Customer centric selling: the eight concepts, sales-ready messaging and a worked example

This page is for B2B sellers and sales managers who want the customer-centric idea turned into something they can run: questions to ask, people to target and rules for qualifying. It covers the named methodology from the book CustomerCentric Selling, the eight concepts, how to build conversation lists by title and goal, a worked example with the numbers, and how it compares with solution selling and consultative selling.

What customer centric selling is and where it came from

The phrase has two meanings. In general use, "customer-centric selling" means any approach that puts the buyer's needs first. As a named methodology, CustomerCentric Selling comes from the book of that name by Michael T. Bosworth and John R. Holland, published by McGraw-Hill in November 2003. Bosworth had written Solution Selling almost a decade earlier. A second edition, with Frank Visgatis as a third author, followed in January 2010.

The book's argument is that sellers rely on opinions and presentations, and buyers have learned to discount both. Its table of contents shows the shape of the method: chapters on the core concepts, on "sales-ready messaging", on business development ("the hardest part of a salesperson's job"), on qualifying buyers, and on negotiating and managing "a sequence of events" through to the decision. It also treats sales and marketing as one process, with marketing responsible for creating the messaging and demand that sellers use.

This page follows the named method, because its rules are specific enough to apply. The general idea is covered by the first concept.

The eight concepts

The publisher's description of the second edition lists eight shifts in how sellers communicate. The table adds what each one looks like on a real call.

Concepts 4 and 5 do most of the work. Users can tell you whether a product is pleasant; business people decide whether a goal is worth paying for. And a description of how the buyer would use the product to reach their goal is something they can picture and repeat internally, which a feature list isn't.

Sales-ready messaging: conversations by title and goal

The book's practical tool is what it calls sales-ready messaging: prepared material that tells a seller, for each type of buyer, which goals to raise and how to describe using the product to reach them. Without it, each rep improvises, and most improvise a feature pitch.

You can build a simple version in a spreadsheet. List the job titles you sell to, the business goals each one owns, and a usage scenario for each goal: a short description of how that person would use your product to get there.

Each scenario is a question. That keeps the conversation going (concept 1), lets the buyer correct you (concept 2), and describes usage, not features (concept 5).

Title: [e.g. plant manager]
Goal they're measured on: [e.g. recordable injury rate, audit result]
Why it might be hard right now: [what you know or suspect about their situation]

Question to open the goal:
"How are you tracking against [goal] this year?"

Usage scenario 1:
"If you could [action with your product], would that help you [goal]?"

Usage scenario 2:
"If [role on their team] could [action], would that [result]?"

What I need to learn: [current process, cost, who else is involved, timing]
What qualifies them: [they own the goal, can picture the usage, will agree dates]

Qualifying the buyer

The method qualifies on evidence, not enthusiasm. A buyer is worth pursuing when you can answer yes to four questions:

1. Do they own a goal you can help with? A business person with a measurable goal, not only a user with a preference.
2. Can they describe how they'd use your product to reach it? In their words, not yours. This is the "buyer vision" the book builds through usage scenarios.
3. Have they agreed a sequence of events? The steps, people and dates between now and a decision, set to their timeline.
4. Can they reach the money? Either they control the budget or they've named who does and agreed to bring them in.

If any answer is no after two conversations, concept 6 applies: decide whether you can win it, and stop if you can't.

Worked example: a safety distributor sells to the business owner, not the user

Illustrative example. Ridgeline Safety Supply, Tri-Valley Stamping, the people and every figure are fictional, to show the method.

The seller: Ridgeline Safety Supply (ridgelinesafety.example), which sells personal protective equipment, lockout/tagout kits and a managed PPE dispensing program. The account: Tri-Valley Stamping (trivalley.example), a metal stamping plant with 600 employees.

The old approach. Ridgeline's rep had sold to Tri-Valley's safety coordinator for years: a friendly relationship, regular orders and a demo of the dispensing machines. The coordinator liked them but had no budget, and the deal had sat at "next quarter" for a year. That's concepts 3 and 4 failing: a relationship and a user, but no business person and no solution to a goal.

The customer centric approach. The rep asked the coordinator who was measured on injury rates and PPE spend. The answer was the plant manager, Elena, and the controller. The rep asked for a 30-minute conversation with Elena about the plant's injury rate, not about dispensers.

The conversation. The rep opened with the goal: "How are you tracking against your injury target this year?" Elena said hand injuries were the problem: four recordable hand injuries in nine months, against a target of two for the year. The rep asked how gloves reached the lines. Supervisors drew from an open storeroom, and workers often took whatever was there. Then a usage scenario: "If the grinding line's dispenser only issued the cut-resistant gloves that task requires, and you could see who drew what, would that help?" Elena said yes, and that it would also answer the auditors' question about how the plant enforces PPE rules.

The numbers, in Elena's estimates:

The saving covered the program. The reason to act was the injury target and the audit.

The sequence of events. Elena set the dates: a 30-day pilot on the grinding line starting 1 December, a review with the controller on 8 January, purchasing's supplier review in late January, and a decision before the audit on 1 March. The rep wrote it down and sent it to her the same day, and worked to her dates, not Ridgeline's quarter end (concept 7).

What made it work: the rep found the business person who owned the goal, opened with the goal not the product, described usage as a question, let Elena supply the numbers, and agreed a sequence of events on her timeline.

How it compares

For how these fit with the other methods, see the sales methodologies comparison.

When it fits and when it doesn't

It fits considered B2B purchases where a business person owns the outcome, teams where reps sell to users who like them but can't buy, and companies willing to have marketing build the messaging by title and goal.

It's weaker when the sale is transactional and the user is the buyer, when there's no time to build messaging for each title, or when buyers arrive with a defined requirement and a formal process. Even then, concepts 1, 2 and 5 improve almost any sales conversation.

Common mistakes

• Using "customer centric" as a slogan. If reps still open with a product presentation, nothing has changed.
• Staying with the user. A friendly user with no budget is the most common reason deals sit at "next quarter".
• Writing scenarios as features. "Our dispenser has badge access" is a feature. "If you could see who drew what" is usage.
• Skipping the sequence of events. Without agreed dates, you're on your own timeline, and the buyer isn't.
• Not competing to win. Keeping unwinnable deals in the pipeline is competing to stay busy.

Finding the business person who owns the goal is easier when you know the account before you call. Bebop researches each account and names who to talk to, with what's happening at the company and the angle to open with.

Next step: see how this method developed from solution selling, Bosworth's earlier approach.