Power Base Selling: Secrets of an Ivy League Street Fighter

by Jim Holden

"Holden's book is rich with wisdom and sage advice and should be required reading for any salesperson who wants to understand how to merge a sales strategy and a political strategy to win the hearts of their customers' Power Base."—Rodney D. Cotton, Vice President, Sales-United States, Baxter Healthcare, Renal Division.

"Jim Holden's book is for serious salespeople and executives who are focused on winning. It provides insights, techniques, and everyday tools to reach the highest possible level of success. The book is most insightful and is a required reading and work tool for enterprise salespeople and executives."—Grant Evans, Vice President, Sales and Marketing Identicator Technology.

"The Holden Power Base Selling techniques have provided our sales teams with a common language from which to develop and plan strategies and tactics."— Colin Latham, President and CEO, MT&T (Canada).

"Power Base Selling is essential. . . . The book is rich with lessons such as how to avoid being defeated by desperate 'end-games,' and how to 'snatch various victories from the jaws of defeat.' The conclusion is a revealing 'self-test.'. . . [Holden's] principles are more applicable today than ever."— Glenn W. Coleman, President, South Africa Branch, Lockheed Martin Overseas Services Corporation.

Genres: Business, Management, Nonfiction

240 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Jim Holden founded Holden International in 1979, and throughout its almost 30-year history, Holden has grown to be a world-renowned leader in the sales process improvement field.

Mr. Holden's career has been marked by exceptional innovation. In 1990, he established Holden as the first company to model sales effectiveness, an achievement that garnered the Regional Entrepreneur of the Year award for the Service Industry.

Mr. Holden is also a globally recognized business author, with titles including Power Base® Selling, World Class Selling, The Selling Fox, The New Power Base Selling, and just released, Selling in an Anxious World, available on Kindle and hybrid paperback (a cross between hardcover and softcover).

Mr. Holden earned a B.S.E.E. with high honors from Northeastern University in Boston and is a member of the National Engineering Honor Society, Tau Beta Pi, and the National Interdisciplinary Honor Society, Phi Kappa Phi. He began his sales career in 1974 with Teradyne, a Boston-based high-technology company. Prior to founding Holden, he was Vice President of Sales for Aegis, a third-party distribution company selling computer-based test systems into the manufacturing environment.

Mr. Holden and his wife Chris reside in the greater Chicago area. He was a founder/director of the First National Bank of Roselle and has served as a director of two other area banks and several early development-stage companies. He is active in the community, having founded the Partnership to End Homelessness in Chicago, and is a supporter of many other charities, including cancer research.

Reviews

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty standard business book, where a good idea is padded out with plenty of filler to make a book. Interesting central concept, explained clearly, that understanding and navigating the political structure of a client will make you a more effective salesman. A decent read but not a mind-blowing one.

[Sophie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good examples but not an exciting read.

[Mark Dunn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Outstanding book which goes over a strategic selling approach. The book starts by setting the scene - you only lose sales to the next best alternative by being outsold. Everything else is an excuse.

It then focuses on the following areas:
1. the inside track
2. engaging the competition
3. zeroing in

1. The Inside Track
This was the part of the book that bought the most new insight for me. The other sections, while extremely useful, tend to cover ground covered in more traditional strategic selling material (eg Targeted Account Selling). Anyway, this section looks at how to identify a power base within an account. The power base is the informal political structure that you can map over any org chart. It starts with "fox", a high integrity person who builds success through a people-orientation. The fox usually is developing one or more people that may be outside of their direct organization and knowing these links and working via the people they are developing (after getting coaching from them) is really what this section deals with.

2. Engaging the Competition
This deals with different types of competitive strategies and maps well to the TAS strategies. The strategies covered here are:
- direct (similar to TAS frontal), either via SIGNIFICANT product, company, or linking superiority (eg in TAS significant is defined as a 3:1 advantage)
- indirect (similar to TAS flanking), where the game is changed
- divisional (similar to TAS fragment), where the opportunity is broken up into pieces where you do have a direct or indirect advantage
- containment (similar to TAS defend and develop), where there is no winning strategy, so you work to prevent a decision until you can get advantage

Additionally, the section deals with how to use these strategies. Some key aspects here include:
- timing. Especially when using indirect or divisional strategies, it may make sense to introduce them quite late to prevent the competition from finding out and having time to react
- recovery plans (a good general always plans his retreat). A great tip included here is to ensure that early in the campaign you ask for a meeting as soon as a decision is made (either to kick-off projects teams or to understand why for future). This will ensure you have a reason to talk after a competitor is chosen, and still ahve a chance to get the order back
- advertising. Rather than just getting out as soon as you're told the order is yours, you should advertise it within the customer's political structure. This helps prevent the potential for competition to get it back. You don't have the order until you have the cash
- political strategy. Reiterates a lot of what is in the first section, however, better fleshes out the need to get to personal agendas. When creating the political strategy ask the questions:
- who? Who has an agenda that will be advanced if the decision goes your way?
- what? What is the agenda?
- how? How can all of this happen?

3. Zeroing In
This section covers the work needed to determine if an opportunitiy is worth winning and winnable and is a VERY close analogy to the TAS 1-20 questions. Instead of reproducing the section I've listed off the headings of the TAS 1-20 as a refresher:
Is there an opportunity?
Can we compete?
Can we win?
Is it worth winning?

Additionally, the end of this section has a useful guide for sales management and assessment of sales professionals. It goes over evaluation criteria, breaking them into the following areas:
Intent - scale goes from "Be considered" to "Own an account"
Focus - scale goes from "Product" to "Customer and customer's competition"
Relationship - scale goes from "Casual" to "Symbiotic"
Value - scale goes from "Product Options" to "Advance strategic direction"

[Roz Bennetts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Power Base Selling takes no prisoners, is well written and draws heavily from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War in casting analogies. It was the break through sales book for me and took my sales to a new level and even though it’s many years since I read it I apply it religiously today because it works. The book does assume that you already know a good amount about sales and really this book is designed for sales situations where there are multiple people influencing the decision making process. As such it deals with the politics of the sale and how to navigate yourself around the Power Base; how to tell if someone is for or against you, what their motivations are and how well regarded they are within their own organisation. A great book and must read for all big ticket sales professionals.

[Mark Fallon · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the examples are slightly dated (discusses a lot of 1990s technology), the premises still hold true. Good salespeople, and consultants, need to understand, appreciate, and use the internal politics of their customers.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book for selling into organizations, particularly large companies.

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Important book for anyone selling into complex organizations.

[Hesham · Rating 5 out of 5]

the best for high profile sales people

[Gino Filicetti]

False