SELL AND GROW RICH pdf

SELL AND GROW RICH
Achieve Unlimited Success in Selling
by
Robert Stuberg
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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BOOKS & AUDIOS
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Everything You Need to Know to Get Everything You Want
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SOFTWARE
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
CHAPTER ONE: Personal Development for Success
CHAPTER TWO: Planning for Success
CHAPTER THREE: Engaging the Customer for Success
CHAPTER FOUR: Getting the Order
CHAPTER FIVE: Review
FREE Resources
About the Author
*****
Preface
Selling is the world’s highest paid profession. Unfortunately, there are millions of
salespeople that don’t make much money. How can that be? It’s simple really. Here are

the two steps for failing in the world of sales:
1. Don’t learn the rules of selling.
2. Don’t practice the rules of selling.
All you have to do to guarantee your failure is to implement those two ideas. They will
work every time without exception.
Conversely, being successful in the world of selling just requires turning those two
simple ideas around so it reads like this:
1. Learn the rules of selling.
2. Practice the rules of selling.
While this may seem like an oversimplification, I can promise you that it’s not.
Becoming successful at anything requires that you learn and apply the fundamentals.
And what’s interesting to observe is how the top people in any field can always be found
practicing the fundamentals. The purpose of this small book is to provide you with the
fundamentals for selling. If you learn them and apply them, your success at selling is
guaranteed.
We live in a world that operates based on laws and not on luck. In fact, I like to remind
myself often that luck is what happens when preparedness meets opportunity. The truth
is that we each create our own luck with our own thoughts and actions.
Becoming a great salesperson can be broken down into four major parts. First, is the
most important part that I call personal development. While most people in the world are
pursuing success, the reality is that pursuing success only leads to stress and frustration.
Do your own analysis and see if you don’t come to the same conclusion. Most people are
chasing after success with the result being that the only thing they catch is anxiety. It’s
much better to learn how to attract success based on becoming more as a person. In order
to open the windows and doors of opportunity, you need is grow as a person. There is
simply nothing more important than your ongoing personal development. It is by
becoming more as a person that you attract more into your life. People often have this
urgent cry to have more without realizing that the secret is to first become more.
The next part is developing a plan for what you want to accomplish. We all need goals
that are realistic, compatible, and attainable to keep us growing. What are your goals?

What would you like to accomplish? And why do you want whatever is on your list of
objectives? If you know what you want and why you want it, you are well on your way
… especially if you have your goals written down!
After your plan, the next step is to learn exactly how to engage customers. You need to
learn how to work with and through people if you want to succeed at selling. You need
to know how to select the right potential clients and then how to present your products or
services. It’s not that difficult but it does require a strategy. Remember, selling like life
is a contact sport. You need to be able to communicate effectively with other people.
This might first appear to be a scary proposition because people can reject you; however,
each rejection is a step closer to a sale. You have to remember what you knew as a child.
When someone said no, that didn’t mean you couldn’t change their mind. Just watch the
next time to hear a parent tell a child no and see if the child immediately gives up or ends
up with the candy. Persistence always wins in the long term.
This brings us to the last major part of selling which is getting the order or closing the
deal. There is a huge different between being a great presenter and being a great
salesperson. The presenter might entertain but it’s the salesperson that gets the order. In
ancient times if you were a great speaker you would be called an orator. It was said of
one such man, Cicero, that he was a brilliant orator and people loved to listen to him. But
there was another man who was also admired as a speaker but for a different reason.
Demosthenes wasn’t just a great speaker or presenter, he was a great persuader. While
people might be awed by Cicero and say, “What great speech!” When Demosthenes
spoke they would say, “Let us march!” The key is to get people to take action. Even
Cicero said of Demosthenes, “he stands alone among all orators.” That’s high praise
coming from a colleague. Cicero knew that if something required people to take action,
the best man for the job was Demosthenes.
So commit to not just being a great presenter, but to being a great persuader. Learn to
move people to action.
Now it’s time to take action. I recommend not just reading this book but also getting a
coach to work with you. All of us need a coach. We are too close to ourselves to really
see what’s going on. At best, we can only see a reflection of ourselves in the mirror. A

coach can give you a full view and an outside perspective that will really help you to
grow. So if you don’t have a coach yet or if you aren’t making the progress you would
like to make and are capable of making with your current coach, sign up for a coaching
session with us. There’s no cost or obligation to try out our system.
Here is the link to that FREE personal coaching session as well as some other FREE
resources:
FREE personal coaching session:
/>Other FREE products and services:
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Chapter One
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR SUCCESS
I’m going to tell you how you can achieve unlimited success in selling along with the
unlimited rewards of wealth and satisfaction that go with that success.
No other profession offers greater opportunities for individual achievement, wealth
accumulation and personal satisfaction than a career in sales. Competent, effective sales
people are always in demand and will readily command not only the financial rewards
that are due them, but also the recognition and prestige that come as a matter of course to
people at the top of their profession.
I don’t believe there is such a person as a “natural-born salesman” as the saying used to
go. Just as in any profession, top sales people get to where they are as result of study,
hard work, experience, and study. And I emphasize the word “study” lest there be any
lingering doubts that one of the important components of successful selling is the diligent
and continuing acquisition of a large body of knowledge about your product, your
industry, your customers and your competitors, not to mention about yourself.
Unfortunately, the classic stereotype of a good salesperson—perhaps “caricature” is a
better word—is that of a fast-talking, glib manipulator who relies mostly on pressure to
get a prospect to say “yes.” I think you know the type: Slick, short on facts and long on
hype and lots of now-is-your-last-chance deadlines. Regrettably, that stereotype still
persists as a role model in sales for a lot of people.
What we will do in this message is step back from stereotypes, and back away from all

