Reading new books is a regular part of our company culture. This book review of “How to Sell Yourself by Joe Girard” is written by Titan Sachin Londhe, Projects Assistant at Floma.
The first and the most important thing the writer wants to convey in this book is that you have to sell yourself to yourself. If you do not believe that you are number one, no one else will. Moreover, this is one of the fundamental rules in the sales world. You don’t have to be on the muscle about it, you do not have to tell your opponents what you are going to do to them. Just be positive and tell yourself that you are the greatest. The simple point to note is to talk to yourself as being the number one. All the people who sell themselves successfully are first sold on themselves.
This book is divided into three sections according to me. The first section talks about selling yourself to yourself. The writer says that we should police these things out of our life – envy, jealousy, a willingness to choose the second best and the willingness just to give in. The writer advises us to have faith in ourselves, faith in others, faith in our abilities, faith in today & faith in our future. If you don’t have faith in yourself, who else will!
The writer strongly believes that confidence breeds confidence. Believe in yourself and associate with confident people. Turn up your confidence machine. Be the master of your ship. Keep busy. Because you are the real product that you are selling. How you look at life is how you look at others.
Practising Enthusiasm
Nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so. You can fill your head with the discouragement by thinking negative thoughts or you can change your whole attitude about yourself and others by thinking positive thoughts. Just talk to yourselves out loud ‘Day-by-day in every way I am getting better’.
Make up your mind now that from here on you are going to paint mental pictures of yourself that are successful, attractive, and positive. Then use your thinking power every time you are out to sell others. You are selling the world’s number one product- you and you never want to be without a flavourful ingredient that is enthusiasm. Let us put it to work.
Four ways to practice enthusiasm:
- Care about something deeply
- Get excited out loud
- Use a battery charger
- See life as a kid
What he is trying to say is, always have something to be enthusiastic about, Like a goal, an idea, a project, a plan, another person, or a family. He also says ‘I couldn’t care less is 180 degrees opposite from enthusiasm.’ So be aware of that. Give yourself enthusiasm when you wake up as you have another 1440 minutes, another 24 hours, another day that is- today!
Isn’t that exciting? ‘Today is the day that counts, and I am going to make today better than yesterday’. When you show your enthusiasm out loud, it cracks like electricity. Like a kid looking at the world, have an attitude full of expectations that something wonderful is about to happen.
Art of Listening
“I know that you believe that you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.”
Now when most people are pre-sold to advertising or other means, what they really come in (to your shop of office) to see is some kind of reassurance that they are making a right decision here. The writer has made some fantastic one-liners like ‘Least said, soonest mended,’ and ‘Speech is silver while silence is golden.’ The writer recommends that we use common, short words in our talks. ‘They are the words others know, they are the words that bring other men to know and they are the words which move men’.
Memory Management
Open an account in your memory bank, he says. He compares memory with a bank. Everyday, you are reading some info, you are also deleting some info and you’re keeping track of it. Do not fill your memory with rubbish and unnecessary things. Clean the slate daily. Use word association- relate the words with what you remember. Don’t trust your memory.
Avoid memory traps, put repeatability to work, keep your mind busy! The busier it is, the more efficiently it works. If your muscles are busy, they grow stronger. Similarly it goes for your memory.
Also, remember to forget. Forget anything which is troubling you; which is not useful to you like a certain event in your past. You can be taught to have a trained memory just as you can be taught anything else. There is no such thing as a bad memory. There are only trained and untrained memories.
The Power of Truth in Selling
Put simply, when in doubt, tell the truth. Truth is the most valuable thing and also telling the truth can cost you money. But again, you must decide which is the more important to you- truth or cash.
Think twice before speaking, conceive another way of saying anything and cover the truth with kindness. Don’t just shout out loud the rough truth on someone. Be gentle and don’t practice exaggerating. Speak to the point and short. This helps a lot as it enables you to listen more.
Don’t cover up for others or don’t ask anyone to cover up for you. This will complicate things and keep you from telling the truth. And most importantly- don’t tell ‘little white lies’. No person is perfect, so if you keep telling little lies as to why you’re late or for any small things, it will degrade your credibility.
Power of Promise
Promises measure your sincerity. No matter what the cost to keep the promises you have made, keep them. No one can force you to do this but yourself. Think before you make any future promises. Ask yourself- can I really do what I’m promising? If you’re honest at this moment, you’ll find keeping your promises to be a lot easier.
The writer has mentioned a simple exercise to do about this. He asks us to keep a piece of paper with us and write down all the promises we make everyday. And then, asks us to look at it every morning to ensure that we’re working on keeping them.
Importance of Smile
A smile is the most important thing when it comes to selling. If you smile at someone, it is probable that he will smile back at you. But if you frown at someone, he will frown back at you. This is simply the Law of Reflection.
What you give to people, you will be getting back. A smile never disappoints. So just start smiling and feeling nice throughout your day! Smiling when you don’t feel like it literally gives you positive thoughts.
And when smiling, smile with your whole face. It involves your eyes, your nose, your facial expressions and even your hands.
Don’t smile alone, smile out loud and others will also smile with you! Don’t say ‘cheese’, say ‘I like you’. This is one of the best positive sentences to say to someone.
Always Over-deliver
When someone asks you to walk for 5 kilometres, walk 7.
When you have the feeling of that extra kilometre of stretch, it boosts your confidence! If you are a salesperson, try making one or two extra prospecting call each day. So if you generally do 10 calls a day, go for 20. If you generally do 20, then go for 30 and so on. Work a little longer at the office than you need to or come in an hour early everyday. You don’t need to do too much, just a little bit extra.
Doing more without being asked is called being more than yourself. You are selling yourself as a young person (even when you’re mature). Why? Because young people have plenty of ambition and energy. Young people are full of new ideas, new ways, new hopes & new dreams. Young people want to set the world on fire and there’s nothing wrong with that. You also need to sell yourself as a mature person, though.Experience matters and that is an important thing.
The last section of the book is about the practical tips on selling. For example, the writer asks us to concentrate our sale around the biggest product benefits, rather than just talking on and on about the product for what it is. Try to listen to the customer. Try to understand what he wants. Try to relate your product to the customer’s need. The more you relate the product to the customer, the chances of a sale increase greatly. Protect your good name, keep the right company, stick to your principles, be aware of compromising, and practice saying no. These are all essentials to good selling.
Overall, the book is very nice. Lots of practical information about selling and in my opinion, it’s a must read for every young salesperson!
The book can be purchased on Amazon and Flipkart.
This is a personal review of the writer and we have no affiliation with the book publisher or the eCommerce platforms linked to.
