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Reviews of books on client development |
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Stop Telling, Start Selling: How to Use What Richardson calls dialogue selling is more commonly known as consultative selling. By dialogue, the author means “an equal exchange that the customer helps direct.” The premise is that “the salesperson’s role is that of a resource person, and the goal is to create a partnership in the process.” Actually, resource person is not a very articulate way to describe the salesperson’s role as developed in this book. It is rather that of a collaborator, serving on the same team as the customer, whose joint mission is to identify the best solution to a problem. As the seller, your job isn’t to prove how brilliant you are. It’s to listen, ask questions, ask deeper questions, and make sure you understand the need – the problem to be solved – before offering suggestions. Even then it’s best to let the client arrive at the ultimate solution and feel brilliant. Then you offer a number of alternative products or services for implementing the solution, and discuss their benefits and advantages, so that the client feels empowered to make the final selection. The client then considers you a trusted advisor, rather than a common salesperson. Contrast this approach with the monologue approach, where the seller responds with a solution (“product dumping”) before listening to the client’s whole story. The author provides help in formulating questions to identify client needs, discusses how to position your services against those of the competition (based on client needs), overcoming objections in a collaborative (not aggressive) style, closing the deal (knowing when and how to ask for the business, without appearing manipulative), and following through to insure customer satisfaction. This book offers superb advice and is very highly recommended, even though it is negligently edited, verbose, and repetitive. About
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NAVIGATION About the reviewer Contact information © 2004 Freedman
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