Sales Therapy: Effective Selling for the Small Business Owner
By Grant Leboff
Published by Capstone, November 07
In Sales Therapy: Effective Selling for the Small Business Owner, author Grant Leboff has a revolutionary message for the small business community – stop ‘selling’ to customers if you want to make a profit, stop trying to ‘close’ a sale, and get customers on the couch to talk about their ‘issues’ instead...
Self-styled ‘Britain’s most pessimistic salesperson’, Leboff has tested his philosophy on hundreds of SME clients over the past five years, and works on the premise that customers are uber-cautious, hate the sales process and only buy things when they want their problems solved, lives made easier, or both. As a result, he believes that those wanting to make a sale must forget fake sales patter and put the bonus cheque to the back of their minds if they are to achieve success.
Leboff started his own sales career as a means of making money when he was a politics student at Birmingham University. Attending numerous courses and devouring countless ‘change your life’ manuals, he embarked upon a professional sales career which saw him sell everything from coupon discount books, Betterware, phone systems, professional services, training and media space for over a decade.
Yet, he came to believe that the methods he used were fake and annoyed his customers. Hence he decided to forget the training he’d already had and turn the traditional transactional selling model on its head – banning glib talk of product benefits, USPs and the infamous ‘open ended question’ in his own sales business, founded in 2002.
In Sales Therapy, Leboff encourages readers to forget their reliance on traditional sales methods and gives them a 12 point action plan to help them kick start their own businesses.
Paperback Original; £12.99/€19.50; ISBN 978-1-84112-778-1
Watch a film of Grant Leboff explaining more about his philosophy and the book at: YouTube/GrantLeboff
To request a review copy, extract or an interview with the author, please contact: Caroline Baines - E: cbaines@wiley.co.uk, T: 01243 770674
