Jeffrey Gitomer's Little Red Book of Selling: 12.5 Principles fo sales greatness: How to make sales FOREVER (Jeffrey Gitomer's Little Book Series)

by Jeffrey Gitomer

to forty percent of all customers will buy price. That's the bad news. The good news is 60-70% of all customers will buy value if you provide it to them.

Take the last 10 sales that you made and try to discover the following: How was the sale completed? In other words what went into the decision making process? Who pulled the trigger? In other words, the lower down the scale you are the more price matters. If you're a hotel and you're trying to sell a meeting to a corporation, the meeting planner is going to be much more price oriented and comparison oriented than the CEO who has the responsibility for the outcome of the meeting. Twenty dollars a night/room may be an obstacle

at the meeting planner level, but it's nothing to a CEO who wants his people to be happy, well rested, and productive for the real purpose of the meeting. Which brings me to my next point.

Don't focus on the sale, focus on the lifetime use of the product or the service. Get your probable purchaser to visualize what life will be like after they take ownership. If you can concentrate

on use and ownership, then you can focus on cost and long term value as opposed to price. The key is that the customer must visualize this at a time when they are also focusing on "how much is it?"

Let me make one more side note here. Sometimes the price is precluded by someone who says to you, "We've spent our whole budget." That person is not a decision maker. He or she is a budget spender. And the entire time they are spending their budget they are predominantly focused on price. My goal when I'm in a sales situation is to somehow get to the person t...

When someone starts to hammer you for price, you simply say, "Price or profit Mr. Jones. Which would you rather have? Price lasts for a moment Mr. Jones, profit lasts for a lifetime." All executive corporate officers are interested in making more profit.

Here's the problem. What I've just challenged you to do will double your workload as a salesperson. You now have to go into the sale with productivity ideas and profit ideas. The good news is not only will your workload double, your sales will double along with it. The better news is most salespeople will not do the hard work that it takes to make selling easy. There's not much competition at the top of the sales ladder. But the best news is you will be in control of your own outcomes.

"But Jeffrey, you don't understand. All of my sales are on three bids and the customer takes the lowest bid." No, Sparky. You don't understand. You're not using any imagination to try and change the terms of the proposal. Why don't you recommend to your customer, "Mr. Jones, all three of the prices you are going to receive are going to be within 10% of one another. Why don't we state in the contract that if all prices are within 10% that you are free to choose the product or the service that you believe will help your company the most. Or, the company you have the most confidence in performing after the sale. Fair enough?"

Make friends before you start, or don't start. When I meet a prospect on a sales call, the first thing I do is establish some kind of rapport that includes finding some common ground. I laugh with them, I talk to them about them. I establish some credibility with them and then I begin my sales presentation. I would rather walk out of a sales presentation from a prospect who says, "Let's get right down to business." What he's really saying is, let's get right down to "How much is it?" I don't win sales on price. I win sales on friendship. I give the "price sales" to someone else. They're the biggest pain in the ass on the planet, and so are the people associated with them.

Sales for the moment. Friends for life. Sales for the commission. Value for the fortune. Early on in my writing career I created a quote, "If you make a sale, you can earn a commission. If you make a friend, you can earn a fortune." This philosophy is rarely used in sales. Those who employ it are the top performers and the top paid salespeople. They build relationships. They don't worry about their quotas. They concentrate on the value they provide to their customers and the corresponding orders that accompany it.

All things being equal, people want to do business with their friends. All things being not quite so equal, people STILL want to do business with their friends.

Networking works well when you employ the two-word secret: Show up. Networking works best when you employ the three-word secret: Show up prepared.

Why are you not setting appointments? Easy answer: No compelling reason on the part of the buyer to do so. Hard answer: You couldn't sell them on "yes" – they sold you on "no."

and all of you think "my way is different, Jeffrey" -- and you are wrong -- all appointment setting is the same -- engage a qualified decider and get them to commit to your presentation.

"If all you have is a product or a service no one will meet with you. If you have a profit driven answer, everyone will meet with you."

Major clue: If they have no interest, you will not get the appointment. If you provide no perceived value, they will not appoint you. If you are not engaging, they will not appoint you. If they PERCEIVE they have no need, they will not appoint you.

The first thing you gotta do BEFORE you ever get the appointment is get the attention and interest of the DECISION MAKER. You do this by engaging him or her and you engage with questions or statements that lead to their wanting to know more. And not necessarily more about you -- rather more about what you know that could help them.

Ask the prospect what they think. And tell the prospect how he wins or could win by meeting with you. Do not save the prospect money -- earn the prospect profit. Ask for a short time with an option to make longer if interested.

What you ask makes or breaks the sale.

It's an enigma to me. Questions are so critical, you'd think it would be the topic of training every week.

Qualify the buyer. 2. Establish rapport. 3. Create prospect disparity. 4. Eliminate or differentiate from the competition. 5. Build credibility. 6. Know the customer and their business. 7. Identify needs. 8. Find hot buttons. 9. Get personal information. 9.5 Close the sale.

If your husband died, how would the house payments be made? How would the children go to college?

The objective was to ask a prospect qualifying questions about getting cable TV, and sell all premium channels possible. Scott asked "If you owned your own cable channel, Ms. Jones, what would be on it?" WOW, what a question -- it draws out all the likes (and perhaps the dislikes) of the customer, and puts every answer in terms of the sale being made.

