Silver Bullet Selling E-Book

G.A. Bartick

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 345

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2008

Beschreibung

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.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Praise

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Foreword

Acknowledgements

PART ONE - THIS IS SILVER BULLET SELLING

CHAPTER ONE - You Don’t Have to Be a Natural-Born Salesman

CHAPTER TWO - I’m a Salesman and This Is My Story

What’s in a Name?

Changing Lives Six Steps at a Time

CHAPTER THREE - Why You’ve Got to Read This Book

The Six-Step Silver Bullet Selling Process

Who Wrote This Book Anyway?

Why I Wrote This Book

How to Get the Most Out of This Book

CHAPTER FOUR - Why a Sales Process?

The Gift of Gab Doesn’t Necessarily Translate into Sales Commissions

Lowering Resistance and Raising Receptivity

In Sales, Communication Is King

Playing with Emotion

CHAPTER FIVE - What Is This Bullet Selling Process, Anyway?

The Six Steps: An Overview

Great Sales: One Part Process, One Part Personality

A Little More Effectiveness Leads to Dramatic Results

PART TWO - SIX-STEP BULLET SELLING PROCESS

STEP ONE - Pre-Call Planning

CHAPTER SIX - Pre-Call Planning Overview

The Importance of a Quiet Mind

A Bullet from G.A.’s Chamber

CHAPTER SEVEN - What Pre-Call Planning Really Means

Pre-Call Planning Means Research

Pre-Call Planning Definitely Means Appearance

Getting There on Time Is Pre-Call Planning

Rehearsing Is Pre-Call Planning

Pre-Call Planning in Team Selling Situations: The 10 Key Issues

Getting the Names Right Is Pre-Call Planning

Pre-Call Planning Is Ironing Your Briefcase

CHAPTER EIGHT - Pre-Call Planning Checklists

Examples: Pre-Call Planning Checklists

Pre-Call Planning Tips

STEP TWO - Building Rapport

CHAPTER NINE - Building Rapport Overview

A Bullet from G.A.’s Chamber

CHAPTER TEN - Preliminary Pleasantries and the Agenda Statement

Preliminary Pleasantries Start the Ball Rolling

Transitioning to the Business Conversation

The Agenda Statement

Serving Up a Million-Dollar Loan at Mickey D’s

Passion Is Contagious

CHAPTER ELEVEN - Building Rapport by Playing the Credibility Card

Positive Effects of a Credibility Statement

Three Questions on Every Buyer’s Mind

Step 1: Your Company and You

Putting It All Together

Build Your Own: Company

Build Your Own: You

Build Your Own: Typical Buyers

Build Your Own: Success Story Worksheet

Build Your Own: Transition

Putting It All Together

Using the Credibility Statement

Building Rapport Tips

STEP THREE - Discovery

CHAPTER TWELVE - Discovery Overview

Discovery Is More than Fact Finding

Listening to Understand versus Listening to Respond

A Bullet from G.A.’s Chamber

CHAPTER THIRTEEN - The Goals of Discovery

Discovering the Buying Gap

Listening Is the Gateway to Rapport

Discovery Generates Buying Momentum

CHAPTER FOURTEEN - Tools You Need to Accomplish the Goals of Discovery

Buying Criteria

Uncovering Buying Criteria

CHAPTER FIFTEEN - You’re Only as Smart as the Questions You Ask

Asking Questions Is Not an Interrogation

It’s Not about Pain

The Importance of Taking Notes

Discovery Question Flow Example

You Know What Happens When You Assume ...

Discovering Where the Emotional Criterion Is Hiding

What If You Sell Boring Products?

CHAPTER SIXTEEN - The Discovery Summary So Important, It Gets Its Own Chapter

Discovery Summary: Taking Discovery to the Next Level

Steps #1 and #2: Transition into the Summary and Review the Current Situation

Step #3: Review the Desired Situation

Step #4: Review Expectations

Step #5: Ask Confirming Questions

Step #6: Transition to the Tailored Solution Step

Example Discovery Summary

A Few Choice Words about Sales Cycles

Discovery Tips

STEP FOUR - Tailored Solution

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - Tailored Solution Overview

Where We Are in the Process

A Bullet from G.A.’s Chamber

The Solution Presentation: Not Your Father’s Sales Presentation

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - Your Solution Presentation Agenda Statement