selling “techniques” for that matter, and discuss what kind of person you first must
become to achieve true success in selling and what you must do to become that person.
And by the time we complete this program, I expect you to believe, as I do, that you can
become anything you want to be if you want it long enough and hard enough and are
willing to work for it.
If you’re the kind of person that sets limits on yourself, of course, those limits will hold
you back. If you’re the kind of person who is willing to change, who wants to succeed
and will work for it, the future is anything you want it to be. The only limits on your
future are the limits you set on yourself.
I’m willing to bet on the simple fact that because you are taking time to listen to this
program you are the kind of person who will invest in yourself whatever it takes to
achieve success in your selling career.
Success in selling ultimately depends on your making a commitment to excellence in
every part of your life. I’ll also add that your ultimate happiness in life depends on that
commitment to excellence.
So what I’m saying is that nothing is more important to success in selling than the
continuing pursuit of personal development throughout your career. What talents you
start with in life aren’t nearly as important as what you do with the development of those
talents.
We are all given different talents in the same way we’re dealt different hands in cards.
It’s what you do with what you’re dealt that makes the difference. After all, fortunes
have been founded on hands that held little more than a pair of deuces.
Keep in mind that the market only pays excellent rewards for excellent performance. To
earn more, you must continue to develop the levels and quality of performance that
justify those greater rewards.
Someone has said, “You are earning exactly today what you’re worth today” which is a
way of saying we are worth the sum total of all the choices and decisions we have made
in life up to this point.
And if we’re not happy with what we have at this moment, then we darn well have to get
busy and make the right choices and decisions that will make us better, more effective

and move us forward to the level that justifies the rewards we think we ought to have.
The truth is, at every stage in life, we must keep getting better, growing, expanding our
talents to keep from falling back. Our happiness depends on it. We’re only happy when
we’re moving forward, moving toward something important that we really want.
OK, what’s the most important goal in your sales career? I’ll tell you what it is. As of
right now, your goal is to be in the top 10% of your group, your company or your
industry, whatever your situation may be. It doesn’t matter what your standing is at the
moment, because you’re not looking back, only forward. From this moment on your
objective is to become the best, only the best.
Keep in mind, though, the greater the prize, the steeper the price. Nowhere else is the old
adage, “You get what you pay for” truer than in what you’re willing to invest in personal
development to become the best in your field. And the real price is measured not so
much in money as in what you’re willing to commit in time, effort, discipline and
perseverance to achieve your goals.
This is an investment in the truest sense. Nothing will give you a greater total return than
investing in your personal growth to achieve your goals. It’s the only “sure thing”
investment you’ll ever get.
The people who never make the top 10% are those who aren’t willing to make that
investment because they aren’t willing to make the personal sacrifices it requires. They
aren’t willing to make the tough choices that the discipline of personal growth demands.
But you know, every journey begins with a first step, and then another and another. And
personal development is simply a matter of getting better one step at a time. Setting
goals and moving toward them. As someone once said, “By the yard it’s hard; by the
inch it’s a cinch.” It really is that simple. So start your journey now by taking the first
step of making the commitment to a concerted effort of personal growth.
There are 12 important characteristics that define successful sales people and I want you
to use these characteristics as targets for your personal development. In all instances,
personality and personal traits of character are more important to success than even the
important factors of product knowledge, sales skills and the product itself. Selling is a
people business, the productive interaction of people in achieving a mutually beneficial

exchange of value. The top 10% of sales people are those who bring the highest quality
personal attributes to that interaction.
The first of these essential personal attributes is a high level of self-confidence and self-
esteem. The two concepts are inseparable. Your self-confidence depends on your self-
esteem or how much you like yourself. And there’s a direct positive correlation between
how much you like yourself and how well you do everything else. It’s simply a case of
“You become what you think about.” The higher your self-esteem, the lower your fear of
rejection. The more you like yourself, the more effective you are in getting along with
others. The result is that people have more confidence in you when they feel you like
them and care about them.
One of the best ways of building self-esteem is backing your sales effort with the second
important personal attribute, and that’s the will power of commitment and perseverance.
The primary reason for sales failure is people don’t stick with it long enough and hard
enough to get the winning experience to maintain their self-esteem. They’re willing to
take “no” for an answer. They accept rejection as a personal affront. Selling, like so
many other avenues of life, is a business of percentages. Successful sales people know
that success is directly related to the number of calls they make and that 80% of sales are
made after the fifth visit to a prospect.
It’s terribly important that you make an absolute commitment to succeed in your sales
career. This is a 100%, no compromises, take no prisoners dedication to become the best
in your field. You’ve made an iron-clad contract with yourself. And you see, once
you’ve done that, failure is not an option. There is no room for excuses, distractions or
half-way measures. All at once, you have set in motion the forces that will move you
forward. You will see the positive steps ahead, the path you have to take to get you to the
top.
This path naturally has its roadblocks and potholes. People who don’t succeed, people
who haven’t made that commitment, will let these obstacles discourage and defeat them.
Perseverance is the natural counterpart of your commitment to succeed. Success means
you keep trying. You never, ever give up. Remember, there is no traffic jam on the
second mile. Or the third, or the fourth. Success in selling is a chain reaction as success

breeds success.
Successful sales people are successful because they like themselves, they like selling and
they have decided to become successful at it and won’t stop until they are.
The next important attribute successful people have is a positive self-concept. It’s not
only that they like themselves, but it’s the total picture they have of themselves. First,
they think that success is the natural consequence of the commitment they’ve made to be
successful. If the concept is unfamiliar, you may first have to practice what actors call
the “suspension of disbelief”, but with time, you can adopt that same mindset of success.
Again, you become what you think about. Project yourself into the realm of success you
want to achieve as a means of achieving it.
Customers will accept your image of yourself, so act the part you want to be, that is, act
in every way like a top sales professional. Cary Grant—his real name was Archie Leach
—worked hard and spent years creating the persona of “Cary Grant.” And once when an
admirer said, “I’d give anything to be Cary Grant,” Cary Grant said, “So would I.” You
are what you think about. How you see yourself determines your behavior and your
success.
When successful sales people see themselves in a role that’s helpful to customers, this is
what the customer also sees. For example, position yourself mentally as a successful
consultant to your customers, someone who is on call as a problem solver and advisor.
You no longer are just a purveyor of goods & services, but a highly paid specialist to help
them increase their sales & profits.
Another useful self-concept is to be a “doctor of selling.” You see your customers as
patients with complaints and you’ve been called in for consultation. Your posture is
highly professional and with a highly ethical approach you proceed to make an
examination, diagnose the problem and provide a prescription for a cure. You do make
house calls and insist on follow-up visits.
These concepts are not mutually exclusive, because at the same time, successful sales
people always see themselves as president & CEO of their own companies. In that sense,
they see themselves as self-employed and totally responsible for their own bottom line,
the success of their venture. They know that they determine their own income and what

