New Sales and Marketing Book on Customer Loyalty

Masters of Loyalty: How to turn your sales force into a loyalty force.

This sales training book describes why 'satisfied' customers still leave. You need more than customers. You need loyal ones. This sales and marketing book shows how to make customers stop shopping and be forever deaf to competitors' appeals. Learn how to make every sales call a Loyalty call.

This sales book is a quick and enjoyable read, in story format, that reveals the only real reason why customers will become genuinely loyal to a supplier - and why most companies get the customer loyalty equation all wrong. This book is a blueprint for transforming sales calls so that customers are not merely "satisfied" but move toward full-blown loyalty - during every sales call.

Three Small Sales Books Actually Get Read!

Three small business sales books intended to introduce salespeople to a research-proven sales management system called Action Selling has found a unique reception among readers.

“Readers tell us it’s the only sales book they’ve ever read cover-to-cover,” says Duane Sparks, chairman of The Sales Board Inc. of Minneapolis and author of “Action Selling: How to Sell Like a Professional (Even If You Think You are One).” These books have become an Internet bestseller.

Sparks is the creator of the Action Selling sales system, which is built upon a documented, five-step decision-making process used by every buyer in the course of any major sale. The books describe the Action Selling system and sales training program by means of a short story in which two veteran salespeople discuss realistic problems with their careers.

The stories take about 90 minutes each to read. Salespeople say they find them fun and engaging, but also painfully true because they unknowingly committed the same costly mistakes. “The story format lets us show them, instead of just telling them, how they can make more money and enjoy their jobs more fully,” Sparks says.

For more information:
Sales Book
Action Selling Sales Training
800-232-3485.

New Sales Book: Questions - The Answer to Sales

Questions: The Answer to Sales.
Author: Duane Sparks

In our new sales book Questions: The Answer to Sales, you will see how three quarters of “selling” takes place when the salesperson is listening, not talking.

The battle for customer commitment has changed. Learn to win your customer's heart and mind, by asking "The Best Questions". The salesperson who does that - wins!

The Story:

Mitch is a top pitchman, with charisma to burn. So why is his sales career going down the tube? In desperation, he puts the issue to his old pal Harry during a game of golf. Thanks to a system called Action Selling, Harry already knows what Mitch has yet to learn: Great customer relationships aren't forged by great presentations but by great questions. Can Mitch change his sales game and turn pro? Or is he a gabby dinosaur, headed for extinction?

• A quick and enjoyable read, in story form, that shows vividly why questioning and listening skills are a salesperson's most valuable asset.
• Specific examples of the questions that count most and how, when and why to ask the best questions during a sales call.
• Specific insight into Action Selling, the research-based sales training system that tells you, step by step, what to do with the information gleaned from asking The Best Questions.
• A glimpse of the new and better world that opens when you learn to make truly professional sales calls.
• A specific and easy-to-follow road map that will allow you to sell more products or services, build stronger lasting relationships with customers, and help you make more money.

Questions: The Answer to Sales is based on Action Selling: a fully supported, instructor-led sales training program that teaches a research-proven sales process combining the five critical sales skills with relationship skills into a non-manipulative, high-impact sales procedure. The Action Selling process, sales techniques and selling skills learned have improved the performance of over 200,000 salespeople in more than 2,000 sales organizations.

Contact us at 1-800-232-3485 to learn more about how to ask The Best Questions and Action Selling. We can help your organization realize the full potential of its salesforce.

Sales Training - Listening Skills

Learn to listen!

Blessed with the "gift of gab" are you? That's nice. But true sales professionals know that before they start gabbing to customers about their product features or anything else, they need to listen to what the customer has to say - and demonstrate that they're paying attention.
Customers won't buy from you if they don't like you, trust you or respect you. And they are far more likely to buy when you can position your product or service as a solution to what they perceive as an important need. Listening is they key sales skill that allows you to earn customer's trust and uncover their needs at the same time.

Customers care more that you understand their needs than that they understand your products.

Who decides whether you're a good listener? The customer does. And since customers can't read your mind, they can only judge by the behavior you show them. Here are five primary indicators that determine whether customers will perceive you as a good listener:
What kind of questions do you ask? Open-ended questions (as opposed to "yes" or "no" questions) encourage the customer to talk. That must happen before you can listen. Most salespeople ask far too few open-ended questions.

How do you demonstrate your interest? Focus your questions on the customer's interests, not your own. Why are you talking about your golf game if this person doesn't play?
Do you take notes? If you're so interested in what the customer is saying, why wouldn't you take notes?

Do you summarize what you hear? If you think you have uncovered an important need, restate it to check your understanding. This not only wards off confusion, it shows that you're paying attention.

