21 page corners turned over! For those past readers of this blog and my book reviews you know that is an excellent rating. For those of you that are new, whenever I read a new book, I read it with a pen in hand and I fold over the corners of those pages with high value. Believe me James Muir’s book, The Perfect Close, is a great add to any sales library.
Early on James added a section titled “Why I Wrote This Book.” He writes of his history of sales and sales management-almost talking himself out of sale and coaching others in learning how to sell. His stories are easy to relate to and James writing style is smooth and his content is spot on. His 13 chapters flow logically, even though on page one he clearly states if you want to know his Perfect Close, skip everything and go to Chapter 12-more about that later. This book is ideal for those salespeople that are new to selling or uncomfortable in a sales role. For those highly experienced salespeople, his ideas will rock you. They are new, scientific, tested and will add fresh concepts to your sales style.
What caught my attention in reading this book was how the author set up the reader by starting at the beginning of the sales process and how it allows The Perfect Close to work. He starts by breaking down the closing mindset, but then locks you into the books focus by Chapter 3: Adopting the Right Mindset. This chapter was amazing, in it James moves into the buyer’s mind and the seller’s mind with scientific descriptions as to how your mind can cause your mental, physical and even vocal interactions with a buyer to change. He goes in to great detail quoting various scholars and studies as to what key sales attributes are required for success, I will give them away-but you must buy this book to fully understand their importance. They are warmth and competence. What signals are you giving out during that first stage of a sales interaction? What questions are your buyers thinking and what are you thinking and how are your thoughts reinforcing these attributes? This chapter is a MUST sales training program for any sales team.
As James continues to bring the reader to Chapter 12, he takes you into not only the logic but the science of what advancing the sale means and why a professional salesperson must understand what commitment/consistency and endowed progress means and how they lead to setting up the Perfect Close. Throughout the book his examples, tips and illustrations provide any salesperson with new thoughts on improving their skill.
Adding to his theme of a mental approach to selling, James covered in great detail the mentality of stimulating the buyer’s mind. Again, another chapter worth a sales training meeting. Just imagine how your sales will soar as you better understand how to had unique value and that your questioning techniques include a knowledge basis and cognitive style. The illustrations on this topic must be studied and reinforced to fully utilize this approach-they are certainly a sales differentiation technique that will change your approach and add thousands of dollars to your commission account.
Chapter 10 includes pre-call planning and includes a long list of suggestions and a variety of sample forms. Chapter 11 then discusses setting up a sales call agenda, a tactic most salespeople don’t understand or more importantly don’t use. The author’s examples make it easy to implement this ideas.
Finally in Chapter 12 James hits you with his Perfect Close. Just two easy statements or questions, brilliantly covered. What really made this book is how he explains this idea and how he moves on with a variety and large number of examples on how to use his technique. He even created a sample sales scenario between a salesperson and a prospect to show how it works. This chapter is golden.
If you are a professional salesperson, want to be one or a Sales Manager get this book. At the end of the book, James lists 5 pages of other top rated sales books that you should have in a sales library. PLUS James offers a robust list of resources associated with his book at www.PureMuir.com/resources
It makes the Acumen Sales Book Club, buy this book for each of your salespeople, cover one chapter a week during your sales meeting and during your Sales Training Meetings role play the concepts throughout the book. At the end of the year you will be happy!
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