Silver Bullet Selling: Six Critical Steps to Opening More Relationships and Closing More Sales - Hardcover

Bartick, G.A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0470373008 ISBN 13: 9780470373002

Publisher: Wiley, 2008

Synopsis

Based on ten years of extensive research and interviews with thousands of top sales performers in a variety of industries, Silver Bullet Selling reveals the secrets all great sales professionals have in common. It's not what you say that determines your success in sales; it?s how you execute the sales process to create a unique buying experience for customers. This book shows you how to apply the silver bullet selling method to launch your sales through the roof. Read it, and fire away at the competition.

About this title

About the Author

G.A. Bartick is President of OutSell, which trains 25,000 salespeople each year. A former executive at Nordstrom, he is also a national speaker and facilitator at conventions and meetings around the country. He has developed and implemented sales programs for Morgan Stanley, Wachovia, Charter Communications, and Oakley, among others.

Paul Bartick is a Director at OutSell who has published dozens of articles in periodicals and newsletters on implementing the Silver Bullet Selling sales process. He has created customized content for hundreds of Silver Bullet Selling programs for clients such as Bank of America, Time Warner, Transamerica, and DIRECTV.

From the Back Cover

If you're in sales, read this book!

"Learn how to sell more, better, faster, and easier in any market! This book will supercharge your selling results."
―Brian Tracy, author of The Psychology of Selling

"The Silver Bullet Selling process will create adversity for your competitors and very positive results for your bottom line."
―Dallas Haun, President and CEO, Nevada State Bank

"The Barticks deliver a clear and powerful six-step process that guarantees success. Read it, study it, refer back to it, and your sales results will soar."
―Tom Karinshak, Managing Director, Barclaycard US

"Our company rolled out the Silver Bullet six-step sales process in 2006. Since that time, we have seen our sales productivity and customer retention rates soar. And most importantly, so has our top line. Silver Bullet Selling provides a deep dive into building trusting relationships with your customers and selling to their needs in an effective and consistent way."
―Russell Dash, RSVP Sales―West Region, Rewards Network

"We've worked the Barticks' six-step process for several years, and our sales have never been better. We're bringing in more new clients and generating more business from current clients."
―Andy Holden, President and COO, CPS Insurance Services

"Talk about a direct hit! Silver Bullet Selling delivers what most how-to sales books don't―a sales process that works and a wealth of real-life examples from all kinds of sales environments. The exercises in the book also help you do a little target practice of your own. If you want to improve your sales, read this book!"
―Jones Loflin, coauthor of Juggling Elephants

"There are many great business books that everyone reads, everyone talks about, and no one implements. That's because these books don't tell you how to execute. As a client of the Barticks, I know they have mastered the art of sales execution. Anyone who follows the six steps in this book will see an immediate improvement in their sales performance."
―Tom Green, Managing Partner, Mentorprise, LLC

From the Inside Flap

For years, G.A. Bartick struggled to build a career in sales, but just couldn't get ahead. He had the enthusiasm, the attitude, and the work ethic, but he didn't know what he didn't know. And it was what he didn't know that doomed him to failure. He didn't know the six secrets of sales success that all great sales professionals use to build trusting relationships with their prospects and clients. Once he discovered those six secrets, his career took off and he never looked back.

Based on years of extensive research, Bartick's own sales experience, and interviews with thousands of top sales performers in a variety of industries, Silver Bullet Selling reveals the secrets all great sales professionals have in common. More importantly, this book packages those secrets in a simple, six-step process that gets real results. Because it's not just what you say to prospects that determines your long-term success; it's how you manage and execute your sales process that really matters.

Silver Bullet Selling shows you how to take the normal consultative selling theory and apply it to every interaction so you can close more sales. Rather than just explaining sales theory, this book shows you how to apply it consistently, effectively, and profitably on your very next sales call. You'll learn to communicate better with your prospects, differentiate yourself from the competition, build value for your product in the mind of the buyer, and close more sales than ever before.

If the size of your paycheck depends on commissions, you can't just wing it and expect to win. You need this consistent, effective sales process that puts you in position to make the sale every time. Selling is hard, and there's no single silver bullet that will close every sale for you. But if you put in the effort and follow the steps in Silver Bullet Selling's repeatable process, you'll have not one, but six rounds in your sales arsenal, and you'll get the results you want. Start reading and fire away at the competition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Silver Bullet Selling

Six Critical Steps to Opening More Relationships and Closing More SalesBy G.A. Bartick Paul Bartick

John Wiley & Sons

Copyright © 2008 G.A. Bartick
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-470-37300-2

Chapter One

You Don't Have to Be a Natural-Born Salesman

Beeeep beeeeep beeeep beeeep. I open one eye. The green numbers on my clock radio shout 3:00 A.M. "This sucks!" I think as I struggle to free one arm from the warmth of the covers and slap the snooze button. "Seven more minutes of blissful sleep, and then I'll get up." BEEEEP, BEEEEP, BEEEEEP, BEEEEEEP. 3:07 A.M. "No ... just one more snooze." Then reality hits ... "I have to get up. I can't be late. I need this job. I need the money!" I can hear my wife's voice in my head: "We have bills to pay!"