Do you use what you've heard in your presentation? Your product pitch comes after you've listened, not before. And when you make your presentation, every feature and benefit you discuss should be tied to a need you uncovered by asking questions. That is the true test - and the true payoff - of your listening skills.

Customers won't buy your products unless they first "buy" you. And no matter how charismatic you think you are, you can't sell yourself to people who think you aren't paying attention to their concerns. Never mind being interesting. Be interested.

Contact us to learn more about leverage questions.

Sales Training - Commitment Objective

Always Have a Commitment Objective

Our recent research shows that nearly 80% of salespeople do not understand what their primary purpose is. Your principle mission is to Gain Commitment. The confusion stems from the variety of tasks we as salespeople are asked to perform. The end result is that 62% of salespeople make calls where there is no attempt at Gaining Commitment. One of the most important reasons why this occurs is most salespeople do not establish what we call a Commitment Objective for every sales call. This is the number one mistake that all salespeople make. Well, it's time to change that! Action Selling Sales Training is the answer.

Commitment Objective: A goal we set for ourselves to gain agreement from the customer that moves the sales process forward.

No sales call should ever be made without a Commitment Objective. If you do not have a Commitment Objective firmly planted in your mind, you will wind up being one of those 62% that don't Ask for Commitment.

Contact us to learn more about helping you Gain Commitment.

Selling Skills: Case Study

Action Selling In Action

“I’ve seen a definite improvement in the professionalism of my sales force since implementing Action Selling,” says Richard Grey, regional vice president of Rochester Midland Corp. The Rochester, N.Y., company sells specialty chemicals to a variety of markets through 33 branch offices in major U.S. cities.

“Preparing for sales calls is far easier with the logical, step-by-step process of Action Selling,” Grey says. “It’s easy for our salespeople to remember and use. And the pre-call process that the program teaches reinforces the Action Selling techniques with every sales call.”

Action Selling helps sales people prepare the strategies and tactics needed to win more consistently. “It has been very valuable to Rochester Midland,” Grey says.
To improve the call preparation of your sales force, contact The Sales Board at 1-800-232-3485.

Learn more about Action Selling Certification.

Sales Skills - Asking the Best Questions

A lot of salespeople are good at organizing. Some are even good at strategizing. But very few know how to use those skills to devise an effective, repeatable plan for gaining commitment from customers— selling skills and a plan that begins to take shape before you make your first sales call.

If you can’t answer these questions before the call, uncover the answers during the call.

The more you know about your client’s business before the call, the better equipped you are to ask excellent questions that uncover needs your products can address and that tell you how to present them in the form of a solution. Before making a sales call, do some digging (on Web sites, for example) to answer the questions on the prep list below. If you can’t answer them all before the call, at least you’ll know what information you need to dig for during the call. This will improve your sales presentation.

Action Selling is a Sales Training Program designed to hlep you develop Questions to Organize for the Call.

What does the company do?
What does it currently buy from vendors similar to you?
What are its key business issues (problems and opportunities)?
What does your individual customer do (the person upon whom you’re calling)?
What might be his or her personal stake in a solution you could provide?
Questions to Strategize for the Call
Who is my competition for this sale?
How is my company or my product better?
What needs are most likely to exist for my solutions?
Why will this customer buy? That is, what are the personal, emotional issues underlying the business needs?
What is the time frame for the customer’s buying decision?
Who makes the ultimate buying decision?
How will the decision be made (e.g., in consultation with a group of stakeholders)?
Questions to Shape a Game Plan for the Call
What commitment do I intend to gain as a result of this call? (A buying decision? A future meeting with all of the decision-makers? Preferred-vendor status?)
What are the key questions I need to ask?
What ultimately will cause this person or company to buy from me?

If you can answer all of those questions, you’re ready to make a professional sales call. If you don’t have all the answers yet, these are questions to ask during the call. This process goes well beyond any other selling techniques. Either way, you will be well organized, you will have a strategy, and you’ll have a solid game plan. When those pieces are in place, your chances of gaining commitment from the customer increase geometrically.

Contact us to learn more about the most effective way to prepare for sales calls.

Sales Skills - Dealing with Stalls & Objections: Case History

Here is a great success story! It truly is "Action Selling in Action".

Equity Residential is the largest apartment leasing company in the United States. In a tough economic climate, Equity decided to invest in developing the Selling Skills of its leasing consultants. Needless to say, these consultants often hear stalls such as, “Let me think about it and get back to you.”

Equity has a Service Promise Guarantee that minimizes the risk for customers who choose to rent. “But prior to the Action Selling Sales Training Program, we presented our Service Promise Guarantee as just another feature,” said Jonakan O’Steen, director of education and leadership development. With their eyes opened to a new way of looking at stalls, Equity’s consultants quickly identified the guarantee as their Universal Stall Breaker. They have new Selling Skills and that is now how they use it.

