shawn wang y.x.

A summary of the book by Elmer G. Leterman, named one of America’s Twelve Master Salesmen.

First, a historical note: I came by this book in a street bookstore in my final days in Cuba when I was looking to spend the last of my Cuban pesos. The book is clearly marked with the price I should have paid for it – 40 CUC. I negotiated that down to 20, rather shamelessly. Perhaps the bookstore owner could have benefited from reading the book, although he was no Anglophone.

Similar to everything American in Cuba, this book I read was printed in November 1953.

Contents:

1. Warm Him Up
   • Get an introduction to the target from someone higher up
   • The difference between success and failure lies in the preliminary arrangements that resulting in a favorable atmosphere in which the story would be heard.
2. Put on a Good Show
   • Every salesman has two sides, – one consists of his personality, powers of persuasion, knowledge, and integrity. The other consists of his reputation, prestige, renown. The difference is the ability he actually has, vs what the world thinks he has.
   • Make your name known in a dramatic manner so it will not be forgotten with ease.
   • Showmanship is the ability to turn your idiosyncrasies to advantage, because there is a deep human interest in anything that is different. Showmanship is humor.
3. Make a Friend
   • No one can separate the business life from the personal life of an individual.
   • Have a constant effort to do favors for others. There is also as much obtained by asking for a favor as by offering to perform one.
4. Plant a Little Acorn
   • The little man of today is the big one of tomorrow.
   • However the effort in every sale should be in proportion to the chances of making any given sale.
5. Make the Customer’s Business Your Business
   • The greatest evil is the rigid mind.
   • The salesman must at all times have a thorough general knowledge of every detail of the service or product he is promoting.
   • Intelligent preparation further implies that one is fully aware of the possible questions that may arise in the minds of the prospects.
   • The sale in the mind of the seller should be “What can I do to solve his problems” and “How is my solution superior to that of any of my competitors?”
   • The key to a successful interview is not only to be concerned with the customer’s problems, but to make the customer realize that you are. This also means an interest in the latter’s family, business success, or hobbies.
   • Better to lose a sale than to gain a dissatisfied customer.
   • Understand the competition and concede its true values.
   • Dont hesitate to admit that you haven’t the ready answer to every question
   • The teamwork method of selling is extremely successful – it helps make up for flaws in some things.
6. Don’t Take Orders
   • You need to believe in the product, know the product, understand every detail.
   • The person who never does any more than he gets paid for, never gets paid for any more than he does.
7. Watch for Trends
   • Salesmanship has its cycles.
   • Know the fundamental difference between a passing fad and a true trend.
   • Getting on the bandwagon is certainly better than being left behind, but many people get hurt falling off.
   • A great salesman makes trends, not just follows.
   • The man who tries to buck a trend will surely find a trend away from the vanishing buck.
8. Don’t Mistake an Excuse for an Objection
   • The ability to meet an objection that is raised during the course of an interview is one of a salesman’s most valuable assets.
   • But diferentiate between an objection and an excuse. An objection is an argument legitimately offered in good faith by the prospect under conditions in which he is still undecided, still anxious to find the correct answer for himself and his company.
   • An excuse is an argument offered by the prospect in an effort to seek a delay in the closing of the sale, or to avoid the closing entirely, without the unpleasant task of having to give a final no to the salesman.
   • A good salesman can make every objection a point to aid him in furthering the sale.
   • An objection is a valid request for further information.
9. Turn the Cold Canvass into the Hot Sale
   • The first prerequisite is enthusiasm. Bubble over with pride in your product, aglow with warmth.
   • Never allow the conversation to lag during the cold canvass.
   • Leaving one cold canvass – get leads to make the others a litle less cold.
   • Dont exaggerate qualities or misrepresent.
10. Meet Your Competitors
    • The best way for a salesman to meet competition is to pretend to ignore it. Show your product’s advantages by making the competitive product suffer by comparison, but without any reflection on your own integrity.
