Sep 26 2007
PeopleSavvy For Sales Professionals
The JF Book Review
“PeopleSavvy For Sales Professionals” by Gregory Stebbins
At any one time, I typically have about twelve books on my study desk awaiting my attention: They either are “must reads” or are works I want to review, but unfortunately, reading time has been at a premium recently because of Sales Leadership Zone™.
However, I managed to find a small window because there was one book that was definitely on my “must read” list that I really wanted to get into and I am pleased I did.
Greg Stebbins is a name that I was familiar with and I always keep an eye out for his articles simply because they are informative, refreshing and concise; so when I discovered his book, I knew that it would be well written and I would learn a lot. That proved to be the case but it was even better than I had anticipated – much, much better
Greg is a rare breed of sales professional because he is also an academic - he earned an Ed. D. (Doctorate in Education degree) from Pepperdine University’s School of Education and Psychology over twenty years ago – and he has applied this hunger for knowledge to create a number of tried and tested resources for dramatically improving sales results.
His first selling “experience” came at the age of just six:
“When I was six years old, my parents enrolled me in a summer day camp. The camp was situated on over 20 acres of land and had only two water fountains. I asked my mother to buy me a small plastic canteen so that I could carry water around with me, because it seemed no matter where I was on the property, the walks to the water fountain were always long.
The first day, I had the canteen at camp the bigger kids started pestering me for water. I told them “Sure, a nickel a swallow”. They paid me the nickel and of course proceeded to drain the canteen and hand it back to me with a big smile. No worries, I would just fill the canteen up again and wait for the next customer.
The second day, I discovered “market positioning.” I figured if I stood halfway between the baseball field and the water fountain I would get lots of takers. I did and they paid me.
The third day, the camp counsellor confiscated my canteen. When my mother picked me up at the end of the day, the counsellor gave her the canteen and told her, “He cannot bring this canteen back with him. What he’s doing is bad and wrong”.
This seemingly innocuous event had a profound effect on young Stebbins, as he admits:
“As I grew, I got involved in more and more sales activities, ranging from going door-to-door selling tickets for Boy Scout fund-raisers, selling vitamins while in college, and entering into my first professional sales experience just before graduating from college.
With every successful sale, I felt great…and bad. I knew why I felt great. But why would I feel bad?”
It took him thirty years to uncover the full impact of his summer camp experience but once he had identified the real cause of his angst, he began what he calls “my quest” to not only better understand selling behaviour but also buying behaviour; This is because as he correctly identified, virtually every sales book ever written, is based on the experience of a salesperson and provides, as he suggests, a “one-dimensional” perspective. He says:
“I also discovered that in the last 40 years there has been much more written on how people buy and the process (es) they use. There has also been a wealth of information published that looks at things like trust, persuasion, influence, behaviour in sales situations, motivation, building customer relationships, etc. Yet most of this information was written for scholars and uses heavy, academic language. It wasn’t ever intended for or made really accessible to sales professionals. More importantly, much of this information, while academically validated, hasn’t been field-tested by real-world people who make a living by selling every day. You and I both know that there is a long distance between theory and practice”.
Greg has invested an enormous amount of time – years in fact – investigating and experimenting, to design proven systems that really do work and it took courage and perseverance:
“Some of what I developed I had to abandon because I couldn’t figure out how to teach others how to produce the same results I had accomplished. Probably the comment I heard most was that my new resources were simple, but not easy. They did take work to master. (Well, of course they did. If they were obvious, everyone would have discovered them and would have been using them! That’s what makes the difference between salespeople and sales professionals.)”
The end result? In his own words:
“So, it is with a voice of encouragement that I tell you that what you will take away from this book is not only assembled from the most current understanding of interpersonal psychology, but has also been tested where it counts the most – on the street. These are solid resources that work. The concepts are simple; the application takes work. However, I guarantee you, they work. My goal in sharing them with you is to help you, the sales professional, become more successful, more effective – in a word, more Peoplesavvy”.
If you only buy just one book on the art of selling professionally this year, make it this one. I cannot recommend it highly enough and I feel privileged that Greg and I have discovered each other and communicate often.
Sales Psychology Expert Gregory Stebbins has helped over 20,000 sales professionals become the point of differentiation while their competitors struggle with how to differentiate their product and service. In his book PeopleSavvy for Sales Professionals, he unveils for the first time his simple but groundbreaking plan to win your customers’ trust and business forever. Get your free sneak preview at
http://www.peoplesavvy.com/
Today’s News: My good buddies Clayton Shold and Wendy Weiss are in conversation over at Salesopedia and I urge you to tune in to hear pearls of wisdom from “The Queen Of Cold Calling” - her majesty is in fine form!
Tomorrow: I reveal the secrets of self-motivation!