Single-Call versus Multiple-Call Close

Begin the Solution Presentation with an Agenda Statement

CHAPTER NINETEEN - Your Business Philosophy

Building Your Business Philosophy

The 3×3 Presentation Technique

Building Your Business Philosophy

How Do You Compete? Figuring Out Your Competitive Advantage

CHAPTER TWENTY - Presenting the Details of Your Solution

Presenting the Details of the Deal

It’s All about WIIFM

Features, Bridges, and Benefits

Linking FBBs to What You Learned in Discovery

Proposal Best Practices

How to Use Evidence

Organize Your Evidence

Trial Close: Testing for Buyer Reaction

Put Passion into Your Solution Presentation

STEP FIVE - Addressing Concerns

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - Addressing Concerns Overview

A Bullet from G.A.’s Chamber

Two Secrets You’ve Got to Know before Addressing Any Concerns

Two Situations We Don’t Want to Get Into

How the Real Pros Do It

Two Skills to Master

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - Executing the Addressing Concerns Process

The Six-Step Addressing Concerns Process

The Process Is Not Bulletproof

Transitioning to the Addressing Concerns Process with a Trial Close

The Four Types of Buyers

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - Responding to Concerns

Three Ways to Respond to the Cost Concern

Addressing Concerns Other than Cost

Trial Close

Using the Addressing Concerns Process at Home

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - Vaccinating the Buyer against the Competition

Build Your Own Vaccination

Tips on Addressing Concerns

STEP SIX - Closing the Sale

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - Closing the Sale Overview

A Bullet from G.A.’s Chamber

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX - What Closing Is All About

Closing Is a Process, Not an Event

When-at-First-You-Don’t-Succeed Success Stories

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - Closing the Sale: Firming Up Details and Setting Expectations

Asking for the Order Is Closing

Three Possible Outcomes

PART THREE - AUXILIARY FIREPOWER

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT - Additional Ammunition

Reserve Power

More Bullets for Your Chamber

What’s Next?

The Silver Bullet Community

APPENDIX - OutSell Consulting: “Our Business Is Your Business”

Index

Advance Praise for Silver Bullet Selling

“Silver Bullet Selling is as valuable to a sales person as shiny shoes and a good territory. I love the book!”

—Stuart Chant, Regional Manager and Trainer, Rewards Network

“The Silver Bullet process helped us develop relationships, uncover opportunities, and better serve our customers. And the people who we thought would reject the process actually embraced it. Our goal is to blend the Silver Bullet process into our culture.”

—Jim Roe, President, Arlington/Roe & Co.

“The Barticks have captured the common sense of selling in a way that will benefit both novices and seasoned pros. I will be implementing their six steps daily, and reviewing this book often.”

—Stephen Shaner, Manager, HealthPartners Regional Technology Center, Speaker with Attitude

“G.A. and Paul have created a structured and easy-to-follow relationship-building process that can enhance the bottom line of any organization. Whether you’re a trainee or seasoned veteran, implementing these techniques into your practice can boost your performance to new heights.”

—Milford L. Stern, President and CEO, M.L. Stern & Co., LLC

“The Silver Bullet process has given me the ammunition I need to bring in new business and grow my accounts. It works whether I’m handling the simplest settlement or the most complicated multiproperty real estate transaction. Apply it daily and watch your business grow!”

—T. Scott Jackson, Account Executive, First American Title

Copyright © 2009 by OutSell Consulting, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. Published simultaneously in Canada.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone], or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and authors have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor authors shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

For general information on our other products and services or for technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at [phone], outside the United States at [phone] or fax [phone].

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. For more information about Wiley products, visit our web site at www.wiley.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:Bartick, G. A. Silver bullet selling : six critical steps to opening more relationships and closing more sales / G.A. Bartick, Paul Bartick. p. cm. Includes index.

eISBN : 978-0-470-45437-4

1. Selling. I. Bartick, Paul. II. Title. HF5438.25.B367 2008 658.85-dc22 2008028069.

To my loving and supportive wife, Kelly, and my three wonderful kids, Alicia, Carlyn, and Jack. Being able to come home to all of you makes my time on the road worthwhile.

—G.A.

This book is dedicated with love and laughter to my loving wife, Shelley, and children, Kate and Max. You nourish my soul. Let the fun begin anew.

—Paul

This book is also dedicated to our mother, Alyn, for her love and support and for being our biggest cheerleader and fan.

