I thought it was about time for another book review. I’m still buying them faster than I can read, but they look good on my shelf! I have just finished Secrets of Question Based Selling, by Thomas Freese – ISBN: 1-57071-588-2, and so I share my views…

On the whole I like this book. It fits very well with my own sense of what selling is about. My broken record moment is that I’m always preaching - The value of a sales person is not what they know about their product, but the questions that they ask. Ask the right questions, make your customer think and you will get invited back. For me, this is what Freese’s book is all about, but he puts structure around the process – which is helpful.

My attention was grabbed on the first page, in fact the first paragraph when Freese speaks about the selling process… “[it’s about] uncovering prospects needs, building value around your solutions and securing the prospect’s commitment to move forward.” At last a book that speaks in plain English!

Among a number of things in the book that I liked, I’ve picked out the fact that Freese introduces the concept of risk in selling. (Unfortunately, for him he can’t claim to be unique in this as we have been preaching this for years – no concept is new in selling). If you understand and manage your risk, you increase your chances of winning. On a note of caution I did find Freese taking a few liberties with his opinion and putting it across as fact. Let me use an example; on page 25 he states that “People are natural mismatchers – but not out of disrespect towards others. Rather, it’s because we are naturally insecure” – are we?

Given my last point, I don’t know if Freese has come across Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) or indeed been on a practitioners course, but I suspect not. However, if he gained an understanding of NLP I suspect he would develop his ideas even further and make them more robust than they already are.

Finally, I have to say I like the way the book is written. The introduction to the chapters are good, there are key learning points highlighted as secrets from 1 to 155 (although I’m not so sure they really are secrets. For example, Secret #45 – Unless a relationship already exists, most prospects are reluctant to openly share, especially with a salesperson.) and finally at the end of each chapter there is a summary – useful. There are also a number of diagrams – without the copyright label hanging underneath as if it’s a piece of priceless magic that’s worth protecting. Read my review of The New Conceptual Selling book from the Miller Heiman camp. Speaking of copyright, Freese talks of the Win-Win Scenario… something the Miller Heiman boys may think is theirs with their Win-Win Matrix, or does changing matrix to scenario make it completely different! However, although I like the structure and most of the content, like many books this one is also padded. Slim it down and it will be a very good read.

For novice and experienced alike buy it, read it and keep it.

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Here is another book on which I thought I would share my thoughts. Harry Beckwith’s Selling the Invisible published by Warner Books ISBN 0-446-52094-2.

I first read this book when it was published in 1997. I loved it, still do, and have over the years bought hundreds of copies as I use to give them away to delegates on sales workshops that I ran for professional services firms. The book is about selling services, the thing that you cannot touch. It is very easy to read, made up of short stories and each designed to make a point. Let me give you an example from page 42:

“One Thing Most Experts Don’t Know – Most companies in expert services – such as lawyers, doctors and accountants – think that their clients are buying expertise. But most prospects for these complex services cannot evaluate expertise; they cannot tell a really good tax return, a clever motion, or a perceptive diagnosis. But they can tell if the relationship is good and if phone calls are returned. Clients are experts at knowing if they feel valued. In most professional services, you are not really selling expertise – because your expertise is assumed and because your prospect cannot intelligently evaluate your expertise anyway. Instead you are selling a relationship. And in most cases, that is where you need most work. If you’re selling a service, you’re selling a relationship.”

A number of people who have received a copy of the book from me have read it cover to cover without putting it down. They then keep it and often find themselves dipping into it to gain some inspiration. This is exactly what I do with it. In fact I have two copies of the book. A pristine copy that I got Harry Beckwith to sign for me after a fantastic presentation he did. The other is my working copy that I use to thumb through. Even after nine years I still get inspiration from it.

Highly recommended. Buy it. Read it. Keep It. Use it.

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Here is another book review; The New Conceptual Selling, by Stephen E. Heiman and Diane Sanche. It’s published by Warner Business Books - ISBN 0-446-67449-4. I have to say, this book is not on the top of my all time favorites…

The first “Conceptual Selling” was published in 1987. This is a revised edition and, like its predecessor, was written on behalf of Miller Heiman Inc. This is one of the most respected names in sales development and they have a client list full of leading Fortune 500 companies.

