Salespeople should summarise the conversation at each stage of a call, restating the customer's requirements, agreed next steps, and value proposition. A concise summary like "you need X, Y, Z; we can deliver A, B, C; here's proof from other customers" either gets a yes or uncovers gaps, both of which move the deal forward.
Chapters
Just to summarize some of the things he said, he said selling is a numbers game. You have to understand your numbers, you have to understand your ratios, you have to work those numbers. He said body language is important. How you use your body, the statements your body makes, the statement that your customer's body makes with their language. And you should handle men and women differently, and illustrated that in very humorous ways. And in summarizing what I've done, I'm trying to illustrate my next sales tip, which is this: Your job is to summarise. And I would strongly advise you, whenever you're in a sales call, to summarise. Just to say, so what we've agreed is your requirements are this, the next steps are this, you're going to do this, I'm going to do this. Is this right? Are these the main points? And you ask for agreement after you've summarised. Is that right? If the customer says, yes, that's right, that's good, you've reached a commitment. It's a form of close. If the customer says, no, you've missed out something, That's really useful too, because it's something important that you missed and you need to hear it. So summarise. And before you close, a summary is such a useful thing. So just to summarise, you said that what you were looking for was a solution that offered you this, this, and this. And we showed you that we can do this, this, and this. And we got these customers to testify how good we are. Is that right? Would you agree that's— yes. Is there any reason why we shouldn't go ahead? No. The summary leads naturally into the close. So before you close, before you ask for the order, just summarize. Ask for their agreement. Is that right? And then go forward. It just feels natural. So summarize lots and lots of times. Every call, summarize. Okay, so our next speaker— we're very fortunate to have one of the most eminent thinkers on one of the most influential
