Silence. Now take three deep breaths and answer the following question: When you’ve finished this book and agree with most of what you’ve read and believe that I have told the truth and nothing but the truth, will you go to your next sales pitch a proud, confident, and wholeheartedly committed salesperson?
Now I would like you to answer another question: If I have convinced you that selling is a noble activity, will you stop selling yourself short to your client? Will you stop convincing yourself that selling to people is something immoral, sordid, or shady?
Will you stop claiming that you cannot sell yourself well?
If your answers are yes, then please read on.
Not to worry, nothing bad is going to happen to you. In reading this book, you’ve got everything to gain: Either you’re not convinced by my case, and you can rest easy in the knowledge that your sales method up until now has been more than adequate after all. Or I have convinced you to do things differently, and you will thereby benefit from an improved mindset in your profession and reap greater success in the future. Granted, reading will cost you time, but it will not cost you business, and it may make your business that much better.
This book is a proposal. You can do what Henry Ford or even my grandma used to do: Always consider each proposal carefully, because it just might be the proposal of a lifetime. I invite you to consider my proposal right now.
The Most Important Principle of Selling
Imagine a newly insured policyholder who shows the insurance salesperson to the door, closes it after him, and then scratches his head and suddenly doubts whether he should have put up more resistance when it came to including glass coverage in the home insurance policy and whether he may be a little over-insured now. In a case like this, an unwritten law has
been broken.
As a salesperson, there is one thing you should understand: You are not there to deprive the client of her money, nor are you there to look after her. You are not ripping her off, nor are you holding her hand. You’re not a con man, but you’re not on a customer support mission either. You are neither the IRS nor Mother Teresa.
So what is your job? You are there to offer a deal, a mutual agreement. As it is expressed in Latin, do ut des: I give so that you will give. The salesperson gives and takes; the client in turn takes and gives. Both parties must contribute to the deal; both are getting something out of it. It is an open, transparent, fair, and equitable activity, aimed at building a long-term, consolidated relationship. This ancient principle of mutuality not only is the legal basis for mutual agreements but also serves as the foundation for every social community that is intended to last more than half a day. It is known as the principle of reciprocity. You and I are shaking hands; we are striking a deal. And we are striking it in such a way that on our next meeting, we will be able to look each other in the eye. Anyone who does not understand this concept is a savage and is more thief than salesperson.
Swindling is not in your job description!
This is a serious matter. We’re talking about the basis of our culture. From our earliest years, most of us are taught to return every gesture of kindness, to conclude every deal with decency. “Did you say thank you? Come on, say it again—a little louder this time!” Outstanding obligations are a burden to most of us. To owe someone, to have shortchanged somebody, leaves us with a cold, unpleasant feeling, even if at times we get something out of it. It’s a matter of moral conscience. That’s how it is for me anyway. And probably for you too.
Today, politicians, managers, bankers, insurance salespeople, and other groups have to fight for their reputations. Why? Bad salesmanship! Social unrest is nearly always triggered between the privileged on one hand and those discriminated against on the other—or rather between those who in a transaction have come away with more than they deserve and those who get shortchanged. According to a recent poll, equality is the value most dear to Germans. Not “unity and justice and freedom,” as they sing in their national anthem, but equality. That’s rather incongruous for an individualist like me. In my view, however, this apparent imbalance is a result of poor transactions that are devoid of the principle of reciprocity.
Cheating is divisive. Selling unites. What brought families together as tribes and clans? Among other things, trade through the distribution of labor. I’ll go hunting while you tend the fire and collect berries. Fair transactions. What brought tribes together into communities? The traveling salesperson who sold flint and hides, and the market, in which supply and demand struck a balance. And what binds the nations of today’s world? The paid ads known as Google AdWords, which draw people from all over the world to my website, and all the other worldwide business deals that we make on a daily basis. Anyone who sells is uniting the world. Communicating. Bringing people together.
