Rethinking the Sales Force: Redefining Selling to Create and Capture Customer Value

Unlike practically every other segment of the modern business world, the corporate-sales department has changed very little from the rigid organizational framework it first attained back in the gray-flannel '60s. But even that bastion of traditional business structure is starting to evolve, as customers at all levels begin to reconsider their expectations, purchasing patterns, and criteria for establishing and maintaining relationships with sales professionals. Rethinking the Sales Force, by Neil Rackham and John De Vincentis, is an innovative attempt to give today's salespeople a push in the right direction before the inevitable sea change now developing totally overtakes them and undermines their potential for future success. Rackham, author of Spin Selling, and De Vincentis, an independent sales and marketing consultant, use leading real-world examples such as Microsoft, IBM, and Charles Schwab to show how the commercial viability of assorted products and services can be dramatically improved by determining the real needs of three different types of buyers--whom they call "intrinsic value customers," "extrinsic value customers," and "strategic value customers"--and then developing the appropriate sales strategies to meet them. --Howard Rothman