This book, together with "The New Conceptual Selling" should be mandatory for any sales person. It introduces among other things, the concept of the Sales Funnel and of Win Results. If you are interested in repeat business and customer referrals you will not want to miss this book. Highly recommended!

The main gripe I have with this book is that the authors are still selling it in the body of the book - well after I've already purchased it! I suppose it's to be expected, they are in sales after all...

Even so, it is a good baseline method for anyone that is involved in selling where there is or will be a long term relationship to manage. It draws on principles from other fields such as change management - and while it isn't new to learn that you need to identify your influencers, and that you need to show them the "win" that they will achieve by backing you - it is it is good to be reminded of this and the other tenets that are laid out in this book.

Overall, a good purchase

I am a Regional Sales Manager for a medical device company, and this book is extremely helpful for anyone who is selling into a complex environment. It gives very useful tips on how to identify exactly where you stand with an account, who's who in an account, and how to cover all of your bases so you don't get torpedo'd by someone who you never even knew was involved in the sale in the first place. I bought copies for all of our outside field reps as well.

This book is still one of the best. I recommend it to all the executives and companies I work with in turnarounding sales organizations and sales people who are struggling in the "strategy" of the deal.

It is a GREAT framework for working a complex sale whether you are selling professional services, or a complex, large scale solution.

It is not written and designed for anyone who is selling B2C or selling retail goods. There is no "10 steps to closing the deal" - it's about professional selling.

Best of luck - JosephBMurphy.com

Just when you thought you couldn't improve a masterpiece, Miller Heiman releases an improved version of Strategic Selling. It's a must read!

Lee B. Salz... author of Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager

Just when you thought you couldn't improve a masterpiece, Miller Heiman releases an improved version of Strategic Selling. It's a must read!
Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager

The (new!) strategic selling technique is optimal for large complex sales - how do you sell the implementation of an enterprise software system, or the outsourcing of customer care? These types of sales require more than product innovation, advertising, or dropping a pair of football tickets off to the buyer. They require an in depth understanding of the customer organization, and both what drives change, and what stops it. The methods here aren't an "Everywhere for everything" panaceas - you don't need them to get more shelf space for Cheerios - but the are great for organizing attacks on the big sales.

A real strategic approach to building business relationships and getting sales that have the best chance of delivering a win-win for both you and the client.

I "dumbed down" to a one-page crib sheet that I try to follow in my consulting business. It's worked very well so far. That said, if your target market is small businesses (25 or less employees), while the strategy will work, it may be too much of an effort up front for the potential pay-off down the road. If your target is companies of 2,000+ employees, this is a must.

This book helped me understand the four major buying positions within an organization; Coach, User Buyer, Technical Buyer and Economic Buyer. Once I understood the roles each of these play during a complex sale, it helped me concentrate on the position and not the personality. This book helped me understand the objectives of each buying position and gave me pointers on how to take advantage with the proper communication techniques. I highly recommend it for all sales people who are trying to sell to large corporations.

This book really helps you to find all the right people to help make your sell successful. I recommend it to every sales person.

A book about how to get what you want out of life, whether that is in your business or personal life. It is filled with specific advice to keep you focused on the outcome you're shooting for, and equipped to manage the pressure that can either help you or hurt you along the way. It gives excellent suggestions on bargaining- everything from the greet to closing the deal. It helps you create win/win situations with your customers.

This is an excellent book for anyone working in a complex selling environment. Must be read.

NOTE: The review which follows is of the revised and updated (i.e. most recently published) edition co-authored by Robert B. Miller and Stephen E. Heiman with Tad Tuleja.

With Tuleja, Miller and Heiman offer a revised and updated edition of a book first published 20 years ago. Why? "The first [reason] is that our clients asked us to. Even though they found strategic Selling to be just as effective, and the concepts just as relevant, as they had been in 1985, some of them felt that...even the best processes could use a face-lift....The second reason we revised Strategic Selling [i.e. the book] relates to a basic axiom of the process itself: `Whatever got you where you are today is no longer sufficient to keep you there." And even if it did, I presume to add, it is almost certainly not sufficient to get you where you want to go.

Miller, Heiman, and their associates examined the original and subsequently revised material (1998) with "a fine-tooth comb, sharpening and enhancing it line-by-line." The results of those labors are impressive, especially given the new discussions of various strategy concepts such as Degree of Influence (also known as Circle of Influence); the Win-Win Statement (rigorously examined in Chapter 10); Competition (covered in an entirely new chapter in Part 2, Chapter 13; and The "Refined Sales Funnel," a time and territory management tool which is most effective when carefully coordinated with another tool, the Ideal Customer Profile. In this edition, Miller and Heiman reverse the order: "Focusing on Your Ideal Customer "(Part 4, Chapters 14 and 15) followed by "Managing Your Selling Time" (Part 5, Chapters 16-18).

