The Power of Positive Selling

By Dan Strutzel and Traci Shoblom

Good sales relationships don’t just happen.They must be nurtured and developed. From ancient trade routes to modern Internet platforms sales is one of the world’s oldest professions.. Throughout the ages, there have been as many ways to sell as there are customers who want to buy. But whether you’re a novice or seasoned sales person, no matter what your product or service there is one truth that crosses all boundaries in selling. Selling depends on a relationship. That relationship might last only a few minutes, or extend through an entire lifetime, but in order to conduct a sales transaction, there must be a relationship. The Power of Charisma authors Dan Strutzel and Traci Shoblom will show you the way.

In The Power of Positive Selling, you will:

• Learn to create and maintain a true connection with your customers
• Understand the sales person’s, the buyer’s, and the relationship perspective
• Determine how to really listen to your buyer
• Identify the most effective planning methods
• Discover how to handle rejection
• Develop your customer avatar
• Perfect what to say to price objections
• Create an automated follow up system
• Recognize the important things to know about your product
• Recognize opportunities to grow your relationships by solving the real problem

Every profession must change in order to keep up with the times. There’s an old saying that even if your company makes the best buggy whip, your sales people still won’t be able to sell them because no one has horse buggies anymore. We have cars. Times change. Products change. Sales is changing too. Now, more than ever, we must learn to harness The Power of Positive Selling.

• Language: English
• Publisher: G&D Media
• Release date: Aug 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9781722524241

Dan Strutzel

DAN STRUTZEL is President of Inspire Productions, former Executive VP of Publishing at Nightingale-Conant Corporation, and a 25-year veteran of the personal development industry. Dan has worked closely with bestselling personal development authors and speakers, including Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy, Jim Rohn, Robert Kiyosaki, Wayne Dyer and Zig Ziglar. Dan has a B.A. in English and Psychology from The University of Notre Dame.

Book preview

Step One

Getting Ready

1. PLANNING

A door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman manages to bully his way into a woman’s home in a rural area. This machine is the best ever, he exclaims, while pouring a bag of dirt over the lounge floor. The woman says she’s really worried it may not all come off, so the salesman says, If this machine doesn’t remove all the dust completely, I’ll lick it off myself.

Do you want ketchup on it? she says. We’re not connected for electricity yet!

Eugene Wesson lost countless thousands of dollars in commissions before he learned an important truth. Mr. Wesson sold sketches for a studio that created designs for stylists and textile manufacturers. Mr. Wesson had called on one of the leading stylists in New York once a week, every week, for three years. He never refused to see me, said Mr. Wesson, but he never bought. He always looked over my sketches very carefully and then said: ‘No, Wesson, I guess we don’t get together today.’

After 150 failures, Wesson realized he must be in a mental rut, so he resolved to devote one evening a week to the study of influencing human behavior, to help him develop new ideas and generate new enthusiasm.

He decided on this new approach. With half a dozen unfinished artists’ sketches under his arm, he rushed over to the buyer’s office. I want you to do me a little favor, if you will, he said. Here are some uncompleted sketches. Won’t you please tell me how we could finish them up in such a way that you could use them?

The buyer looked at the sketches for a while without uttering a word. Finally, he said: Leave these with me for a few days, Wesson, and then come back and see me.

Wesson returned three days later, got his suggestions, took the sketches back to the studio and had them finished according to the buyer’s ideas. The result? All accepted.

After that, this buyer ordered scores of other sketches from Wesson, all drawn according to the buyer’s ideas. I realized why I had failed for years to sell him, said Mr. Wesson. I had urged him to buy what I thought he ought to have. Then I changed my approach completely. I urged him to give me his ideas. This made him feel that he was creating the designs. And he was. I didn’t have to sell him. He bought.

—DALE CARNEGIE,

HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE

What Is Planning?

Every adult on earth has planned something at one time or another. Whether it’s a matter of a simple afternoon outing or a complicated corporate strategy, planning is the art of getting from A to B.

Planning is the art of getting from A to B.

In sales, planning is an often overlooked yet critical step in the sales process. Too often salespeople simply learn a set of tools or techniques to sell their product or service, and then go out and try to sell as much as possible without having a structured plan for how to do it or identifying what the customer actually needs. Frequently it’s not about building a relationship, it’s about making sales. In this case, A can be thought of as no sales and B can be thought of as making sales.

Traditional Sales Planning

In the story that opened the chapter, Wesson originally used a traditional sales planning model. He made sketches and then brought them to the stylist to see if he liked them. Here’s how that looks.

Step 1. Analyze the status quo. Where are we now? (What do I think the customer wants in a design?)

Step 2. Set sales goals. (Sell one design to that client.)

Step 3. Develop the sales plan. (Create as many designs as I can and show them to the stylist every week until he buys one.)

In traditional planning, you start by looking at the status quo: where you are now. In Wesson’s case, he spent years creating 150 designs based on the status quo of what he thought the client desired.

Instead of the traditional planning model, a more effective technique is the feedforward technique. It’s called feedforward because you look at the desired results in order to determine (or modify) the actions you take. In other words, you start by looking forward toward the end results desired.

With feedforward, you start by looking forward toward the end results desired instead of where you are now.

The RAID Planning Method

One such feedforward planning method was developed in 1987 by management consultant and university professor Dr. Larry Pate, who was on sabbatical at the University of Queensland. It’s called the RAID planning method, and RAID is an acronym for the steps.

R = Results desired

A = Actions necessary to create results

I = Indicators to watch

D = Decisions that remain

R: Results Desired

This is pretty straightforward. What results do you want to achieve? If it’s a diet, how many pounds do you want to lose? If it’s a sales situation, what results do your customers or clients desire? You don’t start by looking at how many sales you want to make. You start by identifying the end result you wish to achieve, which is to achieve results for your customer.

In our opening example, once Wesson realized that he was failing to meet the needs of his customer, he changed to a feedforward method. He went to the client and asked what result he desired in a