Selling Is Everything

By G.F. Tanham

Selling is everything delivers as no other book to share how we all purchase everything in our lives, personally and professionally. Understanding other people's desire to get "What's in it for me?" is the most important key to selling and this book delivers on how. In this book you will learn:

How each of us uses the same buying process for every purchase be it goods, services, ideas, relationships, friendships, passions or desires.

* The four (4) phases we all utilize when we make a decision to buy anything.

* How to calm your mind to listen to others "What's in it for me?" needs, goals and desires and sell them what they want.

* How to use the Decision2buy process to better communicate, build relationships and reach common win-win outcomes together.

* How to manage the buying process to meet your buyers needs and goals faster.

* How to use the lessons in this book to improve you daily interactions with everyone in your life.

* How to think outside of your mind and like that of others by learning their buying process and needs.

* How to sell more and faster with the same amount of time and effort.

* How to be a better listener and problem solver becoming more valuable to yourself, family, friends, business and clients.

* How "closing" becomes just a natural course of events in the selling process.

* What others are saying about Selling is Everything:

"G.F. has captured the deep essence of sales and offers practical and implementable ideas to take your sales from good to great. Whether you are a CEO, CMO, Sales Executive or sales person of any level, you need this knowledge."

"For our employees going forward Selling is Everything will be a must read since it covers a lot on just how to relate to others (which is a tough thing to find these days).  I think that along with cell phones and the internet, many have lost their way when it comes to communicating, relating, AND making friends with others Selling is Everything fills that gap."

"This book is the missing link that will take a salesperson from good to great.  There are tried and true methods that will save you much time in connecting with your prospects."

"Selling is Everything covers it all and then some.  It is a fresh new approach to selling."

"After reading Selling is Everything, you will be armed with great tools that make failure to sell, next to impossible."

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Apr 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9780997245516

Book preview

all.

EVERYONE LIVES BY SELLING SOMETHING.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

INTRODUCTION

OUR INTERNAL CALCULATORS

Every person I have ever met is a salesperson selling something. Every person I ever met is a buyer, buying something. Every person I ever met has an internal calculator always running this equation ...

WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?

This book was written to help you sell better by understanding how people make buying decisions using their unique value-based perceptions. The inherent value to people is based on a set of common questions, which is the basis of what I call the Decision2Buy process. You can use the contents of this book to change your company, invigorate and lead your sales and marketing departments, improve your personal selling skills and better understand and communicate with anyone.

I am using What’s in it for me? as a vehicle because it best describes how we all make buying decisions but also how we accept or reject people and situations in our lives. My sales experiences have shown me that unless I understand that people make choices based on their specific What’s in it for me? value-based calculations, success will be as elusive as catching stardust.

The Decision2Buy process is about understanding and communicating with people as buyers and sellers. This book addresses these issues in respect to selling things to buyers, buyers who may be purchasing products, services, or salvation, it doesn’t matter. We all buy. What does matter is that everything is purchased in the same manner using the same internal processes, an internal Decision2Buy or not to buy process. Every person has a What’s in it for me? value desire, and the Decision2Buy process is the means we use to make all buying decisions.

The Decision2Buy process is based on the fact that everyone wants something in everything they do. It’s all about What’s in it for me?

The Decision2Buy process is made up of only four questions we all ask ourselves, consciously or unconsciously, when we buy anything. Inherent in every question is the real personal question – What’s in it for me? Every question in the buying process is one of these four or a subset of them. When we use these questions to learn more about something and find ourselves interested, we ask more and become more engaged. Why? Because we are answering the What’s in it for me? question.

What’s in it for me? is a state of mind we all carry with us every moment of the day. It is a combination of me, my world, and my perspective of reality. It runs like a calculator adding or subtracting values all the time.

The What’s in it for me? mantra is always working in our minds to make decisions on how to spend our time, money, brain power, and attention, as well as what we think about and take action on. This is the calculator in our minds, always running value vs. cost, in time, energy or desire for a specific outcome, which will yield a personal What’s in it for me? outcome. Consider this. When you meet someone for the first time it is a learning experience. You ask their name (Who are you?) and what they do or how they relate to you in order to reach a common ground of communication or interest. Once common ground is met, the decision you will be asking is What’s in it for me? to continue talking to this person? Should I be talking with someone else? Should I be going somewhere else or doing something else? It is this evaluation of benefit to oneself that will cause our internal calculators to register value or not. Once our internal calculators are working, they will drive the action to buy, ask more questions or not purchase in all buying situations. The calculator is always present in a buying situation as that is our means to evaluate value that generates the What’s in it for me? result we are trying to achieve.

