Heavy Hitter Selling: How Successful Salespeople Use Language and Intuition to Persuade Customers to Buy (Hardcover)

by Steve Martin (Author) "After hundreds of hours of intensive research and a rigorous product evaluation, the day had arrived for the customer to publicly announce which product the..." (more)
Key Phrases: catalog wiring, recessive catalog, technical specification language, Heavy Hitters, President Reagan, Ronald Reagan (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
What separates ordinary salespeople from Heavy Hitters?

The best salespeople are those "Heavy Hitters" who are able to use human nature, language, and intuition to build trusting relationships with customers and persuade them to buy. Based on his proven and effective sales program, author Steve Martin's Heavy Hitter Selling explains how you too can achieve and maintain that high level of sales success. Using real-world case studies, examples, and exercises, Martin provides the psychological, physical, and language-based tactics you need to turn yourself into a Heavy Hitter.

Inside, you'll find proven guidance and expert tips on:

• Understanding how people think and communicate
• Finding the right words at the right time
• Predicting a customer's behavior and influencing his thoughts
• Building customer rapport and understanding their motivations
• Persuading both the customer's rational mind and his emotional subconscious side

"Like other sales books published recently, this one stresses the importance of human behavior. But unlike the others, it puts an emphasis on language. Salespeople could well benefit by exploring scientific models of language. Practical exercises make the book useful for everyone."
—Harvard Business School Review

"This well-written, insightful book will give you ideas and strategies you can use to influence and persuade customers in any market."
—Brian Tracy, author, Million Dollar Habits

"Traditional selling focuses on product, price, and competition and misses the most important reason people buy-people and emotion. Heavy Hitter Selling offers a different perspective that is valuable in understanding how to win."
—Jay Fulcher, President and COO, Agile Software

"Heavy Hitter Selling is different-[a book that] will help you make lots of money."
—Gerald D. Cohen, CEO, Information Builders, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From the Back Cover
What separates ordinary salespeople from Heavy Hitters?

The best salespeople are those "Heavy Hitters" who are able to use human nature, language, and intuition to build trusting relationships with customers and persuade them to buy. Based on his proven and effective sales program, author Steve Martin's Heavy Hitter Selling explains how you too can achieve and maintain that high level of sales success. Using real-world case studies, examples, and exercises, Martin provides the psychological, physical, and language-based tactics you need to turn yourself into a Heavy Hitter. Inside, you'll find proven guidance and expert tips on:

• Understanding how people think and communicate
• Finding the right words at the right time
• Predicting a customer's behavior and influencing his thoughts
• Building customer rapport and understanding their motivations
• Persuading both the customer's rational mind and his emotional subconscious side

"Like other sales books published recently, this one stresses the importance of human behavior. But unlike the others, it puts an emphasis on language. Salespeople could well benefit by exploring scientific models of language. Practical exercises make the book useful for everyone."
—Harvard Business School Review

"This well-written, insightful book will give you ideas and strategies you can use to influence and persuade customers in any market."
—Brian Tracy, author, Million Dollar Habits

"Traditional selling focuses on product, price, and competition and misses the most important reason people buy—people and emotion. Heavy Hitter Selling offers a different perspective that is valuable in understanding how to win."
—Jay Fulcher, President and COO, Agile Software

"Heavy Hitter Selling is different—[a book that] will help you make lots of money."
—Gerald D. Cohen, CEO, Information Builders, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Sand Hill Publishing (January 15, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0972182217
• ISBN-13: 978-0972182218
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #788,079 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb for Complex Sales and Building Needed Relationships, October 20, 2004

By	Professor Donald Mitchell "Jesus Makes Me a P... (Boston) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

Steve Martin (no, not the comedian) has over twenty years of successful experience in large ticket software sales and sales training. Although his examples are drawn from his direct experience in that industry, those who sell IT systems, engineering services, IT outsourcing and other large ticket professional services will find his advice to be relevant.