Of special interest to me is the final section, "After Twenty Years: Responding to Our Clients' Most Challenging Questions," to which Miller and Heiman respond. 15. Yes, the questions are indeed "challenging" -- questions which everyone at least directly involved in sales should be asking of themselves on a regular basis -- but the greater value of this section is derived from what Miller and Heiman have so say. Their comments are directly responsive, offered with a conversational (as opposed to a professorial) tone. When appropriate, they duly acknowledge the complexities and ambiguities in a given situation. And throughout their responses, they make a sincere and generally effective effort to "level" with their reader. For example:

14. "The Surefire Close. When all is said and done, you still have to close. Do you have any reliable closing techniques for helping us to improve our hit ratio?"

A: "In a word: No." Why? See the complete response on pages 422-423.

15. "The Secret of Success. We're often told that the salesperson's single most important quality is persistence. What do you think about this?"

A: "Persistence is an admirable quality, but it won't get you anywhere unless the people you are persistent with believe in you and are absolutely convinced that they can trust you....The one quality that every great salesperson has got to have is not persistence but credibility." Why? See the complete response on pages 423-424.

Granted, these brief examples are taken out of context, in terms both of the section from which they are excerpted and the book within which that section serves as a conclusion. Nonetheless, I hope they give at least some indication of why a revised and updated edition was needed.

Everyone in sales should have her or his own "toolkit." Some of its contents are provided by the given employee, others are provided by formal training and/or a supervisor, and still others from a book such as this. Long ago, I realized that strategies are "hammers" and tactics are "nails." The former drive the latter. That said, I presume to offer a caveat. Keep in mind this bromide: a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Obviously, it would be foolish to stuff a "toolkit" with everything offered by Miller and Heiman in combination with everything offered in other excellent books such as Neil Rackham's SPIN Selling, Jacques Werth and Nicholas E. Ruben's High Probability Selling, and Gary Hankins' The Power of the Pitch. Presumably Miller and Heiman agree that readers of books such as theirs must be aware of everything available in what could be called "The Salesperson's Super Hardware Store." The challenge is to select and then use effectively those tools which are most appropriate to the given marketplace.

I am not a full time sales person, I am a software engineer and researcher who gets involved in some pre-sales consulting. I bought this book to become more educated on the Miller Heiman sales approach that is now standard for all of our sales people. I found this book very helpful and feel as though I now have a basic working knowledge of the sales system we use.The Miller Heiman training is rather expensive so I did not attend the actual classes with our regular sales staff.

The approach of this book came naturally to me. This sales strategy is much like engineering decisions in using continual review of risks and generating ideas to mitigate those risks while simultaneously advancing toward the closing of the project (a sales deal). There are many lists and sublists within the method that are pretty well known by now so I won't try to list many of them here. The terminology is important and very memorable - "Coach", "Economic Buyer", "Funnel", "Best Few", etc.

The book is clear about what it is not and I appreciate that too since sales is not my background. It is not a book of sales tactics, that is, how to literally sell someone something face to face in the "sales event" as the book calls it. The book assumes the reader is an experienced sales person and is already perfecting this skill (a fair assumption). It also does not try to teach skills in deal closure/contracting since that subject is already covered by many other books and is another assumed skill.

What the book does talk about at length is approaching each deal as a unique project that has its own risks, dynamics and yet can be managed within a systematic framework for success. "This entire book can be seen as an analytical machine designed to produce one meticulously tested product - your Alternate Positions list." (p171) The Alternate Positions list is essentially a list of ideas of what things you might try next along with the accompanying rationale for each idea. The ideas are very specific so they can be tested for pass/fail, they are not vague notions. Updated "Alternate Positions" are continuously needed because your current position is assumed to be in need of constant improvement until you win the sale, from beginning to end. When applied to an actual case, the strategy means to shake-out undue sales optimism with realism on specific important aspects of getting THIS deal, not just any deal generally, this one deal specifically.

There are plenty of real life sales examples throughout the book that put flesh on the theoretical framework. I relate to the systematic, risk mitigating approach, but I was reminded of my own shortcomings in reading and managing the dynamics of people who can be fluid, dynamic, fickle, irrational, etc. yet very important to winning the account. This is the sales persons' chosen medium (people skills) and it is more tricky and unfair than dealing with things. However, the engineering, project oriented, framework makes sense in both of these worlds and the book does a great job of prompting sales people to think a bit more like engineers. Relentless information gathering (and analysis for adding to actual knowledge) is the bottom line to succesfully navigating through a complex project of any type.

I particularly like the way the book views competition as those who run the race against you trying to get to the sale first, instead of being the ones standing in front of you who must be defeated to surely win the customers business (definitely not a sure approach). Miller Heiman stresses focusing on the prospect from first to last, not the competitor. Competitors and the risks they entail must be managed, but not become the focus. The message is, carry out the Miller Heiman system (run the race) better than they do and you will typically win the business over them.

