Customer Reviews

Customer Centered Selling: Eight Steps to Success from the World's Best Sales Force

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Customer Centered Selling effectively captures the essence of truly successful selling. Rob Jolles teaches the importance of focusing on the customer and the customer's needs rather than on the features of your product or service. I had the opportunity to work with Rob Jolles at The Xerox Document University in Leesburg, Virginia. This book contains many of the finer points of sales professionalism that he teaches in his sales training classes.

Have you ever been to a sales seminar or read a book about sales, and thought that one great idea was worth the time and money invested? Customer Centered Selling is just one big great idea. Using the ideas presented will help you increase sales by focusing on what is important-where you and your customer are in the process and how to get to yes. As importantly as getting to yes, you will also learn an ethical system of selling that will help you help your customer. Great book. A few misspelled words, but I have a first edition. Hopefully they will be caught in time for the second ed.

Tired of books on selling that rehash ancient sales techniques wraped up in new-age mush? Or just provide a pep talk made up of "I've been there before stories?" Well, CUSTOMER CENTERED SELLING will be like a breath of fresh air. Jolles's approach to the customers decision cycle ought to be posted on every sales professional's wall. Its simply the best book ever on the questioning techniques and overall approach to sales you'll ever read. And it's by a guy whose not only been there (the book says he the Senior Sales Training Consultant for Xerox Corporation) but he can write too! Read it. Apply it and sales success will be yours._

Clearly defines the steps to making a sale along with the understanding of how and when a customer makes a buying decision. People don't make a large purchase decision until they have a "problem". So if you are selling large ticket items and or programs, then you better understand how to move the decision maker into the "problem" stage. I thought that the author's examples and situations outlined in the book were excellent and really drove home the points he was making. It is an easy read and thoroughly enjoyable!

I've rarely seen a more logical approach to selling. It leaves nothing to imagination, making every step in the process clear and explicit. It even expands on Rackham's SPIN sequence. If you're tired of guessing, this book's for you.

I have been teaching Rob's methods for close to 2 years at the Univ. of Houston. Rob is a genuine person and his methods work...period. Yet, you cannot just read this book and expect it all to sync the first day. You need to practice this....daily to have the impact required.

I read this bood in the Chinese translated version. It is very similar to the book "Solution Selling", afterall, both authors were trained by Xerox Corp. A bit technical in this presentation compared to Solution Selling. Both very eye-opening to the art of selling. Great book. If you want to master selling and be the top sales person in your firm, this is a book that can help you get there.

"Customer Centered Selling" by Robert Jolles is a good read for the person wanting to know more about sales. I really like the book's basic premise: start where the customer is what the true needs are and then figure out what product or service best fits that need. Some sales books I have read are nothing more than "rah-rah-rah" motivational hype that focuses more on getting the salesperson motivated instead of learning how to discern customers' needs and addressing them. While such books have their place, I am more interested in the practical "how to" of selling to meet customers' needs.

Jolles takes the reader through a comprehensive 8-step sales process:

1. Research Stage - ask questions to determine the customer's need.

2. Analysis Stage - determine how the customer's problem affects his business.

3. Confirmation Stage - be sure you truly understand the problem.

4. Requirement Stage - find out what the solution is.

5. Specification Stage - eliminate any misunderstandings you or the customer may have.

6. Solution Stage - present your product knowledge and how your product can address the problem.

7. Close Stage - get customer to commit to using your product.

8. Maintenance Stage - follow up with the customer to see how things are working. After all, they could be a customer again sometime in the future.

While the process is comprehensive, the steps would seem to be successful since the book's basic premise (focus on the customer needs instead of your product) is true and accurate. Customers will appreciate you more if you are considerate of them and their needs first.

Read, enjoy, and be challenged to think through the sales process.

Recommended.

I have taken a masters course in sales, and this was our text book. It is a very easy read, and, overall, makes the most sense. I have done sales in life insurance and would have loved to have this as our training model. I strongly recommend this book.

Little more than a rehash of Solution Selling from 1983 and a clear poor man's version of CustomerCentric Selling from 2003. You would be better served checking out the latest version of CustomerCentric Selling from Bosworth, Holland and Visgatis.(ISBN-10: 0071637087

ISBN-13: 978-0071637084)

I can't believe that the author did not reference CustomerCentric Selling for his work. The stages are very similar to the first version of CustomerCentric Selling, but the author is still using the old techniques of selling rather than the sales ready messaging endorsed by the American Marketing Association and the process that has changed selling organizations globally.