Wednesday, July 17, 2013

How to Sell Without Being a Jerk

I had dinner tonight with speaker and author John Klymshyn.  Good guy.

I loved his business card.  It was a fold out one (usually I hate because they take too much space).  The inside had a great list  he calls  Every Day:

1. Be kind to someone.
2 - Negotiate as if you do not need the Deal.
3 - Sweat (not hard in the weather but not sure that is what he means)
4 - Meditate/Pray/Be Silent
5 - Laugh Loudly
6 - Inspire Someone (hence this blog)
7 - Read for one Hour (perhaps read Zero to Two Billion)
8 - Do something Creative
9 - Save Money
10 - Give something away

He has written a few books and gave me one - How to Sell Without Being a Jerk - The Foolproof Approach to the World's Second Oldest Profession.  Slightly concerned that he chose to give me that one and not one of his others.  I wonder what he was thinking...

It is a classic "Sales" book and at the same time it is not.

He reminds us of the age old classics in sales like "Feel, Felt, Found".  (I know how you feel, many other customers felt the same way but what they found was by buying our product they save gazillions of dollars).  And using open ended questions.  

At the same time, he rejects all the sliminess that sometimes is associated with sales.  I know I cannot sell anything I do not believe in nor can I sell to someone who does not need what I am selling.

One phrase John uses is "Moving Conversations Forward".  I think he even trademarked it.  The gist of the message is to keep things moving forward.  He reminds us that sales is a process and many times a long an many touch process.

Throughout the book were amusing stories of sales disasters.

Great book.  Highly recommended.  It must be good - we are going to use it for one of our books in our Sales Book Club.


2 Comments:

At 12:00 PM, Anonymous crm sistemos said...

How to sell without being a jerk? Just do everything that customer wish to be done.

 
At 4:36 AM, Anonymous crm sistemos said...

By the way - I like the "Every Day" list of John Klymshyn. Especially - part4: meditation. It strengthens the brain and helps to concentrate. Everyone should do this everyday, at least 20min/day.

 

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