This is an easy read and really a nice page-turner especially if you're new to sales reading like I am. It's good it's a page turner though because the book is a bit too long and redundant for the ground it covers. It is all useful info but I think at least 15% of the book could be eliminated since it is driving home the same fundamentals over and over again from slightly different perspectives like you were sitting in the classroom. I understand the merits, but my reading time is valuable to me so I subtracted a rating point for failure to streamline the book a bit more. I expect successful complex sales professionals will recognize many of the ideas here, but the information is very well organized and probably a good purchase for anyone connected with sales, especially uninitiated tech types like me.

This book is great and has helped me tremendously in being more confident in prospecting new business for my line of work. It gives excellent advise on deal making - everything from the initial sales call to closing the deal. It hits on points critical to strategic planning and developing a strong sales action plan. An A+++ book!!

This will Teache you how to go into a Sales call, With a plan, outline and a goal, Very good worth buying, giving to your sales managers.

This book is not an easy read. It is logically arranged and provides excellent insight into certain apsects of strategic selling but it is very long and it is quite dry.

While it does contain very valuable and usable insight, I feel that the underlying process behind the whole concept is beginning to look slightly dated now. This process is 25 years old after all and the world has changed immeasurably during this time. There are other books available that are firstly easier to read and secondly more cutting edge in terms of the methology they suggest.

I purchased this book a couple of years ago when I was trying to break into medical sales. I didn't get the job I was interviewing for, but this book has subsequently rewarded me in ways I couldn't have imagined at the time. It's not just a book about completing the complex sale. It's a book about how to get what you want out of life. Or perhaps more accurately, it's a book that opens your eyes up to how many important things in your life are actually a complex sale.

This book is filled with specific instructions to help keep you focused on the outcome you desire, and prepared to manage the influences that can either help you or hurt you along the way. Nothing is left to chance. Red flags are identified, strategies are developed, and win/win solutions are created all the way around. The natural result is good will, and customers who feel like you helped them fill the gap between where they were, and where they needed to be.

This book is perfect for anyone who has developed a lot of technical expertise in a given field, but might be a bit inexperienced or even naive when it comes to politics. We've all had great ideas shot down by people whose motives were less than laudable. Don't waste precious time and energy getting angry that these people have rank and authority. Learn how to manage them! This book shows you how.

Highly recommended.

This is a fantastic book and definitely warrants the praise thats been lavished upon it for the past 15-20 years. However, be forewarned, the book isn't an easy read. You should also be aware that, at 424-pages, it isn't a quick read either. However, if you're willing to put in the requisite time and effort, you will find one of the best books on "complex" sales ever written. I also highly recommend Bosworth's "Solution Selling" and Parinello's "Selling to Vito." Any and all of these three books are established classics. Overall grade: B+/A-

I read this book to prepare myself for a salescourse at the company where I work. As it turns out I am no salesman, but the trainer did note that I had a very good insight into the salesprocess. So good, in fact, that he advised me to become a selling consultant for my company instead of a salesman. All that, thanks to having read this book in combination with "The New Conceptual Selling" (also by Heiman). If you really want to start selling, you must read this book!

Stephen E. Heiman, Diane Sanchez, and Tad Tuleja provide a practical, dynamic framework to approach complex selling from both a strategic and tactical point of view. Like a general, a salesperson must first master the art of planning his/her forces before being able to approach a customer/prospect effectively. Heiman, Sanchez, and Tuleja rightly recommend that their audience think about one complex selling situation that they have dealt with and analyse it using the six key elements to consider in a complex selling. The six elements are the following: buying influences, red flags/areas of strengths, response modes, wins/results, ideal customer profile, and sales funnel. Although the audience can first consider that exercise a chore, they will derive a lot of value from it by internalizing the author's framework. Heiman, Sanchez, and Tuleja correctly remind their audience that the salesperson needs to have a broad understanding of his/her competition. Competition includes not only direct competitive offerings and substitutes, but also customer/prospect's options such as doing nothing, in sourcing, or resource reallocation for other purposes. Furthermore, Heiman, Sanchez, and Tuleja recommend that their audience adopt a "side" strategy and not a "face" strategy by focusing first on customer/prospect's needs and not primarily on a narrowly defined competition. With a little bit of practice, the framework described above becomes second nature and allows the audience to eventually use it in a multitude of settings. For example, applying for a job is often similar to complex selling. The job seeker needs to make a mutually beneficial value proposition not only to the hiring manager(s), but also to the assistant (s), the receptionist and any other relevant persons who can make a difference in hiring him/her or not. Similarly, a fundraiser could use the above-mentioned framework to raise funds on behalf of his/her non-profit organization.