—G.A./Paul

Foreword

In early 1997, I called G.A. Bartick and asked him to help me with a sales training project we had sold. OutSell was a fledgling company, and we simply didn’t have a team big enough to deliver the hundreds of events we had scheduled. The reason I called G.A. was because he had tremendous enthusiasm, was eager to learn, and had the kind of personality that lit up a room. That was G.A.’s first introduction into the world of sales consulting and training, and he was an out-of-the-park success from day one.

G.A. claims he’s not a natural, and I’ll admit he had a lot to learn when it came to the nuts and bolts of selling and the processes that enable a successful sale to happen. This book gives you everything G.A. learned on his path to becoming one of the nation’s leading experts on sales excellence and what it takes to really make it in the competitive world of selling.

Silver Bullet Selling comes directly from the lessons that G.A. and all of us learned over the years as we studied both successful and unsuccessful sales and customer service organizations. Every day at OutSell, consultants interview and work with successful and not-so-successful salespeople, customer service people, sales managers, and sales executives. Spending all those hours with proven top performers is a powerful learning experience. This book shares the secrets and insights that OutSell has gathered on the road, in the trenches, face-to-face with real live breathing salespeople.

The selling ideas in this book come from this real world, not some academic laboratory. These ideas are not theories or a “marketing concept” to launch a new company. OutSell has been working with clients since 1996, and the book is a treasure trove of all the ideas that have been shared by committed and motivated professionals who want to succeed the right way, with integrity and honesty.

G.A. Bartick is the real deal, my friends. I have known him my entire life. There is no one in the world that I have found who has more integrity and is more honestly committed to the success of others. In this book, G.A. shares the powerful methods he has learned and taught to thousands and thousands of selling professionals all over the world for more than a decade. Anyone in sales who reads this book, applies these techniques, and is committed to excellence will achieve more than they ever thought possible in their sales career.

Michael St. LawrenceFounder, OutSell Consulting, Inc. Bestselling author of If You’re Not Out Selling,You’re Being Outsold

Acknowledgments

John F. Kennedy got it right: “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” As we finish the final keystrokes and bring this book to a close, we feel deep gratitude to the people in our lives who do double duty. Not only have they helped us develop this book, but more importantly, they are our role models and inspiration every day.

Our families: Kelly, Alicia, Carlyn and Jack; and Shelley, Max and Kate: You deserve special recognition because you are our rock.

Our brother David, mother Alyn, and father Gary: For the profound influence you’ve had on our lives and our thinking.

Our extended family, Blaze, Terry, Jackie, Donna, Jack, Sandra, Sharon, Howard, Tom, and Marty: For the support and guidance you continue to give us.

Even though it is G.A.’s voice you will hear throughout the book, understand that the content is a confluence of ideas and talents from a great OutSell team. We are deeply grateful to Michael St. Lawrence, the founder of OutSell and the one who saw the inner salesman that was hiding deep, deep inside G.A. We are also greatly indebted to members of the OutSell team, including Brian Lowery, Kent McDougall, Brian Quinn, Dennis Klemp, Jeff Kirschenmann, Mark Woodland, Chris Peterson, Susan Sullivan, Jack Litzelfelner, and Nate Brooks. These are the brave souls who have been out there with us on the front lines, collecting all of the best practices that went into the Silver Bullet process.

We have been blessed to work with some of the best in the publishing business. Martha Jewett, our literary agent, did much more than represent our book. She worked with us when the book was nothing more than an idea, and she advised us every step of the way. Richard Narramore, Senior Editor, and Tiffany Groglio, the Editorial Assistant at John Wiley & Sons, turned the text from a manuscript into a book we are very proud of. Darrell Smith, our designer and marketing consultant, works tirelessly on our behalf and created the killer cover design.

Thank you to the thousands of sales professionals who have allowed us to poke, prod, observe, and study them. And thank you to you, the readers of this book. We hope you find the Silver Bullet process to be your key to success, as so many others have.

To you, big brother Paul: I have, and always will, look up to you with great admiration and every day wish I could be more like you.

To you, G.A.: Even if you were not my brother, I would still choose you as my best friend.

Now that the writing is done, we realize that without these people supporting us, there would be no Silver Bullet Selling; it’s funny how it takes a community to write a book.

G.A. BartickPaul BartickSeptember 15, 2008

PART ONE

THIS IS SILVER BULLET SELLING

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.

