- Hardcover: 384 pages
- ISBN-10: 1591840627
- ASIN: B000C4SI94
- Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
Product Description
The most famous book on the art of closing sales is fully updated to meet the challenges of today's competitive and changing sales environment with 53 case studies drawn from real life. This new 6th edition features the newest selling methods, the latest products, new salesperson/customer relations, and new case examples. Index. Over 30,000 sold Pub: 9/97.
About the Author
Roy Alexander heads his own consulting firm in New York City and is particularly noted for his sales and communications consultations in energy- related fields.Charles B. Roth is deceased. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Foreword: how secrets build revenues and profits
Why has Secrets of Closing Sales become required equipment for successful selling? Because it focuses on the close. Without the close there is no advancement and no reward. How soul-destroying to invest hours in prospecting, appointment setting, and customer research only to watch it all evaporate. Thus, constant adding of sophisticated ways to close sales is standard with top salesmen and saleswomen the world over.This seventh edition of Secrets is organized so you can immediately access closing techniques when you need them. Closing Labs make you say: “I’ve got just that problem. I’ll put that secret in practice today!”
In this seventh edition you’ll approach selling as consultative and conversational, empathetic group persuasion, CEO to CEO, unorthodox closing, reverse closing, win-win sign-ups, sweet spot detection, and other ways to penetrate the buyer’s mind and then capitalize on that deeper knowledge of the buyer.
You’ll learn:
• How the decision to buy is first made in the mind of the salesperson.
• When to let others do the closing for you.
• How to craft the correct story for the right prospect.
• When to assume the no-minded customer doesn’t understand and how to rephrase on another track.
• When to use the shock treatment (don’t just stand there).
• How to close when you’ve forgotten your story and need to improvise (think Robin Williams).
• How to make people-savvy closes.
• How to handle “I’ll think it over” and “Gotta check with my man” and “I’ll mull it over.”
• How to use the Echo to block objections.
• How to flow with attitude shifts that lead to sign-ups.
Are you handling a difficult buyer? The Clam, the Chatterbox, the Money-Mad, the Contrarian, the On-the-Fencer, the Doubting Thomas? Make calls with close masters to learn:
• A famous saleswoman’s enduring secret.
• The Poker principle that profits. (H. L. Mencken said, “One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective, it is also vastly more intelligent.”)
• Sometimes audacity works; you can ask for a large order and get it. (In one case a closer failed to do this and almost lost a $4 million transaction!)
Armed with this new edition, you’ll be prepared with consistently tested strategies. In this era, photographing Mars is routine, bioengineering produces spare body parts, and information can be obtained several times faster than the speed of light. Salespeople must think anew and plan in a whole new world.
—Roy Alexander
Preface: push ’em uphill—today and tomorrow
Closing sales is without a doubt the great skill of all time. The process enables you to persuade and influence, and then walk away with the listener’s agreement. That’s why closing sales has been the measuring stick for personal and business success through the ages.
People do not buy products or services, however. They buy benefits from your products and services. This structure has pushed Secrets of Closing Sales into seven editions. Experts in this book are at your service.
Recall the sage who said, “It’s easier to go down a hill, but the rewards come from getting to the top.” In West Cornwall, Connecticut, I live on a historic hill called Push-’Em-Up. The name traces back to the War of 1812. Getting American cannons and ammo up Push-’Em-Up Hill was a job for American infantry. The hills gave Americans the advantage, but they had to push ’em up first. View life as hills to conquer.
No one thought about it at the time, but this hill was also the founder of America’s selling pioneer: the Yankee peddler. The transition from “push ’em up” to pushcart peddlers was a natural. Hardworking eighteenth- and nineteenth-century salesfolk sold everything from pots and pans to Lydia Pinkham’s Compound. Peddlers and their offspring forged a new selling class. These pioneering salesfolk helped civilize the nation by bringing the latest products to small villages and by supporting the growing economy. From pushcart peddlers to present day we’ve come a long way in selling. The pioneers established techniques no less valid in our new millennium, driven by cyberspace and the global marketplace. The age-old techniques remain: finding buyers to sit down with, interviewing them to learn their anxieties and wishes, presenting solutions, overcoming objections, and making sure the service and support are constant.
Today’s new century presents both threats and opportunities. The rate of change is accelerating at dizzying speed. Whether you’re introducing a new product or selling a million- dollar work of art or a home piano, this seventh edition of Secrets of Closing Sales is your step-by-step guide. Hundreds of case histories are included. Closing Labs give you actual conversational vignettes.
The book features quantum changes in society—the global economy, the ever-escalating influence of women, the breathtaking developments in communications from Internet to intranet, website to wireless. Today’s sales closing is more important than ever, but the salesperson must be psychologically prepared, more nimble and flexible.
