This sales book is OK, that is all. There are many better books on Sales Strategy out there.

I thought it was well written and insightful - yes, its somewhat dated now, but the principles still apply. After hearing the title over and over again in hallways at work, I decided to read this book and found that it mostly lived up to the hype.

I'm not in sales, but, as a technical manager at an IT contracting company, I found myself called upon to do more and more sales-type stuff: presentations, bids, white papers, what have you, none I which I was suited for by training or inclination. Rick Page sold me this book by putting his key points on a poster in the Atlanta airport just as I was wandering by looking for some kind of guidance. "Link solutions to customer pain." How simple, and yet, what a revelation to a computer science major! The customer doesn't really want to hear about some new whim-wham; the customer wants to know how you're going to make something that hurts them _stop hurting_. At my next customer meeting, instead of talking features, I talked about what was hurting them--and it was a great meeting.

Now, the book, I'm going to admit, is uneven. A lot of it reads like hastily-assembled lecture notes. And there's a certain amount of Rick Page trademarked jargon that seems best forgotten. But it is front-loaded with stuff that will most help the newcomer to sales. If you read only the first fifty pages, you will get not only the discussion about customer pain, but a really eye-opening look at the proposal selection process (compliance is just a filter that gets your team in the door) that changed the way I've thought about every proposal I've worked on since.

I can't really say whether the material in this book is too basic, or too obvious, for experienced salespersons to care about it. But it threw me a rope when I desperately needed one, and it's made me a better software professional as well as a better sales resource. Highly recommended!

"Hope Is Not A Strategy" is such a good title for a sale's book that I just had to read it. I am glad I did.

Rick Page does a very good job at outlining the process and infrastructure sales teams need to implement to win the "Complex Sale". Rick Page describes the complex sale as a long cycle in which a team must maneuver through different departments, company hierarchies and multiple business partners to close the deal and beat the competition. As with any long sales cycle there are many opportunities to lose the sale or have competition out strategizing your efforts. This book helps identify all the potential signs and pitfalls that you may be losing the sale and provides tips on how to re-focus with a new strategy.

For those who have long sales cycles with big ticket and big commitment products or services, this book is a terrific resource. It is a manual on how to develop teams and how to work through the sales process avoiding specific hazards along the way. The book also reaffirms basic principles that a salesperson must always remember and focus on to emerge victorious. Even if your product or service does not require a complicated sale, this book should be required reading to those who are responsible for account management and on-going revenue generation from those accounts.

I have been using that line for years..."Hope is not a strategy" I recently purchased this book on a longgggg layover at SFO. (It was time well spent) You would be amazed at how many salespeople go into a sales call without a strategy or work on a deal for months to realize they are not at "Power" The principles in this book are truly a "Field Guide" to successful solution selling, and will save you many hours of on the Job training.

Happy Selling!

What great insight into the real world of complex decision-making. I now see in such complex sales that the process is to work with the client on the larger issues, not wait until an RFP is done -- because you are then too late. Well worth the time to read.

there r a lot of sales books. but this book deal with B2B and hi-tech sales. very clear, describe the situation well and improve the performance. it's a must to all sales, marketing and marcom managers of hi-tech companies.

This book hits the nail right on the head regarding the complex sale process and what it takes to be successful in a complex selling situation. Like all selling books, it starts a little slow and dwells in obvious theory for the first 4-5 chapters and has a system named with an acronym. But those flaws aside, the last two-thirds of this book has some absolutely great selling concepts. I bought this book for the ten sales reps who report to me, and a lot of the terminology in the book has found its way into our daily vernacular. I firmly believe if you follow the concepts in this book faithfully, success in complex selling is much more likely than using any other selling concepts that I've seen.

This book hits the nail right on the head regarding the complex sale process and what it takes to be successful in a complex selling situation. Like all selling books, it starts a little slow and dwells in obvious theory for the first 4-5 chapters and has a system named with an acronym. But those flaws aside, the last two-thirds of this book has some absolutely great selling concepts. I bought this book for the ten sales reps who report to me, and a lot of the terminology in the book has found its way into our daily vernacular. I firmly believe if you follow the concepts in this book faithfully, success in complex selling is much more likely than using any other selling concepts that I've seen.

Well...at the end of the day there IS a little hope involved, but if you did not work the strategy in this book for your complex sale, hope is all you got. When you are on the complex sale, you have this book and Mahan Khalsa's approach that blend together for a neat toolkit. I've had the opportunity to be part of a presentation from one of the principals at The Complex Sale and saw the tools in this book in action. Happy Selling & Good Luck!

