Newsletter Articles > Transactional to Transformational Selling Styles

Transactional to Transformational Selling Styles for a Cisco 3.0 World

In his most recent book, “Dealing with Darwin”, author and consultant, Geoffrey Moore, describes how great companies must innovate at every phase of their evolution or face the risk of being marginalized.

As sales professionals working within the Cisco ecosystem, we must evolve our approaches to selling or face that same risk ourselves.

Cisco has clearly proven its ability to innovate during several critical phases in its evolution.  One of the most innovative phases of that evolution is going on right now, as Cisco moves beyond its former focus on point-products and technology toward an emphasis on systems, software, and solutions.  This important transition is at the heart of the story around “Cisco 3.0”.

Make no mistake; the buzz around Cisco 3.0 is more than just hype.  It is a signal to itself, its Channel Partners, and the world that Cisco is embracing a much broader vision of the value that it will bring to the four key markets it serves; Enterprise, Commercial, Service Provider, and Consumer.

One of the key points of execution associated with the Cisco 3.0 initiative is the goal to become a leader in collaboration and Web 2.0.  In order to achieve that goal, we (the Cisco sales ecosystem) must evolve past our existing focus on the transactional sale of products in order to make our quota. 

Collaboration and Web 2.0 are desired business outcomes, not products.  As distinguished author and consultant, Peter F. Drucker noted, “What the customer buys and considers value is never a product.  It is always a utility, that is, what a product or service does for him.”  Our success in a Cisco 3.0 world will not come from the sale of products per se, as much as it will come from helping customers envision for themselves how they can achieve the business outcomes that they want through the capabilities that they can acquire from the Cisco ecosystem.

They easiest way to re-focus our selling efforts in this way is to keep one of John Chamber’s other key objective from the Cisco 3.0 initiative in mind.  “Getting closer to the customer” is the best way to ensure that we understand their business well enough to focus on helping them achieve their business outcomes.  The fundamental shift that we have to make is in seeing ourselves as business consultants who help customers achieve the business outcomes they want, instead of viewing ourselves as “aggressive salespeople who can close a deal”

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In future issues, we will continue to explore how we can align our selling strategies and sales behaviors more closely with the needs of our customers and the goals of “Cisco 3.0” and still achieve the sales targets that are the ultimate measure of our success as sales professionals.