The pushcart peddler is history. We owe him much. Whether offering the services of a small company or selling global consumer products, Secrets will help close that sale.
—James A. Newman, Vice Chairman, Emeritus Booz Allen, Hamilton
Why has Secrets of Closing Sales become required equipment for successful selling? Because it focuses on the close. Without the close there is no advancement and no reward. How soul-destroying to invest hours in prospecting, appointment setting, and customer research only to watch it all evaporate. Thus, constant adding of sophisticated ways to close sales is standard with top salesmen and saleswomen the world over.This seventh edition of Secrets is organized so you can immediately access closing techniques when you need them. Closing Labs make you say: “I’ve got just that problem. I’ll put that secret in practice today!”
In this seventh edition you’ll approach selling as consultative and conversational, empathetic group persuasion, CEO to CEO, unorthodox closing, reverse closing, win-win sign-ups, sweet spot detection, and other ways to penetrate the buyer’s mind and then capitalize on that deeper knowledge of the buyer.
You’ll learn:
• How the decision to buy is first made in the mind of the salesperson.
• When to let others do the closing for you.
• How to craft the correct story for the right prospect.
• When to assume the no-minded customer doesn’t understand and how to rephrase on another track.
• When to use the shock treatment (don’t just stand there).
• How to close when you’ve forgotten your story and need to improvise (think Robin Williams).
• How to make people-savvy closes.
• How to handle “I’ll think it over” and “Gotta check with my man” and “I’ll mull it over.”
• How to use the Echo to block objections.
• How to flow with attitude shifts that lead to sign-ups.
Are you handling a difficult buyer? The Clam, the Chatterbox, the Money-Mad, the Contrarian, the On-the-Fencer, the Doubting Thomas? Make calls with close masters to learn:
• A famous saleswoman’s enduring secret.
• The Poker principle that profits. (H. L. Mencken said, “One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective, it is also vastly more intelligent.”)
• Sometimes audacity works; you can ask for a large order and get it. (In one case a closer failed to do this and almost lost a $4 million transaction!)
Armed with this new edition, you’ll be prepared with consistently tested strategies. In this era, photographing Mars is routine, bioengineering produces spare body parts, and information can be obtained several times faster than the speed of light. Salespeople must think anew and plan in a whole new world.
—Roy Alexander
Preface: push ’em uphill—today and tomorrow
Closing sales is without a doubt the great skill of all time. The process enables you to persuade and influence, and then walk away with the listener’s agreement. That’s why closing sales has been the measuring stick for personal and business success through the ages.
People do not buy products or services, however. They buy benefits from your products and services. This structure has pushed Secrets of Closing Sales into seven editions. Experts in this book are at your service.
Recall the sage who said, “It’s easier to go down a hill, but the rewards come from getting to the top.” In West Cornwall, Connecticut, I live on a historic hill called Push-’Em-Up. The name traces back to the War of 1812. Getting American cannons and ammo up Push-’Em-Up Hill was a job for American infantry. The hills gave Americans the advantage, but they had to push ’em up first. View life as hills to conquer.
No one thought about it at the time, but this hill was also the founder of America’s selling pioneer: the Yankee peddler. The transition from “push ’em up” to pushcart peddlers was a natural. Hardworking eighteenth- and nineteenth-century salesfolk sold everything from pots and pans to Lydia Pinkham’s Compound. Peddlers and their offspring forged a new selling class. These pioneering salesfolk helped civilize the nation by bringing the latest products to small villages and by supporting the growing economy. From pushcart peddlers to present day we’ve come a long way in selling. The pioneers established techniques no less valid in our new millennium, driven by cyberspace and the global marketplace. The age-old techniques remain: finding buyers to sit down with, interviewing them to learn their anxieties and wishes, presenting solutions, overcoming objections, and making sure the service and support are constant.
Today’s new century presents both threats and opportunities. The rate of change is accelerating at dizzying speed. Whether you’re introducing a new product or selling a million- dollar work of art or a home piano, this seventh edition of Secrets of Closing Sales is your step-by-step guide. Hundreds of case histories are included. Closing Labs give you actual conversational vignettes.
The book features quantum changes in society—the global economy, the ever-escalating influence of women, the breathtaking developments in communications from Internet to intranet, website to wireless. Today’s sales closing is more important than ever, but the salesperson must be psychologically prepared, more nimble and flexible.
The pushcart peddler is history. We owe him much. Whether offering the services of a small company or selling global consumer products, Secrets will help close that sale.
—James A. Newman, Vice Chairman, Emeritus Booz Allen, Hamilton
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