Welcome to The Power of Selling
Start Your Selling Journey with the Author, Kim Richmond
You’re about to go on a journey that will take you to places you can’t even imagine. Think about being able to get what you want in life. While that may sound far-fetched, it’s not. You really can get what you want, if you learn to use the right skills. That’s what this book is about.
Selling is a skill that everyone uses every day, no matter what they do for a living. Want to be successful? Learn how to sell. “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want,” according to famous sales expert, Zig Ziglar. That means listening and connecting with people, understanding their needs, what they want, what motivates them, and then capturing their imagination with a reason to buy . . . from you.
This book is different from other textbooks about selling. While it uses the traditional selling tenets as its foundation, it also includes new topics reflective of the current business environment. Here are some important updates in this version of The Power of Selling:
Growth Mindset and its importance in being successful in sales is introduced in Chapter 2 “Exploring Careers in Sales”.
Social Selling is such an important concept that an entirely new chapter has been added to the book that includes the strategy and best practices for effective social selling, customer experience and customer journey mapping to better understand prospects and customers. The topic is presented in detail in Chapter 6 “#SocialSelling—Adding Value to Your Network”.
Buyer Personas and how to create and use them for prospecting and throughout the entire selling process is a topic that is explored in some detail, including examples, in Chapter 8 “The Foundation of the Selling Process: Prospecting and Qualifying”.
Design Thinking helps salespeople think creatively about solving their prospect’s and customer’s problems or pain points. This topic, along with brainstorming, is integrated into Chapter 9 “Preparing for Success: The Pre-Approach”. This reinforces a focus on selling ideas to solve problems, not selling products or services.
Storytelling has long been a concept that engages people on all types of platforms. Chapter 11 “Present Like a Pro: The Presentation” underscores the importance of developing an effective sales presentation using the framework of storytelling.
Customer Experience (CX) is an important aspect of every business. Linking customer experience to customer loyalty and Net Promoter Score in Chapter 14 “Doing it Right: The Follow-up” demonstrates how a closed follow-up loop impacts current and future sales.
There are some special features that make this book interesting and interactive:
Links to videos, websites, articles, and podcasts. The focus on real-world experience and advice from sales professionals is carried throughout the book. This book takes full advantage of the FlatWorld platform, including links to videos, websites, articles, podcasts, and interactive resources that demonstrate the concepts and make them interesting and fun to learn.
Video Ride-Alongs. The best way to learn selling is to experience it. And just about every salesperson starts out in sales by going on ride-alongs with an experienced salesperson or manager to learn firsthand how selling is done. In order to provide the experience of a ride-along, each chapter starts with a short video featuring a sales professional who shares personal insights and practical tips about how he or she uses the key concepts that are covered in the chapter. These videos, which were created exclusively for The Power of Selling, highlight sales professionals who are personally interested in helping you learn and succeed. In fact, you can contact any of these selling professionals directly on LinkedIn. Each professional’s LinkedIn URL is included at the end of this preface.
The Power of Selling LinkedIn Group. Selling professionals from across the country are part of this LinkedIn group created expressly for the students and faculty who use The Power of Selling. Simply go to LinkedIn and join The Power of Selling group to network, connect, join, start discussions, or ask questions to the group. The people in the group are looking forward to connecting with you. The sales professionals featured in the video ride-alongs are also members of this group. Feel free to contact them individually or add them to your network. Visit http://www.linkedin.com and create a profile (see the Selling U section in Chapter 6 “#SocialSelling—Adding Value to Your Network”), then search “Groups” for “The Power of Selling” and join the group. If you already have a LinkedIn profile, click on the following link and join The Power of Selling group.
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2566050&trk=anetsrch_name&goback=.gdr_1263094780871_1
Selling U. The last section of each chapter is called Selling U, which applies the key concepts to selling yourself as a brand to get the job you want. Selling U teaches you how to think about yourself as a brand through every step of your career search. These sections throughout the book include details on key career searching tips such as how to create a cover letter and résumé that sells; how to target prospective employers; how to leverage social selling, especially on LinkedIn, for your job search; how to craft your personal elevator pitch; how to ace interviews; how to follow-up; how to negotiate and accept the right job offer; and what to do to prepare for your first day of your new job. Links to videos, websites, articles, and other interactive resources make Selling U an excellent complement to the selling material and the ultimate resource for how to build your personal brand in this very competitive twenty-first century.
Well Said: Inspirational Quotes about Successful Selling. This new features highlights pithy words of wisdom from giants in the industry like Jeffrey Gitomer, Brian Tracy, Zig Ziglar, and Grant Cardone, and sum up key concepts throughout the book.
Sales Stats. Impact and opportunity come alive in this new feature with these impressive numbers that are called out in an infographic in every chapter.
It’s a powerful lineup designed to give you insight and experience into the profession of selling and teach you how to get what you want in life. Over the course of this semester, you’ll learn how to sell products, services, concepts, and ideas. More important, you’ll learn how to sell the most important product . . . yourself.
Selling is a journey. Your journey starts here.
