The full title of this book by Harry Washburn and Kim Wallace is
“Why People Don’t Buy Things: Five Proven Steps to Connect with Your Customers and Dramatically Increase Your Sales“.
In my review on Amazon.co.uk, I rated this book as Four Stars. This means I think it is Good and Well Worth Reading.
Here is my book review.
How to adjust your sales process to the different types of buyers
This is an interesting book and stands out from a traditional sales training book which looks at topics like prospecting, getting past the gatekeeper, handling objections and closing.
One minor gripe is that I don’t think the title reflects the book. I didn’t get the book I thought I was buying. The focus is very much on the customer or buyer, their buying process and how you can use buyer path selling.
It argues that you get objections when you don’t fit in with their buying process and you lose their attention by not paying due attention to an important step or by providing reasons that don’t match with their thinking. The authors say that you need to follow the buying process or buying path which is the complete opposite to other sales methodologies like Sandler Sales where you look to seize control and impose your system on them.
The book identifies three distinct buying profiles:
1 – The commander – who is people and action oriented – he or she needs to be in control.
2 – The thinker – who tries to make logical decisions.
3 – The visualiser – who makes quick decisions based on appearance and tangible features.
Each of the three profiles needs to be treated differently in the buying/selling process. The authors draw on the studies of NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) which looks at how to communicate verbally and non-verbally with people and the three buying profiles will respond to different communications.
I rate this book at the 4 star level which is a recommendation to read.
The authors are to be congratulated on stepping out of the crowd of sales books. I find it a paradox – it was interesting and boring. I have this problem with reading NLP based stuff because it seems that I want to know it but I don’t want to learn it. Crazy I know.
More experienced sales people than me will relate to the different personality types and I think the book will make more sense. For that reason I see this as a book for the thinking sales executive rather than for the small business owner who is a reluctant sales person.
It is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.
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