The Greatest Book on Sales and Marketing

The Greatest Book on Sales and Marketing

If I asked you to name the five best books on selling, Green Eggs and Ham probably wouldn’t leap into your mind.

But it should.

Immortal Sam I Am is one of the greatest salesmen ever.

Here are two reasons why:

1. He tries to close the sale sixteen times before he gets a “yes.”
Sixteen! The average salesperson asks twice.
Sam knew the average sale is made when the customer is asked five times.
Sam knew that 67% of all shoppers expect to return home with the item they went out to look for, but only 24% actually do.

2. Sam knew that simply asking again and again wasn’t enough.
That’s not closing, that’s being a pain in the backside.

This is key: Sam came up with sixteen options, ideas, new ways of thinking about green eggs and ham.

Would you like them in a box? With a fox? In a house? With a mouse? In a train? In the rain? Here or there?

Cheesy sales trainers love to spout, “Ya gotta remember ABC! Always Be Closing!” But what does that mean? Hammer on people till they give in? Let us hope not. Let’s hope your sales people think ABC-UWI-TWHP. Always be coming up with innovative ideas that will help people.
Oh, you’re not a sales person? But of course you are.

If you’re alive, you’re selling. Your ideas, your writing, your blog, your Web site, a product, your business… everything.

Stick with it. Get creative. Be like Sam.

(Did you know a Random House editor bet Ted Geisel $50 he couldn’t write a book using only fifty words? Green Eggs and Ham was the result.)