One of the perks of being online and in the sales and marketing training/consulting world is I get to correspond with other professionals in the same field that are out there helping other sales professionals and entrepreneurs make things happen faster, with less stress, higher margins and more fun.
And one of the benefits of moving your website to a new host—I'm now on the HubSpot CMS—is rediscovering little gems of posts I made six years ago like this one that I can dust off and re-present to my readers.
Jill Konrath's assistant was gracious enough to contact me in July 2010 about reviewing Jill's newest book at the time, "SNAP Selling: Speed Up Sales and Win More Business With Today's Frazzled Customers."
(Then I was able to have Jill on The Sales Podcast as a guest on episode #16, which you can listen to here.)
Her book is a thick 297 pages but if I am going to judge a book by its cover my initial impression is quite positive.
On Page 6 and onto 7 she nails it with a couple of key points:
Sales is an outcome, not a goal."
Knowing as much as you can about your prospect is more important than your knowledge of your own product, service, or solution."
Steve Clark taught me that,
Selling is a calling.
Serving is its purpose.
Questioning is the process.
A sale may be the solution.
Jill's training and recommendations are right in line with everything I've learned, believe and experienced.
She starts with "S is for Simple." (Anyone that espouses simplicity is a friend of mine.)
Then she has you enter the mind of your prospect. AMEN!
In my training sessions I ALWAYS do this role-playing where I ask the audience to put themselves in the seats of their clients. They have dual monitors—maybe 3 or 4—with maybe even two computers, a smartphone, maybe a personal cell phone, the office line is ringing, the cell phone is ringing, texts are coming in, emails are coming in, they probably have some form of instant messenger going from Skype, Facebook, Google, AOL, Apple, etc, people are stopping in, mail is getting delivered...it's a chaotic mess.
Why do Jill and I do this? To stress the importance of being interesting and capturing the attention of your prospects.
You need to do this to avoid what Jill calls the D-Zone. (You and I need to stay out of there at all costs.)
Jumping to the end (I can't tell you everything but you can get the book here) she concludes with "Success Is a Decision." You can decide whether or not to buy her book, to read it, to take notes and to apply what she teaches.
If you prefer to work with a coach/mentor/trainer check out my private consulting options.
Whatever you do, decide now to be excellent and to be a success.
Market like you mean it.
Now go sell something.