at Eli Lilly corporate offices in Indianapolis, Indiana. Eli Lillys sales organization called on physicians and used a customized sales program developed especially for Eli Lilly.

2. Sales researcher Neil Rackham found that strategically customized training programs were likely to be nearly twice as effective as off-the-shelf, generic programs. (IKON seminar in Atlanta, Georgia in October 1996.)

3. I joined Xerox in 1971, when its national training facility was located at the Sheraton Hotel in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. In June of 1971, I participated in the first version (PSS-1) of this continually evolving program (which as of this writing is in its fourth revision). In the mid-1970s, when I became a sales manager, I began teaching PSS to Xeroxs new hires.

4. In research conducted by Neil Rackham in 1984-1985, even people who were well trained in communication style techniques couldnt identify the buyers style when they watched videos of real sales calls.

5. One study, however showed no correlation between the sellers communication style and the style buyers said they prefer. Jamie Comstock and Garry Higgins, Appropriate Relational Messages in Direct Selling Interaction: Should Salespeople Adapt to Buyers Communicator Style? Journal of Business Communication 34, no. 4 (1997): 401-418. Comstock and Higgins studied 100 advertising buyers from 100 different companies in a medium-sized city in the Florida panhandle. Participants were selected to provide a proportional representation of businesses within the community. Buyers were predominantly male (67 percent) and Anglo (79 percent).

6. Neil Rackham studied 35,000 sales calls in 23 countries over a period of 12 years and developed a behaviorally based program based on this research.

7. Neil Rackhams study at Xerox, cited in Neil Rackham and Richard Ruff, Managing Major Sales (New York, HarperBusiness, 1991), 128-130.

8. Interview between The Dartmouth Group, Ltd., personnel and the author in 1999.

NOTES FOR CHAPTER 4

1. Rackhams conclusion: Its more important that your key ideas get to the decision-maker than that you should present them in person. Rackhams study of 35,000 sales calls in 23 countries over a period of 12 years is cited in his Major Account Sales Strategy (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1989), 19-20, 34.

2. The Dartmouth Group, Ltd., field study observations, 1995-1999.

3. Neil Rackham labels objective criteria as hard in Major Account Sales Strategy.

4. www.salesdoctors.com/diagnosis/3value3.htm.

5. The Dartmouth Group, Ltd., memorandum by Susan Woods dated December 9, 1998.

6. Ibid.

7. Tom Fee of Sales Process Solutions, Inc., Their [customers] responsibilities to themselves and their stakeholders (employees, stockholders, customers, etc.) have become their [customers] overriding concern. www.salesdoctors.com/diagnosis/3rel.htm, fall 1999.

8. Lecture given by Neil Rackham during a sales management class at Indiana University on April 12, 2000.

9. Discussion with Dr. Richard Ruff in August 2000.

10. Neil Rackham, Why Bad Things Happen to Good Products, Journal of Product Innovation Management, May 1998.

11. The Dartmouth Group, Ltd., behavioral analysis studies at the MEDSTAT Group, 1999-2000.

12. The phrase dont let enthusiasm get in the way is from conversations between the author and Neil Rackham during August 2000.

13. Neil Rackhams study of 35,000 sales calls in 23 countries over a period of 12 years, cited in Rackham, Major Account Sales Strategy, 116. When customers told salespeople that the reason the salespeople had lost the business was price, 64 percent of the time price wasnt the main reason. More important factors were the risks and penalties that the customer feared would come from buying from a particular vendor.

14. Conversations between the author and Dr. Richard Ruff during Dr. Ruffs visit to the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, April 5-7, 2000, and Neil Rackhams study of 35,000 sales calls in 23 countries over a period of 12 years, cited in Rackham, Major Account Sales Strategy, 116.

15. Ibid.

16. Private conversations between Neil Rackham and the author during visits to the Institute for Global Sales Studies at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University and Neil Rackhams study of 35,000 sales calls in 23 countries over a period of 12 years, cited in Rackham, Major Account Sales Strategy, 124.

17. Deep-seated concerns are also discussed in Stephen E. Heiman and Diane Sanchez with Tad Tuleja, The New Conceptual Selling (New York: Warner Books, 1999); Neil Rackham, SPIN® Selling (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988); and Kevin Davis and Kenneth H. Blanchard, Getting Into Your Customers Head: The Eight Roles of Customer Focused Selling (New York: Times Books, 1996).

18. Strategic Marketing Class, August 1991 at Amos Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College.