For the past three months I have been waking up every morning at this godforsaken hour and crawling into my car to deliver the Wall Street Journal to a bunch of windbags who make more in one hour than I do in a week. After rolling, rubber-banding, and tossing 163 papers onto manicured lawns, I head back to our apartment. When I get back home at about 7:30, I am on kid duty because my wife Kelly is off to teach high school in southeast San Diego.

I plop my three-year-old daughter Alicia down in front of the TV while I shave, shower, and get dressed. Then I drag my sorry butt out of the house to drop her off at my in-laws' before heading off to my day job: G.A. Bartick, Mortgage Broker. Selling mortgages is what I'm supposed to be doing. It's a 100% commission job and I haven't closed a deal in over six weeks. I'm going broke being a broker. That's why I'm delivering papers at three in the frickin' morning for a hundred bucks a week. Kelly's teacher salary barely pays the rent.

Previously I had a nice job working for Nordstrom as a ladies' shoe salesman, but I wasn't that good at it. So I did what many salespeople do that aren't that good at sales-I went into management.

I spent over eight years learning Nordstrom's secrets about how customer service leads to great sales. Nordstrom is known as a great customer service organization, but don't kid yourself. It's a sales organization that uses fantastic customer service to generate over $8 billion in revenue annually. Nordstrom was a great training ground, but I had my eyes on loftier goals. I still believed I could make it big in the field of sales.

First I thought I could become rich selling real estate, so I studied, got my license, and got a job with Jelley Real Estate in Del Mar, California. "This is going to be great!" I thought. "I'm going to learn everything there is to know about the real estate market and people will buy from me!" Well, it didn't exactly turn out that way.

I was sitting at my desk on the last day of the month (which was also the last day of the pay period). My phone rang. It was my sales manager asking me to stop by his office at the end of the day. At 5:00 P.M., as I sat in his posh office, he told me he loved my attitude, my work ethic, and my product knowledge, but he'd been looking at the sales reports and I had only sold one house in the past six months. And then he said as he looked toward the door, "G.A., I'm sorry, it's just not working out."

So I soothed my bruised ego and, with my wife pushing me out the door, I set out to find another sales job. In about three weeks I got a job selling eyewear. I thought, "This is going to be fantastic! I'll learn everything there is to know about eyewear, and opticians, optometrists, and ophthalmologists will buy from me." Eight months into this gig the call came from my sales manager. "The call" always came on the last day of the pay period and, by now, I knew all too well what to expect. My managers all said the same thing: "I love your attitude. I love your work ethic and your product knowledge. But I have been looking at the sales reports and I'm sorry, G.A., it's just not working out."

* * *

That was 1996. Having a wife and a young child with another on the way, I had few options and even fewer sales skills. I was pounding the pavement every day and getting my butt kicked because I didn't know what I didn't know. I was really just winging it when it came to sales. I was selling on attitude, personality, and desire, without much to show for it. I was hunting without a bullet in the chamber and just shooting blanks. My gift of gab (yes, GAB are my initials) was no longer enough to help me reach the lofty personal and financial goals I had set for myself. Something had to give. We couldn't survive much longer on credit cards, and living in San Diego on Mrs. Bartick's pay as a teacher was not going to cut it. That's when I got the lucky phone call. It couldn't have come at a better time.

On the other end of the line was Michael St. Lawrence, Founder and President of a new sales consulting company named OutSell. Michael had just written the best-selling sales book If You're Not Out Selling, You're Being Outsold, and his fledgling company was taking off. Michael was the best friend of my brother Paul (the other author of this book), and he was calling because he was looking to hire training consultants with sales skills, success, and swagger. He knew about my desperate situation, so there was no use in stretching the truth. I told him I could certainly satisfy his swagger requirement, but wasn't so sure about the skills or success. After all, the sad truth was that I had failed in four prior sales jobs.

To my relief, Michael told me not to be too concerned about the lack of sales skills; he could teach me that part. In fact, he told me he knew my sales skills sucked and he was calling me because he was in a bit of a bind himself. He had just sold a huge training deal, but he didn't have the staff to deliver it. After a brief conversation on the phone and a follow-up face-to-face interview, he invited me to try out for OutSell. So I went to Marshalls department store and bought myself a new suit-on credit, of course-and gave it a shot.

I was one of 30 people trying out for 10 spots. There were professional speakers, facilitators, and sales professionals with impressive resumes and fancy degrees. I was way out of my league and was afraid of being embarrassed. We started on a Monday and for the next three days Michael led us through a sales boot camp. On Thursday I arrived early in order to work on a homework assignment we had been given the night before. Michael was in his office and he called me in "to have a little chat."

As I walked in to his office, I couldn't help thinking, "Here we go again: the death march." I knew the conversation with Michael would end with the words "I'm sorry, G.A., it's just not working out."

I really can't explain what happened next. Maybe it was because Michael was my brother's best friend or because I had known him from the day I was born, but somehow Michael saw the sales professional inside me and told me I had made the team-as long as I was willing to put in the hours to learn the sales skills I sorely lacked. Michael sat me down and explained to me that there are no shortcuts and no quick fixes and, most importantly, I had to learn the six basic steps of the sales process. I shook his hand enthusiastically and I've been a successful salesman ever since. As it turned out, those six steps changed my life.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Silver Bullet Sellingby G.A. Bartick Paul Bartick Copyright © 2008 by G.A. Bartick. Excerpted by permission.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0470373008
• ISBN 13: 9780470373002
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304