Holden Advisors Blog

Is Your Product a Commodity? Is it really? Or, does your customer cry commodity to get you to decrease your price? Adele McLean talks about how you can get out from under the negotiation tactic "cry commodity" to avoid the commodity trap.

Topics: Negotiating with Backbone, Selling with Confidence

Smart salespeople distinguish themselves from the pack of competitors. They are game changers, and they don’t wait to be pursued by potential customers. Game changers are assertive and effective as they challenge—with diplomacy—a customer’s viewpoint.  They think strategically and target potential opportunities that a customer may not yet realize exists, or they recast the way a customer views its situation.  If a customer appears to have little interest, a game changer reframes the conversation to build a compelling business case. It is a honed persona cultivated from an investment in thoughtful preparation,planning and confident execution.    

Topics: Selling with Confidence

Mergers can be a terrific way to grow your business, customer base, and product offerings. Given the changes in the regulatory environment, access to capital, and overall market appreciation, we see many companies choose a merger as a growth strategy now. The message to shareholders promises 1+1=3. In other words, the new whole will be greater than the sum of its parts. A single transaction promises that a stronger market position will lead to a significant increase in sales—while reducing costs.

However, the promise of the merger can often fall short of the reality.

Topics: Newsletter, Selling with Confidence

Good-better-best pricing is everywhere. Companies often offer choices on just about everything from all-organic ingredients, to cable bundles for sports fans and those for movie buffs, or pay-in-advance hotel reservations.

Topics: Pricing with Confidence, Selling with Confidence

I received a call late Friday afternoon from one of our clients, a $800m DaaS company. The VP of Sales Transformation had attended a recent Negotiating with Backbone^SM workshop and played the role of a Coach. She was collecting revenue-and-profit impact stories from the 30 employees who had also attended the workshop, and she was thrilled with the results they were reporting.

Topics: Newsletter, Selling with Confidence

(Part 3 of 3)

Topics: Selling with Confidence, Uncovering your Value

(Part 2 of 3)

In the first blog of this Asking Great Questions series, I talked about the need or rationale for asking questions.  Great questions can undoubtedly be great tools in the right hands.  However, as any good craftsperson can tell you, the key to getting the most out of your tools is knowing how to use them. Using a hammer to drive in a screw never works, no matter how hard you pound.

Topics: Selling with Confidence

 

Topics: Newsletter, Selling with Confidence

What sales people want from you dear Santa – I mean dear CEO and dear GM for 2018!

Topics: Negotiating with Backbone, Pricing with Confidence, Selling with Confidence

‘Tis the season for car commercials and countdowns.  I will spare you the sentimentality of the great American holiday car spots.  Instead, I bring you a bit of fun to close out this holiday season.  We’ve had a super year working on really complex and challenging pricing issues, discovering hidden value for clients, and working with sales people to protect that value in negotiations.  Some of those same consultants are also talented (and competitive) writers who enjoy sharing insights with our followers.  Let’s see who scored the most page views on their blogs.

Topics: Negotiating with Backbone, Pricing with Confidence, Selling with Confidence, Uncovering your Value