Your sales success may depend on the answer
Those who follow my blog know that I am increasingly zealous about the power and effectiveness of less “sales-oriented” approaches to winning new business with both new and existing clients.
My eBook on UnSelling (free eBook ) is certainly an example. The recent book and research by Mathew Dixon called, The Challenger Sale is another and I would argue we’ll continue to see more evidence that traditional selling approaches are proving less effective.
A new example of this is a book written by John David Mann and Bob Burg titled, Go-Givers Sell More (http://www.gogiverssellmore.com/ ) These are the same authors that gave us, The Go-Giver, a national bestseller that is not sales-specific but is foundational for their concepts applied to sales.
You can find these books in hard copy and via Kindle, etc. and my challenge to all sales people (and sales leaders for that matter) is to become a student of your profession and not be content to rely on the advice and approaches that have been espoused by authors and sales training organizations for decades:
- Sell feature – function – benefits
- Provide a winning product demonstration
- Close hard – and often
- You know the others…..
Instead – take a different approach to clients and prospects that is based on our ability to:
- Create trust
- Tell the client the whole truth
- Do what’s best for the client (not just for us)
It’s what UnSelling is all about and my compliments to the authors of Go-Givers Sell More because they help us all understand what works in today’s seling environment.
If you want more details on the UnSelling approach: download a free copy of Peter Bourke’s newly published eBook UnSelling™: Sell Less … To Win More. The free eBook is available in several formats, including Kindle, Nook, iBook, PDF, and more.
This topic is all about helping sales (and non-sales) people to realize that winning new business is not about selling (or “telling”) more aggressively. It’s about changing the nature of the relationship between buyer and seller to one of collaboration.