This guy Limbeck is nuts, you’re probably thinking. Isn’t he the one dubbed “The Porsche of Sales” by the press? Of course. And no, I am not nuts in the least—because whoever sells well not only is doing good but is also securing his success in the long run. Genuine success. Whoever does good will receive his just due. You can count on that.
This guy Limbeck is nuts.
I would rather visit a customer ten times and come back home at night able to look at myself in the mirror than visit that same customer once, rake in the cash, and not be able to look at him or myself with integrity.
So, my friends, if selling is really all that—giving, doing good, uniting the world, fairness, sustainability—if it is a noble deed and our sacred duty, then how do you dare go out there and claim that all you’re doing is consulting? Does your business card say key account manager? Consultant? Regional manager? Representative? Do you pretend that you’re coming for a cup of coffee and some small talk, because you are afraid of admitting what you really are? You are sales professionals. You should be proud of it.
A Question of Attitude
When a top salesperson makes a sale, she is forthright about it. Those things that contribute to the attitude of the best salespeople are focus, goal orientation, and resolve.
When you visit a client, what do you take on board? Your specialized knowledge; that goes without saying, since that is the foundation on which to build your case. Next, your sales documents and the information you’ve gathered about your client, from A for area to Z for Zinfandel, her favorite wine. A suit that represents you as a sales professional, to be taken seriously. We’ll come back to that later in more detail. What else? A positive outlook, naturally, and the justified hope of a sealed deal.
Wait a second.
What was that? The hope of a deal? It seems that Limbeck has just pulled a fast one. Hope? No, you don’t hope. You are determined. Hope is disappointment deferred. Let me be very clear about this: Hope is disappointment deferred.
Hope is disappointment deferred.
The kind of optimism that you take with you to the client is a joyful resolve. A focus on selling, on results, and on closing the deal. If you are convinced that it is a good thing for the client to purchase from you, then you will do everything in your power to joyfully close that deal.
Joy is precisely what you need to exude.
When I see the typical sales team before my training session has been conducted, what I see is a drove of walking corpses. A funereal mood. Blank stares. Diffident body language. Hushed voices. Seldom do I see fun.
Unbelievable as it may sound, a customer once said that I was the St. Paul of salespeople, meaning that my joy springs from my earnestness. From me you will never hear those dour and whiny mutterings that we hear from too many others these days. Nor will you hear the feeble stammering heard too often in sales presentations. I’m dead serious about salesmanship. Selling is not a playground to me; it is the solid foundation of my existence. Selling is my life, and I have dedicated my life to it. That is why I am as hard as granite when it comes to selling. Everyone takes me seriously. From this earnestness I derive endless joy. This joy simply means that I have a lot of fun doing it. Selling is not cool, calculated, and mechanical but highly charged and passionate.
I ask you to compare this with your own attitude. Go ahead and be honest with yourself.
I can assure you that I was not born a sales professional. A born salesperson? There’s no such thing! Just as there are no born street sweepers, tax collectors, or professional athletes. All nonsense. Just like everyone else, I sought out this meaning and purpose and made it my own. Anybody who wants a passionate attitude toward their vocation must simply decide to adopt one.
Unfortunately, most sales presentations perpetuate the notion of selling as personal injury. Dull technical mumbo-jumbo, reeling off memorized catch phrases, a craven kowtowing to the client as king—none of that has any place in salesmanship, and it is neither successful
nor sincere.
There are no born street sweepers,
tax collectors, or professional athletes.
You have to sell with enthusiasm; the client has to have fun with you. And you have to have plenty of fun yourself! Once the client has had a good laugh, he’s more likely to buy.
Selling is an emotionally charged activity. After the sale is made, reason always finds a suitable justification for the decision our emotions have led us to. Emotion usually trumps reason. You can forget all of your meticulous arguments if you are not having fun in the process.
