Generational Selling Tactics that Work: Quick and Dirty Secrets for Selling to Any Age Group - Hardcover

Marston, Cam

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1118018389 ISBN 13: 9781118018385

Publisher: Wiley, 2011

Synopsis

Make the sale to four key generations

All your customers like the same type of service, right? And all your products should be sold the same way to all prospects, right? And the reasons you like your product and service are the same reasons your buyers should like it, right? Wrong!

What your sales team doesn't know about Gen Xers, Boomers, Matures, and Millennials impacts the bottom line. Each generation's differing values creates differing expectations for what makes a quality sales or service experience. In Generational Selling Tactics that Work: Quick and Dirty Secrets for Selling to Any Age Group, thought leader Cam Marston reveals the four generations' sales and services biases and provides simple, easy-to-execute ideas for reaching each.

• Author has a winning track record with his previous book, Motivating The "What's In It for Me?" Workforce
• Unique in preparing you and your sales team to sell cross generationally, not just to one generation or other

Highly energetic and engaging to read, Generational Selling Tactics that Work is full of immediately actionable ideas for each generation so you can sell confidently and deliver superb service to each of these unique demographics.

About this title

About the Author

Cam Marston is founder and President of Generational Insights. He is a consultant and author who has worked with Fortune 500 companies and small businesses throughout the world to improve sales and marketing efforts to targeted demographics and generations. He has presented his findings to audiences ranging from small local associations and businesses to a handful of Fortune 500 executives in a corporate boardroom. For more information, please visit www.generationalinsights.com.

From the Back Cover

Today, as buying becomes far easier than selling, customers are gaining the upper hand. Yet many salespeople maintain an egocentric frame of mind: the reasons you like your product and service are the same reasons your buyers will like them, right? And what you want in a sales person is the same thing they'll want, right? Wrong! If your customers hail from another generation, they might as well come from a different planet. The rapid changes in the past century have resulted in four generations that have grown up under vastly different circumstances. If you want to connect, develop rapport, and make sales with every age group, you have to understand what impact these diverse experiences have on how they view your business.

Generational Selling Tactics that Work offers simple, easy-to-execute ideas for how best to work with and sell to each of the four generations in today's marketplace: Matures, Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials. The Matures' formative experiences of the Great Depression and World War II differed wildly from the Boomers, who watched the Civil Rights Movement and enjoyed the Sexual Revolution. The "latch-key" Gen Xers came of age in the wake of Watergate and Iran-Contra, while Millennials received boundless praise from their parents but later had their world rattled by 9/11.

These formative experiences help determine each generation's behavior—their values and their turn-offs—in the marketplace. The Matures want deference, the Boomers ease, Gen Xers authenticity, and Millennials just want it now. Matures and Boomers won't mind hearing your standard pitch, but Gen Xers and Millennials will be running for the door. In order to sell to any age group, you've got to learn how to be likable across the generational divide. When you get out of your own habits and into the preferences of your prospects, you'll make that connection and snag the sale.

Generational Selling Tactics that Work delivers nitty-gritty knowledge on each cohort's characteristics and quick and dirty tips for how to apply this insight to increase revenues. It doesn't matter what age you are, so long as you understand how your customer's age affects the bottom line.

From the Inside Flap

Praise for Generational Selling Tactics That Work

"Anyone not closing 30 percent or more new sales after reading this important work is missing the best opportunity any business has had in a long time. Marston has laid out a clear path for understanding what makes each generation's communication preferences so easy to respond to. Marston just may have given us the sales tool that will catapult our sales to levels previously unimagined."
—Randy S. Dewing, Senior Business Solutions Manager, North America, Fortune 200 Company

"Cam Marston's latest work of genius on selling to generations is a must-have road map for every sales manager who wants to have the secret to closing a sale. This toolkit contains priceless wisdom on how to create customer engagement with all ages. Generational selling skills are as important to sales and marketing as they are to effective leadership. This book is a winner!"
—Phebe Farrow Port, SVP Global Management Strategies, The Estée Lauder Companies

"Generational Selling Tactics that Work is essential reading for anyone in sales or in the negotiation process, regardless of industry. With an understanding of the different generational characteristics, the salesperson or marketing manager is able to develop a more efficient sales and marketing message."
—Steven M. Anderson, Contract Marketing and Specialty Products Manager, GE Appliances

"I believe great salespeople have a commonality: they pursue tools that hone their skills so they can best serve their customers. Cam's easy-to-read, easy-to-understand, and easy-to-implement message should be a part of every sales representative's tool box."
—Bete Johnson, Director, Business Development, CareCredit

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1118018389
• ISBN 13: 9781118018385
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256