My latest read was Chet’s National Bestseller - The Ultimate Sales Machine.
Even though it was published in the 2000s, it comes with principles that are still relevant. I’m noting down 5 points that struck me while reading the book (Very briefly):
1) 3% Rule
Chet says that if you are in a room of 100 people and you ask how many of them are on the lookout to buy furniture, most probably 3 people will raise their hands. That’s the thumb rule of sales. 3% will be very hot audiences, 7% will be open to buying, 30% will be people who are not thinking about it.
2) Market data is more important than product data
While he was selling to a firm that sells to lawyers, in his presentation he visualised the following data.
From 1970 to 1990 (in twenty years time) there was an increase of about 350k lawyers in the market. But from 1990 to 1992, the number increased by 250k, in just 2 years time! He reasoned it by saying that the show “LA Law“ made law a very attractive profession.
This is market data that can prove the demand for the product can increase in the market and it’s something that can make the people who are watching the presentation go “wow“
Hence when you are presenting, it’s better to start with market data than product data.
3) Buyer Education
In this case, he tells two-story furniture stores. One driven by sales tactics and another driven by the strategy of customer education.
When a customer comes visiting the second store, even if the customer seems reluctant to buy anything at the moment, the sales staff were trained to talk about the store. “Oh, it is your first visit to the store? Let me tell you about the feature of the store“ and the salesman goes on to talk passionately about every single detail the store has in-offer to increase customer experience.
This makes the store the first priority in the customers’ mind when he thinks about buying furniture next time. Using this buyer education strategy, the store grew to multiple locations and the other store which ran on tactics remained as a single store.
4) Stand out from the crowd
This might not be very relevant for the current time but the thought behind it is amazing. One of his clients was setting up a stall in a business con, they choose a Hawaiian theme, which was then the talk of the conference - which in turn attracted the most number of footfalls among all other stalls.
5) Dream 100 Clients
Everyone who’s running a b2b organisation needs this. Choose your ideal client persona and go and find out the top 100 clients you want as your customers in the coming years. Create a plan like sending them gifts, cold calling them directly for a meeting and immense follow-up calls to start talks with them.
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