Customer Reviews

The Art of Closing the Sale: The Key to Making More Money Faster in the World of Professional Selling

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Brn Tracy's approach to selling may be a turn off to car salespeople and telemarketers, but is a breath of fresh air to all real salespeople.Tracy takes a consultative approach to selling. He teaches you how to ask questions, not merely read a script. He shows you how to build rapport and trust. And most importortly, he shows you how to create win/win situations with your clients.I also recommend Advanced Selling Strategies by Tracy and the unabridged audio tape program from Nightingale-Conant The Psychology of Selling and Advanced Selling Techniques.Your sales will soar and you will create happy customer relationships.

I have to laugh when I see non sales people reviewing a product like this one and bashing it. How can a non sales person possibly understand sales and sales psychology?

I used to work with a guy who I will refer to as Eugene. Eugene was articulate, intelligent, clean looking and talked the talk. He had sales experience, 25+ years worth or actually 1 year repeated 25 times. He had the gift of gab. Despised sales trainers like Brian Tracy and his paycheck showed it. He was a know it all who knew nothing. Could talk to a prospect for an hour and in most cases talked them right our of buying. He thought he was a sales pro but was an outright amateur. Eugene didn't last long at any sales job because he always thought he was "overqualified" for the job even though he usually came in last place on the sales board.

The negative reviews here remind me of Eugene. They sound articulate and intelligent. Use good vocabulary and try to impress you. One of Brian Tracy's key phrases is to "seek to express not impress." Eugene and the one star reviewers here can learn from that.

Also funny how the 1 star reviewers refer to this products as a book. It's a tape set! These reviewers didn't even check the item they were reviewing and I bet never listened to the tapes. How could they when they refer to it as a book?

This tape set is a good start. You will learn consultative techniques as well as closing techniques that work. If you are a fan of SPIN, you may not like this program. Sorry to burst your bubble, but objections are part of the selling process as all real salespeople know.

And if you are a telemarketer following robotic techniques, you will be lost here. Ditto for used car and hard sell types.

After you listen to this tape set, I recommend that you read The Psychology of Selling and Advanced Selling Techniques by Tracy.

There are many books on selling and many self styled experts. Few are real sales champions and fewer still can train and teach
sales skills and empower sales people top become extraordinary sales champions. Brian Tracy can.

Tracy encapsulates consultative type selling with closing techniques that really work. I highly recommend this tape set as a primer and for the real meat, study Brians book by the same name as well as Advanced Selling Strategies.

Some people talk the talk and that is all. Tracy can talk the talk and walk the walk. He has sat on both sides of the desk, has had an extraordinary selling career and is a builder of sales champions.

Nobody packs more detailed and accurate information than Brian Tracy. Brian Tracy takes the best sales methods, little known insider secrets and reveals them to the rest of us. Look at the super salesman that Brian is. And I more than tripled my sales while creating happier clients who give me tons of referrals since following Brians techniques.

They work.

It is very difficult to find audio books that translate well into the pharmaceutical sales arena. These audio books do just that. The 2 CD's are in my car and have been constantly playing over the past 6 months. The concepts in these CDs are the best that I have come across so far.

My casette tape case says "revised for the 90's" and this program is. You will hear some of the old and some of the new. Tracy is a master at consultative type selling and at the same time recommend time tested closing techniques that have been working for decades.

Of course only real salespeople would know this. I also recommend the complete album from Nightingale-Conant by the same name by Brian Tracy.

The psychology of selling isn't just for salesmen. Anyone who uses persuasion in any situation will benefit from the skills, theoretical principles and techniques provided here. Brian Tracy's refreshingly non-patronising approach is both thorough and easy to understand. The author's experience shines through to deliver sound understanding and boosts the listener's confidence at every turn.

Like all of Brian Tracy's work this excellent programme is littered with great ideas and insights into areas such as motivating customers, overcoming objections and closing an agreement. A wonderful guide to the mysteries of truly effective communication and persuasion which not only equips the reader with the skills of selling and persuasion/negotiation but also makes it simple to spot techniques when others try to use them against us.

