What do you think?
Rate this book
Selling Value: Key Principles of Value-based Selling
SELLING VALUE is 305 pages of solid content to help you out perform your competition while keeping your customers happy. It is presented in four Mastering the Head Game; Your Blueprint for Sales Success; Understanding Your Customer; and Securing and Growing the Business; The fifteen chapters outline the most critical content for exceptional sales results in a competitive environment. One premise set forth is that the most important definition of value is your prospect's definition! If properly queried, ten prospects might well give you ten different answers and to what they value most. With exceptional skills of differentiating and adapting the value elements of your deliverables, you can hit the mark for all ten of them! From the important basics in Part I to the advanced selling skills in Part IV, you will gain many ideas from this content-rich work on the skill of SELLING VALUE for greater successes!
- GenresBusiness
319 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2014
12 people are currently reading
313 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 4, 2020
Fantastic resource for sales professionals. It's a very quotable book that I'm sure I'll return to multiple times in the future. Don boils down many principles that he has gathered through his career in sales, training and consulting in a very readable and practical guide to selling in today's world.
January 3, 2020
A very good book about value based selling methodology. Must read for anyone in sales. And for smart customers.
March 14, 2015
Who doesn’t want to keep their customers ecstatic and out-perform their competitors at the same time? This book promises to show you how to do that and more besides, offering a means to reach out towards that utopian state.
Focussing on your sales proposition and the use of delivering different value to your customers is central to the author’s message. Even the same product may have different value-points to the customer and the key is identifying and utilising these to great effect.
This was an interesting read but the book did feel prone to being easily defocussed and often a little too verbose for its own good. Fortunately it provided an engaging read on a critical subject, so you did want to plough on, despite any transient difficulties.
Do not overly judge your prospect is something the author stresses, noting that many salespeople often negatively and unjustifiably prejudge the quality of a prospect or the outcome of a sales call. The end result is that they invariably shoot themselves in the foot with a weak attitude or negative expectations and this shows itself in the sales call. The author gives a great example and this reviewer has heard of similar tales in his own country: “On a Saturday morning in Indianapolis, two Rolls-Royce salespeople were standing on the showroom floor talking. An old fellow walked in wearing dirty coveralls with a couple of holes in the knees. He walked over and looked at the Rolls Royce in the showroom, and the salesperson who was up to talk to the next customer thought, what a waste of time, so he blew him off. So the other salesperson walked over and welcomed him to the dealership. He was courteous and accommodating to him. He subscribed to the philosophy of never, ever prejudging anybody. You don't prejudge them by how they dress; you don't prejudge them by your initial impression. It worked out for this salesman because Mr. Lilly of Eli Lilly Pharmaceuticals bought two Rolls-Royces that morning. One was for himself and one was for his wife. He then went back home and finished his yard work.” The author concludes correctly that a sales person should never negatively prejudge – if you are going to do any pre-judging, positively prejudge.
No matter how experienced or worldly-wise you might be, this book has the capacity to challenge your thoughts and behaviour. There is no shame in slightly changing or polishing your performance, should you already be operating at “peak efficiency”. The author managed to steer away from meaningless platitudes and the use of gimmicks to push his message. Just like a master salesperson, he focuses and delivers a clear message.
When you read the book you might think the advice being given is so obvious and clear, yet think about some of the recent sales interactions you might have experienced. There is a lot of work to be done and the canny salesperson will be pleased to leapfrog over their less-performing rival.
Simple things indeed: lead with your ears, be a great listener, control your emotions, take notes, probe for additional information and clues, summarise the requirement, tell a story, don’t talk too much and get the customer talking… the list goes on with great advice and, one is ashamed to say, this reviewer sometimes is a little to eager to talk to a prospect to serve them, yet doesn’t always give them too much chance to respond. More work is necessary to remedy this bad habit.
There are far too many books about selling available. This one managed to carve a little space of its own in the mind of this reviewer who sees a lot more business-type books than the average reader! It was enjoyable, memorable and actionable. The hard work, still, falls on the reader though, should they seek to implement the author’s advice.