Once you have decided to have fun selling, then you’ll win either way, regardless of the outcome. In fact, you’ll be able to step into the ring as the winner. And therein lies a real mystery: Clients Only Buy from Winners—a powerful title, a powerful book, and a powerful premise. I fully subscribe to it. The author’s name is H.C. Altmann. As I always say, this is the third-best book ever to have been published in Germany.
What that means in practice is something you can learn too. An example of that is when I travel by plane. The flight from Frankfurt to Munich takes fifty-five minutes. I always take an aisle seat, which gives me a chance to have a little fun. On the half-empty flight during the week, there is usually someone in the window seat. Having the aisle seat means that nobody can get past me. They can’t get away from me! For fifty-five minutes. Beautiful. I’ve made five big business contacts on an airplane. How
about you?
A Heartfelt Sale Goes a Long Way
You don’t have to have a college degree to bring the right kind of focus, optimism, and fun into selling. I don’t have one. My education was brief. School and I didn’t have much in common. An early separation was inevitable. Instead, I traveled to America to capture what my school had failed to teach me and I had failed to learn: English. And that was a wonderful time, for besides learning English I learned, above all, what selling is.
So here I was, at a high school somewhere in New Jersey—this red-haired, slightly chubby kid with a heavy German accent determined not to only learn proper English but also to adjust to the American lifestyle. In high school I always had a part-time job. During the summer I would mow rich people’s lawns; in winter I would shovel snow. I learned that this is how snow shoveling works in America: It snows. You pick out a house. You shovel the driveway. Then you’re done. The door opens, and a total stranger comes out beaming, pats you on the back, and offers you some money. Wow! I love America.
A stranger comes out beaming, pats you
on the back, and offers you some money.
That’s when I knew I wanted to be a sales professional: I give, you take; you give, I take. Four short steps forge a bond between people. Wonderful. And I immediately understood that you give first, then you take. In that order.
Armed with this fervor I returned to Germany to sell photocopiers and fax machines. And you know what? Although Germans are wired a little differently than Americans, the element of fun in selling is the same. A thousand cold visits, a thousand companies: I walk in the door a thousand times without an appointment, approach the reception desk, get past reception, reach the decision-maker—and sell eighty-one photocopiers. That’s where you learn the basics. Each of those eighty-one clients acquired a copier that was better than the one they owned or was the first that they’d ever owned. Each one actually went on to use the photocopier, and each one benefited from it. This made me proud. It was wonderful, and I loved it.
Did I want to see what it feels like to be rejected 919 times? With pleasure! I was having fun one way or the other!
919 rejections? With pleasure!
A quiet approach is not my style, I’ll admit that. I prefer some thunder and lightning. I am pretty loud by nature. It’s my testosterone levels; I can’t help it. That’s also why I drive a loud car. But don’t let that scare you. Heartfelt enthusiasm doesn’t have to be loud to impress someone.
I was impressed by a hotel in Hamburg that a client had booked for me. I entered my room, and the first thing I saw was a basket on the bed with a note. What do you know? The note indicated that if I put my shoes in the basket and left the basket in front of the door in the evening, they would be freshly polished by morning. Just like that, a service of the house. Now, I am a salesperson; finely polished shoes are important to me. So I decided to try it out. I was impressed; this was a good sales move on their part. I may be coming back to Hamburg more often. Even before I got my shoes back the next morning, perfectly polished, the hotel had already won
me over:
In addition to setting my cell phone alarm clock, I had requested a wake-up call from the hotel’s reception. Oversleeping is not an option when you have an appointment. That next morning, the phone on the nightstand rang. I picked up, and a gentle but firm male voice said: “Good morning, Mr. Limbeck. It’s 7:30, and this is your wake-up call.” So far, so good. But here it comes. The voice continued: “Would you like me to call again in ten minutes?” Bingo. That did it. Suddenly I was wide awake. A true salesman in the hotel reception! Someone with focus, fun, and warmth. Someone who can close the deal, who knows what his clients are after. He sold me and in the process earned himself X number of future reservations at the hotel.
