Selling Rests on Seven Critical Pillars:
Pillar One: Develop your competence by acquiring sufficient knowledge about your products and services, understand your target market, have sufficient information about your competitors, and master your marketing and sales strategy.
Pillar Two: Identify, target and gain access to those who need and want your products and services; will derive value from your products and services; and who have the capacity and authority to acquire them. Make sufficient contacts, secure enough referrals and introductions.
Pillar Three: Make presentations to the prospects by communicating the features, benefits, value proposition and competitive advantages of your products and services. This pillar also involves dealing with the objections and concerns of prospects.
Pillar Four: Follow up and re-inforce your value proposition; until you win the customer.
Pillar Five: Manage the customers, deepen the relationship, achieve customer loyalty and cross sell to existing customers.
Pillar Six: Track and monitor your customers to avoid attrition, cross sell to them, provide advisory services. Track what your competitors are doing to win your customers; track and monitor how government policies might be affecting your customer, etc.
Pillar Seven: Make customers your advocates and use them to secure new contacts and businesses.
This practical and easy to read book identifies all that you need to know, the skills to develop and the right sales attitude to excel in today’s highly competitive market space.
Time of Content
| Contents | Iv |
| Dedication | Vii |
| Preface | Viii |
| PILLAR ONE: COMPETENCE | 1 |
| Introduction: The Concept of Competence | 2 |
| Chaper 1. What You Must Know to Excel in Sales | |
| Internal Knowledge (Knowledge of Your Company) | 7 |
| Knowledge of the Prospects and Customers | 11 |
| Competitor Knowledge | 13 |
| Knowledge of Your Industry | 15 |
| Knowledge of Government Policies and Regulators | 15 |
| Chapter 2. Critical Skills for Sales Excellence | 18 |
| Communication Skills | 19 |
| Verbal Communication | 19 |
| Non-verbal Communication | 21 |
| Written Communication | 22 |
| Email Communication | 24 |
| Listening Skills | 27 |
| Questioning Skills | 30 |
| Telephone Skills | 35 |
| Presentation Skills | 39 |
| Negotiation Skills | 65 |
| Persuasion Skills | 78 |
| Problem Solving Skills | 82 |
| Interpersonal and Rapport Building Skills | 84 |
| Business and Social Networking Skills | 87 |
| Chapter 3: The Attitude Of Competent Sales People | 91 |
| Self-Belief | 93 |
| Confidence | 96 |
| Clarity of Purpose | 97 |
| Focus on Details | 99 |
| Can-Do-Attitude | 101 |
| Willingness to go the Extra Mile | 101 |
| Patience and Persistence | 102 |
| Optimism | 103 |
| Friendliness | 103 |
| Accountability | 103 |
| A Fervent Spirit | 103 |
| A Call to Action | 104 |
| PILLAR TWO: PROSPECTING | 108 |
| Chapter 4: Understanding Prospects and Prospecting | 109 |
| Categories of Prospects | 110 |
| Wrong Assumptions about Prospects and Prospecting | 115 |
| Who is a Real Prospect? | 116 |
| What is Prospecting? | 119 |
| Key Questions for Prospecting Excellence | 120 |
| Common Prospecting Mistakes | 122 |
| Chapter 5: Profiling, Segmentation and Prospecting | 123 |
| Segmentation Strategies for Sales Excellence | 124 |
| Prospecting and the Sales Funnel | 127 |
| Identifying Leads | 129 |
| Qualifying Leads | 132 |
| Assessing Your Prospecting Efforts | 133 |
| The Small versus Large Prospects Dilemma | 135 |
| Prospecting and the Pareto Principle | 136 |
| How to Organize your Prospecting Activities for Maximum Returns | 138 |
| Chapter 6: The Best Places to Network for Prospecting Excellence | 151 |
| PILLAR THREE: CONVERSION | 155 |
| Chapter 7: Systematic Steps to Selling | 157 |
| Opening | 158 |
| Exploring Needs | 159 |
| Presentation of Solution | 159 |
| Deal with Objections | 160 |
| Close | 161 |
| Chapter 8: The Principles of Selling | 162 |
| Sell to the Heart, then the Head | 162 |
| Sell Result and Outcome not Process and Features | 164 |
| Sell Value, not just Price | 164 |
| Show Prospects what they would Lose, not Just What they Would Gain | 166 |
| Who Like Me Has Used It Before? | 166 |
| Selective Product Knowledge is Key | 167 |
| Aim to Be Unique | 168 |
| Ask Questions | 168 |
| Always Confirm what “No” Means | 169 |
| Do not Present Yourself as The Beneficiary of the Sale | 169 |
| Sell Yourself | 169 |
| Present Your Solutions, not Your Problems | 170 |
| Chapter 9: Value Based Selling | 171 |
| Exploring and Exploiting Why People Buy | 171 |
| Need | 171 |
| Perceived Value | 172 |
| Dimensions of Value Perception | 174 |
| Articulating Your Value Proposition | 176 |
| Chapter 10: Dealing with Sales Objection | 179 |
| Are Objections Walls or Hurdles? | 180 |
| Why Do Prospects Ask Questions? | 181 |
| “No” As Objections | 184 |
| Barriers to Handling Sales Objections | 186 |
| Seven Steps to Dealing with Sales Objections | 190 |
| How to Respond to Common Objections | 192 |
| True Objections | 195 |
| How to Prevent Objections from Destroying Your Career | 196 |
| Chapter 11: Closing the Sale | 199 |
| How to Improve Your Chances of Closing a Sale | 200 |
| Closing Techniques | 203 |