The book is very much a curate’s egg. On the one hand it says a number of important and very relevant things about face-to-face solution selling, but on the other hand much of this is dressed up in fancy language and marketing spin which, for me, simply devalues the message. Just for starters, you need to come to terms with ‘concepts’, ‘cognition thinking’, ‘divergent thinking’, ‘convergent thinking’, ‘magic quadrants’, and ‘backlash quadrants’. A dictionary won’t help: in the world of ‘New Conceptual Thinking’ these terms have a life beyond straightforward vocabulary definitions.

In the same vein, the book feels padded. There are many many boring explanations, which the authors obviously believe are essential to get the point across, but I found myself saying repeatedly wanting things to move on. I actually started shouting at the book: “Just get on with it, move on, I’ve got the point.” This is one of the dangers of using so much jargon, of course. If the words you use are not readily comprehensible, you need to keep repeating and explaining.

So who is the target audience for this book? It was chapter three - ‘What We’re Striving For: Win-Win ’ - that had me really wondering. In this chapter the reader gets introduced to The Win-Win Matrix and, if the reader persists with the chapter, they’ll also get to see The Lose-Win “Dogleg” Matrix. These fascinating diagrams both have Miller Heiman Inc copyright notices but, frankly, I suspect this is one copyright that needs little protection. Put simply, if you find yourself enthralled by this chapter, you are definitely a sales novice.

There is little to disagree with in the message of the book because the ideas are quite straightforward and, if truth be told, quite basic. It’s the manner of the telling that grates. In the end I see this as a book aimed, not so much at the experienced solution sales person, but at the junior. By junior here, I mean one who is stepping up from pitching a product to moving into solution selling, consultative selling, or whatever label you want to apply to the process of understanding your customer’s need, helping them decide requirements, and then providing a solution to match their requirements.

One last comment – on the physical book itself. During reading I managed to tear two pages from the spine of the book. Not completely ripped out, just half way. They just came off in my hands as I was turning the page. This has never happened to any book I’ve been reading before. It could have happened when I was frustrated and muttering “You’ve made your point, now move on!”

For the novice, buy it, read it, keep it for 6 months and then pass it on. For anyone else, by all means borrow it, give it a quick skim read, and then pass it on.

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This was a question that was posed by Jeff Blackwell of www.salespractice.com in his forum. It related to an upcoming book on selling by Paul McCord. Shown below is my initial response to the question. Paul McCord had something to say about my response! If you follow the link to the forum then you will see the full thread.
My answer…

In order to answer the question correctly we need to define the context of the strength and weaknesses and also the environment in which the selling tales place. For example, retail sales versus the complex sale. Someone with fantastic retail strengths won’t find a process that takes advantage of these that can be effectively used in the complex sale. In order to survive in this environment the retailer would have to pick up additional processes that they have not used before and therefore by definition they won’t yet be strengths.

To keep things simple, let me answer the question in terms of the complex sale.

There are basically two types of sales approach required – hunting (new business) and farming (account management). You will find people who are good at both, but mainly you will find people who prefer one or the other. Their strengths are in either hunting or farming. At the macro level the processes for these types of selling are different and therefore, in this context, you can have processes that take advantages of ones strengths.

However, within any salespersons remit are three basic elements to the job. They have to Fill their pipeline, they have to Manage their pipeline and they have to Close their pipeline – Fill, Manage and Close. Everything they need to do summed up into three words! Now if we look at strengths, I’ve known sales professionals who are fantastic closers, but useless at finding new opportunities. Equally I’ve worked with sales people who are incredible at getting in and opening new business opportunities, but absolutely could not close an open door to save their lives. In one case I’m thinking about, I split the sales role. One person opened and others closed. It was far from ideal, but we did use the strengths and only allowed them to use part of the process that matched their strengths. However, this was a one-off and I would not like to do it again as it caused too many problems… so overall, you can’t have weaknesses in the sales process and to be effective all three areas have to be strengths. You can’t really on being a good closer if you have nothing to close!

Within the sales role there are also different styles. The first one I’ll talk about is Reactive selling versus Proactive. I’m sure all sales professionals can do reactive, but many can’t do proactive. Proactive is about filling the pipeline. In a buoyant market most people will only have time for reactive selling and this may well hide their weakness of not being able to fill their pipeline. It may also hide their weaknesses in managing and closing… as they are basically oreder taking. So the strengths may be that the person is good at talking to people, good at treating them well, good at making them feel welcome – all good traits, but these strengths without the strengths in Fill, Manage and Close will not be enough when the market gets tougher.

The final part I would like to cover is Product Pitching versus Consultative Selling. You can follow a process for pitching products. You can also follow a process for consultative selling. Product pitching will be primarily aimed at the user, whereas consultative selling should be aimed at the CxO. Consultative selling will involve talking business benefit, results and what you will be doing to help the customer meet their corporate objectives. Product pitching will cover features and options of the product. Product pitching has no place in the complex sale, yet so many professionals engaged in this type of selling can only do this – this is their strength, their sales crutch and unfortunately this strength is not an advantage. What they need to do is address their weaknesses and turn the weakness into a strength – they have no option if they want to be a top performer.

So, in some long winded way what I’m saying is that in certain context there are processes that take account of ones strengths, but only in the narrow context of hunting and farming. For all other aspects of selling you have to be equally strong and if you have weaknesses these will need to be addressed. As I mentioned it is no good relying on fantastic closing skills if you have nothing to close!

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I like books and buy many with all good intentions of reading them. However, I seem to buy more than I can read as the new books are piling up!

In a previous version of our site I had a section for book reviews where I share my views. We have changed the format of the site and so this section no longer exists. However, I’m going to post the book reviews and add others over the coming months. There are many very good books out there that can add insight into the sale process - there are also many not so good books - in my view. You should be able to spot from my scribblings whether I believe a book is good or not so good!

The first review is a book by Kerry L Johnson

Selling with NLP
Nicholas Brealey Publishing, ISBN/ASIN 1857880471

Selling is all about combining the right mind set with the right amount of process and the right set of skills. You just can’t execute skills properly without the proper mind set and skills that aren’t backed up by process can be easily misdirected. But without the skills themselves there can be no successful selling.

Kerry Johnson’s book “Selling with NLP” examines some of the fundamental selling skills and explains why people buy from people. He introduces the reader to the basic communication concepts of Neuro Lingusistic Programming (NLP) and explains how they apply to selling. NLP is a huge subject and many books address both its theory and practice but few seek to examine NLP in the context of a specific application.

I believe strongly that all sales people should undergo NLP training but if you want a quick overview on how it will help you sell then this is an excellent place to start. The book covers how people take information in and how they give it out. It describes how rapport is built and how, by using the other person’s representation systems, rapport can be built more quickly and more deeply. There are wonderful aphorisms sprinkled throughout the book, such as ‘A smart salesperson listens to emotions, not facts.’ These serve both to aid the book’s readability and to reinforce the points Johnson makes. The book also covers listening and verbal skills and how to use these to elicit outcomes. Objection handling is also examined, but from the behavioural side rather than just the process side. On top of all that, you also get an introduction to psychological sliding, which is an NLP technique that can be used in objection handling.

Psychological sliding is an interesting but advanced skill and one that can only be achieved with a lot of practice and experience. This brings me on to the last chapter in Johnson’s book; Putting It Together – The 21 Day Plan. It is exceedingly ambitious of Johnson to introduce a wide range of subjects and then expect the reader to put it into practice themselves. The 224 pages of this book deals with a large proportion of what is covered on a 16 day NLP Practitioners course. If you need a 16 day course to get to grips with the subject, you may struggle to do it with a 21 day plan.

That said, however, Johnson gives the reader an excellent insight into what can be achieved with a mastery of NLP skills. This book was first published in the UK in 1994 and it has stood up well for over a decade. I read it from cover to cover on publication and I’ve referred to it on numerous occasions in the intervening decade. On every revisit I pick up tips and ideas, even in areas where I consider myself to be expert. Now that is the sign of a good book. This is one to buy, read thoroughly, and keep for reference.

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