The New Power Base Selling: Master The Politics, Create Unexpected Value and Higher Margins, and Outsmart the Competition

CHAPTER 13

The Direct Strategy

Traditional and Nontraditional Application

The truly wise can perceive things before they have come to pass.

—Sun Tzu

The most common strategy employed in selling is the Direct approach. This occurs when you go head-to-head against the competition, matching your strength against theirs in what is really a battle for relative superiority. Whoever has it when the sales situation peaks wins. However, if you achieve this superiority too early—before the customer is ready, willing, and able to make a purchase decision—you lose. But achieve it too late, and you also lose.

Most sellers use this as their default strategy. They are drawn to the tangible—product, features and benefits, price, and so on, rather than invisible intangibles such as politics, value, and strategy. However, they often don’t even know that they are deploying a Direct strategy. This—combined with the fact that they aren’t able to see and understand strategy—keeps them from recognizing the timing dynamic mentioned previously.

For example, let’s say that a Stage II Solution Seller who is an incumbent supplier with an installed base is competing for a repeat purchase. He instinctively puts as much traditional value in front of the customer as possible early in the sales cycle. But the Stage IV Customer Advisor, who also wants the business, instead finds ways to delay the decision, therefore ...