Book Summary Preview : Heavy Hitter Sales Wisdom

The Big Idea

Heavy Hitter Sales Wisdom is a book of insight from some of the world’s “heaviest hitters” of all time. It features the collective wisdom of such luminaries as Sun Tzu, Jesus Christ and Siddhartha Gautama. While these and other such famous figures featured in the book may not appear to have too much to do with sales, they were masters of strategy, common-sense judgment and persuasion. As the book shows, those who master the roles of strategist, persuader and sage of common sense become bona fide Heavy Hitters. 

This book provides state-of-the-art sales strategies, a uniquely entertaining approach to sales and truly enlightening wisdom to aid salespeople in their quest to plan and win the big sales battles. It picks up from where Martin’s last book Heavy Hitter Selling leaves off. While the previous book teaches readers how to join the ranks of the sales elite, this new book helps readers solidify their status as true Heavy Hitters. 

Sales Warfare Strategies
Selling has not changed an awful lot in the past two decades. Salespeople have been and are still approaching customers armed with facts, features and specifications about their products.  

Customer decision, however, has changed radically during this time. Today’s customers are smarter and more sophisticated, people for whom technology and information have become a large part of their lives.  In addition, customers have more choice available to them than ever before. Salespeople thus have their work cut out for them as the sales tactics of yesterday will not suffice in today’s environment.  

What, then, is the right strategy for the customer? It is an indirect strategy based on an entirely different way to ‘wage war’ – on intelligence, finesse and the element of surprise rather than frontal assault, and appreciates the importance of time, momentum and the role human nature plays. Such military tacticians as celebrated war historian Liddell Hart, Chinese general Sun Tzu and Napoleon Bonaparte are practitioners of this doctrine. 

Seven principles of indirect strategy exist, all of which are based on innovation, creativity and boldness:

1. The indirect strategy is based on psychology and human nature. Win the psychological war with a customer – place both customers and competitors at a psychological disadvantage even before you start – and you will have defeated your enemy before the battle has even begun.
2. Communication is the cornerstone of the indirect strategy.No sort of communication is more significant to both battlefield commanders and salespeople than intelligence, secret information about enemies – or customers and competitors.
3. The indirect strategy requires privileged intelligence. In order to win any deal, you need special or proprietary information that only a spy can provide to eliminate surprises.
4. The indirect strategy is flexible, employing attacks, retreats and defensive fighting based on circumstances.Salespeople need to motivate customers to believe in them and at the same time lure competitors to attack under unfavorable circumstances. They must be prepared to drop unfavorable deals if need be.
5. The indirect strategy employs rapid dominance to defeat time, the ultimate enemy.Time is a precious resource that must be conserved, respected and used to one’s advantage. One must move as rapidly as possible – that will make all the difference between success and failure.
6. Deception is at the heart of the indirect strategy.While deception is expected from competitors, customers can also be deceptive – they say what they don’t mean and mean what they don’t say. One’s actions have to consider this fact.
7. The indirect strategy seeks to create a turning point or moment that determines the winner and loser.Ever deal has a critical moment or turning point that determines the winner and loser, however casual or fleeting.

Regardless of whether they are used to drive companywide initiatives or close individual deals, these principles ensure a successful operation.  

Battlefield Tactics
Defeating the enemy and winning the war is based on the individual strategy of winning over the customer. The champion outsmarts and out-hustles the losers by winning the trust, respect and friendship of the customer – which causes the demise of the competitor.  

Grand strategy, battles and battlefield maneuvers
Grand strategies are overall approaches as to how wars are to be won. In sales the grand strategy is based on an indirect approach to influence the people and selection process of the customer’s decision making.  
The execution of battles is how grand strategies are accomplished. Battles in this sense are sales calls, presentations and demonstrations and so on. Finally, the smallest element of war consists of battlefield maneuvers specific actions such as phone calls, letters or emails that move salespersons to the next battle. 

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