Selling Boldly

1The Single Greatest Killer of Sales

Want to grow sales? Here is an executive summary of this book in two sentences and two steps:

• The first step is to know how good you are so that you gain confidence, positivity, and boldness.
• The second step is to communicate with customers and prospects more, because the more we communicate, the more we sell. (The less we communicate, the less we sell. It never works the other way. We can never communicate less, and sell more.)

That's the book in a nutshell. If you keep reading, you'll learn in deep detail how to dramatically increase your positivity, confidence, and joy by listening to your happy customers—and then, simply, offering to help them more.

That's how easy it is to grow sales.

We begin with three stories that lay out the single greatest killer of sales growth.

The Coffee Shop

I was at the airport in Minneapolis, ordering an iced coffee, and the young woman behind the counter asked me if I would like a bottle of water with that.

This stopped me in my tracks because I teach all of my clients this technique—I call it the did you know question—and although it's an incredibly simple question that requires only a few seconds, almost nobody ever asks a question like this. Anywhere, ever.

I asked her, “Do they teach you to ask this question?”

“Yes, they do,” she said. “It's a part of our training.”

“How many people buy a bottle of water?”

You know what she said?

“Almost everybody.”

Guess how much the water cost? Five dollars!