the future holds for them.
Your self-concept is the basis of your customers’ confidence in you and what you can do
for them. Adopt the mindset of the person you want your customers to see.
The next important attribute for success is the ability to set goals and pursue them. Every
successful sales person is goal- oriented, beginning with the goal of being successful.
Goals first of all are motivators, the spur to keep us moving forward, as well as the
reward for achievement. Goals must be concrete and achievable, even if at first they
seem a bit beyond your reach. Goals don’t necessarily have to be grand and may be quite
finite as stepping stones to a grander objective.
Goals are a marvelous tool for organizing your time effectively. Develop the nightly
practice of setting goals for what you plan to accomplish the next day. Prioritize these
goals and go after your tasks in that order. You can use the same technique for longer
time periods as well.
The great things about setting goals and the plans to accomplish them is how they tend to
protect you from the irrelevant and time-wasting distractions that otherwise can bog you
down. Once you get in the habit of goal setting it will become an important way of life
that you won’t be without.
One example of goal-setting you’ll want to do is your annual income. Once you decide
on what that figure should be, break it down into a monthly, weekly, daily and finally, an
hourly rate. If, for illustration purposes, that hourly rate is $50/hour, then you will only
do $50/hour tasks and will say no to activities not worth your time and plan your days
accordingly.
The key to effective goal-setting, of course, is writing them down and reviewing them
frequently. Go over them every day, if needed, to keep you on course and on your time
table. Be ready to make adjustments in your plans as necessary to keep you moving
toward your goal.
Set your goals and plans in the way the French philosopher, Teilhard de Chardin,
intended when he wrote, “Our duty as men (and women) is to proceed as if limits to our
ability do not exist. We are collaborators in creation.” Be a goal-setter. Be a
collaborator in creation.

But it takes courage to set goals and follow through on them and courage is the next
important attribute of success. Probably the greatest single deterrent people experience in
achieving success is fear. It is fear of many things, but primarily it is fear of the
consequences of acting. It is the fear of failure. Some think of courage as taking action
without fear, but as Mark Twain said, “Courage is resistance to fear, master of fear; not
absence of fear.” Or, as we recall, Ernest Hemingway described courage as “grace under
pressure.” The soldier’s badge of courage in battle is pressing forward in the face of
overwhelming fear.
While the fears we encounter in our careers seldom concern physical safety, the
consequences can be almost as debilitating if such fears aren’t faced squarely, challenged
and managed. In the simplest sense, courage is managing your fears and acting to
overcome them.
You must have courage to take action on your goals, plans and values for as Winston
Churchill said, “Courage is the foremost of virtues. For upon it all others depend.”
Think of courage, then, as a foundation for everything we do. Courage frequently simply
amounts to doing something to reach your goal that you intensely don’t want to do. But
in all cases, do it you must, if you are to succeed.
Courage is an absolute requisite to the next important attribute of success, the essential
quality of personal integrity. Of all human traits, it is the hardest won and the most
difficult to sustain. Little wonder that it’s the personal characteristic that people value
above all else.
My dictionary defines integrity as, “Moral soundness as it is revealed in dealings that test
steadfastness to truth, purpose, responsibility or trust.” And the synonyms listed are
honor and honesty.
Note the important emphasis on “dealings that test steadfastness to truth, etc.” The point,
I think, is that we are constantly tested and the measure of our integrity is how well we
stand up to those tests.
How our integrity relies on courage was suggested by the noted author and columnist,
Walter Lippman, when he wrote, “(A person) has honor if he (or she) holds himself to an
ideal of conduct—though it is inconvenient, unprofitable or dangerous to do so.” Think

of your personal integrity in terms of that ideal of conduct that takes courage to maintain
and defend.
I consider personal integrity the magnetic north on our moral compass. It’s a constant
reference point that assures a true course in life.
No appraisal of your business conduct will hold you in higher regard than being
considered a person of integrity by your customers and co-workers.
We know, of course, “that dealings that test steadfastness to truth, purpose, responsibility
or trust,” as well as honor and honesty, apply as much when directed to ourselves as to
our dealings with others. It means being true to what you believe and stand for, just as in
that famous admonition by Polonius in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “To thine own self be true.
And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
Take stock of what ideals of conduct you hold yourself to and how you stand up to the
tests of steadfastness to truth, purpose, responsibility and trust, not to mention honor and
honesty. And most of all, be honest with yourself. Make your name and reputation
synonymous with integrity.
The next important personal attribute of successful sales people is enthusiasm. I like the
definition of selling that says a sale is a transfer of enthusiasm. It implies, of course, that
the person doing the selling has enthusiasm for his or her product or service and has the
ability to imbue the customer with that enthusiasm to the point of making a purchase.
The point being, that enthusiasm is an essential characteristic of every successful sales
person’s makeup, much in keeping with Emerson’s dictum that “Nothing great was ever
achieved without enthusiasm.”
Enthusiasm in selling has many parents. There is a one-to-one relationship between how
much you like yourself and your enthusiasm. That self- esteem is reflected in the
confidence and intensity of your presentations to your customers. And similarly, your
enthusiasm will largely be a reflection of how much you like what you’re doing and how
comfortable you are doing it. Enthusiasm also is a reflection of the goals you set and the
intensity of your desire to achieve those goals. Enthusiasm grows out of your knowledge
of your product or service and what it can do for your customer. And enthusiasm will
stem directly from how well prepared you are.