    • Meet your competition, but always feel that you are the best.
11. Stick a Pin in Him
    • The main task of a salesman is to initiate action where it does not exist and to give strength to such action if it exists and is favorable.
    • The salesman can suffer from inertia, and the customer can also suffer from inertia.
    • The first sale to the client is the most difficult one.
    • Sales are lost through overconfidence, lack of knowledge of the product, misunderstanding of the customer’s needs and personality, over-persuasion
12. Time Your Shots
    • The cold canvasser can lose a sale by divulging the price at the wrong moment – when the customer asks for it.
    • Closing is a matter of timing.
    • A seeming reluctance to sell may be a great incentive to buy.
13. Don’t Listen to the No’s
    • The word no is a signal to me that more and better arguments are needed.
    • Don’t Lie.
    • Selling is a relationship between two people in which the salesman must introduce the ideas, but the customer must believe that these ideas are his own. Make the customer feel the need for the product and not feel that the need was created by the salesman.
    • Salesmanship must be suited to the individual – different people are sold differently.
14. Close It, but Don’t End It
    • The final goal is to win a permanent customer and hence many sales.
    • Logic alone is not enough – Emotions stimulate action, logic stimulates only thought.
    • At the closing, the salesman no longer presents a yes-or-no choice – assume he is buying, and say “which one do you prefer?”
15. Keep Him Happy
    • The art of salesmanship is always to bring the customer back but never to have him bring the product back.
    • Every completed sale is an invitation for the next sale.
    • Cultivate a customer who has said yes – you may have other products he wants, or more of the same product, or he has prospects for you.
    • “If you are not satisfied – tell us. If you are satisfied – tell others.”
16. You Need More than Guts
    • Eagerness, perserverance, intelligence, hard work, experience, courage, self-confidence, humility
17. Keep It Honest
    • The inevitability of discovery of falsehoods
18. Try These on for Size
    • A star salesman is ambitious but his ambition is patient and far-seeing.
    • He can sell under pressure, but he doesn’t put the customer under pressure.
    • He knows his business thoroughly and makes it his business to know the client’s business.
    • He surveys his prospects’ or customers’ needs before calling, not in order to see how much he can get from them, but to see how much he can give them.
    • He has his selling knowledge organized, which means knowledge of the product and how to sell it.
    • He plan how to get in so that he can tell his story, but once in, he often lets the client tell the story.
    • He can smoke out a prospect’s idea and expand it, but he will never claim it for his own.
    • He has planned his speeches so that they sink in, but he knows how to depart from any plan.
    • He makes it easier for the prospect to buy than to turn him down, but he never embarrasses a client who must turn him down.
    • He has developed personality, but he is not a “personality kid.”
    • He talks well yet he knows that Silence is golden.
    • He can think on his feet, but he thinks with his head.
    • He is interested in his appearance, neatness, clothes, but he must back up his selling with substance, ideas, thinking.
    • He knows how to lose if he must, yet he won’t take no for an answer.
19. Don’t Be “Just a Salesman”
    • The person must himself first be sold on what he is doing before he is capable of doing it!
    • It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of your work – where would our economy be if not for the men who distribute the wares?
    • The greatest of inventions would go unnoticed if it were not for the equal genius of those who recognize their value and know how to sell them to the world.
20. Accept the Challenge
    • We are failing to sell salesmanship to young people – the importance, respectability, challenge, intellectual selling.
    • Beat your own goals, Beat former performance.
    • Don’t wait for people to come to you. Always take the initiative in making acquaintances.
    • Carry something with you that will develop curiosity.
    • Don’t sell cold statistics, sell ideas.
    • Be enthusiastic.
    • Do favors, esp small favors that show your thoughtfulness.
    • Ask favors that require little trouble but build up the other’s self-esteem.
    • Give your client as much attention after you’ve sold him as before.