So we are always either selling the What’s in it for me? or being asked to answer What’s in it for me? We all think What’s in it for me? hundreds, if not thousands, of times a day, making choices about every minute of our lives. It is part of our culture and human nature to want to get the most of what we are trying to achieve at any given moment. Now, stop! This is important to grasp. Aren’t you right now wondering if you should read this book faster, slower or not at all using your internal calculator? Of course you are. See how it works?

Selling is the same thing you have always done but when you learn how to implement the Decision2Buy process, you can do it with purpose and a framework. If you are currently selling for a living, you know about value because you get paid to sell it. Do you know what your buyers’ values are? The Decision2Buy process works in all industries, is flexible and integrates the profiles and best practices of any company.

On the following pages you will learn how to uncover a buyer’s Decision2Buy process. When you use this process, you will learn the answers to the buyers’ goals and how they will buy. You will know more about your buyer than you thought possible because they will share with you anything you want or need to know to meet their What’s in it for me? value needs. If you are astute, you will realize that you do this same calculation of value and sharing in everything you do, too.

My sales career began when I started selling cleaning solutions house-to-house when I was only 12 years old. Throughout my more than 30-year career, I have had the pleasure of working with many outstanding salespeople, managers, and mentors who successfully helped shape my sales skills. Through this journey I have become a student of people in the process of buying goods and services and have implemented a process that encompasses all the assets of success. I have successfully sold or managed sales teams in a variety of industries, including retail, aerospace, insurance, metals, oil refinery equipment, technology equipment, software, and IT services, closing deals as large as $90 million and as small as $1.00.

I learned the hard way that being a salesperson is not something we are born with. Selling really is a collection of skills and to be the best you can be at selling, you need to master those skills and use them with a disciplined process, like the Decision2Buy.

Time is your most valuable commodity and the only thing you can’t buy, steal or invent. It takes a lot of work to move learned concepts into process habits but the rewards are life changing for the better. Using the principles you’ll learn here, you could have more time to do what you desire because you will have the success that allows it. You will find that you relate to people you encounter faster and more deeply whether they are business, family, friends or social contacts.

I also believe you can generate 100 percent more sales revenue in 70 percent of the time you are working today. That’s right, less time working and generating twice the sales with more fun and satisfaction.

OBJECTIVES OF THIS BOOK

When you finish with this book, I am confident you will:

• Clearly know the four foundational Decision2Buy questions that everyone asks when purchasing anything.

• Understand how integrating the Decision2Buy process will help you manage your (your organization’s) time, processes, and people so that success is the reward for everyone.

• Know how to develop clear and achievable goals—daily, weekly, monthly, and long term—that will ensure your sales success.

• Learn a Sales Territory Management system to manage your business/opportunities and reduce your administration time.

• Be able to develop sales action plans that will work with your clients based on your mutual criteria for success and partnership.

• Be capable of selling anything to anyone and sell yourself in the process.

CATCH A MAN A FISH,

AND YOU CAN SELL IT TO HIM.

TEACH A MAN TO FISH, AND YOU RUIN A

WONDERFUL BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY.

KARL MARX

CHAPTER 1

WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME

One thing is true for everyone; we are all buying and selling every day, even if we are not salespeople by profession. We sell our coworkers on a new strategy, we sell our families on a vacation spot we want to visit, we sell our spouses on a new car, restaurant, or something we want to see happen.

The act of selling is one of the earliest professions known to man and was one of the first social means of interaction and communication. Prior to the selling experience, the only means of getting what we wanted was to take it. The strongest were supreme as there was no commerce, only survival. It’s what wars have always been made of! We are all born with needs; it is natural and now instinctual at this point of our evolution to strive to meet those needs, even if they are not just food or shelter as in the past. Selling (agreeing to common value to value) was the first form of communications allowing a transaction to occur that was beneficial to both parties. In this new experience, both parties remained physically intact and neither intimidation nor threat was used as the closing technique as they had been previously.

