Let's Get Real or Let's Not Play: The Demise of Dysfunctional Selling and the Advent of Helping Clients Succeed [Paperback]

Mahan Khalsa (Author, Narrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 15, 1999

The new way to transform a sales culture with clarity, authenticity, and emotional intelligence.

Too often, the sales process is all about fear.

Customers are afraid that they will be talked into making a mistake; salespeople dread being unable to close the deal and make their quotas. No one is happy.

Mahan Khalsa and Randy Illig offer a better way. Salespeople, they argue, do best when they focus 100 percent on helping clients succeed. When customers are successful, both buyer and seller win. When they aren?t, both lose. It?s no longer sufficient to get clients to buy?a salesperson must also help the client reduce costs, increase revenues, and improve productivity, quality, and customer satisfaction.

This book shares the unique FranklinCovey Sales Performance Group methodology that will help readers:

? Start new business from scratch in a way both salespeople and clients can feel good about
? Ask hard questions in a soft way
? Close the deal by opening minds

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Stephen R. Covey Author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People This is a marvelous book! Mahan Khalsa masterfully puts the science and art of influence and sales on higher ground. -- Review --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Mahan Khalsa is the founder of the Sales Performance Group of FranklinCovey, and Randy Illig is a key leader of the group. The authors have consulted extensively with many Fortune 1000 companies, including Microsoft, Oracle, Accenture, Aon, Motorola, and GE Real Estate. FranklinCovey is based in Salt Lake City, Utah. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 242 pages
• Publisher: Franklin Covey; 1 edition (July 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1883219507
• ISBN-13: 978-1883219505
• Product Dimensions: 0.7 x 7.3 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (68 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #246,444 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book for selling large deals March 1, 2002

By "mpmcdonald"

Format:Paperback

There are literally thousands of books on selling and most leave you with the feeling that you need to shower after you have read them. This one does not. Lets get real has a reality about it and a discussion of a simple process that reenforces all the things you knew about selling. The book hits the right blend of anedotal stories -- so you can see how it would apply to you and discussion of the process elements -- so you can figure out how to apply it yourself. This is no Zig Ziglar book -- this is something I want to conciously try to use every time.

The book is very clearly written and highly usable, breaking each aspect of the approach into small digestable chunks. Its something you can read and more importantly re-read/refresh yourself easily.

There is one limitation of the book. It seems to be geared more toward longer multiple call sales cycles, rather than transaction selling. At least that is the way I read it. I could not see my local car dealer selling this way -- although I wish they would.

This book is one that is going into my frequently read shelf. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who is looking to build commercial relationship with a client.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This work teaches how to show VALUE measurably! March 10, 2003

By Anthony R. Crain

Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase

This work is available as both a book, a set of 6 CDs and apparently as a single CD. I have both the book and the 6 CD set.

I found the CDs to be absolutely fantastic. The book is a great reference after the CDs, but if I had read the book instead of the CDs, I would have lost out on a lot. When I read the book, it feels, well, typical. But when I listen to Mahan speak, it is riveting. I myself am considered a strong speaker, and am very critical of others abilities, so I do not say this lightly. The first CD is the hardest to listen to, but after that, it is GREAT.

The CDs taught me how to go from a problem statement or solution idea and quantify how we will show success against that once we implement our idea. Many of you may have a technique already that can take you from a problem to a set of measures that can show improvement, but I did not.

The funny thing is that I am not really into sales. Yet this book is one of my best tools in my kit. Not for sales, but for DEPLOYING solutions and managing complex projects. It's guidance is extremely useful in requirements management and scope management for any project imaginable. It helps the team show the customer we are interested in their success more than in their list of features, and to ensure that what we are building truly adds value. If you have ever experienced scope creep or requirements volatility, these CDs have techniques to help.

I strongly recommend this CD set to anyone who needs to prove the value of a solution, especially if they don't yet have a technique to do so.

As a final thought, here is a great story:

A client had one of the CDs in her car which she had bought on my recommendation. Her husband borrowed the car and the CD came on. He was confused, but immediately found himself sucked in due to Mahan's excellent speaking ability. He got to work with all these ideas in his head and went to a high powered meeting (for which he was the ranking executive). He apparently used the techniques he had just learned and was able to solve some serious problems and close a huge deal that they'd been struggling with for days. When he got home he said to his wife, "what is that CD in your car?" Needless to say, he listened to the whole set too.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A way to do "this" and not be sleazy, slick or cheesy August 12, 2001

By J. Zeaman

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

It wasn't until I read this book that I felt anything positive about being in "sales". I had done it in my past and I was about to do it again and thank god for this book or I'd still be uncomfortable and tossing and turning in my sleep.

We need a new word, "sales", as this book so aptly puts it, is something you do to someone else. You "sell" them on something. Nobody wants to be sold, we all avoid salespeople and we all feel stupid selling other people on something. And those who do enjoy "selling" someone are almost always in pursuit of their own "victory", oif beating the other person into buying from them, overcoming obstacles, leaping hurdles and getting the BIG CLOSE.

They aren't really focused on the other person, an urge I sometimes fall prey to myself. Our culture makes competition and personal victories very seductive, it is what we talk about, sports teams are rarely congratulated on their effort or fine play unless they win. We view so many things as black and white, which is not natural, throughout human history you can see cooperation as a dominant and prudent way to survive and thrive, not competition (see a dense, but brilliant book on this "Nonzero : The Logic of Human Destiny" by Robert Wright). Sales is a no-win game for everyone.

Maybe there isn't any word, the "trick", the "gimmick" that this book extols is genuiness, simply being real, if you will. You meet someone, you listen, you ask some good questions so that you understand them well and what they are trying to accomplish, if you think there might be a way that you or your company can help them you offer it to them, if not, you wish them well and part graciously.

What is that? Being human? Being real? "being real" has a vaguely cheesy sound to it too, my only complaint about this book is it's title which can turn people off before they even open it. Again maybe there is no word. Many of us will simply go out and meet people and listen well and feel good about what we are doing and be personally successful as well...or are those the same thing anyway :-)

The real value of this book is some excellent exercises you can do in a meeting with someone, things to really challenge you to break out of old patterns, very, very deeply ingrained patterns.