Selling with Integrity: Reinventing Sales Through Collaboration, Respect, and Serving

This book claims to be the follow-up to Solution Selling, by Bosworth. There is a great deal of discussion about which book is better. In my mind, they are simply for different audiences if you want to compare them as simply 'sales books'. Selling with Integrity is by far my #1 recommendation to someone who is not, or does not want to be, a professional salesperson. It is much more simple than Solution Selling and easy to remember in front of customers.I own an agency for OD/HR consulting and have read HUNDREDS of books, manuals, etc on selling. I am especially interested in books about selling high dollar intangibles (HR consulting is incredibly intagible).I am paid by a number of my consultants to provide marketing and 'sales' coaching and this is the book I recommend. If you want to go deeper and have more structure to your sales, this is not necessarily your book. Look to Selling Solutions.However, Selling With Integrity resonates deeply with the solid principles at it's core and a new mentality of looking at sales - helping the buyer buy, or becoming a 'Buying Facilitator'.I consider myself a professional sales person and when I need a quick boost and/or self pep talk on sales, I pick up Selling with Integrity and remember why I like it so much.My personal litmus test is 'Would I buy the book again after I have read it, but pay double the price?' The answer is absolutely, no question, YES!! Buy the book. For almost any price, it is an absolute bargain.

In this book Sharon Drew Morgan introduces a simple concept - Stop trying to sell things to people and instead, help them to find what they need. Codicil: If *you've* got what they need they'll buy it from you. Simple? Yes. But totally opposite from all *conventional* wisdom. Indeed, check out the review posted on March 29th. The reviewer asks "would a salesperson armed with only the 'Selling with Integrity' framework be effectively prepared for hardline end-run negotiation tactics from the buyer?" This isn't a good question or a bad question - it is a totally irrelevant question. Using Ms Morgan's approach correctly will negate the possibility of ending up in that situation in the first place. And anyway, if, by some chance it does occur, why is it a problem? If you're desperate to make a sale then of course you have to dive in and go head to head. If you've understood and adopted Ms Morgan's message, on the other hand, you are in there to provide a service - NOT to make a sale, per se. So, if the buyer tries to change the rules it simply means that you've lost rapport. If you think it's worth it, re-establish rapport and carry on helping the buyer to find out what s/he really needs; otherwise simply let it go. Ms Morgan also explains why striving to guide the customer back to your own goods is a mistake. It's as simple as this: If you're offering a genuine SERVICE to your customer then you are aiming to provide the most appropriate solution to their needs - regardless of who provides that solution. If your underlying concern is always to guide the customer to your own products then you are, in essence, still trying to SELL something rather than provide a service. You are still, as in all traditional approaches to the sales process, putting your own needs (to make a sale) before the needs of the customer (to find the BEST solution). Many years ago I worked in retail computer sales. One day I discovered that a certain manufacturer, whose goods we stocked, had a return rate of 25% or more. From that time on I refused to sell any items produced by that manufacturer. And I explained why Some customers bought a different machine. Others went to another sales person or another shop. My colleagues were initially horrified. How could I turn down cast iron sales opportunities? Before long, however, they changed their tune. Why? Because the number of customers went up by over 50%. Sales went up by even more. Why? Because word of mouth spread the message that we told the truth about the goods we were selling and gave good advice. We weren't just selling computers, we were providing an honest, reliable SERVICE. By the way, this idea isn't exactly new, though Ms Morgan does present it in a thoroughly professional manner. Check out the film "Miracle on 35th Street", and you'll see what I mean. What's new is the realisation that, as a serious, viable approach to selling IT WORKS. Buy the book. Try it out. Be amazed!

The words in the title of this review appear at the top of Sharon Drew's book in an endorsement by Ken Blanchard. When you read the word "paradigm," your bussword detector might go off, as mine did. Sure--I thought--another new paradigm! Deliver me from paradigms. But I read the book. Pondered on it. Then I read it again. If you're looking for just another book on selling--and I've read most of them--skip this one. It will challenge your old assumptions about selling. If "control" is what you're about as a salesperson, and you enjoy trying to control the prospect, don't read this book. You'll find it disconcerting. It could make you want to change your approach.But if you want to consider selling in an entirely new way, one that respects the customer (and yourself, too), read it. It's a simple read, but far from simplistic. It does, in fact, offer a new sales paradigm, and it's a breathe of fresh air.

It's not about how I sell- it's about how a buyer buys. It's not about how good I pitch, sell and close but about how I seek to enter into a collaboration with the buyer. You will learn how to help be a buyer facilitator as you go through the process of how a buyer buys. You build trust and deep relationships. This book was very healing for me. It allowed me to enter sales in a service mode. Buyers and sellers are both respected and you sell at a depth you've never known possible before. No more wasted time on unqualified prospects. No more running out on appts to see people who just want to shop you for a price. This book will help heal your soul and give you peace and a confidence that no other course has ever offered. I have gotten into companies and made appointments with people that others have said I'd never be able to do. Sharon Drew has got the cure for never ending barage of sales courses we have to attend. Take this one and you won't need the others.

Sharon Drew Morgen cuts through the myths and b.s. about business and selling in a powerful, clear, stimulating book that should be "must reading" for anyone who sells for a living. She gets at the real thinking/emotional process at the heart of the buying decision better than anyone else I've read - then translates these insights into a breakthrough sales approach that is genuinely "win/win." What a powerful alternative to the rat race of manipulation and resistance most of us were taught selling had to be! The real challenge would be for executives and sales managers to read this book and then allow its principles to govern how salespeople are compensated and "motivated." A compelling book from an author of deep spirituality and years of success as a business person.