5 Minute Selling by Alex Goldfayn. Part Two.

📅 15th October 2020 | 2020/21 Sales Book Reviews Selling

Here’s the link to the the brief Part One – I was so looking forward to finishing 5MS but in the end I was a little disappointed. Perhaps after twenty or so sales book reviews this year I’m seeing a pattern develop.

For those of us who remember Word Perfect, Wordstar and others, it was a bit of a wrench having to fit in with Microsoft’s “Word” wasn’t it? We were used to working in a particular way. ‘Word’ seemed cumbersome and complex and this is how I felt after reading Alex Goldfayn‘s new publication.

Years ago prospecting was also about sifting the wheat from the chaff before picking up one’s rotary dial telephone. Had their been a directive from management for us to use ‘tracking sheets’ or to make pure cold calls in the morning rather than after lunchtime it would have been seemed like an unnecessary change and a transition to a new way of working. Or putting it another way, one person’s logic isn’t necessarily your logic. If one is comfortable working with a certain routine that works, why on earth change it?

Goldfayn does use modern sales parlance with his DYK and rDYK questions but essentially some of the content is a regurgitation of sales books I’ve read in the past.

Read on.

What’s New

Zilch.

What’s Old

On page 301, Goldfayn hits the reader with that well worn phrase “there is no magic bullet”. And of course, he’s spot on. Only hard work, application and the right attitude will make you successful in the world of sales. Worth repeating in these hyper-difficult times.

One section that caught my eye was covered in Chapter 27. I agree with Alex that many sales reps don’t check out a customer’s order history as well as they should. I would scribe something under ‘research’. Simple really. Why people don’t carry out this simple task worries me. Is it poor guidance, lack of a proper sales process or just rank bad management?

What’s Better

A few days ago, I received a package in the post. On the outside was a red and white sticker. It read “Thank you for your order”. Will I be buying from that supplier again. You bet.

Alex Goldfayn makes a big point out of this and he’s right. And he takes it further still in the passage entitled ‘Send Human Notes, Not Thank You Notes’ by this he means writing a handwritten note of thanks using pen and ink. Younger salespeople take note (if you excuse the terrible pun).

What’s Worse

Many years ago, I along with the rest of my sales team, watched one of John Cleese “Video Arts”. It was called THE PROPOSAL starring the late great Andrew Sachs. I won’t give the plot away except to point out you never, never send a proposal (in the B2B arena) by post. Yet Alex suggests in his book that a great opener on the telephone is “Did you get that proposal?”. It’s the same for ‘quotes’. A sales manager in the last century taught me to say in response to ‘send me a quote’ was “will you give us an order if we do?”. Maybe in the world of FMCG (CPG if you operate in North America) it’s the established way of working.

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