Roadmap to Revenue
How to Sell the Way Your Customers Want to Buy
By: Kristin Zhivago
Published: April 15, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 296 pages
ISBN-10: 0974917923
ISBN-13: 978-0974917924h
Publisher: Bristol & Shipley Press
"The two activities - your selling and their buying - are worlds apart. The misalignment between what you are doing, and what your customer is doing, is costing you. You are losing sales you should be making. You're also wasting money", writes revenue coach Kristin Zhivago in her eye opening and results oriented book Roadmap to Revenue: How to Sell the Way Your Customers Want to Buy. The author describes how customers have a buying process that they follow, and it's critical for marketers and sales representatives to understand what the buyer is trying to do during the sale.
Kristin Zhivago understands that marketing people and sales representatives are not always on the same page. Marketers believe that bringing in leads and prospects are their job; but, mistakenly, that closing the sale is not their role. The author makes it clear that today's empowered buyer requires attention from both the marketing staff and the sales people. The buyer, after all, is the person who determines whether or not to purchase a product or service. Kristin Zhivago points out that customers will tell you what they want, if they are asked properly, at the correct time, and in the right manner. The author makes it clear that the wrong time to ask is during the sales process, because buyers rarely tell salespeople what they are thinking while they are in negotiation mode.. Kristin Zhivago also offers advice on the shortcomings of focus groups and surveys, as well as the limitations of social media driven information.
Kristin Zhivago (photo left) recognizes the importance of creating and developing a system, that is logical and easily followed to increase the volume of sales. Through the use of the system recommended by the author, sales and marketing people will know what is preventing the customer from buying, and then by applying the appropriate remedy.
The major emphasis, in the system prescribed by Kristin Zhivago, is on reverse engineering successful sales to determine what went right about that process through a deeper understanding of the customer's viewpoint. With that knowledge in hand, the successful process becomes a repeatable event. The author makes clear that the system is an inclusive one, that can be applied to all sales situations. Once the system is integrated into the sales process:
* Buyers will help with the sale and provide referrals
* Internal political issues between employees and departments will end
* Marketing, sales, product development and product management will be aligned
For me, the power of the book is how Kristin Zhivago presents a comprehensive system that can be incorporated into any organization and will achieve positive sales results. The promise of the book is to build revenue through selling to customers in the way they prefer to buy. The author delivers on that promise by focusing the system on the customer, and away from the sales representative or marketer.
Kristin Zhivago guides the sales person through the entire process, including the complete review of current sales practices, reverse engineering successful sales, and providing a complete system to increase the overall number and value of sales for the sales staff. Another positive feature of the process, and one that is usually not considered in sales related books, is the inclusion of how and why the system will improve the internal culture of the organization itself.
I highly recommend the valuable and sales boosting book Roadmap to Revenue: How to Sell the Way Your Customers Want to Buy by Kristin Zhivago, to any entrepreneurs, top managers, sales managers, marketers, sales representatives, and other business people seeking a proven and effective system for increasing their sales numbers. This book will change the way you think about customers, how they buy, and how to place your products and services in alignment with how the customer chooses to buy them.
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