“It’s easy to get stalled when working with rentals,” O’Steen said. Or, rather, it used to be.

Identify a Universal Stall Breaker for your company, contact
The Sales Board at 1-800-232-3485.
Learn more about Action Selling Certification.

The Action Selling Sales Book - Dealing With Sales Stalls and Objections

Most salespeople think of “stalls” and “objections” as synonyms. Wrong. Stalls and objections are both things you may hear after you have asked for commitment, but an objection is a specific reason not to buy. In a stall—“I need to think about it”—the customer offers no particular reason for hesitating. The Sales Board offers a Sales Training Program called Action Selling that gives sales people the necessary Sales Skills to deal with stalls and objections more effectively.

Almost all salespeople buy in to the stall. Very few ever get the deal once they do.

What the stalling customer is really saying is this: “I’m not quite sold yet. Sell me some more.” Well then, by all means, do some more selling. But do it right. Here’s how:

Never challenge a stall. Since the customer offered no specific reason for hesitating, don’t force him to come up with one by saying something like, “What is it that you need to think about?” Challenging stalls creates conflict, not sales. Effective Sales Training from The Sales Board, Inc. will guide you to a more productive method of dealing with a stall.

Don’t try to manipulate the customer. If you’ve learned any manipulative sales techniques, forget them. They do more harm than good. The old “feel, felt, found” method rarely worked even in its heyday, and it certainly doesn’t work today.

Identify a Universal Stall Breaker. The USB is a capability of your product or your company that minimizes the risk to the customer who buys. Every company has one. Yours might be a money-back guarantee, a no-hassle return policy, a try-and-buy arrangement, extended terms, or an unusually comprehensive warranty. Whatever this capability is, do not present it to the customer up front. Hold the USB in reserve, in case you hear a stall when you ask for commitment. This is a powerful Sales Skill.

When you do hear a stall, follow this procedure:

Say, “I understand.”

Restate the product features the customer liked before the stall arose.

Present the USB.

Ask for commitment again.

It works like this: “I understand. You like ____, _____, and ____ about our product. With our _____ policy (the USB), you can try it with no risk at all. How does that sound? (Customer responds.) Would you like to go ahead with it then?”

Far too many salespeople fail to ask for commitment even once in a sales call. Even though asking for commitment is an incredibly important Sales Skill. With this stall-breaking method, you are asking twice. And you have followed the customer’s lead by doing exactly what the stall really asked you to do: “Sell me some more.”

Believe it, you will make more sales.

Contact us to learn more about handling stalls and objections.

Sales Book - Back Tracking Benefits

The Action Selling Sales Book talks about the fact that Salespeople know that they’re supposed to sell to the customer’s needs. Here is the classic—and tragically wrong—way they usually learn to do it: Uncover the first need. Begin a product presentation, covering features and benefits. Then attempt to uncover another need. More product talk. Etc.

The Action Selling Sales Training Program and research shows that presentations like this are 25 percent less effective than those in which a thorough needs assessment is followed by a summary of all of the customer’s needs. You will be far more successful if you begin by uncovering and agreeing on at least three relevant needs that the customer perceives as important. Only then should you begin a product presentation tailored to address those needs.

The Action Selling Sales Book recommends to only present your product once you have agreed on at least three important and relevant needs.

Here’s how to do that. By enrolling in the Action Selling Sales Training Program You will learn to ask questions designed to draw out the customer’s needs—specifically, problems or opportunities that can be best addressed by the unique capabilities of your company or your products.

Take notes while the customer talks. This shows that you’re a good listener and that you actually care.

Summarize and reach agreement on needs. When you believe you have uncovered at least three strong and relevant needs, summarize them and check your understanding with the customer. In this way, you reach agreement on the customer’s needs. Use this format to gain agreement:
“As I understand it, you are looking for a way to ­_____, ______, and ______. Is that correct? If the customer says no, ask more questions and do more listening. Only after the customer agrees that you correctly understand those three important needs should you begin to present the capabilities of your company and your product. You are now prepared to make that presentation in a far more powerful way by tailoring it to focus directly on issues the customer already has agreed upon as vital problems or opportunities.

Contact us to learn more about a complete strategy to uncover and agree upon “high-yield” customer needs.

Sales Books

Learn how to make money selling!

These short, easy-to-read professional sales books will show you a unique new selling process that has been researched and proven to be highly effective in closing more sales than you ever have before.

Read about a proven sales technique and follow the buying decision process that every buyer makes. These sales books provide you with new selling tips and sales closing techniques to improve sales. The Action Selling sales training books will serve as a sales tool helping you and your sales team to become true sales professionals.

This is an inexpensive must read for any sales person.