Meet the Professionals Featured in the Video Ride-Alongs
Lisa Peskin, Chief Executive Officer, Business Development University
Lisa thought she wanted to be a doctor and declared her major as premed at Pennsylvania State University. It was only after she completed all the prerequisite courses, except one, that she decided she didn’t like science. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. After she completed her Master of Business Administration at Temple University, her plan was to pursue a career in marketing and she decided to take a job in sales to learn the business. Once she started selling, she never looked back. Lisa now has over twenty years of sales and sales training experience in payroll and human resources services, financial services, and other business-to-business (B2B) industries. She started her selling career in 1989 at Automated Data Processing (ADP) and rose to become the vice president of sales where she was responsible for four district managers and forty salespeople. Then she decided to put her successful selling skills to work as a sales trainer at Bayview Financial and Interbay Funding. Today she is the Chief Executive Officer at Business Development University, a company that conducts sales training with a focus on B2B selling.
Connect with Lisa Peskin on LinkedIn:
Paul Blake, Vice President of Sales, Beasley Media Group
Paul was born to sell. He started his career in sales in 1989 when he graduated from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. He quickly rose to a leadership role as the director of sales at Global Television Sports, then sales manager at Clear Channel Radio, WJJZ-FM, and WMMR-FM. In 2006, Paul was promoted to vice president of sales at Beasley Media Group (formerly Greater Media Philadelphia), responsible for the advertising sales for five radio stations in Philadelphia and managing more than forty salespeople.
Connect with Paul Blake on LinkedIn:
Tonya Murphy, Sales Executive, Pandora
Tonya thought she wanted to be the next Barbara Walters, but soon learned that the newsroom was not the place for her. Thanks to internships at two television stations and a sales-savvy mentor, she found that her passion was sales. Tonya graduated from Cabrini College with a Bachelor of Arts in English/Communications. She has been in sales for more than twenty years and has held sales roles in media, including at Greater Media Philadelphia and FOX 29. She is currently a sales executive at music streaming service, Pandora.
Connect with Tonya Murphy on LinkedIn:
Andrew Sykes, District Sales Manager, AstraZeneca
Andrew has always had a focus on selling and the pharmaceutical industry. He graduated from Saint Joseph’s University with a Bachelor of Science in Pharmaceutical Marketing in 2005. After graduation Andrew landed his dream job at AstraZeneca, a major pharmaceutical company, as a pharmaceutical sales specialist on the cardiovascular account team. Today, he is a District Sales Manager at AstraZeneca.
Connect with Andrew Sykes on LinkedIn:
Brynne Tillman, Chief Executive Officer, Social Sales Link
With over 43,000 followers on LinkedIn, Brynne is a thought leader, influencer and accomplished social seller. Brynne saw the power of social media for sales years before it was in vogue. She was an early adopter on LinkedIn and other social media platforms and she practices what she preaches. One of her core tenets is to be a resource and deliver value wherever she works. She has held business development and sales positions at FedEx, Bank of America, Vantage Point Bank and PeopleLinx. Brynne is currently the chief executive officer at Social Sales Link, a sales training company that helps companies change their sales culture to a social sales culture to drive results. She is also the author of The LinkedIn Sales Playbook: A Tactical Guide to Social Selling. If you ever have the opportunity to hear Brynne speak, take it. You will be energized, impressed and amazed at what you will learn.
Connect with Brynne Tillman on LinkedIn:
Rachel Gordon, Account Manager, NBCUniversal
When she graduated from Cornell University in 2003 with a Bachelor of Science in Fashion, Business Management, and Human Development, Rachel was certain she wanted to pursue a career in fashion merchandising. But she found she didn’t enjoy it as much as she thought she would. She made a switch to the media industry with a job as the national director of marketing at Westwood One. It was there that she discovered her passion for sales. She is currently an account manager at NBCUniversal in Washington, D.C. She’s glad she made the change in her career direction.
Connect with Rachel Gordon on LinkedIn:
Priya Masih, Sales Representative, Lupin Pharmaceuticals
Since graduating from Saint Joseph’s University in 2004 with a Master of Science in International Marketing and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, Priya has proven herself to be an outstanding sales achiever at The Hartford Customer Services Group, Creative Channel Services, and GlaxoSmithKline, and has been recognized with The Winner’s Circle Award and the Top Sales Rep Award. She is currently a sales representative at Lupin Pharmaceuticals.
Connect with Priya Masih on LinkedIn:
David Fox, Founder and CEO, Brave Spirits
David gave up the corporate life to start Brave Spirits. His background in marketing, new product development, and sales includes work on major brands from Procter & Gamble, General Mills, and Mars; spirits brands from Diageo; and wine brands from Brown-Foreman. In 2005 he and his business partner conceived the concept for Brave Spirits and launched the company in 2007. Brave Spirits distributes premium vodka, gin, rum, and whiskey and donates $2.00 of every bottle sold to charities that support the men and women of America’s military, police, fire, and emergency medical services (EMS). It is David’s way of creating a toast to the brave.
Connect with David Fox on LinkedIn: