Elite Sales Strategies

2The One-Up Sales Conversation: Your Only Vehicle for Value Creation

A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than 10 years' mere study of books.

—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Being One-Up means embracing a new sales conversation, one very different from those you've had with past contacts. The new conversation requires more of you. You are responsible for providing what your clients need from the conversation, not just for paving the way to your own success. You cannot occupy the One-Up position using tired, outmoded, and antiquated approaches to sales. Nor can you help your clients move from One-Down to One-Up if you cannot transfer your insights to the decision-makers and decision-shapers you serve.

You've probably gone through entire sales meetings where nothing you shared seemed to register with your prospective client. The reason you didn't command your contact's attention, let alone compel them to move forward, is because the information you provided wasn't what your contact needed. Your approach to professional selling must evolve, as you work to help your clients improve their results. When your approach doesn't provide value, your clients will look elsewhere for help.

This focus on value is a response to our increasingly complex economic and cultural environment, one that brings constant, accelerating, disruptive changes. What made “the good old days” so good was their greater stability. The future didn't look too different from the past. But ...