Unlike many successful sales people, Mr. Martin draws on psychological theory in terms of how people communicate and receive information. His source is the fine work of Dr. Milton Erickson, one of the main inspirations for neuro-linguistic programming.

Where most books about complex sales (those where lots of people are involved and many stages) are good for spelling out what has to happen at each step, Heavy Hitter Selling extends beyond those observations to describe in detail what you need to say, how you need to say it and how you need to connect with those on your sales team, the customer's evaluation team and the ultimate decision influencers and decision makers. It was that extra element that makes this a unique book in my experience. I know of no NLP book that looks at complex, large ticket sales. So here, you can get both perspetives in one place.

That brings me to the book's main limitation. In some of the areas for describing how to interpret others' eye and body movements, Mr. Martin's conclusions differ from what I have seen described in other NLP books . . . and from the teachings I received during courses I took with Dr. Richard Bandler and Anthony Robbins in this area. I leave it to you to sort out, but I felt that the material in this book wasn't quite as good as what is available elsewhere on NLP and the subsequent enhancements that have been developed for selling. So if you don't know NLP, you should doublecheck the work here in other books and through your own experience.

To me the most brilliant part of this book is the description of how to identify and work with "coaches" at the potential customer's site who are willing to help you sell your product or service. That lesson is one that I have emphasized with everyone I have ever helped to learn how to sell consulting services. It is very difficult to succeed unless someone takes you by the hand who works for the customer company and helps you do things in the right way for that company. If you only read and apply that section, this book is a five star resource for you.

To test the overall effectiveness of the book, I took a developing client situation that I am working on and analyzed it using the perspectives in this book. I found that process to be very valuable. It made me realize an additional step I needed to take now, and gave me a more thorough understanding of how the relationship is developing with this potential client. I also realized that I had a much better chance of succeeding than I had originally thought, and I will now put a lot more emphasis on working with this potential client than I otherwise would have. My time from reading the book was well rewarded simply from these perspectives.

You can either make all of the mistakes yourself and learn the hard way . . . or you can learn from a master. I recommend the latter approach to enhancing your sales. Steve Martin can be that master for you if you work in areas of complex sales that I earlier described.

Look for the best opportunity, listen carefully, speak appropriately, and move in the ways that will open the way to understanding if you want to grasp selling success!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Going Beyond the Process Based Sales Manual, November 23, 2004

By	Jonny Tropic (Dove Canyon, CA USA) - See all my reviews

I found this book to be a breath of fresh air. After making a lifetime study of sales and sales management in the high tech industry, I have read most of the sales classics. What I find most interesting about this book is that rather than just breaking down the sales cycle into component parts, the focus is on interpreting human behavior and focusing on building winning relationships within the complex sales cycle.

Paint by numbers sales strategies and tactics worked fine in an exploding economy, but the need to bring a higher level of art and science to today's sales organization is mandatory for survival. I found many useful ideas inside this book that could immediately be put into practice. Ideas that yielded immediate results. And after all isn't that why we continue to buy and read books such as this?

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Harvard Business School Review of Heavy Hitter Selling, April 22, 2005

By	Heavy Hitter - See all my reviews

Like other marketing and sales books published recently, this one stresses the importance of human behavior. But unlike the others, it puts an emphasis on language.

The first section deals with the human nature of communication. It describes different layers of communication, including phonetics, content, purpose, and the way the mind uses and interprets language. "Heavy hitters," or successful salespeople, can structure their dialogue and create personal rapport with customers by borrowing ideas from neurolinguistics, the study of how the brain and the body work in conjunction with language.

The second section examines strategies for deciding which customers to target and which actions to take. The third section focuses on the power of persuasion, and touches on a deeper level of the meaning of language: the power of metaphor and language's ability to appeal to emotions rather than logic.

Though the author defines salesmanship principally as an art, he believes that art has a scientific element. Salespeople could well benefit by exploring scientific models of language. Practical exercises and a glossary make the book useful for everyone.