$500 Sales Tip!

You don’t close a sale, you open a relationship

—G.A. Bartick

CHAPTER TWO

I’m a Salesman and This Is My Story

Throughout the book I am going to relate true stories that illustrate my points. It’s important that you understand my story because you need to know that, first and foremost, I am just like you. I am still out there picking up the phone, making cold calls, delivering sales presentations, getting objections, being told no over and over again, and I do all of this every day. I am not some snot-nosed California punk in a fancy custom suit taking in the action from my consultant’s luxury box. I’m there in the trenches. My face is covered with blood, dirt, and grime from the battlefield. OutSell is a small company and we are out there in the marketplace doing battle with the big boys—the McKinseys and AchieveGlobals of the world—who have much fatter budgets and more fancy technology and teams full of buttoned-down sales consultants—and we’re beating them.

Every day over the past 10 years I’ve been a living, breathing Silver Bullet Selling fanatic. To me, Silver Bullet Selling is code for creating a unique buying experience and building trusting relationships with my prospects and clients. I know the power of the process because I spent the first years of my sales career adrift in the sales wilderness without it.

I had no sales process.

I had no results. I had no clue. And in the end, I had no job.

That all changed when I committed to using a process and quit winging it.

What’s in this book is the ammunition I needed years ago. In Silver Bullet Selling I have taken the age-old consultative sales method, enhanced it, and put it into a clear, concise process that you can execute in the field on your very next sales call.

During my career I’ve sold tens of millions of dollars of consulting, conducted thousands of sales calls with top professionals in dozens of industries, and trained more than 30,000 sales professionals. (By the time you read this, the number will be a whole lot bigger.) When I train and coach sales professionals and executives on the Bullet Selling process, I hear all the lame excuses why it won’t work for them.

“My situation is different.”

“G.A., you just don’t understand my buyers.”

“You’ve never sold <insert your product here> before!”

They test drive the Bullet Selling process for a few days and they fizzle because they judge its effectiveness before they ever become competent using it. Those who stick with the program for a couple of weeks start to see their performance improve, and those brave souls who push themselves to work the process until it becomes habit (i.e., roughly four weeks) swear by it just like I do.

What’s in a Name?

Clients always ask me, “G.A. I need to know what to say to my prospects and clients so I can close more sales. I need to know what the silver bullet to sales is.” I used to respond, “There is no silver bullet to sales. There is no one-liner or clever phrase you can say to your prospects that will open the heavens and magically close the sale for you. It’s all about using a predictable and repeatable effective sales process.” After saying this hundreds of times, though, I finally wised up and realized that the six-step sales process I’ve been teaching is the silver bullet. It is a straightforward, easily executed, extremely effective process. That’s how it got its name ... the Silver Bullet Selling process. I call it Bullet Selling for short.

Changing Lives Six Steps at a Time

What’s in this book has changed careers and lives, including my own. Bullet Selling is the silver bullet to sales success. Six simple steps ... so easy to learn ... but let me be honest, it takes practice to become effective in its execution.

I’m not going to kid you; this stuff ain’t easy. Sales ain’t easy, and let’s be thankful because if it was easy, everyone would do it and we wouldn’t be paid as much. There is more money made in sales than in any other profession in the world. Another beautiful thing is that the Bullet Selling process will never be more difficult than it is today. As you study and practice Bullet Selling, it will become easier and you will become more successful.

If you’re in sales, then your skill is communication. Bullet Selling is going to teach you to become even more skilled at communicating with your buyers. It is how to differentiate yourself from the competition. If you are not the low-cost leader, Bullet Selling shows you how to build value in the minds of your buyers. If you’re going to be great in sales, you have to be a great communicator. Just as athletes, singers, and musicians must practice their skills, we salespeople must practice ours. Think of Bullet Selling as your sheet music to great sales.

I use, teach, and coach Bullet Selling as do the other consultants in our firm. I know the process works because I see it working every day with our clients. In fact, our work carries a 100% no-questions-asked, money-back guarantee (I guess I got that from my days at Nordstrom). Of the many thousands of standing-ovation performances we’ve delivered over the years, a client has exercised the guarantee only once and it wasn’t because we didn’t deliver results. (To read about this one occurrence, go to silverbulletselling.com.)