Enthusiasm, like laughter, is contagious and the more you generate it, feel it and display
it, the more readily your customer will catch it and respond by giving you the order.
Now, you may be thinking of enthusiasm in the same terms as Ethel Merman when she
said, “Always give them the old fire, even when you feel like a squashed cake of ice.” Or
even like another writer who said, “Be fanatics. When it comes to being and doing and
dreaming of the best, be maniacs!” And if those approaches suit your temperament,
great! Go for it. What ever works. That’s an expression of enthusiasm.
But maybe the manic approach is not for you. That’s OK, too. Enthusiasm can be
conveyed just as intensely and sincerely with an earnest thoroughness and quiet fire that
leaves no doubt in your customer’s mind about your enthusiasm for your product and
what it can do for them.
Whatever your take may be, think of the enthusiasm in your sales approach in terms of
the energy behind it and what it takes to transfer that dynamic to the customer. And
make no mistake, when your enthusiasm is genuine and strong enough, your customer
will get it. And you will get the sale.
The next attribute of success is empathy, which is really the reciprocal or the flip side of
enthusiasm. Along with conveying your enthusiasm to the customer, it’s equally
important that you sharpen your senses about what the customer is feeling and thinking.
Empathy is important as the process of shifting your focus from what you want to what
the customer wants. It’s a matter of opening your mind and your feelings to act as
powerful sensors to pick up even the unspoken signals and nuances that tell you what
your customer is really saying.
It’s awfully easy for selling to become a one-way street for the flow of information going
exclusively from you to the customer. After all, you know your product, you’ve
rehearsed your presentation and have it down cold and you can’t resist letting it all hang
out.
The obvious problem with this is if you do all the talking, you will lose important
opportunities to hear what the customer has to say about his needs, problems and desires.
This is the information you must have to position your product as an asset to your
customer. Selling isn’t about you or your product, it’s all about your customer and his or

her business.
Empathy in action is asking questions. Become proficient at asking questions and
following up with more questions to get the customer to tell you why he should buy your
product. And equally important, become a good listener. Listen well and become a
sponge for the information that will tell you how to present your product as an essential
component of your customer’s business.
Remember, empathy is giving the customer a chance to tell you how to sell him your
product or service.
The next important attribute of all successful people is the faculty for using common
sense. Now, this isn’t a rare gift allotted to a lucky few. It only becomes rare when we
don’t use it. It’s an innate asset we all have and it’s just a question of developing it and
using it. But I think Will Rogers was exaggerating only a little when he said, “There’s an
awful lot of common sense available in America today because nobody’s used any of it
yet.”
Part of the problem is that common sense is one of those things that everyone talks about
without a good idea of what it is. Well, to start, common sense is taking time to see
things through, to look at the end game of every transaction. In a way, it’s always
looking before you leap. It’s remembering that the law of cause and effect is still in force
and every action has an equal and opposite reaction. It’s being aware that everything you
do has consequences and being ready to deal with those consequences.
But another part of common sense is always looking after you leap, too. It’s taking time
to reflect on all experiences, good or bad, and learning something from them. The best
teachers in life should be the mistakes we make.
Along these lines, the famous pollster, George Gallup, characterizes common sense as,
“The ability to have experiences, to learn from those experiences, to derive lessons from
those experiences and to apply those lessons to subsequent experiences.”
At the same time, common sense is keeping a realistic view of the world around you and
dealing with it as it is, not as you would like it to be. The self-delusion of unrealistic
expectations rushes in when common sense takes a holiday.
Your common sense is one of your hidden resources that is always there ready to use and

develop when you need it.
Perhaps one of the most obvious and most pronounced attributes of successful people is
the discipline they apply to their work and achieving their goals. Of all the qualities that
affect your performance, your professional discipline may be the most powerful indicator
of your future success.
Discipline has been defined as getting excited about making yourself do what’s necessary
to achieve a desired result. It’s the exciting commitment, the motivating force, that
makes constructive habits possible. Discipline is the steel with which good habits are
forged—and it’s our good habits that determine what we come.
I don’t think I’m overstating the case in saying that discipline is the key to all human
progress. Nothing worthwhile is achieved with out the power of personal discipline. If
we don’t have the firm hand of discipline to push us along, we can’t hope to accomplish
much whatever our good intentions.
Discipline is the will with which you control the circumstances around you in the same
way Goethe wrote, “He who has a firm will molds the world to himself.” A good
example is in how we use our time. How many times have we heard the familiar
complaint, “I didn’t have enough time.” The truth is, at any given moment, any one of us
has all the time in the world. Whether we gain by it depends on how well we apply the
force of personal discipline.
Procrastination is the common pitfall in the path of human progress that has sometime
been described as the art of keeping up with yesterday. Your antidote to procrastination
is using the force of discipline to keep you moving toward your goals.
The attribute that is perhaps least understood in moving successful people ahead is the
application of creativity to their goals, Creativity in this sense is essentially the constant
focus on finding better ways to do things. It is the skepticism that refuses to accept the
status quo or the most convenient solution to a problem.
This kind of creativity is not an esoteric talent that’s limited to a chosen few. It is a
genius that is naturally inherent in everyone, available to be called up and put to work. It
is one of those inner resources we all have that we only have to recognize and energize.
For example, think of creativity as your ability to look ahead, imagine and ask, “What

