Sales and selling

Strategic Business-to-Business Relationship Management

Strategic Business-to-Business Relationship Management - Session 1

• Strategic management involves the formulation and implementation of the major goals and initiatives taken by a company's top management on behalf of owners, based on consideration of resources and an assessment of the internal and external environments in which the organization competes.

• Marketing strategy is the goal of increasing sales and achieving a sustainable competitive advantage. ( Wikipedia )

• Business-to-business (B2B) describes commerce transactions between businesses, such as between a manufacturer and a wholesaler, or between a wholesaler and a retailer. ( Wikipedia )

• Customer relationship management (CRM) is a system for managing a company’s interactions with current and future customers. It often involves using technology to organize, automate and synchronize sales, marketing, customer service, and technical support. ( Wikipedia )

• Solution selling is a sales methodology. Rather than just promoting an existing product, the salesperson focuses on the customer's pain(s) and addresses the issue with his or her offerings (product and services). The resolution of the pain is what constitutes a "solution". ( Wikipedia )

• Relationship marketing was first defined as a form of marketing developed from direct response marketing campaigns which emphasizes customer retention and satisfaction, rather than a dominant focus on sales transactions. ( Wikipedia )

• The Business Model Canvas is a strategic management and lean startup template for developing new or documenting existing business models. It is a visual chart with elements describing a firm's value proposition, infrastructure, customers, and finances. ( Wikipedia )
  • Youtube: Business Model Canvas Explained

Strategic Business-to-Business Relationship Management - Session 2

• Selling is offering to exchange an item of value for a different item. ( Wikipedia )

• A sale is the act of selling a product or service in return for money or other compensation. ( Wikipedia )

• Purchasing refers to a business or organization attempting to acquiring goods or services to accomplish the goals of its enterprise. ( Wikipedia )

Some titles in sales:

• Account Manager is a person who works for a company and is responsible for the management of sales, and relationships with particular customers. The account manager does not manage the daily running of the account itself. They manage the relationship with the client of the account(s) they are assigned to. ( Wikipedia )
• Key account manageer is assigned to a company headquarters to oversee the account team assigned to a particular account. Key account management includes sales but also includes planning and managing the full relationship between a business and its most important customers. An account manager who works in this role will engage in a variety of tasks including project management, coordination, strategic planning, relationship management, negotiation, leadership and innovative development of opportunities, and keeping record of transaction of sale and purchase goods. The tasks may include working with product design and application, logistics, sales support, and marketing. ( Wikipedia on key account manager )
• Export managers serve as intermediaries between foreign buyers and domestic sellers. Unlike export traders, who buy the products before selling directly to foreign buyers, export managers find buyers internationally for domestic product manufacturers. ( Education portal )
• Sales manager is the typical title of someone whose role is sales management. The role typically involves talent development and leadership. ( Wikipedia on Sales management )

Sales management is a business discipline which is focused on the practical application of sales techniques and the management of a firm's sales operations. ( Wikipedia )

Key qualities for working in sales:

1. Empathy and interest in people
2. Ability to communicate (listening)
3. Determination (closing a sale)
4. Self-discipline and resilience

• A value proposition is a promise of value to be delivered and acknowledged and a belief from the customer that value will be appealed and experienced. ( Wikipedia )

Strategic Business-to-Business Relationship Management - Session 3

• Sales force management systems are information systems used in CRM marketing and management that help automate some sales and sales force management functions. They are often combined with a marketing information system, in which case they are often called customer relationship management (CRM) systems. ( Wikipedia )

• A performance indicator or key performance indicator (KPI) is a type of performance measurement. KPIs evaluate the success of an organization or of a particular activity in which it engages. ( Wikipedia )

• A sales process is an approach to selling a product or service. The sales process has been approached from the point of view of an engineering discipline (see sales process engineering). ( Wikipedia )

In Management of a Sales Force (12th Ed. p. 66) by Rich, Spiro and Stanton a "sales process" is presented as consisting of eight steps. These are:

• • Prospecting / initial contact

• • Preapproach - planning the sale

• • identifying and cross questioning

• • Need assessment

• • Presentation

• • Meeting objections

• • Gaining commitment

• • Follow-up ( Wikipedia )

• Sales process engineering is the engineering of better sales processes. It is thus the quest to design better ways of selling, making salespeople's efforts more productive. ( Wikipedia )

• Customer acquisition management is the set of methodologies and systems to manage customer prospects and inquiries generated by a variety of marketing techniques. It can be considered the connectivity between advertising and customer relationship management. This critical connectivity facilitates the acquisition of targeted customers in an effective fashion. ( Wikipedia )

• Customer retention is the activity that a selling organization undertakes in order to reduce customer defections. Successful customer retention starts with the first contact an organization has with a customer and continues throughout the entire lifetime of a relationship. ( Wikipedia )

Strategic Business-to-Business Relationship Management - Session 4

• A business idea is a concept which can be used for commercial purposes. It typically centers on a commodity or service that can be sold for money, according to a unique model. ( Wikipedia )

• A business architecture is a part of an enterprise architecture related to corporate business, and the documents and diagrams that describe the architectural structure of that business. People who build business architecture are known as business architects. ( Wikipedia )

• IT service management refers to the implementation and management of quality information technology services. IT service management is performed by IT service providers through people, process and information technology. ( Wikipedia )

• IT portfolio management is the application of systematic management to the investments, projects and activities of enterprise Information Technology (IT) departments. ( Wikipedia )

Examples of IT portfolios would be planned initiatives, projects, and ongoing IT services (such as application support). The promise of IT portfolio management is the quantification of previously informal IT efforts, enabling measurement and objective evaluation of investment scenarios. ( Wikipedia )

• ITIL (formerly known as the Information Technology Infrastructure Library) is a set of practices for IT service management (ITSM) that focuses on aligning IT services with the needs of business. ( Wikipedia )

• An elevator pitch, elevator speech, or elevator statement is a short summary used to quickly and simply define a person, profession, product, service, organization or event and its value proposition. ( Wikipedia )

Strategic Business-to-Business Relationship Management - Session 5

• Finnbuild fair contacting

Strategic Business-to-Business Relationship Management - Session 8 - Multichannel

Multichannel marketing is the ability to interact with potential customers on various platforms. In this sense, a channel might be a retail store, a web site, a mail order catalogue, or direct personal communications by letter, email or text message. ( Wikipedia )

Further reading

• Pennie Frow Google Scholar account - Associate Professor, University of Sydney - Co-creation, innovation, marketing strategy
• Adrian Payne Google Scholar account - Professor of Marketing - Marketing, CRM, Relationship Marketing, Co-creation