Secrets of Closing Sales: 6th Edition (Business Classics (Paperback Prentice Hall)) [Paperback]

Charles B. Roth (Author), Roy Alexander (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1997 | Series: Business Classics (Paperback Prentice Hall)

The sixth edition features the newest selling tactics and strategies, the latest products, and the new salesperson/customer relations. Among the newer methods covered are critical path selling...group selling and teleconferencing...strategic selling...consultative selling...conceptual selling...empathic selling...and key account selling.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Roy Alexander heads his own consulting firm in New York City and is particularly noted for his sales and communications consultations in energy-related fields.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Foreword: how secrets build revenues and profits

Why has Secrets of Closing Sales become required equipment for successful selling? Because it focuses on the close. Without the close there is no advancement and no reward. How soul-destroying to invest hours in prospecting, appointment setting, and customer research only to watch it all evaporate. Thus, constant adding of sophisticated ways to close sales is standard with top salesmen and saleswomen the world over.

This seventh edition of Secrets is organized so you can immediately access closing techniques when you need them. Closing Labs make you say: “I’ve got just that problem. I’ll put that secret in practice today!”

In this seventh edition you’ll approach selling as consultative and conversational, empathetic group persuasion, CEO to CEO, unorthodox closing, reverse closing, win-win sign-ups, sweet spot detection, and other ways to penetrate the buyer’s mind and then capitalize on that deeper knowledge of the buyer.

You’ll learn:

• How the decision to buy is first made in the mind of the salesperson.
• When to let others do the closing for you.
• How to craft the correct story for the right prospect.
• When to assume the no-minded customer doesn’t understand and how to rephrase on another track.
• When to use the shock treatment (don’t just stand there).
• How to close when you’ve forgotten your story and need to improvise (think Robin Williams).
• How to make people-savvy closes.
• How to handle “I’ll think it over” and “Gotta check with my man” and “I’ll mull it over.”
• How to use the Echo to block objections.
• How to flow with attitude shifts that lead to sign-ups.

Are you handling a difficult buyer? The Clam, the Chatterbox, the Money-Mad, the Contrarian, the On-the-Fencer, the Doubting Thomas? Make calls with close masters to learn:

• A famous saleswoman’s enduring secret.
• The Poker principle that profits. (H. L. Mencken said, “One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective, it is also vastly more intelligent.”)
• Sometimes audacity works; you can ask for a large order and get it. (In one case a closer failed to do this and almost lost a $4 million transaction!)

Armed with this new edition, you’ll be prepared with consistently tested strategies. In this era, photographing Mars is routine, bioengineering produces spare body parts, and information can be obtained several times faster than the speed of light. Salespeople must think anew and plan in a whole new world.
—Roy Alexander

Preface: push ’em uphill—today and tomorrow

Closing sales is without a doubt the great skill of all time. The process enables you to persuade and influence, and then walk away with the listener’s agreement. That’s why closing sales has been the measuring stick for personal and business success through the ages.

People do not buy products or services, however. They buy benefits from your products and services. This structure has pushed Secrets of Closing Sales into seven editions. Experts in this book are at your service.

Recall the sage who said, “It’s easier to go down a hill, but the rewards come from getting to the top.” In West Cornwall, Connecticut, I live on a historic hill called Push-’Em-Up. The name traces back to the War of 1812. Getting American cannons and ammo up Push-’Em-Up Hill was a job for American infantry. The hills gave Americans the advantage, but they had to push ’em up first. View life as hills to conquer.

No one thought about it at the time, but this hill was also the founder of America’s selling pioneer: the Yankee peddler. The transition from “push ’em up” to pushcart peddlers was a natural. Hardworking eighteenth- and nineteenth-century salesfolk sold everything from pots and pans to Lydia Pinkham’s Compound. Peddlers and their offspring forged a new selling class. These pioneering salesfolk helped civilize the nation by bringing the latest products to small villages and by supporting the growing economy. From pushcart peddlers to present day we’ve come a long way in selling. The pioneers established techniques no less valid in our new millennium, driven by cyberspace and the global marketplace. The age-old techniques remain: finding buyers to sit down with, interviewing them to learn their anxieties and wishes, presenting solutions, overcoming objections, and making sure the service and support are constant.

Today’s new century presents both threats and opportunities. The rate of change is accelerating at dizzying speed. Whether you’re introducing a new product or selling a million- dollar work of art or a home piano, this seventh edition of Secrets of Closing Sales is your step-by-step guide. Hundreds of case histories are included. Closing Labs give you actual conversational vignettes.

The book features quantum changes in society—the global economy, the ever-escalating influence of women, the breathtaking developments in communications from Internet to intranet, website to wireless. Today’s sales closing is more important than ever, but the salesperson must be psychologically prepared, more nimble and flexible.

The pushcart peddler is history. We owe him much. Whether offering the services of a small company or selling global consumer products, Secrets will help close that sale.

—James A. Newman, Vice Chairman, Emeritus Booz Allen, Hamilton

one
If You Can’t Close, You Can’t Sell

Ever wonder how the upper 20 percent of salespeople close 80 percent of the sales? After all, they’re selling the same product or service as the lower 80 percent. They close sales by using one or more of the classic keys proved effective in millions of selling situations.

