Selling Vision: The X-XY-Y Formula for Driving
Results by Selling Change
Lou Schachter and Rick Cheatham
McGraw-Hill Publishers (April, 2016)
If business leaders do not complete this transformation, their organization will probably not be around when the next one occurs.
It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of mental pictures to peak performance. For example:
o Most hockey players see where the puck is; Wayne Gretzky saw where it would be.
o The same was true of Bill Russell and rebounds in basketball.
o In their pre-shot routine, all great golfers (e.g. Jack Nicklaus) envision the ball proceeding perfectly to its destination.
o Great sculptors (e.g. Leonardo da Vinci) “see” what is within slabs of marble.
o Grandmasters in chess “see” 4-7 moves ahead.
You get the idea and the same is true in business. The key to peak performance is to recognize imminent change or, better yet, paradigm shifts before others do. In sales, according to Lou Schachter and Rick Cheatham, it is necessary to recognize a “new way of seeing change.”
More specifically, to recognize a transition process from selling what you do now and the way you now sell it (Point X) to what you want to be selling the way you want to sell it (Point Y). There are several stages to this transition process.
Selling only X: What customers buy now.
Selling both X and Y in appropriate proportion.
Selling only Y: What customers will eventually buy.
The Traditional Approach: X > Y
The Selling Vision Approach: X > XY > YX > mostly Y
“This involves a change from selling X to selling Y, but with a clearly defined period in which you are selling both X and Y.” Over time, the process involves Y and Z with (perhaps) X involved only to a very limited extent. Business leaders face several significant challenges. First, recognizing what is either imminent or now underway; then, making whatever adjustments may be necessary (especially of mindset, priorities, strategies and tactics, and allocation of resources). Finally, to the extent possible and appropriate, accelerating the process. Those in sales must be both willing and able to sell XY and then YX.
These are among the dozens of passages of greatest interest and value to me, also listed to suggest the scope of Schachter and Cheatham’s coverage in Parts 1-3 (Chapters 1-13):
o What Really Happens (Pages 16-19)
o Network Adapters (36-37)
o The Winning Mindset (51-54)
o Avoiding the Common Error: Choosing the Wrong Destination (61-65)
o Managing Buyers During X-to-Y Change (77-80)
o The Circular Buying Cycle (82-84)
o Initiatives Trigger Buying Processes (84-85)
o Caught Up in the Decision Vortex, and, Multiple-Decision Vortices (86-90)
o Multiple Strategic Initiatives (90-92)
o The Dangerous Middle (100-101)
o Beyond Solution Selling (102-104)
o The Value Gap (104-106)
o Accelerator Selling in the X-to-Y World (111-112)
o How to Use Navigation Techniques (117-122)
o How to Be an Accelerator Salesperson (127-131)
o Behaviors that Make Prospecting Successful (137-14
o Decision Vortices (149-155)
o Buyer Inaction (155-164)
Schachter and Cheatham offer an abundance of information, insights, and counsel as to HOW to adopt and then integrate the Selling Vision Approach. It is important to keep in mind that those who are peak performers in sales must think differently about their relationships with buyers. Rather than selling the functions, features, and benefits of a product or, more likely, selling the product as a solution to one or more problems, they must shift their focus from selling to buyers to serving as a navigator during each buyer’s journey in a competitive marketplace that becomes more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous each day.
In their book, Lou Schachter and Rick Cheatham provide just about everything business leaders and especially sales managers need to know about how to transform both thinking and doing insofar as selling and buying are concerned.
Here are their concluding remarks: “Five key moments determine whether a sales transformation will be successful: (1) recognizing in z timely way that a major change is needed, (2) communicating the vision for Y and XY while continuing to appreciate X, (3) recognizing early success, (4) navigating the stage when the majority of sales people are selling XY or Y, particularly the early part of that stage, and (5) recognizing the appearance [or imminent arrival] of Z, which triggers the next sales transformation.”
If business leaders do not complete this transformation, their organization will probably not be around when the next one occurs.
TAGs: Selling Vision: The X-XY-Y Formula for Driving Results by Selling Change, Lou Schachter, Rick Cheatham, McGraw-Hill Publishers, If business leaders do not complete this transformation [comma] their organization will probably not be around when the next one occurs, the importance of mental pictures to peak performance, Wayne Gretsky, Bill Russell, Jack Nicklaus, Leonardo da Vinci