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1-Page Summary of Insight Selling

Overview

In Agile Selling, you’ll learn how to boost your productivity and adapt to new circumstances. The book explores the strategies of great salespeople and offers practical advice on how you can become more adaptive in business environments.

When you’re thinking about buying something expensive, like a television, the salesperson will try to sell it to you. But if they give too much information, that can be overwhelming and make you not want to buy. So instead of giving all that information, focus on these key points: display ratios, refresh rates and connectivity questions.

Instead of giving a lot of facts, you need to listen and then tell them the story that they want to hear. This will be more effective than just telling people what they should buy. In this lesson, I’ll teach you how to use stories effectively by using simple points that lead up to your conclusion. I’ll also show you why it’s important to listen carefully and relate their problems back to your product or service in order for them to understand what value it can bring them.

Big Idea #1: Insights allow a company to refine their thinking. They help clients see what they don’t yet realize.

Salespeople are often compared to actors because of their scripted pitches. However, they’re more like teachers who stand in front of an eager crowd and present the information that the audience wants to learn about.

Selling is straightforward when you’re selling ice cream on the beach. However, complex selling requires challenging preconceptions of buyers.

Today, a customer can find all the information she needs online to make a decision. So, if she’s already done her research about a product, then she only seeks out a salesperson when it’s time to buy that specific item.

Buying new shoes is a good example of when you should take the time to really understand all your options. However, most people don’t have the time or expertise to do that when it comes to complex problems in their companies.

Consider an example like going to a doctor. You might think you have the flu, but your doctor has more experience and insight into the science of health, so he might diagnose something else entirely.

So, how do you change a person’s mind? By providing insights into why your product or service is better than the competition.

Salespeople should guide customers to discover the value of their product. However, this isn’t always possible because some products are too complex to understand without guidance from a salesperson. In those cases, it’s better for the salesperson to use insights instead of guiding them through questions about their company’s needs and concerns. Insights help you alter your customer’s way of thinking so that they can recognize more value in what you’re offering them. This is necessary when either a customer doesn’t know exactly why they need your product or when they don’t realize how much cheaper it would be if they didn’t buy your product at all.

It’s important to find insights about what the customer doesn’t see. It can be helpful to imagine how life might be without your product, or with it and a competitor’s product. This is similar to weight-loss advertising that shows an “after” picture compared with an “before” photo of the person who used their product.

Big Idea #2: To engage a prospect, you need to give them an emotional story they can relate to.

You’ve found an effective way to present your idea, but what if the customer doesn’t listen?

Here is a Scenario

Insight scenarios are short stories that help a buyer envision how your product or service could be implemented. They should take no longer than two minutes to tell and shouldn’t include too much detail, as they’re meant to give the customer doubt about her current circumstances rather than simply provide facts.