Knowing when and how to use these keys, that’s the art that separates the upper 20 percent from the thundering herd. These classic closers are available to all salespeople. Fortunately, applying these classic keys is a science you can learn. To join this elite closing group, start by getting the right mental set.

As her first postcollege job, Chiffon Lanier took an entry-level post in accounting with a software manufacturer. One of the first midmonth salesperson payroll checks she processed was for $7,200.

Curious, she asked her supervisor: “The man getting this check—what does he do for the company?”

“He’s our top salesperson.”

“Does he get this big a check twice a month?”

“Well, not every time. But you’d be surprised at the checks he does get. It’d knock your socks off.”

“It already has,” replied Chiffon. “What are the chances of my transferring to the sales department?”

The supervisor was sympathetic though not overencouraging. But if Chiffon wanted to cut off her secure paycheck and work largely on commission, it could probably be arranged. After two weeks of backing and filling, she arranged a transfer to the sales training program.

The first thing Chiffon did was buttonhole the big earner to ask exactly how he did it.

“It is very easy,” the successful salesman said. “All you have to do is circulate, see the people, tell your story, be pleasant—and always be in there trying to close the sale.”

Today, Chiffon Lanier is one of the nation’s most successful software sellers. In fact, her leading competitor’s representative quit and went into another field. She literally drove him out of business. Chiffon Lanier is not a miracle. She mastered the most important phase of salesmanship: closing. Learn how to close and the world is yours.

Base Your Entire Approach on Closing

You may wonder how a young person, selling an intricate and sophisticated product, could achieve such a record. It happens in other fields, too.

Suppose a salesperson, tired of his retail job, tried a few different slots for size and finally decided on a really tough field: selling home study courses.

Suppose in just a few years he did so well that he became the top earner in his division, then in the nation. Suppose he closed five sales out of every six. That person has something that every other salesperson needs, don’t you think?

There is such a closer: Robert Paceman. For years he has been either first or second in his selling category. He’s one of the greatest closers of all time. Closing—his not-so-secret weapon—is what he lives for. He sees no sense in making a call without getting the order.

“That’s why I’m there,” he says.

So Paceman bases his entire approach on closing, closing, closing. The only time he fails— one time in six, remember—is when the prospect turns out not to be a prospect in the first place.

“Give me a person who qualifies as a real prospect, and I’ll sign him or her,” says this ingratiating closer.

He will, too, for if you can’t close, you can’t sell! Closing is just that last step in your presentation, but it must be paved with effective groundwork. You must earn the right to ask for the order! But then you must ask!

Let’s say you’re swimming across Lake Michigan. Even though you make a heroic effort, you fail ten feet from the dock. Well, you’ve failed indeed (glug, glug, glug). It’s that way with closing. The close is everything.

Closing is the pinnacle of selling achievement. Here is where your time, money, and effort pay off or go down the drain. Effective closing makes the critical difference. Learn from the top producers who do. close. Most truths are simple. Most sales are closed with a simple key. It’s a science you can learn.

In using these classic closers, the real secret is learning how they’re applied. It’s like word choice. After all, the same words are available to the best-selling novelist and the postcard- scribbling vacationer. The way they employ these words makes a world of difference!

Oscar Wilde said it this way: “A cynic is a person who knows the price of everyt... --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 275 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall Press; 6 edition (September 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0136715125
• ISBN-13: 978-0136715122
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.1 x 8.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #872,015 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is the real meat and potatoes of closing sales., September 29, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Secrets of Closing Sales: 6th Edition (Business Classics (Paperback Prentice Hall)) (Paperback)

I first read this book when I checked it out of the library, and it was so good, I had to buy a copy for myself.. No kidding, I read a lot and every other book I have read doesn't hold a candle to this one. One of the best I have read in my life. This book doesn't tell you what to wear, or to shine your shoes (which if you call yourself a sales person you should already be doing). It gets right to what matters most, CLOSING SALES. Many different options are offered, and I'm sure you'll find several that will work for you. Email me if you have read anything comparable. Thanks you.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Avoid This Book, July 9, 2009

By 

Scott Rhodes (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Secrets of Closing Sales: 6th Edition (Business Classics (Paperback Prentice Hall)) (Paperback)

I was so disappointed with this book. This is one of the classic sales books and I read it several times many years ago. This is NOT THAT BOOK!

The publishers in their wisdom decided to "update" it and brought in some other writer who changed the text, no doubt to make it more "relatable". But the new writer is frankly either no good, or just doesn't know sales as well as Charles Roth, the original author. It's been watered down and confused by the editor at Prentice Hall who just had to justify his paycheck by putting his/her spore on this by changing it, and ruining what was a great book.

If anyone knows where I can buy an old used copy before it was butchered like this, please let me know.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars No. No. No., March 13, 2009

By 

Real Reader (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Secrets of Closing Sales: 6th Edition (Business Classics (Paperback Prentice Hall)) (Paperback)

Charles Roth was one of the top sales authors and trainers in the world. His work is timeless and totally valid today.

This is a POOR attempt to trade on his name and material by "updating" it. A very poor attempt. Get the original by Charles Roth only. Compared to that, this one stinks.