if ?” It’s your ability to take time out and ask if there’s another way of doing this. It’s
your ability to anticipate questions, objections, obstacles and prepare responses ahead of
time. It is in all cases, planning the course ahead and providing resources for
contingencies.
Like any unused talent, your powers of creativity improve with use and experience.
Apply your creative energies to every part of your professional life. Look for the better
ways, for example, of scheduling your time, finding prospects, making presentations or
planning work. And keep in mind, there is always a better way to do things. All you
have to do is look for it.
In conclusion, the last, but certainly not the least, important attribute of successful people
is a commitment to a continuing program of personal improvement. Besides focusing on
and enhancing the attributes we’ve just discussed, it’s also a dedication to improvement
in what I call the important fundamentals of professional growth.
First, work to improve your speaking and writing skills. You will be constantly judged
by how well you express yourself. Take stock of your present abilities and take the
appropriate remedial steps that are needed to improve and maintain these skills.
Next, continue your education, both broadly and specifically, to increase your sales
knowledge and effectiveness. Those who do not keep expanding their knowledge will be
surpassed by those who do. Read at least 30 minutes every day and build a library of
books on selling. (You’ll be surprised how many there are.) Listen to audio programs,
especially in your car between calls. Subscribe to professional and industry journals,
attend seminars, and enroll in continuing education classes. Make sure you continue to
acquire the knowledge that is required to keep you moving ahead in your profession.
Let me conclude with the reminder that the kind of person you are, the quality of your
personal attributes, is the most important factor contributing to your success in a selling
career. Regardless what your background may be and regardless of your current
qualifications, your future success depends on your continuing enhancement of the
attributes we’ve discussed. Please keep this book and your notes from it in a place where
it will be convenient for you to return to them and review them frequently.
And finally, please keep in mind that you can become anything you want to be if you

want it long enough and hard enough and are willing to work for it.
*****
Chapter Two
PLANNING FOR SUCCESS
The next most important step to success in your selling career is the planning you do
before you make your first call.
In today’s economy, products and markets both have grown more extensive, diverse and
sophisticated and the challenges of selling in this environment have increased
commensurately. Anyone who wants to sell successfully in the new economy must have
a realistic appreciation of these challenges. You have to recognize not only the volatile
dynamics of today’s changing markets but also how the temperament and attitudes of
your potential customers are changing.
In this session, we will discuss the kinds of planning and preparations, including your
own mental preparations that will help you increase your effectiveness and ultimately,
your sales productivity. To begin, here is a quick run-down of some of the facts of life
that you must be prepared to face in today’s selling world.
First, sales take longer simply because of the increasing variety of forces affecting the
selling process.
For example, because the dollar-value of sales tend to be greater than ever before,
customers have a greater perception of risk than before.
In addition, customers tend to be more knowledgeable about the availability of products
and the market. They know that they have options.
However, they tend to view products as commodities with little product differentiation.
From their perspectives, one product may be as good as another.
As a result, they are more wary, cautious and indecisive.
Also, you can expect price to come up early as a critical issue which, if addressed too
soon can kill the sale.
Another point, you must expect to make multiple calls to make a sale, perhaps as many as
5 or 6, with each designed in a logical progression toward a close.
You will also in many cases have to deal with multiple decision-makers with multiple

presentations.
And then, because of the proliferation of products in many markets, you can expect more
competition.
And lastly, you can expect competition to be aggressive and tough.
Facing and understanding such challenges in the market is the starting point. Strategic
planning is the key to turning them into opportunities. This includes the things you must
know and the preliminary steps you must take to prepare a winning approach. So let’s
look at some of the useful strategies that will help you achieve successful sales in the new
economy.
Deciding who your customers are is the first step on the road to selling success. This is a
matter of determining what companies you can do the most for, which of course means
what companies will do the most for you in terms of sales. Here are some useful criteria
for qualifying your potential prospects:
1. Choose companies that are growing and prosperous, companies that have their
future ahead of them, not behind them. Investing your time and energies in companies
with declining fortunes can only result in diminishing returns.
2. Along this same line, choose companies big enough to be worth your while, where
there is promise of substantial volume in the orders you get. It may not take any more
effort to get a big order than it does a small one. It’s good business to fish for whales, not
minnows.
3. Choose companies that you feel you can help to grow, where your product or
service will help them increase their market.
4. Choose companies where you can help the customer help their customers through
your product or service.
5. Choose companies where your product or service will result in significant financial
improvement to the customer.
6. Choose companies that will be buying right now rather than sometime down the
road.
7. But at the same time, identify and keep track of those companies who might be
buying in the future.

Once you’ve selected potential prospects, the next step is researching them. Success is
equal to your knowledge of what you do and how you do it, as well as knowledge of your
customers, what they do, how they do it; and in bringing all this together as second nature
to work for you.
You have to learn everything you possibly can about your customer’s business, about
both the products and the firm, as well as about the industry and your competitors and
their products. The more you know before your first call the more effective you will be
and the more confidence you will have in dealing with your prospect.
Look for information in the logical connections to your customer’s business. Here are a
few examples of where to find information:
1. People in your own company who have sold to that prospect.
2. Starting with the smallest firm in that industry, study it carefully and work your
way up to the larger companies.
3. Talk to non-customers in the same industry with similar problems.
4. Talk to non-competitive suppliers who sell to that company.
5. Talk to people in the trade association for that industry.
6. Read all the available trade publications.
7. Consult industry experts such as management consultants and lawyers.
8. Read the companies own publications such as annual reports, 10Ks, newsletters and
speeches.

This is the way you earn the right to sell, by becoming informed in advance. With this
knowledge at your command you’re ready to approach your customers and say, “I have
ideas that can help you.”
But you have to talk to the right person. Do the detective work to find out the right
person or persons to talk to. It will save you a lot of time and disappointment to know
this in advance. Ask people in your company who have contacts. Ask other industry or
trade group contacts. Don’t stop until you have a good idea who the persons are who can
directly influence the purchase of your product or service. And once you make contact,
don’t be afraid to ask who else should be involved.

