Mike Bosworth

Biography

Mike founded Solution Selling solo in 1983, began licensing his intellectual property to affiliates in 1988 and by the time he sold it in 1999, over 50 affiliated were contributing royalty income in excess of $2.8M annually. His current focus is helping innovators brainstorm internet business ideas at a conceptual level and in many cases, participating in launching virtual businesses as an equity advisor.

Bosworth is the author of Solution Selling: Creating Buyers in Difficult Selling Markets (McGraw-Hill, 1993) and co-author of Customer Centric Selling (McGraw-Hill, November 2003). Bosworth is a limited partner in a San Diego based venture capital firm and is an advisory board member for a number of information technology ventures. Mike Bosworth began his career in the information technology industry in 1972 as an application support person for Xerox Computer Services. He was their top new business salesperson in 1975, managed the "Branch of the Year" in 1979 and was promoted to national manager of field sales in 1980. From 1976 through 1982 he designed and delivered sales training programs for XCS. His years of field experience plus the knowledge he gained from working with Neil Rackham on the Xerox SPIN selling pilot project inspired him to found Solution Selling in 1983.

Bosworth has a degree in Business Management and Marketing from California State Polytechnic University. In addition to his keynote speaking for professional associations and major corporations, he has been a featured lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, The Stanford Program on Market Strategy for Technology-Based Companies, The American Marketing Association Customer Message Management Forums, The Anderson School Of Management At UCLA, the Paul Merage School of Business at UC Irvine, The University of Connecticut and Rollins College to name a few. He is certified (CMC) by the Institute of Management Consultants.

He currently resides in Del Mar, California.

Publications

Customer Centric Selling

Salespeople helping decision makers visualize how they can achieve goals and solve problems. CustomerCentric Systems (CCS) helps companies to reengineer their marketing messages, helping to make them more customer-centric. We also focus on the integration of tactical marketing with sales processes. CCS helps organizations identify, codify and institutionalize best practices. CCS trained salespeople are equipped with "artificial" patience and intelligence. They are able to delay dispensing product information in favor of asking questions - helping them diagnose problems and, in turn, helping customers to visualize "approved" solutions more accurately. This enables salespeople to initiate and manage opportunities with actual decision-makers. Their sales managers are able to quantify the effects through an auditable sales process. The marketing department is taught to simplify the buying process with a customer-centric messaging model.

Titles

The Power Of Story
Despite all the time, money and effort spent on improving sales productivity, still today 13% of sellers book 87% of the business. The top 13% are not smarter nor do they work longer hours. The difference? They connect emotionally with their buyers. The presentation will include the power of story and the types of personal, customer and buyer stories necessary to facilitate the buying process.

Whole Brain Selling
Most corporate marketing departments are creating messages for the buyer`s left-brain needs, delivered by sellers trained to ask logical questions and make left-brain presentations. This presentation will help you understand why and how top sellers and leaders in all professions are using story to connect with their buyers whole brain.

Integrating Marketing With Sales
In many organizations Sales and Marketing efforts are disjointed, despite the common mission to achieve top line revenues. If results aren`t achieved, finger pointing begins. This presentation will give the audience a framework to make tactical marketing relevant to the sales and buying process.