An excellent resource for beginners and 'old hands' alike.

Selling is so much more than fast talking and the gift of gab. To truly selling, you need to understand the mental game: of yourself, the buyer, and the prospect. Brian delves into all aspects to produce a program that is rock solid. The Psychology of Selling covers all the basis from prospecting to closing to overcoming objections. Adhering to the sales philosophy of kiss (keep it simple silly), this is a quick listen for anyone looking to boost their sales.

Todd Natenberg, Author of the book, "I just got a job in sales. Now what?" A Playbook for Skyrocketing Your Commissions

Brian Tracy is down-to-earth, and he truly understands the way people think. His advice is clearly stated, and he gives logical reasons why his methods are effective. This is a cassette that no salesperson should be without.

This product isn't really based on psychology, it's based on anecdotes and sales lore. If that's what you're looking for, fine, you've found your source. When psychology is invoked, it's primarily 1950s-era behaviorism or turn-of-the-century Freudianism (both of which have been seriously discredited by modern psychology).

Tracy blithely refers to the "subconscious" in contradictory and erroneous ways throughout his presentation. One of my favorites is "The psychological needs are the deepest of the subconscious needs." (Come again?) Sometimes the psychology is pure pop: "How we feel about ourselves comes off in electromagnetic waves." (New Age wisdom?) This is not to say that Tracy doesn't have some interesting sales stories, he does; (many strike me as improbable) but as often as not he draws conclusions from them that are at odds with current psychological thinking.

Tracy advocates several well-known but highly manipulative sales techniques that are widely recognized and despised by customers. For example, one recommended close setup (paraphrased) goes: "I'm not going to try to sell you anything right now, I just want to show you why so many other people like this product. All I ask is that you consider it openly and honestly, and when we're done, tell me if you think this is applicable to you. OK?" When the sales presentation is over, and the salesperson makes the pitch (that he promised he wouldn't make a few minutes earlier), if the customer resists by not committing immediately, the salesperson is advised to say: "Well, you promised me you would tell me if this applies to your situation or not, and based on what you've said it seems to me that it does..." That's a lot of doubletalk, deception, and manipulation to load into two sentences, and rare would be the customer who wouldn't recognize and resent this sort of a verbal trap. How Tracy can talk about these types of manipulative techniques on the one hand, and the need for honesty and long-term relationships on the other, confuses me utterly.

Equally disturbing is the lack of support for the lists and factoids that Tracy offers, such as his "5 personality types" (you won't find them espoused by any modern personologist who studies personality) the "fact" that we like people seated to our left but not to our right, and the "fact" that saleswomen shouldn't smile during the first 10 minutes of a sales presentation. Where is he getting this stuff? And where is he finding an audience that believes it? If there is any evidence for these odd assertions, Tracy should tell us--his credibility doesn't carry the day.

Regarding the presentation itself, Tracy employs some of his own recommendations, including the liberal use of tag questions (Know what I mean? Don't you agree? Am I right?) and speaks very rapidly--the quintessential fast-talking salesman. Ironically, here, Tracy is in complete agreement with modern persuasion psychology, which tells us that you increase persuasion if you speed up your rate of speech for presentations where your facts are weak. Why? It doesn't give people time to process your message deeply and discover its weaknesses.

BOTTOM LINE: if you're looking for a rehash of old sales lore, this is the ticket; if you are looking for psychological insights, then you need to skip this and fast forward a half century.

REBUTTAL to several trolls above: Contrary to your assertions, there are salespeople who like reviews that distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate tactics--discerning people tire of perpetual cheerleading. Several reviews that target mine make unsupported assumptions that (1) Tracy must be richer than me (who knows?), so I should shut up; (2), that I must not be a salesperson and so I should shut up; and (3) if I am a salesperson, I must not be successful (because, I guess, no successful salesperson could possibly argue with Tracy?) and so I should...you guessed it...shut up. So, when the emperor has no clothes, it appears a lot of people don't want to hear about it.