1. pure transaction
Since time began. Pure transaction is effectively one step removed from stone-age barter.
Basic selling. Standard commoditised products, price and reliability - there is little to build on, business may be spasmodic, hand-to-mouth and unpredictable. There is no relationship other than the transaction.
2. relationship and trust
Since the beginning of selling as a profession, popularised by Dale Carnegie, among others, early-mid 1900s
Continuity, consistency, sustainability, and some understanding of the customer's real issues are seen to have a value by both selling and buying organization. Intangibles such as continuity on communications and contacts, matched styles of trading, mutual flexibility and adaptability, are regarded as relevant benefits by the customer, which can justify a price premium, and therefore offer protection against 'cheaper' competitors, and build loyalty to supplier.
3. management and information
Operated instinctively in isolated examples in business relationships for centuries, but not generally seen in selling methodology, sales training and strategic application until the 1960s-1970s.
The provision of management and information support by seller to buying organization, and the exchange and cooperation in these areas represent a significant increase in depth and effectiveness of selling reletionships. A longer-term supply arrangement - a requirement for and outcome of this level of selling - is seen as an advantage by seller and buyer, because it brings extra intangible benefits of co-operation and support other areas of the customer's business, eg., training, technology, product development - which improve the customer's own competitive strengths and operating efficiencies. The supplier is seen as part of the team, and is likely to be more involved in some of the the customer's own internal systems, meetings, planning, etc.
4. partnership
A sophisticated open approach to selling which mainly first developed in the 1980s, probably in response to the increasing complexity of business relationships, technology, global markets, etc., and the increasingly fast pace of change. Organizations could be more effective and adaptable by devolving operating responsibilities to suppliers. Very different to merely buying and selling products and services.
The activities of the buying and selling organization become almost seamless wherever they are connected; the supplier is virtually part of the customer's organization and treated as such. 'Out-sourcing' generally requires this degree of collaboration, which involves a level anticipation, innovation and integrated support that is very difficult to un-pick, even if it were in the customer's interests to do so. Partnership level selling is not a legal or contractual arrangement; it describes the relationship, which operates virtually as a formal partnership would do. There is typically an enormous depth of understanding and cooperation which is not written down or detailed in a contract. Partnership selling relationships generally need time to develop - probably between 1-3 years depending on the size and complexity of the seller and buyer organizations.
5. education and enablement
2000 and beyond. The dimensions, scope and impact of this new type of selling are not yet fully developed and defined. There are signs however that the sellers who can give most to their customers - especially in areas that the customers didn't even know they had a need or an opportunity - will be the most successful.
The educational and 'giving' activities of the selling organization extend the aspects of anticipation and information found in the partnership level. Also incorporated are aspects of facilitative and enabling support, which are for example well represented by Sharon Drew Morgen's 'Buying Facilitation' methodology. The seller gives to the customer any and all help it can reasonably offer as might improve the customer's understanding, interpretation and commercial development of issues relating to the supply area. This is a hugely sophisticated level of selling which was difficult to see anywhere in the last century. Sellers and selling organizations take the role of teacher, guide, mentor, enabler; which can influence and help customers far beyond commercial and financial outcomes, into previously unimagined strategic business development and considerable change. Internet organizations such as Google are examples of this sort of selling, which at its best can actually give more than it takes.
5.(a) the internet age - buyer empowerment
2000 and beyond. This aspect of selling is not a stage in its own right, it is a changed market, and particularly a changed behaviour of buyers. It must be seen as a background and situation to education and enablement selling. It shifts power to buyers like never before.
The internet has enabled and empowered buyers and decision-makers of all sorts to research, compare and assess (increasingly using internet social technology) sellers and their offerings - from product specifications, to reputations and recommendations, or negative reports, and even personal information about sales people and company executives. Sellers are no longer the main providers of sales/product/service-related information, because all this is available easily on the web, and most buyers and decision-makers - business-people and private consumers - know how to find it and how to interpret it. Sellers must therefore adapt their own sales and negotiating methods and styles to support and fit the new vastly increased power and knowledge of buyers and decision-makers. The internet age gives all buyers the tools to discover crucial market-wide information about product, service, price, value, quality, reliability, reputation, track-record, credibility, for any supplier. Social media technology is increasingly making everything transparent and public, from faulty products, to poor service; from pricing and contracts; to user experiences and peer reviews. More than ever before, the seller has to be a helpful trusted advisor, able to respect, respond to, and to complement the buyer's increasing awareness and control of the buying/selling transaction.
