Kaplan - Secrets of a Master Closer: A Simpler, Easier, and Faster Way to Sell Anything to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere

A SIMPLER, EASIER, AND FASTER WAY TO SELL ANYTHING TO ANYONE, ANYTIME, ANYWHERE

MIKE KAPLAN

Copyright 2012 Mike Kaplan

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Cover Designed by: Damon Freeman

Typesetting by Kiersten Lief

Published by: Master Closers, Inc.

www.secretsofamastercloser.com

SELLING HAS BEEN DEFINED AS:

THE ACT OF PERSUADING OR CONVINCING SOMEONE TO BUY YOUR PRODUCT, SERVICE, OR IDEA.

Your ability to sell is determined by your ability to persuade or convince others.

Anyone who wants to maximize their ability to sell, or maximize the abilities of others to sell, should read this book.

This includes new salespeople, veteran salespeople, sales managers, sales trainers, negotiators, entrepreneurs and business owners.

The information in this book was compiled and refined over many years of my own personal sales experiences as well as my experiences in training thousands of others in sales. Not only have I sifted through numerous informational sources on my quest to discover the actual fundamentals of successful selling, everything in this book has also been extensively field-tested and proven to be successful. This is what I learned and used to become the #1 salesperson in my industry and to double my sales income every year for four straight years. I later found and built one of the fastest growing sales companies in the U.S. by training my sales staff on these same fundamentals.

When I first started in sales, I had no prior training, nor did I have any innate ability to persuade others. Instead, I relied on my ability to observe and emulate what other successful salespeople were doing. While this helped me to get started, I eventually realized that I had collected many tricks of the trade, and gimmicks without really knowing the underlying basics of selling. If I wanted to reach my full potential, I knew that I had to do something about my gap in knowledge.

I set out on a quest to discover the underlying fundamentals that would explain and properly align all the tricks, gimmicks and phrases that I had been memorizing and robotically reciting every day. I wanted to know why they worked. I wanted to understand sales in a more scientific fashion. I also wanted a road map that would lay out the exact path to making any sale, and I wanted to detail each step and its true purpose. I wanted to cause sales to occur and feel completely in control of my income. I wanted to be the best salesperson I could be.

As I moved along on my quest and discovered each new fundamental, or piece of the puzzle, I raised my selling I.Q. After much research and experimentation, I finally had all of the pieces of the puzzle and saw how they fit together into one easy-to-understand whole.

From that moment on, all of the confusions and mysteries that I had regarding how to consistently and systematically close sales were gone. I knew that I had mapped out a step-by-step process that would allow me to sell more than ever before.

With these fundamentals discovered and understood, I could evaluate any new sales techniques and quickly determine if they were valid, why they would work (or not), and whether I should use them or not. I also found that I was able to invent my own new techniques and wordings as needed.

I think back on the lost time, heartache, and hard knocks that I could have avoided if someone had handed me a book like this when I first decided to give sales a shot. As it has been said, Its water (or lost sales) under the bridge.

There are many great sales books, tapes, and systems available. Each one has something that will help you become a better salesperson. But, if you want to fully understand and maximize the benefits from those techniques and systems, you need to know the underlying principles and fundamentals of selling.

If you are new to sales, make this book the first one you read, and you will greatly increase your chances for early success. If you are a seasoned veteran and are looking for ways to improve your numbers (which all good salespeople always are), this book will help make your sales goals a reality. There is a very good chance that, while reading these pages, youll find the clouds parting with a brighter understanding of selling shining through.

If you are a sales manager, trainer and/or business owner, make this book the cornerstone of your sales training. As my sales career advanced into sales management and eventually into owning my own sales company, I used the information in this book to build a sales training system that was the backbone of what became a multi-million dollar software sales company.

So, lets start your journey to record-shattering sales where I first started: the question of, What is selling, really?

SELLING IS A PROCESS. IT IS A PROCESS of persuading or convincing someone to buy your product, service, or idea.

A process is an organized series of actions directed to some end. If someone understands and completely knows the process involved in any activity, then he or she can be successful in that activity. Without knowing the process of an activity youre involved in, youre destined for uncertainty, confusion and poor performance.

If you know the exact process of selling and can apply it correctly, you will succeed. That is a fact.

I was exposed to many techniques early on in my sales career. I followed them blindly without really knowing why they worked (when they did) or when and how to best use them. I figured that if other salespeople were using them, then I should too.

This served me pretty well when I first got started. I would watch and listen to the better salespeople in the company, and if I heard something that seemed to get them a good result, then I would use it. I also knew I couldnt rely only on a limited number of successful tricks that I stole from other salespeople. I needed to have a deeper understanding.

I decided to invest a portion of my time in the evenings after work to study and learn sales techniques from the experts. I acquired one of the best lecture series on sales training that I have ever heard (currently titled Back to the Future in Sales) by J. Douglas Edwards, considered the Father of American Selling. I listened to these sales tapes over and over every evening and noted the techniques that made sense to me and that I felt I could put to use in my sales. Onto small cards, I wrote down wordings that were appropriate for my product and industry.

The next day at work, I placed these cards in front of me so that I could see them when making my sales calls. I would test the technique at the appropriate time during a sales call and note the result. I gave each technique three tries to see if it would work. If it did, I kept it and made it part of my own bag of tricks. If it didnt, I tossed it.

I continued to do this for several months with each of J. Douglas Edwards lectures, and later I did the same with all other sales lectures or books I could get my hands on. As a result, I built up a great arsenal of field-tested sales techniques that I knew worked for me.