How to Be a Superstar Salesperson by Audri White
What's It About?
Who can forget the scene from the classic movie Glengarry Glen Ross where the slick Alex Baldwin tells a handful of mostly washed-out salesmen, “A-B-C. Always Be Closing.”Audri White takes the alphabetic game a step further with acronyms like CAPI, SPIN and FAB in her quick “pocket guide” handbook to sales called How to Be a Superstar Salesperson.
White, a former salesperson at Xerox Corp. who has made a living in banking, mortgage lending and corporate recruiting, has written a short book chock full of pointers and examples to help emerging salespeople appreciate the importance of setting a strong foundation and to help more established sales pros with a system to upgrade their current skills.
THE BOOK PROVIDES VALUABLE LESSONS AND TECHNIQUES
While the book is a sales primer, it provides valuable lessons and techniques that can be applied to relationships and situations people face in everyday life, everything from making connections to the art of listening.
She also dispels common myths associated with sales: “It is not necessary to be friends with your prospects in order to do business,” says White. “You may have seen some in sales giving away gifts and tickets to win favor. But the truth is there’s simply no substitute for meeting your customer’s needs at a price they can afford.”
White focuses on five key areas of the sales process: making connections, getting in front of prospects, how to handle an initial sales call, overcoming objections, and closing the deal.
As far as her sales “alphabet soup,” White’s training showcases three practices:
- CAPI (Connecting, Affirming, Permission to continue, and Inform)
- SPIN (Situation questions, Problem questions, Implication questions and Needs-payoff questions)
- FAB (Features, Advantage, Benefits)
Each practice has a purpose – and straightforward steps to get to the ultimate goal.
As hard as salespeople might try, White emphasizes that people buy because there is a benefit to owning a particular product; without the benefit, there is no motivation.
And while the various components of White’s strategy might imply a lot of talking and doing on the part of the salesperson, she notes that sales pros should be doing more listening than talking. Quite often, asking the right questions and listening to the answers will provide all the salesperson needs to close a deal – let the buyer “sell” himself.
With so much importance on listening, White offers several specific tips on how to be a better listener, blocking out distractions, taking notes and reconfirming what you think you heard so that you can proceed appropriately.
A HANDY, CONCISE PRIMER ON THE SELLING PROCESS
She also addresses the uncomfortable aspects of sales – objections and the act of closing. Even though many feel anxious about asking for the business, White declares, “Your prospect is fully expecting you to ask for the business…If you don’t, someone else will.”
Readers in other occupations besides sales will find the book useful for a number of reasons. According to a chaplain working within a mental health practice, “I discovered that the SPIN and FAB examples and the examples of handling objections gave me a new perspective on engaging with other team members. These skills helped me connect, communicate and sell my ideas to management.
For a handy, concise primer on the selling process, pick up a copy of Audri White’s How to Be a Superstar Salesperson, no matter what your profession or your station in life. After all, whether you represent a product, an idea, or simply are looking for better ways to connect and communicate, you might want to remember a new acronym, A-B-S. Always Be Selling.
