Customer Reviews

Close Like the Pros

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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.

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.

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.

It's clear that Steve Marx has a sales training company because he provides a useful resource for the employee-focused manager. Those who live by partnership creation realize that it takes a great deal of work to provide that training and teach that skill to others. As an effective tool for the sales staff you want to educate and inspire, "Close Like the Pros" tells it like it is with clear, easy-to-follow examples. The book also includes easy and precise "how-to's" and encourages the exploration of the sales process in steps that permit growth. For the sales person who welcomes the opportunity to become even better, and for the manager who would appreciate an effective format for addressing the subject with new life, "Close Like the Pros" sets the stage for discussion in an active and energetic manner. I don't think there's any doubt that interactive selling is effective - "Close Like the Pros" will boost your own enthusiasm and renew your skills, whether you manage a staff of sales individuals or sell directly yourself. I've heard it said that 90% of all jobs are sales in one way or another. This book benefits people in every field because the ability to interact, to sell our product, or ourselves, is part of life as we know it.

I was skeptical when I first picked up the book, because I have read a lot of business self-help books, and haven't really gained much from them. But I got the book from a friend who recommended it, so I picked it up and started reading. It was very easy to relate to--from both sides of the desk! I'm frequently a buyer and occasionally a seller. This books works on both levels.

As a buyer, I recently distributed an RFP to a group of architects to design a medical office building that we will develop for and lease to the local hospital. I was reading the book at the time. Some of the architects waited until the proposal deadline, then sent me a generic package describing their firms' background, who the team members would be, and similar projects they had worked on in the past. Others visited the development site, called me to ask questions about the project, and even wanted to meet with the hospital to understand how they would be using the building. At first I was frustrated. I thought, "Why don't these firms just send me a proposal, like I asked?" Then I realized that they were trying to be interactive sellers, and that I should embrace that approach by being an interactive buyer. The firm we ended up choosing did not submit the lowest bid nor the thickest proposal. It was the firm that spent time at the development site, met with us before submitting a proposal, and called constantly to refine their understanding of our needs. By the time we received their proposal, it was custom-tailored to reflect our conversations leading up to that point. Further, we had interacted with their team enough to know that we had chemistry and would be comfortable working with them.

As a seller, we are often seeking approval from the City for our development projects. We never ask them to "take action" (vote) until we know the project will be approved--precisely the strategy that Close Like the Pros is all about Just last week we received unanimous approval from the City Council for a one million square-foot, 13-acre development project in the middle of the City. The meeting and vote only lasted about 15 minutes. Everyone on the City Council was already familiar with our project, because we had spent the last two years meeting with them and incorporating their input. We held weekly meetings with the Redevelopment Agency to review and discuss the plans, proactively invited ourselves to make presentations to local community groups, and held public hearings to receive even more input from stakeholders. The development plan constantly evolved based on the input from these various constituents, and we ended up with a far better proposal than we ever could have come up with on our own. This is why some of the best real estate development projects result from "public-private partnerships." The process is interactive. Not every such proposal takes two years, of course, but when the deal is this big we expect to make that kind of investment.

Close Like the Pros is about as real-world as it gets. And the author gets it right. I recommend it not only to salespeople--but to buyers, too!

"Close Like The Pros: Replace Worn-Out Tactics With The Powerful Strategy Of Interactive Selling" by Steve Marx is a single volume instruction manual offering tested and effective sales techniques on concluding a deal with a client or customer. A career salesmen who has built his own business (The Center for Sales Strategy) into the media industry's preeminent sales and management consulting firm, Marx draws upon his impressive experience and considerable expertise to explain why becoming expert in closing a sale is an essential part of interactive selling and without this skill no company or salesman can hope to prosper in the competitive and often volatile marketplace regardless of the service or product they are merchandising. "Close Like A Pro" should be considered as mandatory reading for anyone engaged in salesman ship! Also very highly recommended are two new business management titles from Career Press: Ken Lloyd's "151 Quick Ideas To Recognize And Reward Employees" and Carrie Mason-Draffen's "151 Quick Ideas To Deal With Difficult People".

Read all the reviews about this book that you can find. You will find a lot of well thought out and carefully parsed comments. Here's my review: I have been using these techniques that Steve Marx taught me years ago and that he summarizes in this book. So what? Using them I have just secured the largest and most extensive consulting contract I have ever had. Want results? Don't just read this book. Use this book.

Harrison Greene
President
Unique Selling Systems, Inc.

Steve Marx's book is an inspiration for an increasingly interactive world and especially for the salespeople who close business to business transactions. His book helps the reader leverage many of the skills they may already have while introducing new ones. He avoids the old-line, hype, manipulate and out-wit the buyer techniques that are counter productive in the modern age.
He not only shows us how to help the prospect buy the first time, but how to make a customer a life long partner and partisan for our product.
Marx moves beyond so called relationship selling to partnership through exercises that involve and instruct us. Above all, Marx provides new meaning to working smarter, not harder. If you need more shelf space buy this book and you can get rid of most of the others on the subject.

This groundbreaking book helps sellers of all types understand and master new ways to engage, steward and partner with clients and customers. This book teaches the art of partnership and problem solving based sales. If every sales person worked this way finding and keeping customers would be a thing of the past.

THIS IS A MUST READ FOR ANYONE LOOKING TO GET AHEAD!!

Steve Marx has written THE book that should be required reading for salespeople who expect to excel in selling for their whole lives. The book illustrates the importance of how the relationship between salesperson and prospect should develop before, during and after the sale, to assure an ongoing mutually beneficial relationship for both parties. It clearly dispels the myth of the proverbial concept of "closing" a sale vs. developing the sale and the relationship. This book demonstrates how to make buyers and sellers partners - a sure "win-win" relationship for both.

Mitch Bentley
President
Pride-Mark Promotions, Inc.
Tampa, Florida