Evangelize, Elevate and Eliminate... REALLY?

A read the following recently from a sales trainer on a social web site: "B2B sales organizations around the world are reporting extended sales cycles, declining win rates, and a growing number of apparently promising opportunities ending in "no decision". They see their prospect's budgets shrinking, more players involved in the decision making process, and increasingly risk-averse buying behavior. Could it be time to re-architect the B2B sales and marketing process?"

The author goes on to postulate: "... to be successful in this new world, B2B vendors - and particularly those who are offering innovative solutions or seeking to create new markets - are going to have to do three things particularly well: First, they will need to evangelize a better future for the markets and prospects they address, and to articulate a clear and compelling vision of the role that their organization intends to play in helping them achieve it. Next, they will have to elevate the prospect's need for their solution. Useful or important needs might help to get a vendor considered or evaluated, but only urgent needs will get them bought. Finally, they must systematically eliminate the common barriers to buying by taking pains to identify how and why their prospects choose to buy, and what they need to do to remove the roadblocks that might stand in their way."

Really? I mean REALLY? Is this a NEW idea?

Don't we all know that the cost of changing MUST be less than the cost of not changing?

Please share your insights as to HOW you are going about aligning what you sell with the priorities of the prospect/customer, how you are establishing success criteria so that the buyer knows how to measure success for the initiative and how you define what is required of Organizational, Operational, and Infrastructure executives to improve the odds of success.