Understanding the Professional Buyer is a practical guide for sales people, giving them insight into the behaviour and strategies of buyers, so that they are able to deal with them more successfully and regain power in the buyer-seller relationship. In recent years the balance of power between buyer and seller has swung dramatically in favour of the buyer. Sellers are now faced with more professional, more knowledgeable and more powerful buyers - and the sales techniques used in previous years are no longer working. This book shows how to understand this new breed of buyer, in order to interact with them on a more level playing field. Contents include developments in the industry; purchasing organizations; types of buyers; purchasing analysis; and crucially, buyer-seller relations.

Offers strategies and advice on retaining pricing power for business-to-business salespeople who have to negotiate with procurement departments.

Highly effective negotiation skills are an essential element of a purchasing professional's toolkit. Negotiation for Purchasing Professionals provides a step-by-step approach to delivering winning negotiations and getting game changing results. It provides purchasers with the necessary tools and tactics for a detailed, planned approach to negotiation. Jonathan O'Brien shifts the emphasis away from relying mostly upon personality to a more structured approach that enables anyone to negotiate effectively, even when up against a formidable opponent. This approach allows the purchasing professional or the buying team to evaluate the supplier in advance, assess the sales team, and tailor their negotiation strategy depending on cultural differences, personality traits and game theory. Negotiation for Purchasing Professionals provides a strong framework for discussion in advance of the meeting, allowing the negotiator to plan their agenda, objectives and tactics. The book is based upon Red Sheet Methodology, a proven and collaborative technique used by many companies globally. If you are in a buying role, this book will increase your confidence and transform your ability to secure winning outcomes and better business results. Negotiation for Purchasing Professionals was short listed for the ACA-Bruel Prize and was Specially Commended at the Gala Dinner 2013 organised by the Association of Purchasing and Supply Chain (CESA) of HEC School of Management in Paris. Negotiation for Purchasing Professionals is the perfect companion to Jonathan O'Brien's other books Category Management in Purchasing and Supplier Relationship Management. Used together, they provide a complete and powerful strategic purchasing toolkit.

Get from Idea to Product/Market Fit in B2B. The world has changed. Nowadays, there are more companies building B2B products than there’s ever been. Products are entering organizations top-down, middle-out, and bottom-up. Teams and managers control their budgets. Buyers have become savvier and more impatient. The case for the value of new innovations no longer needs to be made. Technology products get hired, and fired faster than ever before. The challenges have moved from building and validating products to gaining adoption in increasingly crowded and fragmented markets. This, requires a new playbook. The second edition of Lean B2B is the result of years of research into B2B entrepreneurship. It builds off the unique Lean B2B Methodology, which has already helped thousands of entrepreneurs and innovators around the world build successful businesses. In this new edition, you’ll learn: - Why companies seek out new products, and why they agree to buy from unproven vendors like startups - How to find early adopters, establish your credibility, and convince business stakeholders to work with you - What type of opportunities can increase the likelihood of building a product that finds adoption in businesses - How to learn from stakeholders, identify a great opportunity, and create a compelling value proposition - How to get initial validation, create a minimum viable product, and iterate until you're able to find product/market fit This second edition of Lean B2B will show you how to build the products that businesses need, want, buy, and adopt.

Highly effective negotiation skills are an essential element of a purchasing and supply chain professional's toolkit. Negotiation for Procurement and Supply Chain Professionals provides a step-by-step approach to delivering winning negotiations and getting game-changing results. It provides purchasers and supply chain managers with the necessary tools and tactics for a detailed, planned approach to negotiation. Negotiation for Procurement and Supply Chain Professionals allows the purchasing professional or the buying team to evaluate the supplier in advance, assess the sales team, and tailor their negotiation strategy depending on concession strategies, cultural influences and game theory. Negotiation for Procurement and Supply Chain Professionals provides a strong framework for discussion in advance of the meeting, allowing the negotiator to plan their agenda, objectives and tactics. Based upon the Red Sheet® Methodology, this book is a proven and collaborative technique used by many companies globally. The new edition includes supply chain planning, updates on multi-party negotiation for supply chain negotiations, Brexit as a retrospective example of negotiation and how the negotiation capability will need to change in the future.

What's the secret to sales success? If you're like most business leaders, you'd say it's fundamentally about relationships-and you'd be wrong. The best salespeople don't just build relationships with customers. They challenge them. The need to understand what top-performing reps are doing that their average performing colleagues are not drove Matthew Dixon, Brent Adamson, and their colleagues at Corporate Executive Board to investigate the skills, behaviors, knowledge, and attitudes that matter most for high performance. And what they discovered may be the biggest shock to conventional sales wisdom in decades. Based on an exhaustive study of thousands of sales reps across multiple industries and geographies, The Challenger Sale argues that classic relationship building is a losing approach, especially when it comes to selling complex, large-scale business-to-business solutions. The authors' study found that every sales rep in the world falls into one of five distinct profiles, and while all of these types of reps can deliver average sales performance, only one-the Challenger- delivers consistently high performance. Instead of bludgeoning customers with endless facts and features about their company and products, Challengers approach customers with unique insights about how they can save or make money. They tailor their sales message to the customer's specific needs and objectives. Rather than acquiescing to the customer's every demand or objection, they are assertive, pushing back when necessary and taking control of the sale. The things that make Challengers unique are replicable and teachable to the average sales rep. Once you understand how to identify the Challengers in your organization, you can model their approach and embed it throughout your sales force. The authors explain how almost any average-performing rep, once equipped with the right tools, can successfully reframe customers' expectations and deliver a distinctive purchase experience that drives higher levels of customer loyalty and, ultimately, greater growth.