University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play
Book

Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play

Transforming the Buyer/Seller Relationship

Mahan Khalsa and Randy Illig
Portfolio, 2008
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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Applicable

Recommendation

FranklinCovey sales instructors Mahan Khalsa and Randy Illig offer a no-nonsense, emotionally intelligent approach to making selling easier, more professional and more fulfilling. Drawing on decades of experience in sales and sales training, they explain how to avoid the fundamental indignities of sales – countless cold calls and constant rejection – and replace them with a thoughtful, consultative methodology that helps salespeople, their companies and especially their clients. Khalsa and Illig contend that when salespeople forget about numbers and quotas and focus completely on client needs, good things follow for all. While this manual will most benefit business-to-business sellers of six- and seven-figure solutions, getAbstract recommends its counsel to salespeople, sales leaders and persuaders in all fields at all levels.

Summary

Think Differently About Sales

Salespeople face suspicion and rejection daily. Clients often ask them to answer a ton of questions, reveal proprietary information, and spend hours and money on proposals for projects that may never occur – or for which they’ve already selected a winner.

The dynamic between sales and clients has to change. As a salesperson, start this change by thinking differently about your job. You don’t sell: You consult. Focus your efforts on your customers’ success. Never force a sale to meet quotas or numbers. Involve customers in evaluating whether your offering meets their precise needs.

Mutual Self-Interest

Change the sales-purchasing dynamic by earnestly seeking mutual self-interest. Acknowledge the truth of five “key beliefs”:

  1. “Consultants and clients want the same thing” – Clients want solutions that address their issues or needs. Problems emerge when salespeople think they know a client’s problems or offer a ready solution. Clients don’t always know what they want and often can’t describe it. They block consultants’ access to the people who do know, or internal politics interfere or no ...

About the Authors

FranklinCovey sales trainer Mahan Khalsa helped Randy Illig boost sales when he was CEO of an IT consulting firm. Subsequently Illig joined Khalsa at FranklinCovey. Together, they teach and consult about sales performance for global Fortune 500 firms.

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