I later asked a friend, a hotel manager, why this doesn’t happen in every hotel. His answer: “Do you know how hard it is to get employees to grasp this concept?”
No, I don’t. But I believe it is hard. Therefore, let me get you to grasp it too.
Stand Up Straight
Do not sell just anything that comes your way. Sell what you feel you can stand behind. I have to feel at ease with the product, with the client, and with myself. Product, client, self. In that order.
I ask the same of you. First, as to the product: Do not sell any products that are overpriced, of poor quality, or simply scams to rip the client off. The moral high ground in this case lies in knowing what not to sell. You’re not horse-trading. You don’t need that. Second, as to the client: If you’ve got a malicious, dimwitted, or run-of-the-mill psychopathic buyer sitting across from you who is trying to exhibit his supposed power as a customer, just leave. And third, as to you: If you are not at peace with yourself, then read this book first and go back out and sell!
The notion that a good salesperson will sell anything is not one that I subscribe to. A good salesman is not a swindler and therefore does not, for example, propose a real estate financing scheme that the buyer can pay only if he’s lucky and if real estate prices move well above average.
The measure of a good salesman lies in the results—not in short-term sales but in long-term profitability. You can identify a good salesperson when you’re speaking to a longstanding client of hers at a hotel bar and he talks about her with respect. It goes without saying that she has made a great many sales to this client over the years.
Selling doesn’t mean making an easy buck. Easy bucks are usually made through shady deals. Business transactions are concluded in broad daylight. The thing about an easy buck is that it’s too good to be true and will not last. Selling, however, can be done over and over; the better you get at selling, the more you will sell in the future. Selling aims at sustainability: long-term collaboration with the client on an even playing field, a constant give-and-take, and a balanced relationship.
Selling doesn’t mean making an easy buck.
Greed for money leads to destruction. The market is not the Amazon River, and you are not a piranha. The market is not a forest, and you are not wielding an ax. Do not become undisciplined but remain honest, forthright, and direct when selling. Good salespeople don’t resort to lying.
Nobody is claiming that you should disclose everything that happens to be true. But what you do disclose should be true. So don’t be rude or boorish and tell your client that his tie is a capital offense to good taste only because you think it’s true! If, on the other hand, you try to sweet talk your client to pieces to make a sale, you’re effectively prostituting yourself. Salespeople with integrity do not do this.
If you see your client as a cow and making a sale as milking, if your gluttony pushes you to do what’s best for yourself instead of what’s best for your client, then the money demon has a stranglehold on you. In that case, be aware that things will not have a happy end for you. One law of the universe is this: What goes around, comes around. Those who take without ever giving will never be successful.
Keep at It
Doers have it easier. If you’re not a doer, you have two possibilities: Either you decide to become one, or you stop selling. Selling is linked to success. And success is not only imaginable, it is doable. It’s up to you. If you’re looking for a helping hand, you’ll find it at the end of your sleeve. God helps those who help themselves.
A talent for salesmanship? Not so important. In the long run, hard work always trumps talent. To have both is unbeatable. So, you want success? Then you must work hard. Work, work, work. To this day, there isn’t a single person who’s made it rich overnight. Every person I know who is rich or famous worked very hard to become so. Most, however, don’t become rich because they want to reap rewards too soon. I’m telling you, it doesn’t work that way. Not a chance. Before reaping comes sowing and a lot
of fieldwork.
OK, we’re still talking about what makes a sale a good sale. Well, tenacity, for one thing. Doing instead of wishing. Keeping at it, like a kid longing for ice cream.
In fact, kids are the best salespeople. Haven’t you ever noticed that? Kids stick to it when they want something. Take a child walking hand in hand with his father through a shopping mall. He will have countless opportunities to ask for an ice cream. Let’s not kid ourselves, he’s already taken them all in at a glance. And here he goes:
“Daddy, can I have an ice cream?”
