University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
The Transparency Sale
Book

The Transparency Sale

How Unexpected Honesty and Understanding the Buying Brain Can Transform Your Results

Todd Caponi
Ideapress, 2018
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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Applicable
  • Well Structured
  • Inspiring

Recommendation

You learned as a child that honesty is the best policy. Sadly, that ethic often doesn’t survive in the rough-and-tumble business world. Many salespeople believe that telling the unvarnished truth will handicap their chances. Award-winning sales leader Todd Caponi says they’re dead wrong and offers the science to prove it. Drawing on research about decision making, he shows how candor creates a relationship of trust that smooths the way to successful sales transactions and ongoing connections. While the book aims squarely at B2B salespeople, it has value for anyone in sales.

Summary

Adapt your selling to fit the way buyers actually make decisions.

In today’s marketplace, most buyers come to a potential purchase well-informed about the product or service that interests them. They’ve read reviews and done their research. They are skeptical of perfection. They’re more likely to buy a product with a 4.3- to 4.5-star rating than one with five stars.

Salespeople must understand the science behind decision making if they hope to persuade buyers to make purchases.

Consider three basic truths about how human beings make decisions. First, people don’t like to feel influenced. The human brain prefers the status quo and resists change. The mind must work harder to consider options and choose something new. Successful salespeople make it easy and rewarding to overcome that resistance.

Second, people base their decisions on feelings and emotion and then find a logical rationale to explain their choices. They move toward situations they perceive as rewarding, and they avoid risk and discomfort. Most folks feel strongly about status, predictable outcomes, connection, fairness and personal control...

About the Author

Sales leader Todd Caponi spent four years building Chicago-based PowerReviews as its chief revenue officer. As founder and principal of Sales Melon LLC, he is now a keynote speaker, workshop leader and trainer. 

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