A book recommendation from Dan Beaulieu:
Conversations That Sell: Collaborate with Buyer sand Make Every Conversation Count
By Nancy Bleeke
Copyright 2013Amacom
Price $17.95
Pages: 222 and Index
Changing the game of sales
Yes customers are people too. They are not merely targets, or prospects, or leads to be pitched to be poked and prodded at until they are convinced to buy something from you. No not at all we have to remember as author Nancy Beeke reminds us in her book Conversations That Sell that they are people, people who need to be treated as such. You have to talk to them in a way that is constructive, interesting, valuable to them and yes bi-lateral in short you have to engage them in the4 give and take of a conversation.
Lest you think this is too obvious take a minute and think about how you prepare for a sales call today. Think of all of the prep work you do
I was pleasantly surprised when I read this book. I thought it was going to be about business to business selling but instead quickly found out that it was of course about selling products to consumers thought networking as well as direct sales. But there was something about this book that was so engaging that I decided to keep flipping the pages; and I was glad I did.
This book is literally a primer for good sales methods, techniques and habits that are completely pertinent and useful to all of us in sales, heck to all of us in s professional business career.
The book is chock full of great advice on a number of subjects from networking to the disciplines needed for making and keeping your own schedule.
I have to say that just about all of the advice I found here can be applied to sales people both direct and reps who are out here in their own territories, on their own.
The chapter called Turn your shining stars into super stars is in itself worth the price of this book:
From that chapter here are the: Eight steps to keeping your leadership program focused and simple
- Start developing every new aspiring leader by conducting a one-on-one Moving Up interview that establishes goals.
- Schedule regular leadership training to drive momentum.
- Allocate the last week of each month to review the month and finalize planning from next month.
- Leadership training doesn’t have to be complicated.
- Training is worthless if it’s not followed by action.
- Commitment and accountability are the keys to leadership.
- Although you’ll make yourself as available and accessible as possible, the purpose of your leadership program is to develop independently functioning leaders.
- You may have to face situation in which someone in the program stalls before promoting the plan.
See what I mean? This is all good clear advice for any sales manager who is tasked with managing, measuring and motivating any sales force.
I know that a lot of this is plain common sense that we all have learned at one time or another but seldom have I seen it all in one place an so well laid out which makes sense because when you think about it people are people and sales is sales.
Whether you are selling Avon products or printed circuit boards the same basic principles still apply.
Don’t pass this one up just because you’re not exactly involved direct sales… this one is for all of us in sales, you’ll like this book I promise you.