How many of your salespeople did not meet their sales goals last year? Why? (What was the major cause?) What plans have you made to ensure that they will this year? What type of personal development plan for each salesperson have you put into place? How do you support your sales staff? How much training did you budget last year? How much did you wish you'd have budgeted? When training takes place, how do you measure each individual's professional development progress?

"What do you look for ...?" "What have you found ...?" "How do you propose ...?" "What has been your experience ...?" "How have you successfully used ...?" "How do you determine ...?" "Why is that a deciding factor ...?" "What makes you choose ...?" "What do you like about ...?" "What is one thing you would improve about ...?"

Are you the person who decides about...? Come on. This is THE question that breeds the most lies. The answer is most often "yes," and the answer most often is false. Why ask a question that breeds misleading information? The correct question to ask is: How will the decision be made?

If I could save you some money, would you...? Every salesperson thinks that the customer will jump at the hint of saving money. This tactic actually has a negative effect on the buyer and makes the salesperson work twice as hard to prove himself and usually at a lower price (and lower commission).

And the worst question of them all: What would it take to get (earn) your business? This question literally is saying to the prospect: "Look, I don't have much time here. Could you just tell me the quickest way to get this order,...

If you walk in with an IDEA that you got from reading their annual report, their trade magazine, or reading their web info, you will earn the respect of the person making the buying decision. You will also be viewed as credible. Respect and credibility lead to trust. Trust leads to sale. Think about that the next time you're formulating a question.

But if you ask value questions -- questions about productivity and profit -- you're going to get answers that lead you to your prospects' motives for buying.

If you know that questions are critical, why don't you have a list of 25 questions that your competition is not asking? The more thought provoking your questions, the more your prospective buyers will respect you. The higher that respect level is, the more likely they are to be truthful with you and give you insight into the key factors that will determine the sale. They will also begin to share the truth about how the decision is made. Every minute you're in front of prospects they're deciding how much they like you, how much they believe you, how much they respect you, how much confidence they have in you, and how much they trust you. All of these factors determine whether or not they will buy from you.

It's not hard sell, it's heart sell. Good questions get to the heart of the problem/need/situation very quickly -- without the buyer feeling like he or she is being pushed.

IF YOU CAN MAKE THEM LAUGH, YOU CAN MAKE THEM BUY! Having the first laugh makes a sale that lasts. Need to improve your humor? Become a student of humor.

There are two ways of looking at my hair loss. 1. Oh, my gosh, I'm losing my hair -- woe is me. 2. There's not much more to lose.

The Major Clue: Making people smile or laugh puts them at ease and creates an atmosphere more conducive for agreement. If they agree with your humor, they are more likely to agree with purchasing your product or service.

Develop lines that are tested to make people laugh -- nothing corny. Try out the lines on your friends and co-workers first. If they laugh -- use them. If they groan, so will everyone else. Keep the lines clean. Real clean.

Visit comedy clubs. Study delivery and timing. Watch audience reaction. Observe what makes them laugh. What makes you laugh?

3. Read joke books, or books that are funny. Milton Berle's joke book is particularly good. Books written by humorists like Dave Barry, Art Buchwald, Scott Adams, and Lewis Grizzard are great.

4. Join Toastmasters. They have advanced programs in humorous speaking.

12. Carry audiotapes of your favorite comedians with you in the car. Pop them in before you make a sales call to get a lift.

13. Start looking for humor in your everyday life. Try to appreciate it as it is happening, instead of always in hindsight.

Hang around funny people. It's amazing how your humor will increase when you're in the company of people who are funny.

15.5 Laugh a lot. If you're serious about using humor, start smiling and laughing more.

RED SELLING RESPONSE ... "Professional salespeople tend to lose to friendly salespeople. Don't take my word for it, ask any good old boy."

Humor is the final frontier. It's easy to learn all about your product, it's easy to learn all about your customer, it's easy to learn the science of selling, it's hard to learn the science of humor and harder to learn how to place that humor and time that humor into your sales presentation. The essence of humor is that it is relaxing and creates a more open atmosphere. An atmosphere that will begin to breed friendship, respect and compatibility. The reason I refer to it as the final frontier is that it's the last element that you put into your selling process.

What's so funny about being professional? If your entire sales talk is professional, you are likely to lose to someone whose talk is 50% professional and 50% friendly, combined with funny. Friendly and funny are a thousand times more engaging than professional. If you doubt that, take a look at any latenight TV host. Are they professional or funny?

I have incorporated sales talk with funny talk for the last 30 years and not only has it made me a ton of sales, it has also made me a ton of friends. It will do the same for you.

First of all, most jokes are demeaning to one person or another. Second of all, jokes sound contrived, almost like you're trying too hard. And worst of all, if the customer has heard the joke before, it makes you look like a complete idiot, especially at the end when you're the only one laughing. Stories on the other hand are genuine. They tell about experience, they can use self-effacing humor, and they're engaging. Often times when you tell a story, it makes the prospect think of a story and will engage you back (in storytelling that's called a "topper"). If you can get a story of his or hers, that's also a rapport builder. Storytelling is also effective in your sales presentation when getting the prospect to relate to your product or service. Facts and figures are forgotten, stories are retold.

The habit of observing. Looking at things and circumstances is one thing. Seeing an idea within them is another. When something goes wrong or something goes right, those are both opportunities to think and see in terms of yourself. Two word lesson: pay attention.