1. Chapter 5 Adaptive Selling for Relationship Building

2. Learning Objectives What is adaptive selling?
Why is it important for salespeople to practice adaptive selling?
What kind of knowledge do salespeople need to practice adaptive selling?
How can salespeople acquire this knowledge?
How can salespeople adapt their sales strategies, presentations, and social styles to various situations?

3. Standard Memorized Presentation
Completely memorized sales talk
Presents same selling points to all the customers
Provides complete and accurate information
Limited effectiveness
No opportunity for the salesperson to tailor the presentation

4. Outlined Presentation
Prearranged presentation that includes:
Standard introduction
Standard answers to common objections
Standard method for getting the customer to place an order
Effective because it is well organized

5. Customized Presentation
Based on a detailed analysis of the customer’s needs
Use the communication principles to:
Discover the customer’s needs and problems
Propose the most effective solution
Adapts to customer needs

6. Exhibit 5.1 - Example of an Outlined Presentation

7. Adaptive Selling
Changing sale behavior according the selling situation
Illustrated by customized presentation
Emphasizes the importance of satisfying customer needs
Being adaptable:
Increases buyer trust and commitment
Results in higher sales performance

8. Knowledge Required for Adaptive Selling
Product and company knowledge
Information about products, services, company, and competitors
Knowledge about sales situations and customers
Categories of customer types or types of sales situations are developed to:
Reduce the complexity of selling
Free up the mental capacity to think more creatively

9. How to Create Knowledge
In-depth interviews with top performers
Feedback from sales managers
Performance feedback: Provides information about whether the salesperson achieved his or her goal
Diagnostic feedback: Provides information about what the salesperson is doing right and wrong instead of just whether he or she made a sale

10. Sources of Knowledge Web Company sales manuals and newsletters
Sale meetings
Plant visits
Business and trade publications
Competitor displays at trade shows
Viewing competitor’s Web pages

11. Retrieving Knowledge from the Knowledge Management System
Accessing information from the salesperson’s memory
Customer relationship management systems and knowledge management software
Have a positive impact on being adaptive while selling
Genius management - Tapping knowledge from genius within a firm
Social computing tools are important

12. Retrieving Knowledge from the Knowledge Management System
Progressive firms encourage in-house experts to develop in-house blogs
Social networking sites can be used to connect in-house experts with salespeople
Tagging - Including key words with a person’s name in company documents and on internal Web pages

13. Social Style Matrix
Training program used to help sales people adapt their communication styles
David Merrill and Roger Reid - Patterns of communication behaviors, or social styles
People who recognize and adjust to the behavior patterns have better relationships with other people
Style flexing: Adjusting your behavior to mirror or match your customer’s social style

14. Dimensions of Social Styles
Assertiveness: Degree to which people have opinions about issues and publicly make their positions clear to others
Responsiveness: Based on how emotional people tend to get in social situations

15. Exhibit 5.2 - Indicators of Assertiveness

16. Exhibit 5.3 - Indicators of Responsiveness

17. Exhibit 5.4 - Social Style Matrix

18. Drivers
Have a great desire to get ahead in their companies and careers
Swift and efficient decision makers
Base their decisions on facts
Take risks
Look at several alternatives before making a decision

19. Expressives Focus on the future
Direct their time and effort toward achieving their vision
Act quickly
Take risks
Base their decisions on their personal opinions and the opinions of others
Impatient and change their minds easily

20. Amiables Give importance to close relationships and cooperation
Make decisions slowly
Build a consensus among people involved in the decision
Avoid risks
Change their opinions reluctantly

21. Analyticals Suspicious of power and personal relationships
Make decisions slowly in a deliberate and disciplined manner
Like facts, principles, and logic
Strongly motivated to make the right decision

22. Selling to Various Social Styles
Direct, businesslike, organized presentation with quick action and follow-up
Emphasize the effects of a purchase decision on profits
Drivers
Demonstrate how a product will help to achieve personal status and recognition
Use product demonstrations and creative graphics
Use testimonials from well-known firms and people
Put them in the role of innovator, the first person to use a new product
Expressives

23. Identifying Customer’s Social Styles
Build personal relationships
Give guarantees about a product’s performance
Follow through on commitments
Stress the product’s benefits in terms of its effects on the satisfaction of employees
Amiables
Use solid, tangible evidence
Use sales presentations that recognize their technical expertise and emphasize long-term benefits
Analyticals

24. Identifying Customer’s Social Styles
Concentrate on the customer’s behavior and disregard how you feel about the behavior
Avoid assuming that specific jobs or functions are associated with a social style
Create, join, and participate in social media groups to learn more about the social style of the buyer

25. Exhibit 5.5 - Cues for Recognizing Social Styles

26. Social Styles and Sales Presentations
Self-assessments mislead
No single best social style for a salesperson
Recognize the customer’s needs and expectations

27. Exhibit 5.7 - Customer Expectations Based on Social Styles

28. Exhibit 5.8 - Adjusting Social Styles

29. Versatility
Increasing the productivity of a relationship by adjusting to the needs of the other party

30. Dimensions in Other Classification Schemes
Warm–Hostile
Dominant–Submissive
Dominance
Sociability
Relater
Socializer
Thinker
Director
Logical (yellow)
Emotional (blue)
Conceptual(orange)
Analytical (green)
Skeptics
Charismatics
Thinkers
Followers
Controllers
Hawk
Owl
Dove
Peacock

31. Systems for Developing Adaptive Selling Skills
Should use different presentations with different customers
Based on types of customers and cultures
Applying the classification rules rigidly reduces the adaptive selling behavior