Most salespeople realize selling is facilitating actions based on communication of a need, and value perceptions to satisfy that need. We have learned over the millennia that selling some solutions is easier than others, but understanding people and their perspective is paramount to success. Perspectives are key motivators for buying. So in order to have the right perspective, we must remember when it comes to selling or buying, we are all doing it and it is being done to all of us. If we make the effort in either selling or buying, anyone can relate to the perspectives and desires. The better we can honestly relate with the buyer, the faster we will succeed in learning their What’s in it for me? need, their Decision2Buy thinking process and how they will buy.

We must get inside our buyers’ heads to understand how and why they purchase, understanding we all use the same processes, but different with value desires. To accomplish this, we developed the Decision2Buy process for selling. This process delivers a means for us to mirror our buyers’ processes and value goals of buying so we have the roadmap to the action of buying.

The Decision2Buy process is extremely successful because:

• It is based on human nature, is intuitive, hardwired, complementary, and it honors the buyer.

• Buyers get what they want and they get it in a way they want it. The salesperson has a tried and true method for successful selling.

• The buyer is the superstar and the focus of the whole selling process. Nothing generates rapport faster than inviting someone to share who they are, what they do, how they do it, and who they do it for.

• Everyone wants to share what they expect from a selling situation. This is the single best way to define what and how the buyer wants to buy in a mutually beneficial structured manner.

• The Decision2Buy process is about defining how a person buys, both personally and professionally. This means the buyer feels in control, the sale is based on stated needs or goals, the buyer works with the seller as a partner and the results are predictable.

• It is visual, benchmark driven, customizable, flexible, repeatable, open for improvement, controllable, and a mirror of how the buyer purchases.

• It takes the guesswork out of the sale for both the buyer and the seller.

• It reduces the cost of the sale because sellers will only sell to their best prospects. Buyers only work with salespeople that understand their Decision2Buy process and goals.

• The qualification process is incrementally better and faster.

• The Decision2Buy process integrates with any CRM or software sales solutions, customization is easily done.

• It integrates the three resources that make for a successful sale: Good people execution, integrated effective processes, and companywide enabling tools. Every industry and organization has unique attributes with some commonality in that they are comprised of people and processes to facilitate the buying of products and services.

When you integrate the Decision2Buy process into your thoughts and actions, you will have an epiphany that can change your life. This awareness of our calculator and our buyers seems so easy, it is not. It is so hard because we must shut off the desires to meet our own specific needs (What’s in it for me?) and focus on other’s desires to meet their specific needs. Think of the old saying, A happy wife is a happy life. We can accomplish this goal with implementation of these new learned skills, the Decision2Buy process, with consistent effort.

The sales challenge is to identify and uncover the process for a sale to occur by replicating and following the Decision2Buy process of your buyer. This uncovering is both on the business level, how the company purchases, and on the personal level, how the buyer uses the business process with their own internal Decision2Buy process to make the buying decision and execute it. An individual buyer’s personal Decision2Buy process must be integrated into the stated business’s purchasing processes requirements in order to be successful.

Let’s agree on some definitions of the concepts we are going to cover.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines sales as: Activities involved in the selling of goods and services. It defines salespeople as: Persons engaged in selling merchandise in a store or in a territory.

The Thesaurus lists salesperson as a noun: One who sells. In a bygone era we would call people who were salespeople, merchants, traders or brokers. This is valid today but with a number of twists we will discuss later.

Standing tall right below salespeople is another listing in the Thesaurus which one can only hope is related, Salesians. Salesians, whom I thought at first blush are a special club of salespeople, were in fact members of the Society of St. Francis de Sales, a Roman Catholic congregation founded in Turin, Italy in 1845 and dedicated chiefly to education and missionary work. An interesting analogy to selling, St. Francis de Sales should be the patron saint of salespeople, as we, too, believe we are sent to educate and convert the world to our solutions. It would seem that American Heritage has a correct description, but for the wrong thing. One can only surmise that salespeople are in fact doing missionary work and