Cohn Sales Out of Service

A Humanistic Approach to Sales and Customer Service
1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5439-1330-9
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet/DL/kein Kopierschutz

E-Book, Englisch, 248 Seiten

The American consumer has become the frog in the water. The old sales model that is taught and practiced in this country has conditioned us to accept deceit and nondisclosure. Instead of being served, we are pitched and manipulated. Relationship, service, and authenticity take a back seat to the salesperson's end game, which is earning commission and generating sales. We have grown to accept this from the waitperson in the restaurant to the president in the white house. The old sales paradigm that has been around since the days peddling snake oil is based upon the seller getting the buyer to do what the seller wants the buyer to do. Any means justifies the end. Any persuasive, convincing, manipulative technique is justified in order to earn commission. This has been going on for so long and is so pervasive in our society that there is little trust in salespeople, in consumer goods and services, in big business, and in government. Even though the customer has evolved to distrust this old sales model, the old paradigm is still being taught and practiced. It is time for a new sales model. It is time for Sales out of Service. This book, which is more accurately described as a sales training manual, introduces and teaches a new sales paradigm that is based upon honesty, integrity, relationship, and service. It is for those who want a long-term career in sales and customer service, a career that affords you financial freedom, and success. Sales out of Service evolved empirically over the course of twenty years. Norman Cohn started the Utah College of Massage Therapy with $200 and grew it into a $40 million dollar business with seven schools in four states. In a competitive industry, his schools excelled qualitatively and quantitatively. Sales out of Service permeated his schools influencing everything from management to the students' classroom experience. He attributes the growth and success of his business to this new model of sales and customer serv

Autoren/Hrsg.