Well...at the end of the day there IS a little hope involved, but if you did not work the strategy in this book for your complex sale, hope is all you got. When you are on the complex sale, you have this book and Mahan Khalsa's approach that blend together for a neat toolkit. I've had the opportunity to be part of a presentation from one of the principals at The Complex Sale and saw the tools in this book in action. Happy Selling & Good Luck!

The book provides a way to look at the sales process. A more conceptual approach is taken and I found the book very usefull. I took away a few of the points that help me deal with clients, prospects and myself frequently.

I learned more from this book than most of the $200-400 corporate classes thatI have attended over the last few years.

Selling is not about you! It is ALL about the buyer!!

Do yourself a favor, read and study a book referenced in this book, How To Win Friends & Influence People.

Invoke Solutions is one of my client companies. (www.invoke.com) Their offices are located next door to ours in Wellesley, MA. Because of some encouraging early success with their unique marketing research software and solution, Invoke's Board recently decided to staff up additional sales territories across North America. Ben Cesare, Invoke's Senior VP of Sales, retained me to help them to find Sales Executives for some of these new territories. Ben came to Invoke with more than 20 years of experience in leading sales teams, including a stint heading up Channel Sales in North America for Apple Computer. Ben understands the world of complex selling!

In the course of helping me to understand the kind of candidate that will be most successful in telling the Invoke story, Ben mentioned that his favorite book on the subject was written by Rick Page: "Hope Is Not A Strategy - The 6 Keys to Winning the Complex Sale." It did not take me long to figure out that this book should quickly find its way to the top of my reading list. I have just finished digesting the book. I can see why Ben considers it "the Bible" for the art of complex selling. Over the past several years, I have been trying to learn all that I can about best practices in sales and selling. This thin volume - less than 200 pages - is the best resource I have seen for simplifying the sometimes mystifying and multi-layered process of managing competitive sales.

The book is laid out in four major sections:

Section 1: The Challenge - The Complex Sale

In this introductory section, Page unravels the intricacies of selling in a rapidly evolving business environment. I found the chapter on "Talent and Team Selling" to be of particular value. In this chapter, he lays out the different kinds of skills that are needed for different types of selling - Tellers, Sellers, Hunters, Farmers, Business Developers, Partners and Industry-Networked Consultants.

Section 2: The Solution - R.A.D.A.R.

This sections contains the Six Keys that Page refers to in the subtitle of the book.

Key 1 - Link Solutions to Pain or Gain

Key 2 - Qualify The Prospect

Key 3 - Build Competitive Preference

Key 4 - Determine the Decision-Making Process

Key 5 - Sell to Power

Key 6 - Communicate the Strategic Plan

Section 3: Strategies for Execution

This section is replete with mini-case studies of how specific sales teams or individuals implemented the execution strategies outlined in this part of the book.

Section 4: Winning Before the Battle - Account Management

Page writes: "A friend of mine was an airborne instructor in the Army. I asked him if it was difficult to get people to jump out of an airplane the first time.

`Actually,' he said, `it was harder to get them to do it the second time.'

That is my definition of a great salesperson. Will they buy from you the second time?

If we oversold or underdelivered, then it wasn't a sale; it was a lie. Lying is easy; selling is hard.

A great salesperson sells in a way that leads to trust and repeat business."

I recommend this book for anyone who is selling or leading a sales team.

I also recommend Invoke Solutions' fascinating new approach to streamlining market research. They are saving their clients time and money while providing more useful market intelligence. Check out their Website.

Al

Invoke Solutions is one of my client companies. (www.invoke.com) Their offices are located next door to ours in Wellesley, MA. Because of some encouraging early success with their unique marketing research software and solution, Invoke's Board recently decided to staff up additional sales territories across North America. Ben Cesare, Invoke's Senior VP of Sales, retained me to help them to find Sales Executives for some of these new territories. Ben came to Invoke with more than 20 years of experience in leading sales teams, including a stint heading up Channel Sales in North America for Apple Computer. Ben understands the world of complex selling!

In the course of helping me to understand the kind of candidate that will be most successful in telling the Invoke story, Ben mentioned that his favorite book on the subject was written by Rick Page: "Hope Is Not A Strategy - The 6 Keys to Winning the Complex Sale." It did not take me long to figure out that this book should quickly find its way to the top of my reading list. I have just finished digesting the book. I can see why Ben considers it "the Bible" for the art of complex selling. Over the past several years, I have been trying to learn all that I can about best practices in sales and selling. This thin volume - less than 200 pages - is the best resource I have seen for simplifying the sometimes mystifying and multi-layered process of managing competitive sales.

The book is laid out in four major sections:

Section 1: The Challenge - The Complex Sale

In this introductory section, Page unravels the intricacies of selling in a rapidly evolving business environment. I found the chapter on "Talent and Team Selling" to be of particular value. In this chapter, he lays out the different kinds of skills that are needed for different types of selling - Tellers, Sellers, Hunters, Farmers, Business Developers, Partners and Industry-Networked Consultants.

