Episode 80 - Mike Bosworth

This was new territory for me. It turns out that so many of the things that so many of the things taught in business school and sales workshops throughout that industry had their origins in the innovations that Mike brought to the industry. Before Mike's work, sales was always seen as "pitching products." Mike simple yet profound  innovation flipped that approach onto its head - successful sellers don't move products, they solve industry problems by helping workers find solutions.

Mike Bosworth is well known throughout the business sales world as a trainer, speaker, and the author of best selling sales books Solution Selling: Creating Buyers in Difficult Selling Markets (McGraw-Hill, 1993), What Great Salespeople Do: The Science of Selling Through Emotional Connection and the Power of Story (McGraw-Hill, 2011) and co-author of CustomerCentric Selling (McGraw-Hill, 2003). 

Mike founded and grew one of the most successful virtual businesses in the B2B arena. After 10 years with Xerox Computer Services and one year with a software start-up, he founded Solution Selling® in 1983, began adding licensing his intellectual property to affiliates in 1988 and by the time he sold it in 1999, over 50 affiliates were contributing royalty income in excess of $2.8M annually. Mike began building Story Leaders™ as a framework for building emotional connection in 2008 and published a new book, What Great Salespeople Do, the Science of Selling Through Emotional Connection and the Power of Story in January, 2012. In January 2013, Mike founded Mike Bosworth Leadership. MBL currently has eight affiliates who sell and deliver his Story Seekers™ workshops.

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. Michael T. Bosworth is a cofounder of CustomerCentric Systems®, LLC. He has assisted clients in improving sales effectiveness and shaping customer experience since 1983