Click on the appropriate link to download the documents which interest you.

Selling in a Flattened World

In his brilliant best-selling book The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006), the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Thomas L. Friedman argues persuasively that globalization is doing more than leveling the playing fields - it’s flattening them. Friedman believes powerful new solutions such as outsourcing and off-shoring and technologies such as work-flow software and, above all, the internet reduce the costs of entry to markets for new players. Today, the salesperson’s job requires stepping back, taking a hard look at each customer’s big picture and working with them to develop customized solutions… or face commoditisation yourself… Read more

Leadership Priorities in a New Economy

Three ways to take action in a tough business environment

Three articles in Miller Heiman’s Sales Performance Journal focus on actions sales leaders need to take in order to face the challenges of doing business in a tough business environment… Read more

Why Negotiating on Price Doesn’t Work

What makes selling and negotiating different..?

Are your negotiations often around price?

Do you sometimes feel your customer is only interested in securing a significant discount? Do you feel that as a sales professional, your job is to close the deal at the same time minimising the number of concessions you need to make?

This paper discusses why selling and negotiating are actually different. Negotiation is not just about confidence and brinkmanship. It’s about so much more… Read more

Help Your Customers Think Bigger

How do you increase revenue and profits by cross-selling and up-selling?

It’s often said that inefficient sales practices leave money on the table. In fact, when you fail to sell smart, it’s worse than that. When you have a solution that your customer should have bought, but didn’t, you not only left the sale on the table: you left the entire customer’s ROI there as well. In this paper, Miller Heiman and Hoover’s have joined forces to provide sales best practices to users. Find out how Miller Heiman’s proven sales methodologies and best-practices for successful cross-selling and up-selling combine with Hoover’s industry leading business information tools… Read more

Beating Commoditization by Robert Miller

How do you drop the conventional pitch and interact with clients to position your solution for greater wins?

Conceptual Selling

For new prospects and existing clients, Conceptual Selling® is a new approach to an old target that gets you re peat sales, great referrals and long-term profitable client relationships. Selling from the Buyer’s point of view is nothing new – it’s our underlying philosophy. But the forces reshaping the global business landscape, make adopting this mindset more critical today than ever before… Read more

Create a Competitive Edge: Differentiate

Actionable advice for differentiating yourself to meet the needs and motivations of your prospects.

The value of differentiation cannot be overemphasized. A successful differentiation strategy can help you overcome price competition and sell on value.

Part 1. Differentiate Yourself: Real World Advice.

Part 2. Use the customer… to set goals!

Part 3. Competition? What competition?… Read more

Your Strategic Accounts

5 Ways to find out - is your most important asset your existing customer base?

Not so long ago, every organization’s motto was: “Our workforce is our most important asset.” Times have changed. Today, every company’s most important asset is its existing customer base - especially its largest or most strategic accounts.

Ask an Expert. We have an expansive network of experts who have led large global sales organizations. These solutions have been developed by sales leaders, based on what works in the real world. Read examples of questions that we re commend you consider in a strategic account analysis and plan:

Leadership priorities in a changing world

Opportunities exist in every economic climate.

It’s tough when negativity is everywhere, but giving in to it guarantees failure. Finding new opportunities requires you to have a laser focus on activities that will produce results. Getting close to customers is the smartest investment sales leaders can make right now. Understanding the challenges your customers are facing will help you uncover these new opportunities:

Megatrends That Will Impact the Way We Manage Sales Organizations

How do you keep up with the trends that are driving change?

No question about it: The business landscape is chang ing dramatically, and smart sales organizations need to change with it. Major trends - think of them as ‘megatrends’ - in four key categories are driving that shift. Those categories are:

  • Demographic
  • Technological
  • Regulatory
  • Social

A trend is a significant long-term change (or changes) in the dynamics of a market, environment or, in our profession, an account… Read more

Why Selling On Value and Negotiating On Price Does Not Work

How to transform a vendor relationship into true partnership

A lot of traditional sales thinking holds that negotiation is all about reaching final agreement on price and terms. In order to get to that final agreement, you are supposed to use a combination of haggling, conceding and discounting, with the occasional manipulative tactic thrown in for good measure… Read more

Building a Healthy Funnel

How do you select the right opportunities?

Chances are you’re already familiar with the concept of a sales pipeline, or “funnel”. The funnel is a useful tool for organizing specific sales opportunities by their probability of resulting in a sale. At any given moment, nearly 35% of prospects you’re pursuing could be wasting your time. Without putting the right opportunities into the top of your funnel, you can’t possibly hope to achieve win-win outcomes at the bottom… Read more

Selling In A Down Economy

How to take the right actions during the bad times as well as the good

Conventional wisdom: We need to batten down the hatches when the economy slows. Reality: The hard truth is that no company has ever been able to achieve long-term success on the basis of budget cuts. Instead, every business that succeeds over the long haul knows that it needs to invest intelligently in sales resources in order to grow… Read more

Beating Commoditization

You know where you are in the sales process. But do you know where your customer is in the buying process?