“No, son. We’re going to have a barbecue today, and Mom will be making an ice cream bombe. So you’ll be getting loads of ice cream later. Let’s go buy our steaks now.”
“But Daddy . . .”
Well, you know how it goes. In the end, the chances are pretty good that this young salesman will get ice cream twice in the same day.
I’m speaking from experience here. I have an adolescent at home, and he is my most effective teacher. From him I have learned the meaning of the word no. N.O.: Next Opportunity.
Giving up? That’s not an option, unless we’re talking about giving up a bad habit.
Have you seen the wonderful film Walk the Line, about the life of Johnny Cash? If not, I urge you to watch it. You’ll witness that final scene in which Joaquín Phoenix as Johnny Cash and Reese Witherspoon as June Carter are on stage singing the duet “Jackson.” June has already rejected Johnny’s marriage proposals about thirty-seven thousand times. Is that going to stop Johnny from proposing 37,001 times? Of course not. He doesn’t give up. At one point on stage, he interrupts the song, just stops. Nobody knows what’s going on. Silence. June starts feeling the pressure and tells him to keep going. And he does keep going, only not with the song but with another marriage proposal. And she says yes.
Did his tenacity pay off? Yes, it did. Johnny and June were happily married, grew old together, and died in 2003 a few months apart, before the film’s premiere and after a wonderful lifelong love story.
I urge you to learn from this! A no does not mean that you should give up; on the contrary, a no means you should keep at it. Think about my previous example of the thousand photocopier cold visits: 919 no’s were required for the eighty-one yeses. Granted, you don’t get an Oscar for a yes as Reese Witherspoon did. Neither do you have to marry your client if she says yes. But as a salesperson you do have to do this: Offer your client first-class service with first-class tenacity. You never know what lies behind the barrage of no’s; it could be a resounding yes and lots of yeses after that.
Before a sales pitch with your client, you must keep one thing in mind: Basically, you can’t lose, because NO is short for Next Opportunity.
Selling means moving others to action. It’s as simple as that. If you need to consult your client to get him to act, then OK, consult him and conduct a comprehensive needs assessment. However, that does not make you a consultant. You are still a sales professional. Consulting is one of the five courses but not the entire meal. Consulting without closing is counterproductive, because in the end you’re sending your client somewhere else to make
his purchase.
Neither should you bend your client’s ear with endless technical shoptalk to prove your knowledge of the product. Play the geek, and your client will freak. Most of the time, the babbling salesperson is convinced that what she’s doing is consulting the client and benefiting him. But in reality the talk is conveying the fact that the salesperson doesn’t dare admit to herself or to her client what she’s really there for. The sales pitch is not intended to explain the product but to close the deal. It’s about the signature on the paper. The contract. The sale. Don’t pretend it’s about anything else!
Geeks, babblers, and those who kill the sale before it even gets started are the hypocrites of the sales world. They focus on minutiae and neglect the bigger picture. They insist on the formalities of the sale and appear terribly important to themselves, but they pass right over the fundamental element of the selling process. They are not truthful. They betray all the things that they should hold most dear. They don’t stand behind their true intentions—namely, to persuade the client to buy.
Geeks, babblers, and those who kill the sale before it
even gets started are the hypocrites of the sales world.
To persuade the client to buy, I have to make an impression on him. I have to exert influence. And I have to be skillful about it. Let’s not kid ourselves; of course we are manipulating the client. Manipulation! That is the whole purpose of this, isn’t it? If I work in a boutique and say, “Wow, that blazer suits you to a T!” I am manipulating the customer. Enough said.
But if I am an effective salesperson, then I’m saying it because I am convinced that that particular blazer enhances the woman’s appearance. I leave no doubt that, because I think the blazer suits my customer so well, I expect to hear the ring of the cash register before the bell of the exit door.