Mental Coercion is better

One of the great arts in life is learning how to disagree without being disagreeable.

A summary of the book by William Ury, Cofounder of Harvard’s program on negotiation. This book completes what he has come to think of as a trilogy that began with Getting to Yes and continued with Getting Past No.

In Brief:

• Stage One: Prepare
• 1.1: Uncover Your Yes
• 1.2: Empower Your No
• 1.3: Respect Your Way to Yes
• Stage Two: Deliver
• 2.4: Express Your Yes
• 2.5: Assert Your No
• 2.6: Propose a Yes
• Stage Three: Follow Through
• 2.7: Stay True to Your Yes
• 2.8: Underscore Your No
• 2.9: Negotiate to Yes
• Conclusion: The Marriage of Yes and No

• The Great Gift of No
  • Sometimes we need to say a positive no to get to a bigger yes. No is today’s biggest challenge
  • The Three-A Trap – poor responses when we want to say no – is
  • Accommodating: We say yes when we want to say no
  • Attack: We say no poorly
  • Avoid: We say nothing at all
  • The way out is a Positive No: A positive no is delivered with “Yes! No. Yes?”
  • The first Yes expresses your interests – internally focused
  • The No asserts your power
  • The second Yes furthers your relationship – externally focused.
  • Positive No lets you Create What You Want – Every important Yes requires a thousand Nos.
  • Positive No lets you Protect What You Value
  • Positive No lets you Change What No Longer Works
• Stage One: Prepare
• 1.1: Uncover Your Yes
  • Go from Reactive to Proactive
  • Take a time-out to think about what you want, cool down from anger.
  • Listen to your emotions – hear them out but don’t act them out
  • Uncover your interests – why are you going to say no
  • Uncover your needs – why do you want this
  • Uncover your values – honesty and integrity
  • After uncovering Interests, Needs, and Values, distill a single Intention that sums it all up. Add specificity by envisioning a positive outcome that would fulfil your intention.
  • Turn your emotions into resolve – providing fuel for action
  • Uncovering your yes grounds you in something positive, gives you a sense of direction, gives you energy.
• 1.2: Empower Your No
  • Develop Positive Power – back up your intention with a Plan B
  • Turn Fear into Confidence – embrace thinking about the worst-case, devise a Plan B
  • Plan B’s should not be fallbacks – it should be an action you can pursue without the agreement of the other party
  • Plan B’s should not be punishment – it should be what you are going to do to further your interests if the other doesn’t cooperate
  • Strengthen your Plan B – Brainstorm a Variety of Plans (eg Do it yourself, Exit, Third parties, Taking Intermediate/Ultimate steps), Building a Winning Coalition
  • Anticipate the other’s Power Moves – Take away their stick, Consider the Worst-Case
  • Reassess Your Decision to Say No – Ask: Do I have the interest in saying No/power to say No, right to say No?
• 1.3: Respect Your Way to Yes
  • Prepare the other to say Yes to your No.
  • Don’t unintentionally reject the other – they may take it personally.
  • Take a Second Look – give yourself the opportunity to look again at someone without fear/anger
  • Listening attentively is the simplest way to show respect.
  • Listen to Understand, Not to Refute
  • Ask Clarifying Questions
  • Acknowledge the Other’s Point of View
  • Let them know you value them – Surprise them with recognition
  • The idea is to “Begin your positive No on a Positive Note”
• Stage Two: Deliver
• 2.4: Express Your Yes
  • Your initial Yes affirms your intention and it explains to the other why you are saying No.
  • Affirming – assert without rejecting – stand on your feet but not on their toes.
  • Explaining – give reasons
  • Stick to the Facts
  • Watch your words – describe without judgment or condemnation – don’t use “should”, or subjective, or categorical language
  • Describe your experience rather than the other’s shortcomings – “I feel…” Express your feelings, Describe your Interests
  • Use “We” – Appeal to Shared Interests, Invoke Shared Standards
  • If you have no concrete reason to say No – just say so
  • Assert your values – assert your value as a human being/corporation etc.
• 2.5: Assert Your No
  • A negative No is a sword of rejection but a positive No protects you without hurting the other.
  • Your identity is defined by what you say No to.
  • How can you be assertive without being aggressive? Use a natural No – let it flow from the Yes you have uncovered.
  • Let it flow from your empowered commitment to a future course of action.
  • Let it flow from your respect for the other – don’t be overly concerned with what the other will think
  • Key words – If you are saying no to demands – No or No Thanks, I Have A Policy, I Have Plans, I Have Another Commitment, Not Now, I Prefer to Decline Rather Than Do a Poor Job,
  • Key words – If saying no to behaviors – Stop!, Hold On!, Wait A Minute!, That is Not OK/Appropriate/Allowed!, This Doesn’t Work for Me, That’s Enough
  • No is a powerful word, so use it sparingly and carefully. Say No without saying “No”
• 2.6: Propose a Yes
  • We typically say what we won’t do but don’t say what we will do. Saying No is an exercise in persuasion not just communication – you want the other to accept your No, to change their behavior while keeping the relationship.
  • Making a proposal gives the other a chance to say No to you, taking away the sting of rejection.
  • Saying no to Demands: Offer a third option – find options for mutual gain, perhaps involving flexibility in timing, making conditional offers, or suggesting a problem-solving process
  • Saying no to Behavior: Make a constructive request – Make it clear, feasible, respectful, and frame it positively
• Stage Three: Follow Through
• 2.7: Stay True to Your Yes
  • Managing their reaction – the other will need time to process your no
  • Understand the stages of acceptance – avoidance, denial, anxiety, anger, bargaining, sadness, acceptance
  • While they are reacting, Don’t yield, Don’t Attack. Pause Before Responding if the other is in a rage/panic.
  • Name the Game – identify tactics that are being used on you – Flattery, Minimization + Slippery Slope, Guilt and emotional manipulation, Misrepresentation, Personal Attack, Threat, Guilt, False promise.
  • Pinch your Palm to stay calm – a physical action
  • Use the power of not reacting at your opponent’s rage.
  • Help your other move toward acceptance by Listening Respectfully – Paraphrase, Acknowledge their point without conceding yes, Replace “but” with “yes… and”
  • In short – say “Oh? So? No?” oh = acknowledge their point. so = let them run through all tactics. no = stay unmoved.
• 2.8: Underscore Your No
  • Don’t overreact, underscore – emphasize patiently and persistently that No in fact means No. Meet resistance with persistence
  • Repeat your No to the other as often as necessary – formulate an anchor phrase, use intentional repetition, dont abuse your power
  • Educate the other about the consequences of not accepting your No – ask reality-testing questions, warn, don’t threaten, use logical consequences
  • If all this fails, Deploy your plan B – withdraw your cooperation,
• 2.9: Negotiate to Yes
  • The Goal: A positive outcome
  • Build your opponent a golden bridge to advance across – get them to say Yes to Agreement, Approval, Relationship
  • Agreement – Don’t Compromise Essentials, Address Unmet Interests
  • Approval – Help the Other Win Approval from his constituents, Figure out what he will have to say to his constituents, and the best responses to criticisms, Help them save face
  • Relationship – Reach out to the Other, Rebuild Confidence, Replenish your Goodwill Account (look for opportunities to nourish the relationship), End on a Positive Note
• Conclusion: The Marriage of Yes and No
• Practice the positive No: “In order to Accommodate the pleasure of all our guests, this is a non-smoking room. We ask that you smoke in our smoking room, the great outdoors! Thank you!

