Summary: Exceptional Selling

Review and Analysis of Thull's Book

BusinessNews Publishing

• Publisher: Must Read Summaries
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9782806242648
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Sales
• Index: Business

The must-read summary of Jeff Thull's book: `Exceptional Selling: How the Best Connect and Win in High Stakes Sales`.

This complete summary of the ideas from Jeff Thull's book `Exceptional Selling` shows that the days of using canned or memorised sales pitches to make complex sales are now well and truly gone. Instead, you need to be having genuine and authentic conversations with your customers. This summary shows that becoming a successful communicator lies at the very heart of success in making complex sales. This is more than being a good conversationalist – you need to engage in diagnostic discussions where the customer’s actual problems are discussed in detail, a unique rather than a simplistic solution is suggested and customers become anchored in the solution you are proposing. 

Added-value of this summary: 
• Save time 
• Understand key concepts 
• Increase your business knowledge

To learn more, read `Exceptional Selling` and discover valuable tips and tricks to become more successful in making complex sales. 

Summary of Exceptional Selling (Jeff Thull)

1. Break the common communication barriers

There are generally three barriers which stand between sales people and customers:

1. Errors in style – how sales people talk with their customers/
2. Errors in substance – what sales people choose to talk about.
3. Errors in mind-set – misunderstandings of the realities of value.

You can make great leaps in sales performance and set a great foundation for future success by eliminating these three barriers once and for all.

Barrier #1: Errors in style

It’s amazing how many sales people sabotage their own efforts by saying things like:

• “You’ve probably never thought of this, but…‥” implying the customer doesn’t think about their own line of business.
• “We save companies like yours millions of dollars in unnecessary costs by…‥” suggesting the prospective customer doesn’t know what they are doing.
• “Some of the more successful companies in your industry are already…‥” implying the customer isn’t in that category, despite what they may think.

“Dangling insults” like these can mean the customers are hearing criticisms of their competence rather than helpful suggestions. Furthermore, prospective customers have more than likely heard these comments so many times before from other sales people they will just naturally lean back in their chairs, cross their arms and think about something more interesting.

To have a rational and measured sales conversation, mutual respect is required. The prospective customer must believe the sales person actually has something of value to offer, but equally the sales person needs to acknowledge the customer knows more about their business and industry than them. Without that mutual respect, all you end up with is a canned presentation which commoditizes the solution you’re offering.

In previous eras of business, sales people were trained to be persuaders who made powerful presentations, overcame objections and closed the deals. That was successful in the past, but today that kind of approach usually puts people off buying. It all blurs into a bit of “blah, blah, blah” in the minds of prospective customers. Instead, the most effective way to sell today is more akin to the kind of conversation you would expect to have with your doctor. In those situations, you want:

• Clear advice based on facts rather than emotions.
• Someone who is confident about their ability to treat you.
• A certain level of professional detachment.
• Information which is balanced rather than biased.
• A calm atmosphere rather than one of stress and manipulation.
• A willingness to spend time thinking before diagnosing.
• Professionalism and courtesy rather than mere enthusiasm.

The differences between conventional sales thinking and this more diagnostic style of sales thinking are quite obvious:

Barrier #2: Errors in substance

Ever since the mid-1980s, it has become fashionable for sales people to talk about “value” with customers. That has resulted in value propositions becoming commoditized. The more everyone tries to talk about value, the more everyone sounds the same. To add to this problem, the concept of value has become buried in a whole range of generic cliches like “world-class”, “high quality” and “fast”.

Instead of talking about generic sounding value propositions, sales professionals focus on three specific items:

1. Sources of value – the elements of value embedded in your company’s products and services. These are the product or service attributes you most likely already talk about almost all the time.
2. Uses of value – how your customers will be able to actually use and benefit from the products or services being offered. Effective sales people always view value through the eyes of their customers and talk about this at length.
3. Absence of value – what you assume the customer can do for themselves even if they don’t buy your product or service. By understanding what an organization will be like if they don’t take advantage of your product or service, you’re in a position to provide a balanced perspective and information.

To rise above the majority of sales people, be very specific about this value triad. If you can avoid the cliches and deal wit...

Table of contents

• Title page
• Book Presentation
• Summary of Exceptional Selling (Jeff Thull)
• About the Summary Publisher
• Copyright