Stop Selling and Start Leading

Introduction:How You Make Extraordinary Sales Happen

STOP SELLING & START LEADING is a book about how to make more sales. How? Our research shows you can make more sales by abandoning sales-y behaviors buyers resist and replacing them with leadership behaviors buyers desire. This book is about the extraordinary things sellers do when they stop pushing people to buy before they're ready, and they start guiding buyers by transforming values into actions, visions into realities, obstacles into innovations, separateness into solidarity, and risks into rewards. Stop Selling & Start Leading is about ennobling the sales profession and dignifying buyers, a shift that turns tedious transactions into exciting customer experiences.

This book is focused as much on buyers as it is on sellers, which represents a truth every exemplary leader understands: it's not about you, it's about your constituents—their needs, hopes, dreams, and aspirations—and leaders can't make anything happen all by themselves. Today buyers have enormous power and information and more choices than ever before. They dodge sellers, delay decisions, demand price concessions, and expect more but give less. Buyers scarcely tolerate sellers and often unfairly stereotype them, erecting barriers to entry without giving sellers a fair chance.

Stop Selling & Start Leading is aimed directly at sellers. It's for sellers who work diligently but still struggle to mobilize buyers and meet ever-increasing quotas. It's for sellers ...