A great life skill

An incomplete summary of the book by John Gray.

• Men Are from Mars, Women Are From Venus
  • Introducing the book.
  • When men and women are able to respect and accept their differences then love has a chance to blossom.
• Mr. Fix-It and the Home Improvement Committee
  • Men mistakenly offer solutions and invalidate feelings.
  • Women offer unsolicited advice and direction.
  • A man’s sense of self is defined through his ability to achieve results.
  • To offer a man unsolicited advice is to presume that he doesn’t know what to do or that he can’t do it on his own.
  • A woman’s sense of self is defined through her feelings and the quality of her relationships.
  • Generally, when a woman offers unsolicited advice or tries to help a man, she has no idea of how critical and unloving she may sound to him.
  • Many times a woman just wants to share her feelings about her day and her husband, thinking he is helping, interrupts her by offering a steady flow of solutions to her problems.
  • When our partner resists us it is probably because we have made a mistake in our timing or approach.
  • A man wants to make improvements when he feels he is being approached as the solution to a problem rather than as the problem itself.
• Men Go to their Caves and Women Talk – How we react to stress
  • Men pull away and silently think about what’s bothering them
  • Women feel an instinctive need to talk about what’s bothering them
  • To feel better Men go their caves to solve problems alone.
  • To feel better Women get together and openly talk about their problems.
  • A woman under stress is not immediately concerned with finding solutions to her problems but rather seeks relief by expressing herself and being understood.
  • To forget her own painful feelings a woman may become emotionally involved in the problems of others.
  • Just as a man is fulfilled through working out the intricate details of solving a problem, a woman is fulfilled through talking about the details of her problems.
• How to Motivate the Opposite Sex
  • Men – motivated when they feel needed
  • Women – motivated when they feel cherished
  • Men – need to overcome resistance to giving love
  • Women – need to overcome resistance to receiving love
• Speaking Different Languages
  • Women – what to do when a man stops talking
  • Men – how to listen better without becoming frustrated
• Men Are Like Rubber Bands
  • Men get close but then needs to pull away
  • Women – support pulling-away process
• Women Are Like Waves
  • Women – sudden shifts of feeling
  • Men – support by recognizing when they are needed the most without having to make sacrifices
• Discovering Our Different Emotional Needs
  • Men and women give the kind of love they need and not what the opposite sex needs
  • Men need trusting, accepting, appreciative love.
  • Women need caring, understanding respectful love.
  • 6 ways you may be turning off your partner.
• How to Avoid Arguments
  • Men – by acting as if they are always right they may invalidate a woman’s feelings.
  • Women – unknowingly send messages of disapproval instead of disagreement.
• Scoring Points with the Opposite Sex
  • Women – every gift of love scores equally with every other gift regardless of size.
  • 101 ways to score points with women are listed.
  • Men – score big by giving men when they want.
• How to Communicate Difficult Feelings
  • Different ways men and women hide feelings
  • Love Letter technique for expressing negative feelings to your partner.
• How to Ask for Support and Get It
  • Men – turned off by phrases like “could you” and “can you”
  • Secrets for encouraging men to give more
• Keeping the Magic of Love Alive
  • The Four seasons of love – how love changes

The Relationship Book