Next, plan your approach to position yourself as a problem solver, someone who focuses
on results and the benefits of your product to the customer. As someone used to say, “If
you can see Joe Jones through Joe Jones eyes, you can sell Joe Jones what Joe Jones
buys.”
Be prepared to listen to the customer’s problems and where he wants to go with his
business. Your challenge is to discover problems the customer has that are profitable for
both you and the customer to solve. In every case, the value of the solution to the
problems must be greater than the cost of your product or service. In effect, you must be
in a position of offering your customer a free product, one that will pay for itself and
more.
Here is where you prepare to put on your independent consultant’s or doctor’s hat, so that
the customer will want to hire you to make an examination, diagnose the problem and
offer a prescription for correcting the problem.
Next, the best way to be accepted as a problem solver is to position yourself as an expert
in your field. People respect experts and want to buy from them because they have
confidence that experts know what they are talking about. You’ve done your homework
and you know everything there is to know about your customer’s business and products.
And you also know everything there is to know about your product to the point that you
know more about it than virtually anyone else. This is a great confidence builder because
you know more ways than anyone else how your product can help your customers.
You will readily demonstrate your expertise by virtue of the preparations you’ve made
for your presentation. For example:
1. The excellence of your sales materials will be a positive reflection on the quality of
your products and service.
2. For prospective customers, the best evidence of a good product is satisfied
customers. So you will have testimonials in the form of letters from satisfied customers,
lists of existing customers and photos of customers happily using your products. You’ll
also have third-party endorsements as well as data on the number of referrals and re-sales
you’ve had.
3. Most important, as an expert in your field, you must be prepared to demonstrate the

benefits of your product or service to the customer’s business.
4. Your customer has one overriding question in mind about your product and that is,
“What’s in it for me?” How can your product help his business? Here is a three-step
process to prepare yourself to answer those questions: (a) list in order the five or ten
most attractive features of your product that are reasons why customers should buy it the,
(b) also list the problems or needs that these features satisfy and then, (c) list at least ten
reasons why customers should buy from you rather than anyone else. In other words,
what do you offer that no one else does?

Finally, you have to be prepared to quantify your answers in such terms as how your
product will reduce costs, turnover and risk, or increase profits, satisfaction and security
and at the same time pay for itself. These are the quantitative answers to the question,
“What’s in it for me?”
It’s helpful, I think, to appreciate very early in your selling career that selling is a mental
process, a matter of mind over matter. It involves applying your intellect, knowledge and
experience, as well as your personality, in successfully presenting your product as the
solution to your customer’s problems.
You must have polished communication skills, including the ability to influence and
persuade others and to know when to negotiate and compromise. One expert suggests
that selling is 80% psychological and 20% technical. As always, knowledge is your stock
in trade. Your success will depend on your ability to assemble and integrate a greater
amount of knowledge than your competitors.
Of course you have to keep in mind that no one actually buys products or services. Why
not? What your customers want to buy and will buy are solutions to problems or means
to other ends. Psychologists tell us that the basis for all human action is a desire to
relieve dissatisfaction. In business, dissatisfaction usually relates to frustrations in
reaching goals and very often a new product or service can be the answer to relieving that
dissatisfaction. Your job initially is to get to the bottom of that dissatisfaction by
analyzing the problem in relation to the goals and convincing the customer that you can
help him achieve his goals.

Another important strategic element in selling success is the continuing professional self-
assessment of what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. This is the process of
regularly stepping back and rating yourself and making changes for improvement where
it’s needed.
You can do this by preparing a list of the important factors in selling that are critical to
success and rating yourself against them. Here are several that should be on your list:
1. Your knowledge of your customer’s business and the industry.
2. Your ability as a diagnostician in identifying the customer’s problems.
3. Your skill in presenting your product as the best solution.
4. How good are you in prospecting and getting appointments—the reason most
people in sales fail.
5. How well have you become a specialist in the industry?
6. Your preparation for selling against your competitor’s weak spots.
7. Your preparation and skill in answering the customer’s objections and concerns.
8. Your skill at establishing rapport, credibility and trust and making a good
impression on the customer. How do you rate your personality?
9. How good are you at closing and getting the customer’s commitment?
10. How good is your commitment to follow-up and exceeding the customer’s
expectations?
11. Your success rate for getting re-sales and referrals. All your business should be
with existing customers and their referrals.
12. How do you rate your personal health and your appearance?
13. How effective are you in managing your time and setting goals?
Rate yourself on each of these factors on a scale of 1 to 10. Go over your appraisals with
others who know your work to get some objective feedback. When you’ve identified
areas where you need improvement, analyze the problems to discover how corrections
can be made. In each instance, you should be able to isolate a limiting function that
keeps you from reaching peak performance in that area. Approach each problem area
with the question, “’If it were not for what?’ I could be doing better” until you isolate the
difficulty and proceed with corrective action.

Let’s take a few minutes to talk more about the importance of time management to your
success. It’s absolutely essential that you know the rudiments of scheduling your time
and have a sense of how valuable your time is and how important it is to use it
productively.
You may be familiar with the notorious, but incisive axiom, Parkinson’s Law, that says,
“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion,” which in its perverse
way, is an accurate commentary on the tendency of human nature to squander time. We
have a remedy to Parkinson’s Law, however, when we commit to a disciplined effort of
managing our time. When we do that, instead of letting the work expand to fill the time
available, we are really expanding our time to get more work done.
The late humorist, Sam Levenson, gave a good prescription for using time effectively
when he said, “If you want to kill time, why not try working it to death.”
Unfortunately, few people have ever been taught time management and fewer still
practice it. A corollary of Parkinson’s Law also applies: That is, In the absence of
effective controls on time, less and less is accomplished.
To put this into perspective, you can take the position that you really are principally
selling your time. The logical next step is to figure out what your hourly rate of
compensation is and justify all your activities against that rate.
Successful sales people place such a premium on their time with their customers that they
believe that they only time they’re working is when they’re face-to-face with a customer.

Here are a few examples of significant time wasters that sales people experience when
they don’t manage their time well.
1. The most pervasive time waster is procrastination, the master thief of time.
2. Incomplete sales calls that necessitate time-consuming call-backs.
3. Inaccuracies and deficiencies in information and paper work.
4. Incomplete or lack of product or customer knowledge.
5. Unconfirmed appointments that the customer probably has forgotten.
6. Failing to cluster sales calls efficiently in convenient geographic proximity.
7. Inordinate and unnecessary preoccupation with details.

