Which Sales Methodology Fits Your Situation? The Answer Is “Yes”

The “correct” sales methodology changes with the selling situation you find yourself in

If you’re passionate about sales, you’ve probably read more than a handful of sales books… Each outlining a different sales methodology (and confusingly enough, they often conflict with one another).

SPIN Selling & Solution Selling encourage you to probe for and develop problems using discovery questions.

The Challenger Sale advocates minimal discovery, and encourages you to build need through a “commercial teaching pitch.”

Miller Heiman’s Conceptual Selling advocates you to ask the prospect what they want (assuming they know what they want), and to shut up and listen.

What Great Salespeople Do claims all those methodologies and tactics are trivial details compared to the power of storytelling.

And among all of this confusion, we’ve all seen sales situations where the rep aggressively “pushed product,” and came out on top (and didn’t that drive us nuts?)

And on. And on. And on. So many ways to sell. Yet so much inconsistency of sales results.

With all of this conflicting advice, how do we know which sales methodology or approach to adopt?

The answer is all of them.

Here’s why:

Virtually all well-established sales methodologies work well in some situations and cause failure in others.

What’s the implication there?

Write this down, and never forget it:

The real skill of sales effectiveness is less in knowing the methodologies, and more in being able to sort out the situations in which each methodology applies.

In other words, each methodology is simply a tool you have in your arsenal and will be applicable in different situations.

Here are some examples of the variables of these situations:

• The stage of market development your product lies within (read Crossing the Chasm)
• Whether the deal was generated inbound or outbound
• Whether or not competitors are in on the deal (and how involved they are)
• Whether or not the customer has an urgent need already developed, or if one needs to be created
• The type of buyer making the final decision within the deal (a VP of Sales and a CIO need to be sold differently. Not just different pitches, but different approaches).

If you sell for a disruptive startup that solves a problem your market has previously dubbed “unsolvable,” asking a bunch of problem-questions is going to be fruitless.

It would be like asking “Are you dissatisfied with the current level of gravity the earth employs?”

If something is “unsolvable” (in their minds), they aren’t going to view it as a problem, and will therefore not bring it up when prompted about their problems and challenges.

The trick in this situation is to “create a need” with something like a commercial teaching pitch a la The Challenger Sale.

Another example…

In a highly competitive sales situation where the prospect comes inbound to you, you’re going to have to do a few things:

1. Understand their buying criteria a la Conceptual Selling (or a similar methodology)
2. Differentiate with an “unteaching” pitch a la The Challenger Sale

And in yet another example, let’s say your company catches a monster wave of tornado demand… the kind that creates multi-billion dollar companies when the dust settles in just a few short years.

Well, guess what your sales methodology is then?

Aggressively push product. Don’t let up. Win, baby. Just ship. Take no prisoners. Viciously attack the competition. (for those of you who may be cringing at this sentence, I urge you to read Inside the Tornado).

Mastering one (and only one) sales methodology will allow you to become the master of one specific type of sales situation.

Mastering many sales methodologies will give you the potential to master all sales situations.

Mastering many sales methodologies and the situational awareness of identifying which methodology the situation calls for will lead to comprehensive sales mastery.