The Art Of Selling

 

Q: You want your salespeople to read a book that will help them improve their selling skills. What's the book?

W.R. (MAX) CAREY, president and CEO, Corporate Resource Development Inc., an INC. 500 company specializing in marketing and sales consulting (Atlanta):

"I think the best took right now is Strategic Selling, by Robert B. Miller and Stephen E. Heiman (Warner Books, 1985). In the past, everyone learned the tactical side of selling -- the 'perfect answer for every response,' the 'hammerlock close,' and so on; then they learned 'dialogue selling,' as pioneered by Xerox and IBM. Today you need to take the next step, figuring out how to position yourself, gain access to the customer, and control the selling process. For example, we're working with a partner to sell a large corporate customer; we have six months of research invested and haven't talked to anybody yet. But when we do it'll be the president, and it'll stick. That kind of approach is what Strategic Selling is about."

MIKE CONVEY, vice-president of sales, Black & Decker (U.S.) Inc. (Hunt Valley, Md.):

"Check out Non-Manipulative Selling, by Tony Alessandra, Phil Wexler, and Rick Barrera (Prentice-Hall, 1987). To me, selling is more than just getting an order, it's building a relationship with individuals and companies. To many people hit and run -- they make the sale, and never follow up. When you're developing a relationship, by contrast, you're listening to people, determining what their needs are, figuring out how you can meet their needs. That's the opposite of manipulative selling. This book describes how to do it."

EDMOND LAUSIER, assistant professor of marketing, University of Southern California (Los Angeles):

"I'd recommend Skyrocket Your Sales, by Raymond A. Slesinski (Pelican Publishing Co., 1986). What I like about the book is its emphasis on nonverbal signals -- how people sit, how they speak, how they look at you, and so on. Listening is a big part of selling, and listening includes picking up what's being communicated nonverbally as well as what's said verbally. Nonverbal clues tell you whether what you're saying is interesting to the prospect. They convey whether it will lead to anything, and whether he's telling you what his needs really are. Rather than spending three or four calls trying to figure out what's going on in your customer's business, you learn to pick it up quickly from all the signals."