Karan Sondhi - The Numero Uno Salesman: Your Guide to Becoming the Greatest Salesman in the World

THE NUMERO UNO
SALESMAN

YOUR GUIDE TO BECOMING THE
GREATEST SALESMAN IN THE WORLD

KARAN SONDHI

Dedicated to my mentor, Dr Daisaku Ikeda

There is only one boss, and whether a person shines shoes for a living or heads the biggest corporation in the world, the boss remains the same. It is the customer!

The customer is the person who pays everyones salary and who decides whether a business is going to succeed or fail, and he can do that simply by spending his money somewhere else. Sam Walton

Owner and CEO of Walmart

Sales are dependent on the attitude of the salesman, not on the attitude of the prospect. W. Clement Stone

Businessman, philanthropist and author

If you are not taking care of your customer, your competitor will. Bob Hooey

Canadian inspirational speaker, trainer and author

Whether you think you can, or you think you cannotyoure absolutely right! Henry Ford

Founder of Ford Motor Company

Dear Reader,

This book is for you. If you are in sales, this book is for you. If you want to raise your productivity, grow to your full potential and achieve the numbers you want, this book is for you.

I thank each and every one of you for reading my series of five motivational books which began with Believing Is Achieving and ended with Make Your Own Space. Motivation is a very powerful subject and I have tried through these five books to make you more confident and capable. The several emails you have sent in appreciation of these books are ample reward for my efforts towards giving you maximum value.

This book, The Numero Uno Salesman, is the result of fourteen years of being a sales and soft skills trainer. I have also been actively involved in sales when for three years I sold Twinings Tea in the corporate sector and pens for a friend who had his own brand of pens. I became a distributor for these two companies because I wanted to experience the feeling of having sold something and that feeling was truly great.

However, my Plan A has always been training, so after personally experiencing the joy of selling, I wanted to devote my life to training budding salesmen so as to make them successful in their career. To a great extent, I have achieved this mission, since for me my work is my mission and the driving force behind the success of great salesmen who are achieving their dreams.

My aim is to contribute the maximum towards the growth of sales, without which nothing would progress. The growth of a company depends on the quantity of its sales. Its balance sheet only looks good and profitability is ensured only due to great achievements in its sales figures.

Being a sales trainer for several leading companies over the last two decades has made me bow down to the magic and power that it wields. I have been a sales trainer for Ford India, Hyundai, Maruti, General Motors, Renault, Volkswagen, Tata Motors, Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M), Swaraj Mahindra tractors, Tata Tanishq, Tata Chemicals, National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), Helios watches, American Embassy (for customer care), HDFC Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Punjab National Bank, Bank of India, Life Insurance Corporation of India, ICICI Prudential, Ayaya Global, Amity University, Ranbaxy, JVC India, NIIT (National Institute of Information Technology), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited, Indian Oil Corporation Limited, Reliance Infocomm, Frankfinn Institute of Air Hostess Training (where I was a personality development coach), Sapient Technologies, Mother Dairy, Karl Zeiss, etc.

Sales touch every human being in more ways than one. We are constantly selling our ideas both in our professional and personal lives in order to better our lot. To get a better job, we sell our experience. An insurance agent needs to sell policies in order to earn more. A good surgeon has to have a great success rate on the daily operations he performs; a shopkeeper is always trying to sell more products. Each sportsperson, each movie star, is selling his talents and being paid for it. Subconsciously, we are selling ideas each day of our lives because we all nurture dreams and goals that we want to fulfil.

Being a corporate sales trainer, I conduct need-based presentations daily for my clients, just like a good teacher sells his knowledge through the proficiency of his lectures, or a politician promotes himself through his speeches. Even a child sells a thought to his parents whenever he wants a special favour, like promising better school grades in return of the bike he wants. This clearly shows that in the competitive world that we live in, selling concepts or sales is as much a part of our lives as we are of sales. Hence every individual, when he comes of age, is linked to sales more than he can ever fathom.

Here is an interesting and very inspiring story which a friend of mine mailed me:

Michael Jordan was born in 1963, in the slums of Brooklyn, New York. He grew up in a poor neighbourhood. Exposed to mindless violence and heavy discrimination in the slums, he saw for himself only a hopeless future.

His father saw in him a lost soul and decided to do something about it. He gave Michael, who was thirteen years old then, a piece of used clothing and asked, What do you think the value of this outfit would be?

Jordan replied, One dollar, maybe.

His father asked, Can you sell it for two dollars? If you can do it, it would mean that you are a big help to your family.

Jordan nodded his head. Ill try, but no guarantee that Ill be successful. He carefully washed the cloth clean. Because they didnt have an iron, to smoothen the cloth he levelled it with a clothes brush on a flat board and thereafter kept it in the sun to dry. The next day, he brought the cloth to a crowded underground station. After offering it for more than six hours, Jordan finally managed to sell it for $2. He took the two-dollar bill and ran home.

After that, every day he looked for used clothing, washed and ironed it, and sold it at the station. More than ten days later, his father again gave him a piece of clothing and asked, Can you think of a way to sell this for twenty bucks?

Shocked, Jordan asked, How is it possible? This outfit can fetch two dollars at the most.

His father replied, Why dont you give it a try first? You might find a way.

After deliberating over it for a few hours, finally Jordan got an idea. He asked for his cousins help to paint a picture of Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse on the fabric. Then he tried to sell it at the school where the children of the rich studied.

Soon, a housekeeper, who had come to pick up his master, bought that outfit for him. The master, a little boy aged ten years, loved it so much that he gave Jordan a five-dollar tip. Twenty-five dollars! It was a huge amount for Jordan, the equivalent of his fathers one-month salary.

When he got home, his father gave him yet another piece of used clothing. Will you be able to sell it for $200? Jordans eyes lit up. This time, he accepted the cloth without the slightest doubt. A couple of months later, a very popular TV actress, Farah Fawcett, from the series Charlies Angels, came to New York for her movie promos. After the press conference, Jordan made his way through the security to reach Farah and requested for her autograph on that piece of clothing. When Farah saw this innocent-looking child asking for her autograph, she gladly agreed. A little later, Jordan was shouting excitedly, This is a jersey signed by Miss Farah Fawcett the selling price is $200!