Section 2: The Solution - R.A.D.A.R.

This sections contains the Six Keys that Page refers to in the subtitle of the book.

Key 1 - Link Solutions to Pain or Gain

Key 2 - Qualify The Prospect

Key 3 - Build Competitive Preference

Key 4 - Determine the Decision-Making Process

Key 5 - Sell to Power

Key 6 - Communicate the Strategic Plan

Section 3: Strategies for Execution

This section is replete with mini-case studies of how specific sales teams or individuals implemented the execution strategies outlined in this part of the book.

Section 4: Winning Before the Battle - Account Management

Page writes: "A friend of mine was an airborne instructor in the Army. I asked him if it was difficult to get people to jump out of an airplane the first time.

`Actually,' he said, `it was harder to get them to do it the second time.'

That is my definition of a great salesperson. Will they buy from you the second time?

If we oversold or underdelivered, then it wasn't a sale; it was a lie. Lying is easy; selling is hard.

A great salesperson sells in a way that leads to trust and repeat business."

I recommend this book for anyone who is selling or leading a sales team.

I also recommend Invoke Solutions' fascinating new approach to streamlining market research. They are saving their clients time and money while providing more useful market intelligence. Check out their Website.

Al

Rick couldn't pack anymore information into this well written book on selling. This is some of the best advice anyone could offer, hope really is not a strategy.

I was recommended this book by a great salesman and it did live up to its promise. The book has a lot of great information about high trust selling. In addition, its primary focus is on large consultative selling that you may experience at a professional services firm or large enterprise companies such as IBM or Xerox. I think the book is great when presenting information on value propositions and how to close large deals. If you do not have any formal sales experience this would probably not be the best book to start with when learning how to sell.

Ths book addresses the selling process in high ticket sales and the various steps, factors and check poiints needed.

I use the book as a baseline to keep me on track from missing the little things that make all the difference.

Hope is Not a Strategy is the flavor of the month at the Very Large company who pays my monthly salary. Like every other employee with a client-facing role, I was given a copy and ordered to read it. Worse, as a junior member of my new sales team, I was asked to organize a group "away day" with a purpose of discussing the book and applying it to our accounts.

I have to confess that I was initially not impressed with being assigned this task. Like many people in the current market, I have been subjected to a wide variety of sales training and solution selling methods. I have been spun by SPIN sales training. I received Solution Selling as a gift from my sales mentor. I have followed the internal mandatory selling skills method training that my company uses to structure accounts. My first thought when I was handed this book was "Oh, no. Not *another* one."

At first read, I have to say that my opinion did not significantly improve. It felt like the keys covered much of the same ground as we had covered in the other sources. The structure of the book is a little bit odd and did not encourage me to read further.

I am happy to report that this is a book that gets better and more useful with closer examination. The consensus of my team eventually was that the keys are really a great tool for opportunity and relationship assessment and that it fit nicely into ground not covered enough through other sources. The partners said ruefully that the thing they liked best about it was how many of their own bloopers they recognized back in the examples.

In short, this is a book that only does itself justice when you start working with the keys for success as tools to evaluate your opportunities. It is well worth the time to do this-- at least our group of partners and consultants thought so!

Note to publishers:
One of the things that we discussed is that while this resource and others are excellent for evaluating opportunities, most of the opportunity problems seem to stem from poor account management. The little tiny chapter at the back of Hope is Not a Strategy is not enough to really address this problem. We find that many resources similarly say "account management is important" without really developing how to translate good opportunity management into account management. Market opening for someone?

This book is about sales strategy and techniques in complex sales situation. It contains many examples of author��s real experience. These examples is the best element in the book. They illustrate the author��s ideas/concepts perfectly. Practical, Concise, Easy to Understand. It is better to read than amateur work of consultants, professors.

This book preaches on long-term, win-win relationship with customers. Not those type of ��hit-and-run�� sales.

There isn��t really breakthrough ideas/concepts. It is more a combination of conventional ideas/concepts, which are still relevant in today��s complex sales situations. Having said that, there are charts and contents useful for personal reminders and internal training.

Rick Page tried to create analogy between some sales concepts and warfare. But some of such analogies are not easy to understand.

This book is about sales strategy and techniques in complex sales situation. It contains many examples of authorýýs real experience. These examples is the best element in the book. They illustrate the authorýýs ideas/concepts perfectly. Practical, Concise, Easy to Understand. It is better to read than amateur work of consultants, professors.

This book preaches on long-term, win-win relationship with customers. Not those type of ýýhit-and-runýý sales.

