Masters of Sales Book Excerpt: Below is an excerpt from the beginning of the new Masters Books series "Masters of Sales"
You Can Lie to a Salesman
You can lie to a salesman, And still get to heaven, Request their proposals, and make 'em dance. 'Cause a salesman will trick you, and take your money. If you lie to them first, they never get the chance.
Oh, salesmen are useful, Don't get me wrong, They're fountains of free advice. So, hook 'em on hope, and string 'em along, And beat 'em to death on price.
Every night at sundown, If you listen, you can hear it. Like ghostly specters from beyond the pale. Digitized voices rising from their chambers. It's the spirits of salesmen trapped inside voice mail.
Hi, Fred, it's Steve getting back to you I've got good news on that price. Why don't you give me a shout So we take the next step. I've left this message twice.
- lyrics by Stephen Josephs and Bill Joiner
The average person loves to buy...but he or she hates to be sold to. And people really dislike the typical "sales person." This book takes a look at the sales process with integrity. Sell is not a four-letter word (okay, it is - but you know what I mean). Selling can be good for everyone. One of the goals of this book is to raise the bar for sales people, who can sell in such a way that the above song does not apply to them.
Did you know that the mere mention of one wrong word, or emphasizing a single point too strenuously, can break or make a sale? Selling is a delicate art, and it is evolving and adjusting to a tumultuous global environment. Three or four decades ago, the commercial world was totally different. Today, although you might still be a Ford man, your new Ford car might be sold by a Ford dealer who also owns a Mazda dealership. Your new Ford could have parts build by Mazda, with engineering design borrowed from Jaguar in Great Britain, and an on-board GPS system from China. Sellers, who used to include lessons on how to operate their product, might now learn about new product features from a young buyer, who conducted extensive product research on the Internet prior to meeting the sales person.
Salespeople who sell effectively are basically aware about the nature of these changes, and are adjusting their strategies accordingly. The master of sales is one who practices his or her craft in a way that is most synchronized with demands of our new world. These masters are showing us the way forward. You picked this book up because either you are in a selling career, or are just curious to see what magic buttons are used by the master of sales. Our job is to guide you on a brief journey into selected techniques and strategies used by masterful sellers who push the right buttons at the right time with the right people, and thereby achieve success through selling. So let's begin the journey at the beginning of the process.
A sale occurs when there is a transfer of a product or service for money - usually between two parties. Selling encompasses all those qualities that must be exhibited to make the sale happen. These are characterized by www.dictionary.com as being "persuasive, inducing, or merely causing the transaction to happen." This pretty general way to describe selling covers the waterfront, but doesn't give us a clear and exact picture about what sellers actually do to achieve a transfer sale transaction. It's almost as if the seller uses secret manipulative tricks, or else is a magician.
Picture yourself, for a moment, shopping for a family gift and walking into an attractive high-end kitchen store with thousands of products. Your mission is to get the perfect gift, but you're only vaguely aware of what might suit the occasion. Furthermore, you don't want to be distracted by a bored sales clerk, who appears to be only interested in hearing his cash register ring. At the end of your tour in the store, you will either leave very pleased about having found just the perfect gift, or you will walk out empty-handed and dejected, vowing to never again step foot in that store. The interaction between you and the sales person inside the store had a lot to do with the result, and even determined your destiny, at least in a small way (you either go home to begin celebrating, or keep searching, getting more and more tired). The seller's success - or lack thereof - influences his or her own career, but equally important, it influences the life of the consumer.
Consumers want to be guided by masterful sales people who can help them solve problems, and overcome the challenges they encounter. Done well, this highly interactive process will convert the client from a totally unknown individual into one who shows long-term sincere appreciation to the sales person, who precisely matched the client's needs/interests/wants with a product or service. "Can I help you?" "No thanks, I'm just looking." What does this interchange really mean? Skilled professionals effortlessly open selling conversations that allow the customer to share more of their true wants and intentions. These salespeople carefully listen to how the customer answers their intentionally-designed questions, and then use other powerful communication techniques to close the deal. These techniques are a little different from the manipulative and persuasive techniques used in years back.
Our commercial environment today is characterized by a plethora of products and services - and sales messages. Sellers have access to more sales knowledge and strategies, but so too do the buyers...who may like to buy, but don't like to be sold. The masterful sales person knows how to create an enjoyable buying experience for his customers.
Buying has always been a form of recreation for some; for others...not so much. This is why the master salesperson will even use personality profiling to help his or her customer find just that right solutions. Sellers work with buyers in a one-on-one situation, or in more complex corporate environments. The corporate sales person must sort through a myriad of thoughts, needs, emotions and circumstances of not just one, but many people involved in the buying decision. Each sales person wants to close every sale, but the knowledgeable ones understand that a long-term relationship is preferable to a one-hit sale. It is much harder to get new clients than it is to keep existing clients loyal. This secret is pursued by only the most masterful of sellers. Part of the secret is to creat a selling experience where the buyer says, WOW.
Plain and simple, our highly charged, over-choiced and changing world requires a shift in selling that positions the seller as a member in the buyer's success and problem solving team. We all understand at a fundamental level that technology is shrinking the world while adding to the complexity. No one person can figure it all out alone. We need teams aligned and working together to accomplish more complex tasks that compete, or merge with other more complex concepts and entities. For example, one team sells the computer, the next sells the installation, the next team sells the website while yet another sells computer training so that finally the company has an operational website. What is most interesting is how selling is now seen as a two-way street, wherein both the seller and buyer want to feel equal as partners in the transaction. The paradigm of selling now places increased importance on two-way quality communication, in a way that adds mutual value to a buyer-seller relationship.
The responsibility for distributing our societal products and critical services rests with salespeople, without whom our commercial engines would grind to a halt. Despite the important role played by salespeople, we still haven't established an institutional response to properly training these important individuals. Instead, these folks learn their craft through word-of-mouth, private training courses, or by attendance at the "school of hard knocks." It is interesting to see how some really simple techniques are returning big sales results for the sales masters, while other sales professionals use extremely complex formulas to earn their sales awards. The sales arena is not unique to other performance activities. There are simple exercises (i.e., the "basics") which must be mastered. Master the fundamentals! At the same time, more complex tools are utilized to achieve the goal. It is important to utilize both the simple and the complex, and selecting the right tool for the job is part of mastering any event. In each of the following chapters, we hope to show you a sampling of what some of these masters have picked up during their careers.
Studying at the feet of the masters accelerates our learning curve, by allowing us to learn some of the tips shared by this select group of people. These are the ones who achieved success in the art of selling. Our goal is for you to learn and implement masterful selling methods that allow you to achieve significant success in your sales profession, and be influential in your community. True masters of sales move into community leadership roles, because they understand the importance of networking to their craft. As leaders, they are more effective at dealing with the most complex entities on planet earth - people. And people like to buy from leaders.
In the not-so-distant past, a profession in sales may have been at the bottom of our social acceptability scale, but this is rapidly changing. Professional selling is a vital vocation for high achievers seeking rewards associated with dedicated and focused effort. These new masters of sales fulfill an honorable - even critical - role in helping move the world forward. This book gives you access to many pieces of the selling puzzle. The chapters are laid out similar to a traditional model for selling: Sales attitudes, sales goals, prospecting for clients, handling objections, product demonstrations, the close, and the follow-up. Within each chapter, you will discover new recipes for success that you can follow precisely and, once mastered, add-to with your own ingredients.