Cohn, Norman

Leseproben

PART I. A WHO YOU BECOME ON THE COURT THE COURT OF SALES OUT OF SERVICE Let’s drill down to what I mean by the word “court”. The “court” is where you actually apply the paradigm; this distinguishes the “court” from your life apart from the venue and act of participating in sales. The main reason for using a metaphorical court has to do with who you need to be when participating in and practicing the paradigm Sales out of Service. Just like a professional basketball player or professional football player, you are a different person on the court than off the court. As you walk onto the playing field, you focus on the game at hand. Your mind and body are at one with the game and you become your commitment to your team. You dress for the court; you fight on the court; you surrender to the game; and you become someone different than who you are off the court. For instance, every once in awhile a player is arrested for acting off the court like that player acts on the court. There are certain attachments you have off the court that you become detached to on the court. There are certain belief systems you leave off the court, and there are certain attitudes you change when on the court. This is obvious when we speak about professional sports, and it is a workable metaphor when speaking of this sales paradigm. This first part of the book is about who you create yourself to be on the court of Sales out of Service. When I operated my business, the “court” was the building we walked into. As we opened the door to the school in which we worked, we entered our playing field. The metaphorical court I present you is the same as the physical workspace we entered each day of work. Each is workable and pragmatic, one material and one metaphorical. As you step onto the metaphorical court of Sales out of Service, you become a commitment to serve and that commitment includes accessing your own humanity, which requires you to live the metaphor, “we are all one.” Entering the court allows you to choose to leave your ego/identity, and your judgments and stereotypes about other people behind and detach from fixed attitudes and belief systems that keep you from being in relationship with others. On the court you unwrap yourself down to your humanity and become simply a human being in relationship with other human beings. Mystics have spoken and written about this state of consciousness for centuries. In this part, I will attempt to take different approaches at describing the state of being already always in relationship and being at service, which are essential to this model of sales. Remember this is a pragmatic empirical sales training that has been tested in a competitive business environment, and, through the use of quantitative measurements, has proven to generate revenue and growth over the course of nineteen years. Please also remember I am not trying to preach a way of life; I am not proposing how you should or should not lead your life. I am only speaking about what needs to occur on the metaphorical court for you to experience success using this sales model. ANOTHER LOOK AT THE COURT “It is not the same thing to talk of bulls as to be in the bullring.” -Spanish Proverb When I started earning money from my school, I bought season tickets to the Utah Jazz basketball games. Now, when you buy season tickets to a NBA basketball team, you are married to the team; sometimes there are three games a week. So, game after game I watched and listened. I watched the people actually playing the game; the players, the coaches, and the referees; about fifteen people altogether, and I listened to the thousands of fans. The fans knew all about the game. They knew facts about the players and coaches; they knew what the coaches should and should not do; and they knew when the referees made a bad call, usually against their team. The fans “knew” a lot, and they were quite proud and adamant about what they thought they knew. So, what I saw and heard was fifteen people actually on the court playing the game, and 15,000 people in the stands knowing all about the game; the participants on the court, and the observers in the stands analyzing and discussing what was happening on the court. Success comes from being on the court, and so does failure, disappointment, discouragement, bruised bodies, bruised egos, and not looking good. Being in the stands is a lot safer, and comfortable, because there’s no failure in the stands, and the beer is cold and refreshing. When I was attending college, studying for my master’s degree in humanistic psychology, I worked as a full-time professor teaching in the business department of the college. All of the instructors in the business department would occasionally meet together, and it was during one of these department management meetings that I suggested we allow the students to observe our meetings. My rationale was that we were teaching management, and we could teach by demonstration. My suggestion was not met with overwhelming approval, and I was surprised at how vehemently the professors rejected my proposal. I talked with two business students about my idea, and they in turn discussed it with other students. As a consequence, a group of students demanded access to department management meetings, which resulted in them being able to attend. The professors were quite upset with me for sourcing the idea of students attending and observing their management meetings. They taught management, but they didn’t want the students to see them on the court actively engaged in management. They taught from the stands. Most of the teachers had never participated on the court of business. As I remember, a few accounting instructors had worked in their field, but most of the professors in the business department were academics. They knew about the game, but they had never played the game. They were knowledgeable about the subject matter, but did not teach from experience. Following that example, this book can be considered “in the stands”; however, it is derived from being on the court. It is a sales training manual developed from years of experience using and teaching Sales out of Service. Much of this information comes from my training notes. As stated before, I often taught the same material in different ways, which was redundant, but also effective. I was more a coach than a teacher. I was more concerned with performance and effectiveness on the court than knowledge. PRACTICE “Everyone wants to be on a winning team, but no one wants to practice” -Pat Riley You obviously need to practice the teachings in this book on the court of sales. You can be taught to dribble, shoot, and pass, but it takes practice on the court to prefect the skills and experience success. Anyone can do this. Some may have to practice more than others, and it may take some longer than others to achieve the desired results. However, anyone can eventually become successful using this paradigm. You do not need a college education, a degree, a high IQ, or some special type of intelligence. You can be an introvert or an extrovert, a man or a woman. You can be gay, lesbian, or transgender; any nationality; and any shade of skin color. The only thing you have to be is to be authentic. You also need to understand commitment, and be able to deal with disappointment and failure, which will be discussed in detail in Part II: Methodology for Accomplishment. AUTHENTICITY “To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.” -e. e. Cummings “The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” -Friedrich Nietzsche The big message here is to be yourself; trust that your unique brand of humanity is more effective on the court of sales than the way you think you should act, or learned to act from the old sale paradigm. Each of us is born into a society with a unique internal voice that questions our individual authenticity. We constantly wonder if something is wrong with the way we are, and whether we are stupid, unlovable, or invisible. As a result, we create facades, personalities, and actions that compensate for this voice telling us we are not good enough. If you are a salesperson, there are plenty of sales courses and gurus who will exploit that voice, and teach you a better act than being authentic. It takes rigorous introspective investigation to become aware of this voice that tells you that you are not good enough. Add to that the awareness that the best we can do is to become functional in a non-functional society, it is understandable that being authentic is not easy. Working as a Gestalt therapist with individuals and in therapy groups made it clear to me that most of us are raised with...