The Lost Art of Closing rediscovered in free book summary

You could argue for days about what the most important business function is, is it marketing – because people need to know that your product or service exists before anything else can happen?

Perhaps it’s production, because things being made or done is why a company exists?

It must be finance, because without the money to start everything in the first place, there wouldn’t be a company?

Maybe it’s HR after all without someone to hire all the people there would be no one to do anything at all?

That raises an interesting question, what came first the employee or the HR person?

If you what the BBC Television series The Apprentice with Alan Sugar you will be left in do doubt that the most important function in any business whether it is a multi-national or a reality TV task, it is sales.

I have sat through internal staff meetings at which the Chief Executive has extolled the virtues of the sales men, never the sales people or the sales team, always the sales men, and proclaimed that the sales man is king!

You would expect that such an organisation would invest in training and development for its sales people, but this is rare. Only businesses with entrenched sales cultures and sales budgets seem to provide on-going training for their sales teams.

To compensate for the lack of training many businesses focus on finding good people, people to be in their sales team.

Why? Well the theory goes that people buy people so if you have people that are good at getting along with other people they are more likely to be successful sales people.

Being a good people person is only half of the story, as Anthony Iannario points out in his book The Lost Art of Closing too many sales people are too good at superficial relationships and not very good at creating relationships that enable them to close sales.

“They don’t know how to have productive conversations with their clients,” he says, “even though sellers’ words make or break sales.”

The typical salesperson might say, “What’s it going to take to get you to sign this contract?”

In contrast, the salesperson could say,

“Can you share your concerns with me, so I can make sure this works for you?”

This second question focuses on the client’s needs and should result in useful information that leads to a sale. If this type of questions is used throughout the sales process, he argues, the sales process will be shorter and more productive for both the customer and the sales person.

The Lost Art of Closing by Anthony Iannario is this weeks free getAbstract book summary. Use this link to download your free copy.

What you will learn:

  • How contradictory advice to “always be closing” and “never be closing” create problems for salespeople,
  • How to deploy the “commitment-gaining” sales strategy, and
  • What 10 commitments salespeople must gain to close sales.

The Lost Art of Closing by Anthony Iannario could be the best training your sales team ever get!

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During a career as a human resources and employee development professional that started in 1981 Michael Millward has worked around the world in a wide range of businesses from start-ups to major conglomerates. His industry experience includes, local and national government, manufacturing, financial services, retail, distribution, hi-tech, e-commerce.

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