identify and rank the customer’s decision cri-teria, because the customer still may not be able to use the results.Sellers need to be able to demonstrate their ability to meet an objec-tive critical decision criterion that the competitor can’t meet. Thisentails  turning  subjective  critical  criteria  into  objective  criteria.3Customers need decision criteria that they can use to distinguish ordiscriminate  between  the  various  competing  options.  They  favorobjective, measurable decision criteria. 
Objectivity sells better to customers’ superiors and subordinatesthan subjectivity—at least if you can provide factual evidence. Whilethere may be some feeling and judgment left in any subjective cri-terion, the salesperson should quantify the criterion as much as heor she can. 
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CRITERIA ARE IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDERJan Carlzon defines any interaction a customer has with your com-pany as a “moment of truth.” Moments of truth, like beauty, are inthe  eye  of  the  beholder  and  can  be  almost  anything.  Jerry  Fritz,director of sales and customer service management programs for theManagement Institute at the School of Business at the University ofWisconsin–Madison,  says,  “A  moment  of  truth  is  when  an  airlinepassenger pulls down her seat-back tray to find a coffee stain andinfers  that  the  airline  is  sloppy  about  engine  maintenance.”4Moments of truth are customer perceptions of value. They are sub-jective. So are buyers’ decision criteria. Decision criteria, as definedby  one  of  my  colleagues,  are  “those  important  factors  which  cus-tomers use to evaluate, compare, and choose between the optionsthat are available to them.”5 Decision criteria vary from customer tocustomer,  and  a  criterion  that  is  crucial  to  one  customer  may  bemuch less important to another.6
Customers are increasingly looking inward for their decision cri-teria. Their concerns focus more on themselves, their boss, and thecompetitive issues they face than on their own customers. For exam-ple, they see it as OK to define service in terms of how it affects them,the buyers, and they fail to consider how it affects their customers.Decision criteria now include their responsibilities to themselves andto their stakeholders (employees, stockholders, customers, etc.).7
OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE CRITERIAIt’s helpful to divide decision criteria into two types: objective andsubjective. As discussed previously, these terms refer to whether aparticular decision criterion is measured quantitatively (objectively)or qualitatively (subjectively) by the customer. Common subjectivecriteria that are not necessarily industry-specific include: 
∆ Reputation
∆ Flexibility
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∆ Convenience
∆ Accountability
∆ Service
∆ Dependability
∆ Reliability
∆ Customer service
∆ Industry expertise
∆ Quality
Objective criteria that apply to many industries include: 
∆ Price
∆ Rate 
∆ Fees
∆ Size
∆ Payment terms
∆ Contract length
∆ Specific terms and conditions
∆ Warranties
∆ Speed
∆ Paper capacity
∆ Guarantees
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STEPS TO CONVERT SUBJECTIVE CRITERIA TO OBJECTIVE The consultative salesperson should use a three-step process to con-vert subjective criteria into objective, measurable ones.
1. Seek  the  customer’s  definition. Ask  the  customer  to  define  aparticular criterion. For example, you might ask, “Allison,what do you mean by service?” or “How do you define ser-vice, Allison?” Listen for things that are measurable or spe-cific. The customer’s definition of service might be definedas four-hour response to service calls or pages. Four hoursis specific and objective. It can be measured. Hopefully, it’san expectation you can meet.
2. Quantify  the  customer’s  definition. If  the  customer  doesn’toffer  any  specific  definition  that  can  be  measured,  thenyou might offer one. For example: “Emily, you felt servicewas critical in your decision process. Would a 98 percentup-time on this product meet your standard for excellentservice?”
3. Find out how critical these new quantified criteria are to the cus-tomer. Once a subjective criterion has been objectified, thesalesperson needs to know where it is on the customer’s pri-ority scale. For example: “Emily, you stated that 98 percentup-time would be considered excellent service, but tell me,is this 98 percent availability more important than price, oris it less important?” 
Neil  Rackham’s  research  established  that  people  basically  gothrough three steps when they make a decision to evaluate a solution:
1. They list their decision criteria.
2. They prioritize their criteria.
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3. They select the alternative that meets these decision crite-
ria the best.8
Salespeople need to keep the third step in mind. Salespeople cre-ate customer value by identifying how the customer measures thedecision criterion and then ensuring that the seller’s solutions meetthese criteria better than competitors’ solutions. 
ACTION POINTS➔ Ask buyers what their decision criteria are. Some people may not havethought through their criteria. Experts are more likely to be ableto answer this question than first-time buyers. Many salespeopleforget this step. 
➔ Discover how the customer ranks the criteria on a critical to irrelevant
scale. Ask, ask, ask. 
➔ Explore the reasons for the customer’s ranking. Customers will oftenchange their criteria before they make a decision, so it’s importantto know why a particular criterion is of value to them. Value andbenefit questions are helpful here. For instance: “Why is 98 per-cent up-time so important and critical to your operation? Why isfour-hour response time key?” 
➔ Transform  subjective  criteria  into  objective  criteria. Remember  thethree steps in converting a subjective criterion into an objectiveone:  Ask  the  customer  to  define  the  criterion,  ask  about  other“measurables” that you know could be used, and ask how impor-tant this new definition is to the client. Assist the customer withyour own ideas for measurement. (It’s always helpful if you ask thecustomer, rather than stating measurement criteria). For example:“Could  you  or  do  you  measure  quality  in  terms  of  ConsumerReports rankings?” Find out how the customer compares this newdefinition of the subjective criterion against other critical criteria.
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For example: “Is the fact that Consumer Reports magazine ranks ourproduct #1 in quality and value more important to you than thefact it is X dollars more expensive than product Z?”
SALES  TRUTH  10:  Satisfy  customers’  decisioncriteria  the  way  they  rank  them to  differ-
entiate your offerings.
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sales trap 11:Providing Information About Products andServices Creates Customer Value
Salespeople are sadly mistaken if they think that by communicatinginformation about products and services—such as new pricing, newdiscounts, and product data—they are creating value. That’s a fal-lacy based on outdated market information and old research. Thesedays, customers can get this information from the Internet. Currentresearch shows that concentrating on information causes the sellerto focus too much on solutions and not enough on customer prob-lems, needs, and concerns. 
WALKING BROCHURESI  call  salespeople  who  give  too  much  information  “walkingbrochures.” We’ve all been approached by the salesperson who dis-penses a lot of information and talks at the customer, not with thecustomer. The following exchange is between John, a consultantwith Solar Systems Solutions, and Andria, the manager of infor-mation  systems  at  World-Tech.  John  is  calling  on  Andria  andhopes to sell her a new software package that Solar Solutions hasrecently developed. 
John (Consultant): Andria, you are going to be excited about a newproduct that we launched fifteen days ago. You asked me ninemonths ago if I thought we were going to bring something tomarket that would integrate the hardware and software fromyour manufacturing, marketing, and accounting departments.Well, we are going to be introducing this solution to the mar-ketplace  on  May  1.  Apparently,  our  beta-test  results  haveexceeded our own expectation levels.
Let me tell you all the things it will be able to do for you. (Atwenty-minute monologue ensues, in which John provides Andria
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with all the test results and tells her how this new software willhelp  her  improve  the  communication  effectiveness  between  herdepartments.)
Andria:  (as  John  has  to  stop  talking  to  take  a  breath  of  fresh  air)John, how much does this cost?
John: Well, it is not all that much when you consider what itwill do for you