Provocation based selling

Sales professionals generally wonder what they need to do to sell their products or services in a downturn when companies are not ready to spend any extra money. In fact in these circumstances the influencers would have changed and may not be the same people with whom you are in touch with. To begin a provocation based sale you need to do three things. Identify a problem that will resonate with the line executive in the target organization. Develop a provocative point of view of that problem that naturally links to your solution and lodge that provocation with the decision maker who can take the necessary action. The problem should have sufficient weight so that money can be spent to fix it. This problem should bother the CEO and must be keeping him awake all night. The above steps if done properly will even lessen the sales cycle. The above method has been taken from a management consultant approach who is trained to look for problems which are so complex that clients remained challenged by them and then develop original points of view about them.