Make the Sale Happen Before Lunch – by Stephan Schiffman
Ken's Review - A great read when you are in the need a bit of a pick me up. Covers all the key aspects of improving your sales career.
Sales are the lifeblood of any company. Sales are closely tied to financial statements. Sales success usually means financial success.
As the title suggests, Schiffman has what he calls 50 rules. I agree with almost all of them but some of them I feel more passionate about.
Rule number 35 is spent at least 75% of your time gathering information. One of the things I've learned in both sales and negotiation is that the person with the information has the advantage. The Internet makes information gathering extremely easy. There's no reason not to lose on this one.
Rule number 24 is to make calls for an hour a day. One thing I have often seen in developing company says they simply don't spend enough time making sales calls. Without spending the time clearly the sales will never happen. And although he suggests making calls for an hour a day, I think double or triple or quadruple makes more sense.
I was interested to see rule 30 was to live off-peak this is one of the rules I use all the time. Like some of his other rules, sales are tied to good time management.
One thing I like about the book is that each one of the 50 rules basically stands on their own. This means the book can be read gradually over a long period of time and the benefits will still be derived. The book is concise and easy to read and I would recommend to anybody who wants to increase their sales.
"Stephan Schiffman can make a believer, and a winner, out of almost anyone!"
Ken and Daria Dolan, former hosts of CNN's Dolans Unscripted
All great salespeople have one skill in common: They know how to build powerful relationships that benefit everyone.
Stephan Schiffman, America's top sales trainer, has taught this maxim with impressive results to more than 600,000 salespeople at some of the world's top companies. In Make the Sale Happen Before Lunch, he offers 50 proven, easy-to-implement strategies you can use to:
- Get your next phone call returned
- Set up a meeting with a reluctant prospect
- Formulate one simple question to learn where you stand with your contact
- Rebound instantly from real or perceived obstacles
- Frame questions to get a favourable response
- Recast your product to fit your contact's specific needs
Once you master Schiffman's 50 cut-to-the-chase strategies, you?ll get in the habit of setting something important in motion for the future each and every business day.