Strategic Selling® from Miller Heiman® teaches sales professionals a methodology for developing comprehensive sales strategies for complex sale situations. It is especially helpful when the sales process requires input or approval from multiple people at multiple levels of the buy-side organization before the sale can be closed.

The Strategic Selling® methodology starts by presenting and defining the four key buying influences present in every complex sale, and the roles they play. The sales professionals attending the workshop are asked to identify the key buying influences in one of their current sales pursuits, along with the buying influence’s degree of influence, motives, and business needs. A buying influence can exist inside the buying organization. However, it can also exist outside the buying organization, as in the case of an outside consultant involved in the selection process or a person using the product in the buying organization’s subsidiary company. One person can play multiple buying influencer roles. Conversely, multiple people can play the same buying influencer role. They all must be identified.

The Strategic Selling® methodology continues on by teaching the sales professional a process for uncovering essential unknown information, evaluating their competitive strengths and weaknesses and developing coaches. With this information in hand, the sales professional (or team) will be better able to develop a comprehensive action plan to address the motives and business concerns of each of the buying influences, to shore-up their weaknesses, and to uncover potentially important uncertainties.