Knowing what to do and how to do it is not the same as effectively executing what needs to be done. This book will help you become effective at executing the skills of Bullet Selling. Do not, even for a second, confuse effort with results. Being successful is going to take effort, patience, and hard work. Reading Silver Bullet Selling is a good start, but it’s not enough. You’re going to have to take the skills you learn and apply them, practice them, and use them until they become part of your selling DNA.

CHAPTER THREE

Why You’ve Got to Read This Book

Bullet Selling is consultative selling at its best and then some. It refers to an interactive sales process that focuses on the buyer’s needs rather than the sales professional’s inventory.

The Six-Step Silver Bullet Selling Process

Bullet Selling requires you to work with the buyer toward a mutually beneficial solution, and it includes these six steps:

Step 1. Pre-Call Planning—Prepares you for a successful sales call.

Step 2. Building Rapport—Builds credibility and develops your relationship with the buyer.

Step 3. Discovery—Identifies the buyer’s current situation, desired situation, expectations, and logical and emotional needs through a nonthreatening questioning model.

Step 4. Tailored Solution—Helps you design a customized solution or offer that bridges the buyer’s current situation to his desired situation.

Step 5. Addressing Concerns—Handles buyer’s concerns effectively so we can move the sale to a close.

Step 6. Closing the Sale—Asking for the order, recapping the transaction, and managing buyer expectations.

$500 Sales Tip!

Don’t judge the Bullet Selling process, or any process for that matter, until you have used it in the field for 30 days.

—G.A. Bartick

There are already several brilliant books that describe the consultative sales process in detail, including Mack Hanan’s classic Consultative Selling and Neil Rackham’s Spin Selling. While these books are long on theory, they come up short on application. In other words, after reading one of these books, you’ll definitely understand what consultative selling is, but you’ll have no idea how to implement it in your daily sales activities. That’s where Silver Bullet Selling comes in. We take the theory and show you how to apply it every day no matter what you are selling. Think of this book as a practical how-to guide that will put the Bullet Selling process to work for you on your very next sales call. This book is for you if you want to:

• Develop deeper, more loyal relationships with your buyers

• Make more sales

• Build your book of business

• Have more fun

• Earn more recognition

• Be promoted

• Win sales awards

• Increase your income

This book is for you no matter what you are selling, whether your sales cycle is 15 minutes or 15 months. Silver Bullet Selling is for sales professionals everywhere. It’s for inside sales associates, outside sales reps, financial advisors, television producers, telemarketers, real estate agents, insurance agents, bankers, brokers, attorneys, product developers, medical sales reps, and anyone else who sells products, services, or ideas for a living. No matter what your business, it all begins with the interactions you have with your buyers and the way you communicate with them. Becoming an expert at Bullet Selling will allow you to maximize your impact and supercharge your success.

Who Wrote This Book Anyway?

We know sales. Every day of every week, OutSell consultants are criss-crossing the globe meeting, training, and coaching sales professionals. We have to convince VPs of sales, national sales managers, and boards of directors that they need to hire some buttoned-down, suited-up consultants to show them how to run their business even more effectively and to increase sales. And guess what? They say yes “Yes!” with enthusiasm. Why? Because we use the exact same proven sales process that we teach, Bullet Selling. And we deliver results and a huge return on investment for our clients.

By the time this book is published, we’ll have taught the Bullet Selling process to more than 150,000 sales professionals. Through this constant exposure to sales professionals and sales organizations, we have continued to develop and refine the process so it is practical and easy to apply to real-life sales calls. This is not just fluff or filler.

Many good consultative/relationship-building sales models have been developed by some very good training companies (many of which are our competitors). Many of the key fundamentals we all talk about are similar, but as you’ll see, what makes Bullet Selling unique is how we help you execute it on your very next sales call.

The six steps of the Bullet Selling process are the fundamentals of great sales, and the silver bullet is the execution. When you have a proven process that you can learn and immediately apply to what you do every day, you have a winning combination.

Every time we begin working with a new client, the first step of the project involves what we call “top producer discovery.” We interview and observe their top-performing sales professionals and sales managers in the field to find out what they do that everyone else should be doing to create great results. We look at their skills, abilities, behaviors, activities, habits, and what they say and how they say it. Then we document it all and teach it to the rest of the organization; if more people are doing what top performers are doing, results will improve. It’s really not rocket science, and it really works. This continuous exposure to the best and the brightest keeps us abreast of what creates top performance in sales. We are going to share these insights with you so that you too can learn to sell the way the most successful sales professionals sell.

