Tko Sales!

“Dave Anderson’s TKO series is a genuine knockout! The fast flowing format combined with high impact-content ensures that readers in any business and in any country will benefit from the universally sound principles presented.”

“Leadership guru Dave Anderson’s new TKO series guides you through the most important management moments in an innovative, down-to-earth, and short format. These highly readable, action-packed guides bring Anderson’s insights straight into your world, usable from the CEO to the newest trainee.”

“Want to go the distance and be a champion? Let Dave Anderson add power to your punch. The TKO series is loaded with hard-hitting strategies that will knock your competition out of contention.”

—Randy Pennington, author, Results Rule!: Build a Culture that Blows the Competition Away!

“Don’t be fooled by the slim size of Dave Anderson’s TKO series books—they each pack a knockout punch. Forget sales and management theory, these bantamweight books hit right at the gut of your business—what you must to do succeed. Quick reads—and if applied, they’ll provide you with life-long results.”

—Paul McCord, author, How to Build a Million Dollar Sales Income through Referrals

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

For general information on our other products and services or for technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993, or fax (317) 572-4002.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. For more information about Wiley products, visit our web site at www.wiley.com.

TKO sales! : ten knockout strategies for selling more of anything / Dave Anderson.

Many thanks to my wife, Rhonda, who runs our business, covers my back and keeps it all together as I jet around the world acting like I have a real job. Thanks also to the outstanding support staff and work partners in our California, Texas, and Virginia offices. You’re my very own dream team.

Dave Anderson is president of LearnToLead, an international sales and leadership training organization. Dave has authored nine books, including the Wiley titles Up Your Business, If You Don’t Make Waves You’ll Drown, and How to Deal with Difficult Customers. He gives over 100 seminars and keynote speeches internationally each year and writes leadership columns for two national magazines. His web site, www.learntolead.com has tens of thousands of subscribers in forty countries that enjoy an archive of over 400 free training articles. To inquire about having Dave speak to your group contact his Agoura Hills, California office at 800-519-8224 or 818-735-9503 (Intl). Dave is a member of the National Speaker’s Association.

With today’s pace of business and as thin as you’re spread as an employee, spouse, parent, and friend, you need high-impact information on how to improve your skills and elevate your organization; and you need it fast, without the hype, void of academics, and lacking the complexity. This TKO Sales edition of Wiley’s TKO series is the answer.

This book has ten short Rounds that all get to the point and are filled with meaty strategies you can apply right away. In each Round you’ll find Right Hook Rule quotes and sound bites that reinforce what you’re learning. You’ll also relate to the TKO Tales that take true-life situations and use them as a context for how the principles you’re learning can be applied for greater results. If you’re looking for an academic recipe for getting better as a salesperson you won’t find it in TKO Sales. But you will find no-nonsense, in-the-trenches strategies that work in the real-world sales arena. Finally, throughout each Round you’ll find key Left Jab Laws that will be the catalysts to turning this book into a positive change agent for your sales career.

Each Round in TKO Sales concludes with a series of action-oriented Standing Eight-Count Questions and the book finishes up with a bullet-point summary of each Round’s key points for quick reference and review. It’s the Cliff Notes version of the manuscript and I encourage you to refer to it over and over again as you convert the process of becoming a better seller from a fast reading of this book into a process of continual improvement.

A few words of caution on the TKO series: while the strategies presented in this book are nonacademic and easy to apply, they’re still hard work. Nonetheless, anything worthwhile is worth breaking a sweat for and the TKO format will make the hard work you have ahead of you more doable, enjoyable, and rewarding.

Round 1

Make the First Sale to Yourself

Let’s Start with Tough Talk

Selling isn’t for everyone. And, unfortunately, there are plenty of sales amateurs in every industry who give the selling profession a bad name. Many of these people mean well but they’re unskilled. Others have no natural talent for connecting with people and persuading them to buy. Still others have been thrown into their sales jobs with no guidance, structure, or training by lazy or incompetent managers. The result is a mass of average performers who work long and hard but still manage to earn only a modest living as they learn to hate their jobs in the process. What a shame, because sales is the highest paying profession in the world—if you are focused, skilled, emotionally mature, committed to success, and talented. TKO Sales will be able to help you develop the first four of these five traits. What no one can teach you is talent because talent is a gift from God. And if you don’t have a talent for selling then you’ll never be excellent at it. I’m not trying to discourage you, I’m trying to help you. If you don’t have the need to win, if you don’t enjoy persuading others, if you lack resilience and empathy, then you would be better off finding another line of work. This certainly doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. It just means that you’re a bad fit for the selling profession and that you can expect to reap mediocre results at best and will be miserable most of the time you’re doing it. If this is the case then I’d like to thank you for purchasing this book. In doing so you’ve helped me, but the book won’t be able to help you. Please give it to someone wired for selling and go find a profession in which you have a chance of reaching your potential. This will be a livelihood where you can put your talents to use. Life is too short to waste time doing otherwise.

TKO Tale

When I was growing up I wanted to be a doctor. Then, in the eighth grade I won a debate in history class and discovered in the process that I enjoyed arguing and was pretty good at it. I thought fast on my feet and was articulate. It was at that point that I decided I would rather be a lawyer. However, when it came time to graduate high school I decided to join our family restaurant business and skip college altogether. I was anxious to make money and the thought of more school turned me off. After a period of time, though, the long, hard work of the restaurant business, along with its low pay, prompted me to look for something where I could better put the talent I had discovered back in eighth grade to use . . . and make better money in the process. I was drawn to sales because I recalled that as a teenager I enjoyed selling newspaper subscriptions door to door and that I also enjoyed my stint demonstrating and selling car care products at automobile shows. While I was excited about getting out of the restaurant business and into something I felt I’d really enjoy I also had a lingering feeling that I was a failure. After all, at one point I had wanted to be a doctor and then a lawyer and then a restaurant entrepreneur and now I was going to sell, which as I recall was what people did who couldn’t find “real” jobs, who couldn’t hold a job, or who were just fired from a better job.

While I struggled a bit during my first month in car sales, my income for the year was higher than that of the professors that I never had the pleasure of meeting when I decided to charbroil steaks rather than study calculus at the university.