Skip to main content

Zig Ziglar on Selling

Did you ever wonder who Zig Ziglar was? I had heard that name a lot and then I figured out he was a salesman. It's one of those names that just goes into the common cultural repository without anyone quite knowing why.

I got this book because, wanting to go into business for myself, I figure I need to know how to sell a thing or two. Basically, all the literature is telling me that people who you think of as jerky salesmen (you know the gold-toothed used car types or the people who call your office and go "you mean you don't want to save money???") are not right at all. Selling is about having a relationship with people and finding the people who need what you want to sell. So that part is easy. The part that makes me nervous though is the prospecting part. This book addresses that some, here are the tips:

1. Take personal responsibility for building self-confidence and self-esteem.

2. Selling is a transference of feeling.

3. You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want. (This kind of makes sense, doesn't it?)

4. Tame the telephone. Make it work for you instead of against you.

5. To be the winner you were born to be, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win. (This is where the therapist comes in handy.)

6. Use the "Experimental Syndrome" to overcome feelings of rejection by making each call a positive "experiment" instead of a negative "experience."

7. Get on a regular schedule and make an appointment with yourself to be face-to-face with a prospect at the same time every day. (I don't really get this one.)

This is some good advice I think.

By Zig Ziglar
ISBN # 0785263322

Popular posts from this blog

An Army of Davids

So, I've been spending some time with Glenn Reynold's book (Glenn being of course the seminal and highly influential Instapundit ), and I must say that it gives me lots of language I can use to talk about phenomena that are easily observable right now. I think you could say that Glenn Reynolds has done for technology what Virginia Postrel did with design topics . Which is to say, they beat the drum and say, hey, look at what this democratization of knowledge can do for you! In that vein, the book is really pretty visionary, pointing out the magic of the internet age. And I for one see it as magical. You know how Laura Ingalls Wilder's Pa in Little Town on the Prairie said to Laura that it was an amazing time to be alive (that was in the 1890s)? I've been actively thinking that to myself for the past few years, and An Army of Davids gives me ample evidence to back that up with its talk of citizen empowerment and the "comfy chair revolution." The theme of ...
Read more

Public sector information design

Here's an article from the UK's Design Council talking about how information design is important in public-sector efforts. Of course, it's helpful to everyone, but this is a good example of the universal need for better presentation of information--and more design.
Read more

Get Out of Your Own Way

This book, by Robert K. Cooper, was on the library's newly arrived shelf. It's pretty good, although if you read biz books a lot, there's a lot you'll want to skim. Still, the principles he talks about are good to think on. The subtitle of the book is "the five keys to surpassing everyone's expectations." These keys are: 1. Direction, not motion 2. Focus, not time 3. Capacity, not conformity 4. Energy, not effort 5. Impact, not intentions Each key has three or four supporting chapters that talk about subprinciples. Some things that I identified with from key one is that a) "good and great are the enemies of possible," a quote Cooper attributes to his grandfather. It's pretty self-explanatory though. The other thing is he talks about "what's automatic, accelerates." Basically, if you can put effort into something until it becomes automatic, you've won the battle. So focus resources on issues and behaviors that will eventually...
Read more