Although this book taps into the collective wisdom, experience, and talent of our entire OutSell team, to make it easier on the reader, it will be told through my voice, G.A. Bartick, President of OutSell. Frequently we get together, brainstorm and organize everything we’ve learned through all of our practical in-the-field experience. We share stories of success and many of failure. Through this collaborative process we have distilled the sales process fundamentals into a complete how-to guide.

Our Research

We have over 36,000 pages of notes from interviews, interactions, and observations of more than 6,000 top-performing sales professionals and managers. Included in these pages are notes from interviews and observations of what some really poor sales professionals do. That’s a lot of research. Think of 11 filing cabinets stuffed full with dog-eared, tattered notes from interviews and observations with sales professionals from dozens of industries including insurance, real estate, retail, banking, utilities, consumer durables, financial services, and telecommunications. This research is the gold we mine to develop our ideas and opinions. In fact, these 36,000 pages are the evidence we used to build the Bullet Selling process. I refer to this research throughout the book because I want to give you insights and tools that have been proven in the battlefield of real-world sales.

A Quick Note on Terminology

We’ve read many sales books and taken sales courses by some of the best in the business. In an attempt to be “original” and “unique,” many of them developed different terms to describe the same concepts. Although they go to great lengths to describe the “huge” differences between “added value” and “value added,” for example, we see through it. You will find no newly coined terms here.

In addition, different industries call buyers by different names. For instance, a financial services sales professional might call a buyer a client or prospect, while a technology services sales professional might call a buyer a buyer. To clarify all of this jargon, here are the words we use in this book.

When I talk about people who sell, I call them “sales professionals.” When I talk about people who buy, I use “buyers.” When I talk about our interactive sales process, I use “Bullet Selling.” And when I refer to a sales professional or buyer or anyone else, I use the pronoun “he” rather than being politically correct and using “he/she.”

Why I Wrote This Book

I wrote this book because I have seen all the rubbish that goes on out there—all the missed opportunities, all the low-hanging fruit that withered on the vine, all the sales that were right there for the taking if only the sales professionals had these six easy steps to help them open the relationship and close the sale.

I’ve made the same mistakes they’ve made. Over the years, I’ve learned that people make some of these mistakes simply because no one has shown them a truly effective process for communicating and selling. I want to spare you that long walk of shame from your desk to the boss’s office to hear these painful words: “I’m sorry. It’s just not working out” because I’ve been there.

How to Get the Most Out of This Book

If you are reading this book, you probably fit into one of two categories. You are either:

1. Loving life. You’re selling a ton of your products, services, or ideas and making a lot of money doing it. You are a top producer for your company and in your industry, and you love your lifestyle. But you’re looking to fine-tune your game because you know a little improvement can lead to dramatic results. That’s why you’re always looking for ways to improve.

2. Not doing as well as you would like. You are not a top producer yet. You know there are things that need to change about the way you sell in order for your results to improve. You have some great months and some not-so-great months. You want to become more consistent with your results and ultimately be more successful.

The common denominator for both of these categories is the desire to improve. Silver Bullet Selling will help you no matter which category you’re in.

You are not going to read radically new ideas here because we simply haven’t found a lot of radically new ideas that produce the same results as the ideas in this book. Some of what we present is obvious common sense. However, just because you’ve heard a fundamental before doesn’t mean you’re applying and executing it effectively every day. Nearly every American knows that a low-fat, high-fiber diet will improve health. This is an obvious fundamental. However, fewer and fewer people (myself included) apply this to the way they eat every day. This is why best seller lists contain new diet books every month. People want to believe there is an easier way when, in fact, the only way was, is, and always will be based on applying and executing proven fundamentals. Sorry, you can’t pop a pill and become an effective sales professional.

It’s important to understand that I am talking about incremental improvements here, not about dramatic changes in what you do. Yet getting just a little bit better at executing the fundamentals can lead to huge improvement in results. Bullet Selling will help you become a little bit more effective. It may be the feather that tips the scales your way. It may be what makes your next buyer say yes to you instead of your competition. It may be the difference between sales awards or those words I know so well, “It’s just not working out.”

So if you’re ready, fasten your safety belt, put your seat and tray table in their full upright and locked positions, and take aim at the competition by turning the page and learning how to put Silver Bullet Selling to work for you!

CHAPTER FOUR

Why a Sales Process?

I