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How Customers Think by Steve Deery

The full title of this book by Steve Deery is

“How Customers Think: Or, How Customers Like to Buy“.

In my review posted at Amazon.co.uk, I gave this book Four Stars. This means it is Good and Well Worth Reading.

Here is my book review.

Your customers aren’t you

This book reminds me of the distinction that Tony Alessandro made between the golden rule (treat people as you’d like to be treated) and the platinum rule (treat people as they’d like to be treated).

Is it more important for the buyer to adapt to the way the seller likes to sell or for the seller to adapt to the way the buyer likes to buy?

Common sense says that it should be the seller who changes because otherwise the buying experience is frustrating and, understandably, often fails to result in a purchase.

Why then do some sales trainings look for the seller to gain control of the process and impose his or her will on the buyer? It doesn’t make sense to me to go and deliberately fight with the customer and build up resistance until he or she is worn down and defeated. It’s certainly not the way I want to buy or sell.

This book helps the reader to:

1) Identify the natural and preferred style of the buyer.

2) Explains how the sales person can adapt his or her selling style to match. Just knowing point 1 would help you qualify quicker but it would be frustrating to miss out on potential customers who have a clear want or need for your product or service.

The book is both interesting and well written.

It reminds me of some of my own frustrating buying and selling experiences. I’m a sceptic about personality styles and feel that their general influence can be overstated. I find that my own personality is situation dependent. The author recognises there are generalisations but stresses the importance of your awareness and willingness to mould yourself.

It identifies four styles where there are high contrasts among different dimensions and attributes. Real life is less black and white and more shades of grey which makes clear diagnosis and adjustment harder.

I kept feeling that I’d read the ideas before and, on reflection, I think I’ve read an earlier version of the book ten or more years ago or a very similar one. This says to me that although the ideas in the book are logically very appealing, it’s harder to put them into practice.

The book is therefore more use to people who are in a sales situation every working day rather than only occasionally. Change requires regular practice, assessment and additional adaptation where things didn’t go as you’d hoped.

I recommend this book to sales people who are looking to improve their conversion rates and especially if they feel that they get frustrated selling to plenty of people. It’s not a book that I’m going to add to my list of general recommendations for small business clients because I think it’s too specialised.

It is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.

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