Lesson Twenty-Six: Jack’s Short Course on Selling

I’ve got a confession to make: This is lifted completely from a terrific presentation I attended by sales guru Jack Daly. For three shining hours, Jack dazzled, entertained, berated and, most importantly, taught, 300 or so business owners how to sell.

Jack’s short course on selling is this:

Ask questions and listen.

Most sales people are those type-A, action, mile-a-minute, gotta-be-heard types that talk more than listen. The image of ‘salesman’ is of that fast talker we all try to avoid. For him, every sale is about defeating the customer.

They are the worst kind of salespeople. The top sellers don’t tell a prospect anything, they do what Jack does, ask questions and listen.What those sales pros have found is that by listening to a prospect, you inevitably are told exactly what the prospect wants.Then all you have to do is give it to them.

Jack’s pretty smart. He knows that people like to buy, but they hate to be sold to. Listening lets the prospect buy.

He knows, too, that selling is a transfer of trust. When every sale is about beating the customer, there is no inherent trust. It is a short-term, low-conversion sales strategy. And a bad one. It costs 5–10 times more to land a new client than it does to sell to an existing one. By establishing trust at the start of a relationship, the ace salesperson yields a long-term client.

Long-term clients make for healthy businesses.


Principles of Persuassion by Shane Spark