Miller Heiman Strategic Selling Blue Sheets

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Notes from the book by Miller Heiman: The New Strategic Selling Joe Murphy 770.662.5700 PAGE 2 The NEW Strategic Selling The following is an outline of the book from Miller-Heiman. Please read the information contained in this report for it will help us all be on the same page and move us closer to our objective – winning business. Miller Heiman / Strategic selling is a proven framework to make sure your sales guys will do a thorough job of covering a given account. You can use the framework in fairly sophisticated ways and some, including myself, would call it cumbersome: document/plan every aspect in writing.

Strategic Selling and Conceptual Selling

Aligning Buying and Selling Processes in Complex Sales

The Strategic Selling and Conceptual Selling programs combine to offer a process to strategically pursue complex opportunities by understanding both the buying and selling processes at work. The program, which uses both the Blue and Green Sheets, helps map out both the sales opportunity being pursued and the expected outcomes of each critical customer interaction.

In the Strategic/Conceptual Selling® program you will learn, apply, and practice the following opportunity management and identification strategies and tactics.

Strategic Selling®

Change

  • Understand how your customer reacts to change
  • Identify the most critical changes in your selling environment

Single Sales Objective

  • Clarify your current position by defining a Single Sales Objective for every opportunity

Euphoria-Panic

  • Determine how you feel right now about closing this Single Sales Objective
  • Define your position on the Euphoria-Panic Continuum

Define the Players: The Four Buying Influences

  • Avoid the common dead end by focusing on players' roles, not their titles
  • Learn why an uncovered base with any Buying Influence could give your sale to the competition

Degree of Influence

  • Differentiate the varying Degrees of Influence for each Buying Influence
  • Define the factors that affect the Degree of Influence, ranging from internal politics to organizational changes
  • Learn why it is important to cover people who have a low Degree of Influence

Modes

  • Learn how understanding each reaction to change helps predict receptivity to the sales proposal
  • Identify what sales approaches you can develop for each of the four modes

The Win-Win Matrix

  • Ensure wins for your customer and yourself
  • Discover the four possible outcomes of every sale, and why three of them are recipes for disaster

Miller Heiman Strategic Selling Blue Sheet Pdf

Getting to the Economic Buyer

  • Uncover the three problems in getting to the Economic Buyer. Dealing with the 'float factor,' the internal blocker, and intimidation
  • Establish your credibility by providing the one thing the Economic Buyer always wants

Competition

  • Learn the types of competition
  • Understand how focusing on the competition can be just as dangerous as ignoring it
  • Leverage a new strategy to use against competition

Ideal Customer

  • Measure the fit of your opportunity using the Ideal Customer Profile: a reliable tool for concentrating on win-win business
  • Sort and prioritize prospects according to this profile

The Sales Funnel

  • Maximize your most precious resource: selling time
  • Leverage the Sales Funnel for account tracking and territory management
  • Avoid the 'boom and bust' income cycle
  • Discover an effective balance between the four types of selling work

Strategic Analysis: The Blue Sheet

  • Pull it all together into an action-based strategy for a structured, proven, 60-minute sales analysis
  • Leverage a complete, detailed picture of your Single Sales Objective
  • Illustrate who should do what and when to move your sale toward a close
Miller heiman strategic selling blue sheet pdf
Conceptual Selling®

Customer's Concept

  • Understand what the Customer's Concept is and why it is necessary to understand it
  • Connect the Concept Sale and the Product Sale
  • Know why the Concept Sale always has to come first

Action Commitments

  • Set customer action targets for every call
  • Determine your Best Action Commitment: the most you can expect from the customer as a result of the call
  • Identify your Minimum Acceptable Action: the least you'll settle for
  • Know what to do when you 'can't get' the minimum
  • Use the Guidelines for Commitment: make sure they are specific, realistic, and measurable

Single Sales Objective

  • Learn the most common error in setting objectives
  • Identify Single Sales Objectives that are measurable and tangible
  • Hear examples of 'fuzzy' and sharply defined SSOs

Valid Business Reason

  • Establish a business reason for each call
  • Develop the criteria you must have for an effective VBR

Credibility

  • Hear why credibility is key to getting started in every call
  • Learn the three types of credibility: earned, transferred, and established by reputation
  • Understand why you should test your credibility on every call

Getting Information

  • Recognize what information is missing and who is the best person to ask
  • Leverage questioning as a process to confirm and uncover information
  • Explore the five question types: Confirmation, New Information, Attitude, Commitment, and Basic Issues

Superb Communication

  • Maximize the understanding between yourself and the customer
  • Compare the effects of 'Question Shock' and Golden Silence
  • Discover the proven benefits of Golden Silence

Giving Information

  • See why differentiation is imperative to buying decisions
  • Understand the importance of leveraging your unique strengths to differentiate your company, product or service
  • Decipher the difference between unique strengths and features and benefits
  • Use the acid tests for differentiation: 'So what?' and 'Prove it!'

Sales Call Approaches

  • Compare traditional selling approaches and the joint venture
  • Evaluate which works and which doesn't
  • Utilize logic to get to win-win results with your customers

Getting Commitment

  • Learn how each sales call ends on what the customer will do next
  • Know when the customer is ready for action by understanding commitment signals
  • Define why customers won't commit and overcome basic issues

Sales Call Plan

  • Bring it all together and detail your action plan for your upcoming sales calls
  • Use the Green Sheet checklist questions to build your strategy

Strategic Selling® Strategic Analysis

The Blue Sheet is an electronic version of the Strategic Analysis Worksheet you learned how to use in Strategic Selling®. A Blue Sheet is launched from the opportunity record in your CRM.

The Blue Sheet was designed to assist you in managing your opportunities for single sales objectives. It continues the Miller Heiman GroupTM philosophy of interaction with thinking as an easy to use, intuitive user interface, while linking to your organizations' customer relationship/sales force automation contact management system. Real time data interchange with real time results!

Fig. 6, Blue Sheet Overview

Miller Heiman Strategic Selling Blue Sheets Review


1. Opportunity Details - Displays a summary of the basic opportunity information from your CRM.
2. Single Sales Objective - This shows what the sales objective is, the expected revenue figure and the opportunity close date.
3. Adequacy of Current Position- Enables you to assess how you feel about your probability of success in this opportunity relative to this Single Sales Objective.
4. Competition / Sales Funnel- Displays a summary of the Competition Type, Place in Sales Funnel, and Timing For Priorities.
5. Specify Competitors - This shows the known competitors with this opportunity.
6. Ideal Customer Profile - A predictive device to help you determine which customers will be your best prospects and to distinguish them from the ones who will prove to be liabilities.
7. Buying Influences Involved - Directly relates to anyone who has a positive or negative impact on your selling activity.
8. Buying Influence's Key - Win Results - This shows the key win results for each buying influence.
9. Buying Influence – How Well Is Base Covered? – Allows you to rate how the buying influence feels about your proposed solution, and provide evidence to support the rating.
10. Summary of My Position Today - Displays a summary of the Strengths and Red Flags.
11. Possible Actions - Displays a list of all your possible actions.
12. Best Action Plan -Displays a summary of the Possible Actions flagged as Best Actions.
13. Information Needed - Shows additional information that may be needed to help win/understand the opportunity.

Miller Heiman Strategic Selling Blue Sheet Download


When using the Blue Sheet on your mobile device then the responsive view is displayed as:

Toolbar icons are accessed via the three dots icon in the top right.


Fig. 6b, Responsive Blue Sheet mobile view

Miller Heiman Strategic Selling Blue Sheet


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