Written several years ago but even more valid in today’s climate, Bob Miller, Founder of Miller Heiman, explains why sales professionals must avoid the commoditization trap. When the battle becomes a survival of the cheapest, it is essential to sell by differentiating a product or service - or risk being seen as the same as your competitors… Read more

Retaining Business with your Key Customers

Reprint of a short article written by Stephen Newman and published in both Bizezia and Winning Edge Magazines.

Everyone is passionate about retaining business and strengthening relationships with key customers. Here Stephen Newman looks deeper into some ideas which could easily be taken for granted or overlooked… Read more

Planning to achieve your year-end numbers?

You could panic and just hope your customers will sign on the dotted line before the end of the year. Sam Reese - Miller Heiman’s President in ‘Planning to achieve your year end numbers’ - suggests an action plan to maximise your chances of achieving your annual sales objectives… Read more

Focus on the Process as well as the Outcome

You have processes installed in every part of your business including sales and marketing for good reasons. Processes and standards enable management to control certain areas, so attention and resources can be focused on more difficult issues, in order to increase sales and profits and satisfy shareholders Process drives predictability, consistency and efficiency and when properly integrated across the organization, radically improves sales performance… Read more

2010 Miller Heiman Sales Best Practises Study

Highlights of Results
World-Class Sales Organizations defined
Headlines from the 2010 Study
Selling activities that differentiate World-Class Sales Organizations. Read more

Accurate Sales Forecasts

There is nothing more frustrating than submitting sales forecasts which turn out to be wildly wrong. Let’s be honest, a high proportion of sales people do not like to disappoint their boss (or themselves) and forecast more prudently. It’s easy to prefer pleasant surprises to unpleasant shocks. Read more

Two Ways to Sell Beyond the Close

There’s nothing like getting a decent bonus after you win a major contract for your company. However, like most successful salespeople, you’ll understand that while getting the order and receiving a cheque is essential, it is never enough… Read more

After the Call: How to Keep the Momentum Going.

Doing an assessment after each sales call is valuable for two reasons… Read more

Three Tips to Improve Your Sales Calls

You’ve got a hot prospect. You need a face to face opportunity to sell your product and services. So you call up, without an appointment, hoping to catch the decision maker in a rare unscheduled moment. “I was in the vicinity, and thought I’d just say hello.” Well, at least you tried… Read more

What Makes a Winner?

From a Miller Heiman study on Winning Sales Organisations (WSOs) 72% of respondents rely on well-defined methodologies for deciding which opportunities to pursue. That’s almost a third better than other respondents. “!In other words, nearly half the non-WSOs have no standard system for identifying the best opportunities” says Miller Heiman COO Damon Jones, “That’s like fishing wherever you want and hoping that something will bite on your hook”… Read more

2011 Miller Heiman Sales Best Practises Study

What does World-Class look like in a Sales Organization?
Trends in Improving Sales Performance
Defining a World-Class Sales Organization
Top 12 Sales Initiatives for 2011. Read more

Get the Results You Want From Your Training

Two new ideas to secure that vital return on investment Read more

Using Social Media to Reach the People Who Can Influence the Buying Decision

As solutions become more complex, it has become a norm for buyers to bring in multiple experts to the decision-making process to evaluate solutions. Read more

Selling Against the Status Quo

People buy when, and only when, they perceive a discrepancy between reality and their desired results. Read more

It’s time for sales animals to change their spots

The last ten years have changed the way we sell - forever

Out in the sales jungle, patterns are shifting. Over the last ten years, business shifts and technological changes have altered the way sales organisations will sell in the future… Read more

Critical Tips

Two ways to avoid selling to one contact only

In sales, just like most social situations, people are drawn towards people who share their own perceptions… Read more

World-Class Organisations Steer To Success through CRM

What’s your immediate gut reaction when you think about CRM systems?… Read more

Have Credibility, Will Win

Credibility is part of the sales process, which is often overlooked or taken for granted. Why would you bother to check?… Read more

Best of Miller Heiman Sales Performance Tips

Create a Competitive Edge: Differentiate

The value of differentiation cannot be over-emphasised. A successful differentiation strategy can help you overcome price competition and sell on value. Read more

Put Your Energy Where it Matters

Are you measuring something that’s not mission critical? Read more