8. Failure to concentrate on what the customer is saying and missing cues that could
help the sale.
9. Fatigue from over work or lack of sleep that reduces effectiveness, causes errors.
10. Failing to set goals.
11. Failure to prioritize, putting last things first.
Successful sales people seem to agree with the Greek philosopher who said, “Our
costliest expenditure is time.” They believe that managed time is a precious asset, that
wasted time a deadly enemy. They work hard to avoid time wasters and to make the
most of their time.
Here are a few tips on how successful people use time effectively:
1. Engage in goal-setting and advance planning. They always know where they’re
going and how to get there.
2. Plan and prioritize each day the night before.
3. Analyze each day’s performance to learn from mistakes and improve performance.
4. Use a Day Timer notebook organizer or a digital equivalent.
5. Join the “6 am club:” Get up early, get going early and get in a full day of calls.
6. Use your days for seeing customers, not for paper work.
7. Avoid coffee breaks and have working lunches. The time saved represents 2 to 3
months income per year.
8. Confirm all calls in advance; this will impress customers to the point that if they’ve
forgotten, they will make a new appointment.
9. Memorize and practice your presentation; know exactly what your key questions
will be.
10. Read sales motivation books 30 minutes per day and listen to audio programs in
your car to boost motivation and enthusiasm.
11. Get at least eight hours sleep every night for maximum energy and mental alertness.
An important step in taking control of your time is to make a serious assessment of how
you’re currently using your time. You can do this by setting up and using a Time Log.
This is a system of recording your daily activities and the amount of time spent at what
you do. You can do this either on paper or digitally, whatever is handiest.

The key to keeping a useful Time Log is making a detailed record of everything you do.
The more detailed the better. From the time that you get up in the morning to the time
you go to bed, make a note of every meeting, phone call, auto trip, whatever, and the time
you start and the time you finish for each occurrence.
Next, the important step at the end of the week is to analyze these records by preparing a
breakdown between productive use of time and non-productive use of time. You’ll
readily see what the time-wasters are and how much of your day they’re stealing from
you. Most people who do a Time Log discover that the majority of their time is used up
on non-productive activities.
Be sure then to take the final important step and use this valuable information in the
planning and scheduling of your time. Now that you know what the time-wasters in your
routine are, simply eliminate or avoid these costly distractions to your sales productivity.
We often refer to the passage of time in terms of how we “spend” the time and it bothers
me to think of it that way. Once we simply spend time, it’s gone forever and can never
be recovered and that’s a terrible waste. It’s as if we let our precious minutes and hours
just slip through our fingers, leaving us with only the remorse of wondering where our
time has gone.
We’re a lot better off, I believe, if we condition ourselves to thinking of time as a
resource to invest rather than something to spend. We never question the wisdom of
investing our money for a profitable return. We should think of investing our time in the
same way. Just as money returns us value when we allocate it wisely, our time will
enrich us with the achievement of our goals when we use our minutes and hours
efficiently. Only then are we investing our time rather than merely spending it.
Now, few preparations for selling success are more important than positioning yourself to
understand why people buy. You don’t have to be a psychologist to know that people
will buy a product or service for their reasons, not yours. Your job is to do the probing to
find out what those reasons are.
Everything that human beings do is aimed at improving whatever condition they happen
to be in. They decide to buy something only if they become convinced that the product
or service under consideration will make them better off than they were before. They’ll

be better off, they’ve decided, because what they’re buying fills a need. People buy to
fulfill their needs.
The key to your selling success is finding out what it is the prospect believes or perceives
will make him or her better off. You have to discover whatever needs the prospect has
that can be fulfilled by your product or service.
The discovery process is called a Need Analysis and you simply are wasting your time if
you attempt to sell before completing a thorough Need Analysis. You must talk to your
prospect long enough and carefully enough to find out what needs your product can
satisfy. What are the key benefits of your product that connect with the prospect’s needs?
As we’ve discussed, the decision to buy is motivated by the desire to gain or to be better
off. But what about the decision not to buy? The decision not to buy is motivated by the
fear of loss or failure. This is the fear that deciding to buy will make the prospect worse
off than they are. Obviously, no one consciously chooses to be worse off than they are.
If fear is the dominant emotion, there is no sale. But fears are also needs that can be
satisfied.
Now the interesting thing is that these two emotions, the desire to gain and the fear of
loss, typically are interacting simultaneously in the prospect’s mind. This tension
between these conflicting emotions is always present in any selling situation. In every
sales prospect there’s a tug of war going on under the surface, to some extent
unconsciously, between the desire to be better off and the fear of somehow getting
burned in the deal.
As a sales person, it’s your job, of course, to resolve that tension in the favor of a sale.
It’s your job to convince the prospect of how and why your product will make him better
off and at the same time alleviate his worries about the possibility of losing. His fears
may also constitute needs that can be satisfied.
So, by precisely positioning your product to meet his needs, you have increased the
intensity of his desire for gain to the point that it has overcome his fear of loss. And that
means you have provided a powerful motivation to buy your product.
For example, a person negotiating to buy a new car from you, is motivated by several
positive and negative needs. He may need a roomier car, or he needs to lower his costs,