There isnýýt really breakthrough ideas/concepts. It is more a combination of conventional ideas/concepts, which are still relevant in todayýýs complex sales situations. Having said that, there are charts and contents useful for personal reminders and internal training.

Rick Page tried to create analogy between some sales concepts and warfare. But some of such analogies are not easy to understand.

This is an excellent handbook for salespeople in search of a simple summary of the principles of selling complex and costly products and services in a difficult environment. Author Rick Page offers nothing startlingly new, but he does a good job of collecting and presenting the most noteworthy points from collective conventional wisdom about selling. He illustrates these points with amusing, memorable anecdotes. His book is well written, well organized and quite readable. He probably has a point or two to offer even the most experienced and successful salesperson. We note that chapter six summarizes the meat of the book in just three pages, so - until you have time to read the book - time-pressed salespeople could start by glancing at this section to begin to learn what really matters most in a complicated sales effort.

Hope Is Not a Strategy is most valuable for those who are new to large account and large ticket selling. For those with lots of experience, the book is helpful in providing a structure for sales team planning and coordination.

As a test of the book's relevance, I took a potential sale that our firm is wrestling with and put it through the process. A number of valuable insights came from pursuing Mr. Page's process that would probably not have otherwise become part of our approach. Whether the sale will succeed or not, I don't know, but our effort definitely became more effective as a result. I happily give a book that provides that kind of benefit five stars. Thank you!

The book has four sections:

1. The Challenge -- The Complex Sale

2. The Solution -- R.A.D.A.R. (which stands for "R.eading A.ccounts and D.eploying A.ppropriate R.esources")

3. Strategies for Execution

4. Winning before the Battle -- Account Management

The first section was the least helpful to me (after pursuing complex sales for over 30 years, there wasn't really any new background here). If you are new to complex sales, this material will probably be a real eye-opener . . . especially if you are used to individual sales based on a standard approach. The most amusing section was on how to blend talent on a sales team to get the right mix of skills and orientation. You'll learn about Tellers, Sellers, Hunters, Farmers, Business Developers, Partners, and the Industry-Networked Consultant.

The second section was the heart of the book for me, describing R.A.D.A.R. which is "a simplified, six-step process that combines consultative, competitive, and political sales principles into a concise yet comprehensive process." There's a chapter on each element.

Value is the first challenge and you are supposed to link your solutions to the customer's pain or gain at the largest possible scale. Value stretches as a chain of value whose links (from highest to lowest value) are strategic advantage, political risk, financial return, cultural change, operational applications, and future/capability -- tools).

Resource allocation is the second challenge, and your job is to qualify the prospect to see if you can profitably deliver what that customer needs.

Selling strategy is the third challenge, and you try to "win their hearts before it starts" by looking at how you could win or lose in advance so you can build a competitive preference for you and your offering. This frequently involves developing the specifications.

Organizational politics is the fourth challenge, and you should go where the power is and keep climbing to higher levels. You should ideally sell to the CEO.

Teamwork is the final challenge and you accomplish this by communicating your strategic selling plan throughout your team and partners.

In the third section, the most useful part for me was encouragement to change issues and sales tactics to help your potential customer see the maximum advantage you can provide. This may mean changing the scope of the problem and the solutions you offer.

I felt most comfortable with the fourth section because I try to stay in contact with clients for many years in order to help them become alert to opportunities where we can help them. In the consulting business, that approach is important because almost everything is custom made for the client. You need to know each other well before you can help them in the best ways.

Throughout the book, there are sidebars with specific examples of the principles being described in the main text. These were helpful for the most part. My only complaint is that they were too often about selling computer systems.

If all of these points seem like second nature to you, you may find it more valuable to seek out a more advanced book on complex sales.

After you finish reading the book, think back to a complex sale that you unexpectedly lost. How could the process in this book have helped you to avoid that result?

Good luck!

I am an avid reader, and successful sales executive. I have read nearly every book in the bibliography and many others on sales. I avoided buying this book for months because it looked "basic" when thumbing through it in airports and book stores. I finally bought the paperback version and I was amazed at how wrong I was. EVERY Sentence in the book is important! Tom Kosnik's quote on the cover is dead on. This book is worth the value of 12 books on sales in it takes every lesson learned in the field or taught in a book and presents it in a clear, logical and concise manner. It's not that the information is brilliantly new but it is brilliantly presented. Fantastic a must read!

I've heard so many good things about this book and was really excited to read it. The excitment quickly died when I started to read it. It reminds me of some of the worst text books I read in college. You know the type dry and packed with meaningless terms that you'd memorized for a test and quickly forget. This not a straight forward get down to business book. The author could of done a much better job in making this an enjoyable read, rather than a painful one. If you dig terms like crucible and disintermediation - go for it. I gave it 2 stars because it does have a message if you can ignore the over complicated way it's presented.