To recap: Yes, I manipulate. But only under two conditions. First, I am open about my intentions. Second, I manipulate because I truly believe that my words and actions serve my client. In other words, I help her make the decision that is right for her.
Is that so bad? Is fire a good thing or a bad thing? It can warm my soup, and it also can set my roof ablaze. Is a knife good or bad? It can pierce a loaf of bread, and it can pierce someone’s ribcage and shorten their lifespan. What about laser technology? Your favorite band is great on a CD, but a laser pointer in the eye of a pilot is not so great. The Internet? The world’s knowledge is at your fingertips, but contempt for mankind through child pornography spreads faster on the Internet than wildfire. So, is manipulation bad? Like Johnny Cash, I can employ manipulation to get my girlfriend to say yes to marriage and thereby ensure a lifetime of happiness for two people and their children. Or, if I’m a broker selling derivatives on Wall Street, I can contribute to the collapse of the US mortgage market, to the triggering of the financial crisis, to the loss of millions of jobs worldwide, and to the despair of those upstanding business owners who end up throwing themselves in front of a train.
Don’t pretend that you don’t manipulate. You do it on a daily basis. With all my experience as a trainer, coach, speaker, and author, I urge you first, to have clearer motives; second, to be more open and honest about them; and third, to be as effective as possible in carrying them out. This philosophy is simply the one that I think is the most effective in persuading the client to act. The clothes you wear in the presence of your client, how you introduce yourself, where you sit, how you present your business card, and so forth is all directed toward a single goal: To influence the client in such a way that she buys what is good for her.
Is small talk necessary for this? I have a particular view on this matter: You should spend two minutes doing business, then fifty-eight minutes engaging in small talk but not the other way around. Otherwise you’ll find yourself under pressure, and the only thing on your mind will be the clock. Don’t get me wrong—I can do small talk. In fact, I’m a great small-talk salesperson, and I’ve done some of my biggest deals over the dinner table. But I only engage in this kind of talk if the client initiates it and then only with the subjects that he broaches. Nothing should feel forced; conversation needs to arise naturally when both parties have an interest in one another.
So you’re better off leaving out the usual “Hi, how are you?” You don’t mean it anyway. That’s not what interests you. What do you do if your client says, “I feel horrible. My dog died, and my wife just left me.” Then you could play the psychologist, but your sales pitch would go straight down the drain. Trust me.
But we’ll get to all that in depth in the coming chapters. This opening chapter is an exposition, as in a classical drama or a Hollywood movie: The first scene places the core theme in the spotlight. From the perspective of the top salespeople, the core theme includes the following: creating a space for open discussion, making your introductions, having a pleasant cup of tea to create a sense of kinship and dispel the impression that you lust after the client’s money—that’s self-indulgent. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it is devious, immoral, and nothing less than treacherous. All you are doing is putting your short-term benefit over the long-term welfare of your company and your client.
A pleasant cup of tea is not what you’re here for.
Groveling to the client is just as despicable. Moreover, it’s unprofessional and hardly successful. The moment you begin to engage in this kind of flattery, your client, whether consciously or not, will no longer take you seriously. He may actually feel flattered if you’re crafty enough to succeed, but you’ll ruin your image in the process, as well as the image of your product and your company. Let’s be truthful: A good sales professional sells without resort to flattery and regardless of the types of clients he is faced with, be they homely, unfriendly, eccentric, hygienically challenged, or the likes of Angelina Jolie. There is room for every kind of client in this world.
If you share my opinion that good salesmanship, Limbeckian salesmanship, is forthright, transparent, passionate, inspirational, funny, serious, upfront, fair, just, hard, sustainable, constructively manipulative, decisive, focused, emotional, tenacious, effective, respectful, and successful, then you will agree to leave your small talk out of the picture during your next sales pitch and start by asking for the sale.
I mean it: Start by asking for the sale.