or he wants more horsepower, or he wants more safety features, or maybe certain
accessories are important to him. Or perhaps it’s a combination of needs. But his desire
is pretty intense. He really wants a new car.
However, at the same time, he’s apprehensive about how he can afford the payments.
Will he pay too much? Is this the right time to buy? Will he get the right one? Can he
get a better deal somewhere else. Will he get a lemon? His fear of loss and his fear of
failure start to erode his desire for being better off so that the two emotions are pulling
him in different directions.
The point is, several factors may be weighing in the prospect’s decision to buy the car.
Obviously, you stand a better chance of making the sale if you know what those needs
are and can present your product in a the most favorable light to them. It won’t help your
sale to talk about horsepower or getaway speed if the buyer is primarily looking for
dependable transportation. It won’t help to focus on the automatic transmission if his
chief worry is payment terms.
You won’t learn what the buyer’s needs are in the sale if you do all the talking. The old
concept of the salesperson engaging in a marathon pitch extolling the product’s bells &
whistles just doesn’t work.
Through the Needs Analysis discovery process you find out what the prospect’s needs are
by serial questioning and serious listening. Successful sales people are good questioners
and excellent listeners. With the right questions—and patience—the prospect will tell
you just what his needs are. And in most instances, this will include needs that he has
never articulated or perhaps even been aware of before.
In making a Needs Analysis, the good questioner will borrow the tried and true method
that newspaper reporters are trained to use in getting their stories. This is the use of the
five W’s and an H: Who, What, When, Where, Why & How. When you apply these six
helpers carefully and patiently, the prospect will tell you everything you want to know.
So remember, finding out why people buy is the important fundamental to successful
selling. The answers to why they buy are contained in the needs to be better off and their
fears of failure. The key to discovering those needs is a Needs Analysis where your
secret weapons are questions and listening.

The “end game” or bottom line to the Needs Analysis is to identify two key elements in
the prospect’s decision-making process. The first of these is the Key Benefit to your
product. This is the one benefit or feature that will cause the prospect to buy. There may
be other, lesser features, that appeal to him, but this is the compelling one, the one that
makes the difference. Your purpose, once you’ve uncovered the key benefit, is to focus
on it over and over, keep coming back to it, so that this becomes the most important and
most persuasive reason for buying your product.
You discover the Key Benefit mainly by careful questioning. It doesn’t even hurt at
some point to simply ask the prospect, “If you were to buy this product, what is about it
that would make you decide to go ahead?” Another possibility is to ask your existing
customers what were their main reasons for buying the product.
The other key element you must discover is the Key Issue in your prospect’s decision.
The Key Issue is the major objection or fear that keeps the buyer from saying “yes.” This
could be one of any number of things and the only way to discover it is by thorough,
patient questioning. Once you find out what the objection is, of course, you are in a
position to present information that will either dismiss or minimize the objection.
The important point to keep in mind here is that you cannot sell unless you discover both
the Key Benefit and the Key Issue that the buyer has concluded about your product.
It’s good to keep in mind, meanwhile, that people today really aren’t looking for someone
to “sell” them on a product. In so many instances, they are looking for help in
understanding the complexities of a product. They want someone who can teach them
what this thing is all about and how it works. They don’t want a lot of pressure to buy it.
They would rather have a sales person who becomes a counselor, an advisor and even a
confidant to their special needs. When the salesperson can make it clear that the product
answers their needs, they will buy.
Incidentally, experienced sales people have learned that prospective buyers don’t like the
term “new” in connection with a product. To the extent that “new” is synonymous with
“unknown” the word may reinforce buyers’ fears of the unfamiliar. They have found
instead that buyers respond positively to the concept of “improved”—in the case of an
“improved” product. So when you’re introducing a change in a product, be sure you

always describe it as “improved” instead of “new.”
Planning and preparing your strategies for successful selling is an ongoing process. The
information discussed in this message has only scratched the surface of what you can do
to position yourself for success in the selling experience. I am confident, however, that
the strategies that we’ve discussed here are essential elements to your success and will
prove invaluable to you in the years ahead.
Please keep this chapter and your notes from it in a place where it will be convenient for
you to return to them and review them frequently.
*****
Chapter Three
ENGAGING THE CUSTOMER FOR SUCCESS
Growth of the internet and e-commerce business notwithstanding, the selling of most of
the goods and services consumed around the world still depends on humans talking face-
to-face to other humans. Whenever products need to be sold, not merely conveyed,
person-to-person interaction is vital to completing successful transactions. There is no
electronic substitute for the personal contacts you must make to acquire prospects and
sell your product or service to them. Selling is a people business and your success
depends directly on your ability to relate effectively on a one-to-one basis to your
customers.
In this chapter, we will discuss the importance of the personal elements of your sales
relationships along with some of the proven strategies for identifying and engaging your
customers for long-term, profitable relationships.
To begin, there are three basic functions of selling and they all require focusing your
personal attention on the people you want to buy your products. You need to become
skilled in each of these areas in order to sell successfully.
1. Just as blocking and tackling are the fundamentals of football, prospecting is the
important fundamental of selling. And while prospecting is a numbers game—the greater
number of prospects, the greater number of potential sales—strategies applied to
prospecting can improve the percentages of those numbers. But the essential purpose of
prospecting is finding people who will buy from you within a reasonable time.

2. Second is the presentation. Presenting your product and the reasons the potential
customer should buy it is the heart of the selling process. But timing is critical to the
presentation, coming only after you have developed an understanding of how the product
will solve the customer’s problem and the presentation has been fashioned to answer
those needs.
3. The third function is the important step of answering all of the customer’s questions
and resolving whatever objections or further problems that may arise. This is the key
stage of turning objections into selling points, setting up the close and getting the order.
Let’s start with a focus on prospecting, the important first step in the selling process.
Prospecting, just like in the Gold Rush days, involves a lot of digging, screening and
assaying or evaluating to find the gold represented by qualified potential buyers. The
first rule of prospecting is that you must keep prospecting continuously to keep the
hopper full of potential buyer ore. As you work through your prospect list, you have to
continue devoting part of your time to bringing in new prospects so that you always have
a backlog on hand.
Keep in mind that quantity of prospects is especially important when the dollar value of
sales is low. In this case, you need to maintain a high level of activity and an efficient
processing of prospects to produce results.
On the other hand, when you’re selling big-ticket products or services and every sale is
significant, you must place more emphasis on the quality of effort and the care of the
customer. It’s much more costly to lose one of these customers than when the dollar
value of each sale is low. So, when quality is more important than quantity, you can
afford to be patient and proceed carefully.
In prospecting, your appraisal of potential customers is really a problem search. You’re
not there to sell or even to talk about your product or service. You’re mission is discover
problems your product or service can fix even if the prospect doesn’t know he or she has
a problem.