1st Edition
The Business Developer's Playbook Relationship Selling Principles and the DNA of Dialogue Selling
This book is not about selling products -- it is about selling yourself, your ideas, and your services. This book explains an innovative dialogue sales process, and the relationship sales principles that underpin it. In every sales situation, there is both a seller and a buyer and, at different times, either the buyer or the seller may take the lead. The dance they perform may or may not lead to a deal, but it will leave them knowing a little more about each other’s strengths and weaknesses. These two dancers are "connected" and follow the same steps -- The five steps they follow are to plan, connect, dialogue, record, and follow up. The five steps are the basis of the dialogue process.
In addition, this book provides easy-to-follow guidance for three groups of people: 1. Professionals wanting to sell their services and improve their business development; 2. Thought leaders, change agents, innovators, entrepreneurs, senior public servants, and advocates wanting to sell their ideas to others; 3. Mid-career job seekers and recent graduates aiming to sell themselves into a dream job role either full or part-time.
Preface
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Chapter 1: What are You Selling?
Chapter 2: The Dialogue Selling Process
Chapter 3: Relationship Selling Principles
Chapter 4: A Business Developer’s Workday
Chapter 5: Other Important Sales Topics
Chapter 6: Conclusion
Appendix I: Relationship Selling Principles
Appendix II: Dialogue Puzzle
Appendix III: Dialogue Skills – PRESA
Appendix IV: Dialogue Opportunities and Methods
Appendix V: Negotiation Tactics
Appendix VI: Conflict De-Escalation Tactics
Appendix VII: Business Development Roadmap
Appendix VIII: Bulldog Opportunity Tracker
Appendix IX: RGB Dialect
Appendix X: Top 20 Negotiation Mistakes
Index
Biography
Peter Nixon
This book is an absolute must-read. It’s not a book about “selling” in the limited way we generally
think of that word, it’s about influencing out- comes and making a difference, both to your
life and success, and to the lives of others. Buy it, read it, and dip into it again, and
again, as you encounter different circumstances. It’s an Aladdin’s cave of treasures. I wish I’d
read it 40 years ago.- Professor Robin Stuart-Kotze, Chairman, Behavioural Science Systems Ltd.
As a health practitioner, I use my hands to dialogue with the body to sup- port health, negotiating
with restriction patterns in muscles and tissues, inviting space, opening to better circulation in
the system. As a dancer, I dialogue with the music and with the audience, negotiating different
movements as the music rises and falls, and as the audience attention comes closer or
settles deeper; including the presence of all these elements is what helps me create my dance.Communication, dialogue, negotiating is happening all the time in all facets of life and language
is diverse. Peter Nixon’s book reveals the fine art of communication and negotiation, reaching out
beyond the boundaries of individual ideas to create relationships in every field of life; a
practical guide to living and working harmoniously, peacefully. Everything we do in life can be a
graceful dance, and this book teaches us about meeting without conflict. Peter is giving us what we
really need, especially all the world’s leaders and politicians.- Zia Nath, Founder, Quanta Health Care Solutions and Realms of Dance
When I set up my consultancy I had a so many questions about business development that I did not
know where to turn. Peter’s book has helped answer all my questions. If you want to feel like you
are in a casual con- versation with an internationally experienced consultant who is fast-
forwarding your learning with his twenty plus years’ experience, then you need to read The Business
Developer’s Playbook now.- Stuart Gerrard, Managing Director, Innovate to Operate