There’s more to successful selling than knowing your product, longtime sales professional-turned-trainer Diane Marie Pinkard of Bonny Doon says.
The secret of the best salespeople is to treat people well, said the author of the newly published “Just Treat Me Like I Matter: The Heart of Sales.”
She’s sharing her own pitch to help other salespeople connect better with their would-be clients.
“What do we want? We want to feel like we matter,” Pinkard said.
Closing sales is about building relationships, not “selling” in the traditional sense, she said.
Her closing-the-sale checklist reads like this:
- Educate, don’t sell.
- Facilitate, don’t sell
- Problem solve, don’t sell
- Assist in the product selection process, don’t sell
- Move the transaction forward to completion, don’t sell
- Take the money the client wants to give you, don’t hesitate
Pinkard, a former teacher, honed her sales skills in high-end plumbing showrooms and has peppered her book with lessons learned from that experience.
“Completely remove the image that you are trying to sell something,” she writes.
“Strictly focus your attention on your client’s needs. This frees you up to view yourself as a resource person. It also allows your clients to feel comfortable to open up and be honest about their needs, their budget and possibly your competition.”
Her approach has garnered applause from several widely known sales authorities.
“Diane has written a sincere and helpful tome for those who are ready to take their selling relationships to a much deeper level,” said Tom Hopkins, an internationally known sales trainer and author.
Pinkard takes an upbeat tack to selling and life itself.
“There’s no such thing as a ‘problem’ if you learn a lesson from the experience,” she said. “It’s only a problem if you don’t learn a lesson.”
Her next projects are sales seminars, a sales-training manual, speaking engagements and mentoring sales professionals.
For information: www.heartofsales.com.
At a glance
WHAT: “Just Treat Me Like I Matter: The Heart of Sales”
AUTHOR: Diane Marie Pinkard
PRICE: $26.95
AVAILABLE: www.heartofsales.com or www.amazon.com
