Don’t Read This Book. Study it.

March 25, 2007  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in Furniture Retailing on March 2007 On the advice of a friend, I bought this book last May and, I must admit, avoided reading it for nearly a year. I do not like books that are overly hyped or books that promise fast results and Jeffrey Gitomer€™s Little Red Book of Selling is guilty on both counts. As if this were not enough, the binding is bright red like a grade-school book and the cover is embossed with the self-serving claim, €œ12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness.€ And then for good measure, we get the curious line, €œHow to make sales FOREVER.€ How banal, how tacky, how dumb, I thought. Why waste my time with it?

I was wrong. Were it not for the discerning friend who first convinced me to buy it, and the second friend who urged me to read it, I would have missed a classic in the field of sales literature. Books on sales techniques are often loaded with clichés and full of the writer€™s ego. This book is full of insights and practical advice.

Let us acknowledge that selling is a tough task and selling big ticket goods like furniture is tougher still. Customers do not typically NEED furniture and they only seem to WANT it once in a great while. And it€™s oh so easy for them to postpone the purchase. If you are a retail floor salesperson, you have to overcome sticker shock, brand amnesia, negative spouses and general indifference more often than not. Then, when you finally write the order, you have to contend with factories that are more adept at losing orders than at filling them.

If you are a manufacturer€™s representative, you must contend with overstocked dealers, tight credit limits, idiosyncratic style opinions and endless competitors. Then, when you finally write that nice order you have worked on for months, it€™s cancelled before it€™s shipped. And those are just a few hurdles to leap.

Do not despair. The Little Red Book of Selling can make you a prosperous star. The author€™s lessons are good, really good. No wonder it has been on best seller lists forever. The book is loaded with fresh advice and practical tips, starting with Gitomer€™s Principles of Sales Greatness.



These are:

1Kick Your Own Tail. Be a winner, not a whiner. If you are in a slump, get fired up or get fired. Above all, don€™t quit.

2Prepare to Win or Lose to Someone Who Is. Do all you can to learn all you can about all your customers and all your prospects. Good salesmen do this instinctively. Gitomer spells out how to take it to a higher level.

3Personal Branding is Sales. It€™s Not Who You Know; It€™s Who Knows You. Think of yourself as a brand that needs to be positioned, protected and developed.

4It€™s All About Value; It€™s All About Relationship; It€™s Not All About Price.Give value. Don€™t €œadd€ value. Be a valuable resource to your customers and make friends. €œAll things being equal, people want to do business with their friends. All things being not so equal, people still want to do business with their friends.

5It€™s Not Work, It€™s Network. Don€™t make cold calls€”make connections and build referrals. Join clubs, attend events, make acquaintances and make friends.

6If You Can€™t Get in Front of the Real Decision Maker, You Suck. Here he urges you to €œsell the appointment, not the product.€ You can€™t make the sale unless you can get to the person who has the authority to sign the order.

7Engage Me and You Can Make Me Sell Myself. This section is brimming with wonderful tips like how to ask smart questions, because the right questions get to the heart of the matter without the buyer feeling pushed.

8If You Can Make Them Laugh, You Can Make Them Buy. Humor can be tricky to use, but you cannot deny the power of laughter to form a bond.

9Use Creativity to Differentiate and Dominate. People are not born with this skill; you have to learn it.

10Reduce Their Risk and You€™ll Convert Selling to Buying. Eliminate risks and your customer is much more likely to buy.

11When You Say it About Yourself, It€™s Bragging. When Someone Else Says it About You, It€™s Proof. Testimonials are the single most powerful method of making the sale.

12Antennas Up. Always be alert to what is going on.



This is a deceptive book. Like rich cuisine. The portions are small and easy to consume, but it is so filled with good ideas, it is difficult to digest quickly, much less summarize it in this space.

Don€™t make the mistake I made. Buy it and read it and study it and use it. You€™ll be glad you did. HFB