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Sales Aces
 "It is the starting point for any sales negotiation. Here are the tricks of the trade to arrange a meeting
immediately..."
P: Today the title of the book I am holding in my hands is
"Gli Assi della Vendita", come conquistare i clienti e mantenerli fedeli per sempre"
(Sales Aces, how to gain customers and keep their loyalty forever”, it is written by Vittorio Galgano who is with us on the
phone, good morning Galgano!).
G: Good morning Mr. Paglierini.
P: Well, the book you wrote is for salesmen, I imagine.
G: Yes, exactly.
P: Maybe
not only……later we will explain why.
G: Yes.
P: I would like to start
by saying that Vittorio Galgano is the chairman of Ottantaventi, a company
that has been operating for more than twenty years in the training and
consultancy field. He has just written this book, can you already find it in
bookshops, or will it be available next week?
G: The book will be
available in bookshops from today, September 18th.
P: I know you titled
this book "Sales Aces" because in the book you suggest the
"Aces method". What does it consist of?
G: The salesman who follows this method
has three capabilities: the first one is listening carefully. Often, a
salesman attributes his sales failure to what he said, while he probably
lost the customer while not listening carefully. It is important that the
salesman is aware that his way of listening transfers positive or negative
feelings to the customer. Let’s see the negative ones: "I am
absolutely not interested in you, I am only interested in selling you
something, let me do the talking regarding this matter, I know better than you".
P: A sentiment that we often feel.
G: This is often true of those salesmen who
want to be the best in their field. However, it is more important to send
positive signals: "I do appreciate you as a person, You have my full attention, I
understand your concerns and it is
very important for me to be of help"; a salesman transfers all these
sentiments while listening and consequently encourages the customer to talk;
this is the reason why I always repeat this point: listening to the
customer is the most elegant and subtle activity of psychological
seduction.
P: So this is the base of the Aces method?
G: Yes. Besides his
listening skills, a salesman must master another skill: he must be able
to talk in a psychologically persuasive way, I mean to say that he must be aware that what he
says is not so important as how he says it. In fact, the secret of persuasion
lies in “how you say something”. In “how” the voice clarity and
its expressiveness come into play; the “Aces” salesman is someone who
is able to hold the customer’s attention! He must be interesting!
Because a salesman's worst enemy is monotony!
P: Right.
G: ...The customer
who gets bored doesn’t listen and doesn’t buy, and often the fact that
he doesn’t listen leads him to raise false objections; I mean no
customer will ever say:”……listen, I didn’t understand what you
told me because I was not listening", but he will defend himself with
some trite objections.
P: Very interesting …
G: The Aces salesman is
therefore very careful about using the psychological aspects of
communication and can create a positive relationship with the customer.
P:
In your book you explain how to gain customers and keep their loyalty
forever.
G: Exactly.
P: Well, I want to leave that mystery for future
readers, but I will ask you to unveil some secrets, an ace up one’s
sleeve to gain customers and keep their loyalty.
G: Satisfying the
customer’s self-image is one of these secrets. An Aces salesman, for
instance, would never make the mistake of saying: "Do you understand all the
benefits you can have by using this new mixture?", because the
customer may be motivated to answer: "Listen, I majored in
Chemistry and I have been working in this field for ten years!"…
P:
...And so, what does he say?
G: The Aces salesman asks: "Mr. Franchi it is important for me to know your opinion
of this new type of
mixture and on the benefits of its use".
P: At the beginning of the
interview I mentioned the possibility of using your book also for other
jobs, am I right in thinking that it is not only for salesmen? I mean these suggestions can
also be used for other jobs or are they only for salesmen?
G: In the most
advanced and dynamic meaning, selling means inducing the other to act.
This is why this book may be of interest for those who wish to have
positive reactions from their audience, for example a teacher must “sell”,
meaning that he has to induce pupils to love his subject and to want to
learn it, therefore he has to induce them to act!
P: So these suggestions
are not only for salesmen...
G: For anybody who wishes to sell an idea,
for people who want to communicate with children effectively!
P: Well
Galgano, thank you, let me remind you of the title of his book, "Sales
Aces". It is published by Sperling e Kupfer and you will find it from
this week in the bookshops; How to gain customers and keep their loyalty
forever, by Vittorio Galgano.
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