The Art of Selling

10 commandants of sales from the book “The Art of Selling” by Zig Ziglar

“It was refreshing to go through a simple book on Selling – “The Art of Selling” by Zig Ziglar…. Here are 10
commandants of sales learnt from the book:

1. Persuade and not just convince – Book starts with an interesting story about Galileo when he
challenged the thought process of Aristotle that if two weights of the same material are dropped
from the same height, larger of the two would fall faster. When Galileo’s opinion was challenged, he
went to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, dropped two weights dramatically different in size but
of the same material, and they hit the ground at precisely the same time. Even after documentation
of this experiment, at the University of Pisa, they kept teaching that the heavier weight would fall
faster for long-long time.

Similar episode happens in sales…. Number of times, prospects get convinced that there is apparent
need and a product/service fills that but they don’t take next step of “closure of sale”. Art of persuasion
is the means to the sales. And, work ‘persuasion’ is not used here in negative sense but in positive
sense of engaging the customer in a meaningful dialogue. Ziglar states “You don’t persuade by telling,
you persuade by asking questions.” Engage with customers by asking relevant questions, listen to their
answers carefully and those answers would lead to next set of questions and ultimately a sale.

2. People buy solutions not products/services – We all buy products of the products/services – called
benefits or solutions. Accordingly, sales person should lead with need. Zigler states “Don’t waste
your time and the prospect’s time telling them what the product is. Tell them what it can do and
why it will do it for them”.

3. Primary objective of sales is to add value to customer and not making money – If your prime
objective is to make money from sales, most often, you would miss-sell. Making money has to be
the buy product of the sales process. Therefore, focus of the discussions should always be on what
is the product, how does this product add value to the customer. If we focus on these two points,
money would automatically be taken care of. Ziglar states “Successful sales professionals make the
sales call for the benefit of the prospect and not for their personal gains.”

4. Do ethical business – Honesty is the integral part of any business for long term success. As

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management guru Dr. Steven Covey stated “Right thing in life is to do the right things”, we should
only engage in doing right things. Our focus has to be on building “Trust” with customer and that is
always a product of ethical business and deep relationship. Ziglar states “You do not invent or
create the needs. That is not selling. You uncover a need or problem that is already there and, in the
process, render a solution, a real service.” Never forget that it takes years to nurture a relationship
and few minutes to break one.

5. Prepare, prepare and prepare – Entering in to a meeting without preparation is a big disaster. Forget
the sale, mind that you are wasting the irretrievable component – time of someone, which is
absolutely unwarranted. Prepare in advance – about the product/service, spend time researching
about the potential customer and his business. List down questions in advance. Have the objective
of meeting clear, listen carefully, make notes, conclude meeting with action points/next steps.
Never forget to respond to the customer with what you promised – honor commitments. People
always remember what you promised and what you delivered. Review notes of previous meetings
when you go to see the customer next time. Here, to quote Swami Chinmayanada “If you fail to
plan… you plan to fail”.

6. Start with people you know – Most of the times, out of fear of losing a relationship, we ignore
persuading our near and dear ones on the product/solutions we are offering. On this, Ziglar states “If
you think your product is good enough for all those strangers, why isn’t it good enough for your
friends and your family. If what you are selling is not good enough for your friends and family, then
why are you selling it? If it is good, then why would you want to keep it from those you care about
most”.

7. Build on positives in life – Positive conditioning of mind is an immense tool for success. Impressions
of past on mind do play on present. Flush all the so called not positive impressions of the past and
build future on positive impressions. Not easy… but, practice will help. Remember – “Success leads
to success”. Swami Vivekananda also stated “if you think, you can, you can; and, if you think, you
can’t, you can’t. Either way, you are right”. Also remember, when people refuse to buy something
from you, they refuse to business proposal and not you at the personal level. Zigler states “When
your prospects say no, the reason is most often that they don’t “know” enough to say Yes”.

8. Mix Emotions and logic in discussions – Most of us claim to make logical decisions, but the reality is,

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we generally make emotional decisions. Therefore, it makes tremendous sense for us to combine
emotion and logic in the sales process. Advertisements on television are the live proof of that. Zigler
states “Emotion makes the prospects take action now, and logic enables them to justify the
purchase later.”

9. Price not on cost plus basis but on value creation basis – Pricing, while, has to be competitive, more
importantly, it has to be fair – fair to both the parties (buyer and seller). A good customer respects
that sales guys need to make money from business. If one reduces the price continuously under
competitive pressure and then does not deliver value because the pricing was diluted, this is
‘dishonesty’. Stick to the pricing based on value to the customer and focus on differentiation/value
creation for customer through your product/service. Chances are you will win.

10. Identify the decision maker clearly – Many a times, sales people spend significant amount of time
interacting with non-decision makers. As someone said “No point executing a nonsense plan
brilliantly”, no point investing time with people who are neither decision makers nor are enablers for
the decision. Therefore, first job of a sales guy should be to identify the decision maker and/or
enabler and then drive the discussions.

To conclude, I learnt that sales is not really sales but a process of helping the customer buy…. Engage with
potential customer through questioning on his/her needs and relevance of the product/service one is offering. If
discussions could lead to match between needs and utility of the product/service, sale would eventually happen
automatically…”

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