Selling Value: Key Principles of Value-Based Selling, written by Don Hutson and published by Greenleaf Book Group/Executive Books. ISBN 9780692259122, 319 pages. YYYY
Focussing on your sales proposition and the use of delivering different value to your customers is central to the author’s message. Even the same product may have different value-points to the customer and the key is identifying and utilising these to great effect.
This was an interesting read but the book did feel prone to being easily defocussed and often a little too verbose for its own good. Fortunately it provided an engaging read on a critical subject, so you did want to plough on, despite any transient difficulties.
Do not overly judge your prospect is something the author stresses, noting that many salespeople often negatively and unjustifiably prejudge the quality of a prospect or the outcome of a sales call. The end result is that they invariably shoot themselves in the foot with a weak attitude or negative expectations and this shows itself in the sales call. The author gives a great example and this reviewer has heard of similar tales in his own country: “On a Saturday morning in Indianapolis, two Rolls-Royce salespeople were standing on the showroom floor talking. An old fellow walked in wearing dirty coveralls with a couple of holes in the knees. He walked over and looked at the Rolls Royce in the showroom, and the salesperson who was up to talk to the next customer thought, what a waste of time, so he blew him off. So the other salesperson walked over and welcomed him to the dealership. He was courteous and accommodating to him. He subscribed to the philosophy of never, ever prejudging anybody. You don't prejudge them by how they dress; you don't prejudge them by your initial impression. It worked out for this salesman because Mr. Lilly of Eli Lilly Pharmaceuticals bought two Rolls-Royces that morning. One was for himself and one was for his wife. He then went back home and finished his yard work.” The author concludes correctly that a sales person should never negatively prejudge – if you are going to do any pre-judging, positively prejudge.
No matter how experienced or worldly-wise you might be, this book has the capacity to challenge your thoughts and behaviour. There is no shame in slightly changing or polishing your performance, should you already be operating at “peak efficiency”. The author managed to steer away from meaningless platitudes and the use of gimmicks to push his message. Just like a master salesperson, he focuses and delivers a clear message.
When you read the book you might think the advice being given is so obvious and clear, yet think about some of the recent sales interactions you might have experienced. There is a lot of work to be done and the canny salesperson will be pleased to leapfrog over their less-performing rival.
Simple things indeed: lead with your ears, be a great listener, control your emotions, take notes, probe for additional information and clues, summarise the requirement, tell a story, don’t talk too much and get the customer talking… the list goes on with great advice and, one is ashamed to say, this reviewer sometimes is a little to eager to talk to a prospect to serve them, yet doesn’t always give them too much chance to respond. More work is necessary to remedy this bad habit.
There are far too many books about selling available. This one managed to carve a little space of its own in the mind of this reviewer who sees a lot more business-type books than the average reader! It was enjoyable, memorable and actionable. The hard work, still, falls on the reader though, should they seek to implement the author’s advice.
Selling Value: Key Principles of Value-Based Selling, written by Don Hutson and published by Greenleaf Book Group/Executive Books. ISBN 9780692259122, 319 pages. YYYY
May 4, 2015
Don Hutson focuses on the key attribute of any successful salesperson - a winning mindset.
Mastering the Head Game lays out the framework for the new world of customer relationships and selling where you must understand what value you can bring to customers, what their problems are, and how you can become a unique resource to support them.
Relationship and Collaboration selling is the name of the game.
The excellent Chapter 4 discusses Goal Setting and Achievement in a clear and very action driven way which is easily adapted to all 10 aspects of work-life balance.
Overall this is an excellent resource for the modern sales professional.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for offering a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Mastering the Head Game lays out the framework for the new world of customer relationships and selling where you must understand what value you can bring to customers, what their problems are, and how you can become a unique resource to support them.
Relationship and Collaboration selling is the name of the game.
The excellent Chapter 4 discusses Goal Setting and Achievement in a clear and very action driven way which is easily adapted to all 10 aspects of work-life balance.
Overall this is an excellent resource for the modern sales professional.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for offering a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
October 28, 2015
First time ever I've read a book about this topic, by saying this, I have not to compare it with, nevertheless I enjoyed it. I read it to prepare myself for a job interview
October 28, 2015
First time ever I've read a book about this topic, by saying this, I have not to compare it with, nevertheless I enjoyed it. I read it to prepare myself for a job interview.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews