Close Like the Pros [Paperback]

Steve Marx (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2007

The time pressures today on salespeople and clients are out of control. Sellers react in two ways that undermine their effectiveness.

In a misguided effort to save their prospects' time, salespeople take on more of the work, shoulder more of the burden themselves. And they turn proposals around with lightning speed, delivering the complete package on the second call.

That's handoff selling. The salesperson does all of her work first, hands off the proposal to the prospect as if it were a baton in a relay race, and then the prospect begins his work, the detailed consideration of this and other proposals.

That's not how the pros close! Author Steve Marx reveals how the most accomplished professionals actually do big deals and create long-lasting client relationships. They merge selling and buying into a single process--interactive selling. It's a process anyone can learn and any company can adopt.

Close Like The Pros is not another re-hash of sales basics--the basics in this book are the ones missing from every other book on the shelf.

Close Like the Pros :

* Is targeted at business-to-business salespeople who sell tailored solutions and seek long-term relationships--and to anyone who has a Big Idea to sell in the workplace.

* Weans salespeople from the dangerous fiction of the two-call close, which causes them to lose control, lose influence, and lose business.

* Gives salespeople the tools they need to activate the buying process as soon as the selling process begins--and to keep the selling process alive until the decision is ready.

* Shows salespeople how to invest more time with prospects likely to buy and less with those who aren't.

* Changes the language of selling, introducing the reader to real-life practices including half-baked ideas, homework assignments, molehill decisions, trial balloons, and more.

With interactive selling, the prospect helps improve the proposal, and the proposal helps improve the prospect! It's 21st century high-engagement selling and buying.

For more information and a free download of Chapter 1--and to take a free self-assessment of whether you're already an interactive salesperson--visit InteractiveSelling.com.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This book is long overdue! Anyone can add these interactive selling practices and truly start closing like the pros...Ýwhich will lead to more highly engaged clients, bigger deals, and repeat business." -- Dr. Tony Alessandra --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Steve Marx founded the Center for Sales Strategy (CSS) in 1983 and has built it into the electronic media's preeminent sales and management consulting and training organization worldwide. CSS client firms--including Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, and Media General--outperform their respective market benchmarks and achieve sales revenues that make most of them market leaders by a wide margin. Marx coauthored the top-selling title in the history of the National Association of Broadcasters' Publications Department: Radio Advertising's Missing Ingredient!: The Optimum Effective Scheduling System, which was originally published in 1990 and went into a second edition and four printings. Marx and his wife live in Tampa, Florida. They have two grown children.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Career Press (April 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 156414934X
• ISBN-13: 978-1564149343
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #806,947 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Steve Marx founded the Center for Sales Strategy (CSS) in 1983 and has built it into the electronic media's preeminent sales and management consulting and training organization worldwide. CSS client firms--including Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, and Media General--outperform their respective market benchmarks and achieve sales revenues that make most of them market leaders by a wide margin. He co-authored the top-selling title in the history of the National Association of Broadcasters' Publications Department: Radio Advertising's Missing Ingredient: The Optimum Effective Scheduling System, which was originally published in 1990 and went into a second edition and four printings. Marx and his wife live in Tampa, Florida. They have two grown children.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a salesman's/manager's must buy book, July 2, 2008

By 

Reg Nordman "(K)nights on the Road" (Vancouver, BC Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Close Like the Pros (Paperback)

If you are a seasoned sales person/manager who knows the pain of too many Nos or no answer proposals, this is your book. This is a fitting up to date replacement for the New Solution Selling. Marx has been there, dione that and got all the T-shirts,. It is a pure sales book which happily ignores completely the need for nurturing etc. But for pure in the trenches, gut feel selling this is the book. I took a while to read it as the title put me off. But boy was I was mistaken. Marx could have been listening in on many Rocket Builders consults wrto sales and the buyer's journey. He is so bang on. Some insights:

* The salesperson gains power by empowering the buyer.
* Selling is tough but so is buying today.
* Your prospects want to buy, why would you be invited.
* Contracting is essential to set and maintain buyer expectations.
* What is the buyer doing to move the sale forward?
* Use half baked/straw man ideas before you present the maximum idea
* Use progress reports to show how far you have come
* A critical path details where you are going.
* There is no correlation between a rapid turnaround of a proposal and a good sale. None.

This is a salesman's/manager's must buy book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Close Like The Pros" by Steve Marx, had an impact on me, August 20, 2007

By 

James McVay "Jim McVay VP McVay Media" (Cleveland, OH) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Close Like the Pros (Paperback)

I don't hide the fact that I go against the grain in my search to improve procedures and systems to super serve clients while strengthening a company's bottom line. In that quest, a book called, "Close Like The Pros" by Steve Marx, had an impact on me. It's the closest strategy that I have found to date that I totally agree with in terms of real and realistic sales. "Close Like The Pros" is not a sales style, but rather a sales strategy for sales professionals who already understand why and how you should focus on customer needs. The book explains that providing the focus, power, and direction for the sale are important points to make during the sale. Oftentimes, management forces their own sales style on other members of their team and loses focus of the common goals to fill the client's needs while generating revenue for your company.

5.0 out of 5 stars Close like the Pros, November 5, 2007

By 

Tom Pierce (New Bern, North Carolina) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Close Like the Pros (Paperback)

I can't speak for every industry but it's dead on for the media industry. When we look at the diminishing number of clients or prospects that have a solid respect for what we do, many of the answers (the little things) are in this book.