TKO Sales: Ten Knockout Strategies for Selling More of Anything - Softcover

Anderson, Dave

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0470171782 ISBN 13: 9780470171783

Publisher: Wiley, 2007

Synopsis

Practical business guides that pull no punches

Dave Anderson's TKO series presents no-nonsense, down-in-the-trenches management strategies that work in the real world of business. Each of the three informative books in this series offers easy-to-follow, step-by-step guidance on developing the specific skills great managers need.

These quick and to-the-point guides feature detailed techniques and effective strategies presented in user-friendly chapters that are packed with checklists, examples, and practical resources. In each book, readers will find real-world advice in a fast and powerful format that includes:

• Words of Wisdom or "Right Hook Rules"-bite-sized memorable quotes
• Case Studies or "Opening Bell" Stories-real-life business lessons
• Effective Strategies or "Left Hook Laws"-all-meat, no-fat business strategies
• Incisive or "Standard Eight Count" Questions-insightful inquiries that prompt the reader to action
• Quick or "Knockout" Summaries-bullet points that sum-up each chapter and offer easy reference

About this title

About the Author

Dave Anderson has led some of the nation's most successful car dealerships and is President of Dave Anderson's Learn to Lead and LearnToLead.com, a Web site that provides free training resources to thousands of people in more than forty countries. He is also the author of If You Don't Make Waves, You'll Drown; Up Your Business!; and How to Deal with Difficult Customers, all from Wiley.

From the Back Cover

In a cutthroat world, doing the basics of business well means the difference between winning and losing. Dave Anderson's TKO Series gives you the practical, high-impact strategies you need to build a business that can put the competition down for the count. TKO Sales! presents no-nonsense, tough-as-nails sales practices for selling more of anything.

Packed with easy-to-follow, step-by-step guidance, TKO Sales! will train you in the right skills and the most effective tactics to sell more, sell better, and sell faster. This straightforward guide gives you all the tools to punch above your weight, including checklists, examples, and practical resources you won't find anywhere else.

Get down to business with ten short chapters on:

• Selling yourself before selling the product

• Listening to your customers in order to sell more

• Becoming a true sales professional, not just a person who sells

• Stopping objections in their tracks

• Getting fully prepared before every sale

• The fastest and most profitable ways to close a sale

Give the competition your best shot―with Dave Anderson's TKO Sales!

Packed with easy-to-follow, step-by-step guidance, TKO Sales! will train you in the right skills and the most effective tactics to sell more, sell better, and sell faster. This straightforward guide gives you all the tools to punch above your weight, including checklists, examples, and practical resources you won't find anywhere else.

Get down to business with ten short chapters on:

• Selling yourself before selling the product

• Listening to your customers in order to sell more

• Becoming a true sales professional, not just a person who sells

• Stopping objections in their tracks

• Getting fully prepared before every sale

• The fastest and most profitable ways to close a sale

Give the competition your best shot—with Dave Anderson's TKO Sales!

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

TKO Sales!

Ten Knockout Strategies for Selling More of AnythingBy Dave Anderson

John Wiley & Sons

Copyright © 2008 Dave Anderson
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-470-17178-3

Chapter One

Make the First Sale to Yourself

Let's Start with Tough Talk

Selling isn't for everyone. And, unfortunately, there are plenty of sales amateurs in every industry who give the selling profession a bad name. Many of these people mean well but they're unskilled. Others have no natural talent for connecting with people and persuading them to buy. Still others have been thrown into their sales jobs with no guidance, structure, or training by lazy or incompetent managers. The result is a mass of average performers who work long and hard but still manage to earn only a modest living as they learn to hate their jobs in the process. What a shame, because sales is the highest paying profession in the world-if you are focused, skilled, emotionally mature, committed to success, and talented. TKO Sales will be able to help you develop the first four of these five traits. What no one can teach you is talent because talent is a gift from God. And if you don't have a talent for selling then you'll never be excellent at it. I'm not trying to discourage you, I'm trying to help you. If you don't have the need to win, if you don't enjoy persuading others, if you lack resilience and empathy, then you would be better off finding another line of work. This certainly doesn't mean you're a bad person. It just means that you're a bad fit for the selling profession and that you can expect to reap mediocre results at best and will be miserable most of the time you're doing it. If this is the case then I'd like to thank you for purchasing this book. In doing so you've helped me, but the book won't be able to help you. Please give it to someone wired for selling and go find a profession in which you have a chance of reaching your potential. This will be a livelihood where you can put your talents to use. Life is too short to waste time doing otherwise.

However, I should add that if you're not doing well in sales right now it doesn't necessarily mean that you don't have a talent for selling, because talent is only potential. Talent still must be developed and this book is your guide for getting that job done. If you're already doing that then I commend you for reading a book on how to get better at something you're already good at because it is evidence that you haven't yet turned into a "know it all" and are still teachable and hungry enough to want more. Because of this attitude, I can assure you that as you become more you will get more.

Right Hook RULE

It's not what you do for a living that matters. It's how you do what you do that determines your success and happiness.

It's not as Easy as it Looks

It didn't take long for me to figure out that the old stereotype that sales was a job anyone could fall back on if they couldn't find something better was untrue. I saw plenty of sales failures who never developed the discipline, skills, or emotional maturity to last very long in their jobs. Sadly, many of these underachievers had talent but never applied it. Just like any other profession, successful selling requires vast knowledge and a continuing education to remain fresh, relevant, and effective. It also calls for a heavy blend of drive, passion, and resilience; none of which anyone can teach you. These three traits are inside jobs. In other cases it was the long hours, consistent pressure to perform, the competition, an inability to handle rejection, or contempt for dealing with the public that created sales failures.

If you're reading TKO Sales in hopes that it will help you sell more of anything the "easy" way and without you having to break a sweat then I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. While the techniques included in this book are basic and nonacademic, they will require that you diligently work at them. There are no easy, fast, painless ways to grow. Growth is uncomfortable because it requires new habits, disciplines, and thought patterns. But when you can pull yourself through the discomfort and pain of growth you'll find yourself miles ahead of those who do just enough to get by; just enough to get paid; and just enough not to get fired.

Left Jab Laws

1. Selling isn't for sissies. In fact, it is the inverse of the old saw "anyone can sell" that is true: If you can sell successfully then there is little else you can't achieve in the business world.

Right Hook RULE

Professional salespeople are never out of work for long. They are in demand and can get a job nearly anywhere, at nearly anytime, and selling nearly anything.

2. While the selling profession has unlimited potential, it's up to you to pay the price to cash in on the prize. Whether you're brand new to selling or are a seasoned veteran, the day you stop paying the price to develop your skills and talents is the day both you and your income will stop growing.

3. Until you see selling as a serious profession you will never make a serious income in sales. If you see sales as a profession

Right Hook RULE

"You can pay now and play later or you can play now and pay later. But either way, you're going to pay. The problem with waiting to pay later is that the price is higher because you pay it with interest." -John C. Maxwell

to apologize for-and I still find many veteran sales people that do-then it doesn't matter whether you sell widgets or Wonka Bars, you'll never reach your fullest potential in this business. However, if you see your role as a sales professional as being vital to the economy-after all, nothing moves without a sale-and if you regard the profession overall as something requiring great skill that few people do well, then you will hold it in the esteem it deserves and you will be much more likely to earn well as a result.

Right Hook RULE

"You cannot perform consistently in a manner inconsistent with how you see yourself." -Zig Ziglar

4. If you've already had a successful career in sales then the best way to continue to stay interested, engaged, and passionate about selling is to continue getting better at what you do. Selling is no fun when you're stale, bored, or when you have otherwise mentally checked out of it because you no longer enjoy the thrill of a sale.

Right Hook RULE Getting better is a life's work. But the universe isn't just going to come along and improve you. You must work on yourself as well as on your job.

5. Embrace the Law of Differentiation. This law states that the more you differentiate yourself from other sales people the less price sensitive people become ... because they see more value in you. But this law also states that the less you differentiate yourself from other sales people, the more price sensitive people become, because if you're just like everyone else, all that's left to focus on in order to make a buying decision is how cheap one can buy it.

Right Hook RULE

Differentiation puts the Law of the Edge in your corner. This law says that the horse that wins a race by a nose wins ten times the money as the second place horse. This doesn't mean that the winning horse was ten times better. Instead, it shows the exponential power a slight edge gives you over the competition.

Standing Eight-Count Questions

1. Growing up, what type of career did you want?

2. What made you believe you'd be good at sales?

3. What is your strongest asset as a salesperson?

4. What do you believe it will take for you to reach the next income level in sales?

5. Did your answer to question four reflect something that you can actually control or does it rely on outside conditions to change?

6. Do you still see yourself in sales 10 years from now or in a related selling field: sales management or owning a sales organization? If not, why are you remaining in sales at this time?

7. Are you proud to tell strangers that you're in sales?

8. What you do believe are the key differences between a "salesman" and a sales professional?

Notes

________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________

TKO Tale

When I was growing up I wanted to be a doctor. Then, in the eighth grade I won a debate in history class and discovered in the process that I enjoyed arguing and was pretty good at it. I thought fast on my feet and was articulate. It was at that point that I decided I would rather be a lawyer. However, when it came time to graduate high school I decided to join our family restaurant business and skip college altogether. I was anxious to make money and the thought of more school turned me off. After a period of time, though, the long, hard work of the restaurant business, along with its low pay, prompted me to look for something where I could better put the talent I had discovered back in eighth grade to use ... and make better money in the process. I was drawn to sales because I recalled that as a teenager I enjoyed selling newspaper subscriptions door to door and that I also enjoyed my stint demonstrating and selling car care products at automobile shows. While I was excited about getting out of the restaurant business and into something I felt I'd really enjoy I also had a lingering feeling that I was a failure. After all, at one point I had wanted to be a doctor and then a lawyer and then a restaurant entrepreneur and now I was going to sell, which as I recall was what people did who couldn't find "real" jobs, who couldn't hold a job, or who were just fired from a better job.

While I struggled a bit during my first month in car sales, my income for the year was higher than that of the professors that I never had the pleasure of meeting when I decided to charbroil steaks rather than study calculus at the university.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from TKO Sales!by Dave Anderson Copyright © 2008 by Dave Anderson. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0470171782
• ISBN 13: 9780470171783
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 144