marketing and sales

Alright, you've read the multiple reviews of people who thought it was either good or bad, blah, blah, blah. If you read my other reviews, I'm big on brevity, so here goes:
- "What's important about money to you?" is the theme
- point is to get down to what makes people truly happy
- of course, investing $ with you eventually makes people happy
- if you ARE a stone-cold, non-emotional salesman then this is for you, becuase you'll need it
Folks, this book teaches you motivational theory, a psychological concept. Just be yourself when you're sitting in front of a client and make decisions you would make for yourself. Enough said.

If you are a financial professional and have not read this book, you are missing out! The author emphasizes the importance of trust, and how understanding a person's values system can make a world of difference. One could almost say that these ideas originated from Dr. Stephen Covey's "The 7 Habits of Highely Effective People". The main difference is that, Values-Based Selling is specifically for financial advisors. There are people who read all kinds of books on "selling" and make excuses for why it didn't work out. To those who implemented the ideas in Values Based Selling and didn't see results or gave up: with all due respect, you didn't follow what was intended to be done in this book or you just were not meant to be a trusted advisor. This is not a system for making great salespeople, it is for those who are, or aspire to become true financial advisors and understand what financial planning really is. The author leaves out rapport building/small talk intentionally since the process is about building trust by LISTENING to "their" story, not by telling "ours".

I invested in the mastery system which includes this system.
I wish I had read it at my prior company where the emphasis is
on financial planning. The values provide the "why" and therefore the motivation to complete the plan.

I now work in a bank and tried using this with not good effect.
Transaction time is much shorter. I'm now revisiting "Trust Based Selling" by Kerry Johnson and subliminal selling technqiues that more appropriately fit the banking environment.

Bacharach ignores the whole concept of rapport and goes for the close as a way to screen out people. That's great if you have an endless supply of qualified referrals to work from. Also his book assumes people want planning when many times they already have a planner or just want to do a transaction.

I'm finding both Tom Hopkins books and Kerry Johnson's a much better fit for what I do and also have bought "Socratic Selling" which I believe provides real value to the client.