Sell to Excel

Sell to Excel: The Art and Science of Personal Selling, Asif Zaidi, iUniverse, 2019

These days, the art of selling involves a lot more than simply saying "Buy my widget". This book gives the details.

A customer is not buying a product or service, they are buying a solution to a problem. A salesman has to know a customer's company and industry as well as the customer knows it. A salesman has to show how their product or service will solve the problem better than anything else on the market. A salesman has to fill a customer's need that the customer doesn't even know that they have.

It is rare when a customer will sign on the dotted line with absolutely no problem; there is going to be some sort of objection. Usually, the stated reason will be something like "It's not in the budget" or "Try again next quarter." The salesman should ask open-ended questions to find out the real reason. Sometimes, the stated objection is not the real objection.

The book spends a lot of time looking at the personal relationship between the salesman and the client (sometimes the decider is a committee, not one person). Qualities like honesty, credibility and trustworthiness are required in the salesman. Once those qualities are gone, they are not coming back. A salesman should never over-promise and under-deliver; it should be the other way around. Look at things from the client's perspective. Always keep in contact with the client, with a handwritten note on the client's birthday, or tickets to a football game. Your consideration and generosity will be remembered.

For some people, the information in this book may be common knowledge, but it bears repeating. This breaks the art of selling into smaller, more manageable pieces. It is easy to understand and is very much worth checking out.