RIM™ Relationship Intelligence & Management

The New Frontier of Strategic Sales

RIM™ positioning among B2B sales methodologies

Looking at the evolution of B2B sales methodologies during the last forty years, one can distinguish four Eras. Era 1 (Demonstration) had its focus on the product to be sold, Era 2 (Solution) on the problem to be solved, Era 3 (Insider), today, focuses on the value to be brought in addition to the solution. Era 4 (Networker), tomorrow, will be focused on aligning on client’s politics and being a source of business advantage to its own customers, in complement to Era 1 to 3 best practices.

The Era 1 presentation mode, with its associated “demonstrator” competency level, have been developped in numerous one to one “closing” approaches – think of early books by Dale Carnegie for instance.

Then came the Era 2 “solution” mode, with approaches like Selling Solutions or SPIN.

Era 3 buzz word is Value. This was initiated in the 80’s by Holden (Value Base Selling), followed by TAS group, Miller Heiman, and many other vendors. Value Selling, Consultative Selling, Insider Status, Diagnosis Selling, Strategic Value Selling and the like are all based on the same (small) set of what we call invariants: buyer roles, value statements, opportunity analyzer, inclination… of real value to any sales person today.

PERFLUENCE’s core methodology, RIM™, Relationship Intelligence and Management, has been designed to address the challenges of winning big deals and accounts in an Era 4 market.

As underlined earlier, while Era 1 (Demonstration Competency) had its focus on the product to be sold, Era 2 (Solution Competency) on the problem to be solved,  Era 3 (Insider Competency) on the value to be brought in addition to the solution, Era 4 (Networker Competency) is focused on aligning on client’s politics and being a source of business advantage to their own customers.