Book Preface

Imagine you are visiting the great city of New York for the first time and someone comes up to you and says: “I’ll give you a million bucks if you get into your car and drive to Los Angeles right now!” But with the condition that you cannot use a map or any form of driving directions tools. You must also drive the speed limit and arrive within the same time period as a person using a GPS or street map. After confirming that you will in fact receive the million bucks, you would probably start to figure out how to get to LA as you drive west. If it is daytime, you would orient yourself to the sun to get a general sense of the west direction. You might stop and ask a few New Yorkers… (Good luck on that): “Hey, which highway leads westbound from here?” Hopefully, any information that you receive turns out to be accurate and useful. In any event, after some trial and error, you end up eventually making it to Los Angeles. 

 

But the key questions are; Did the trip take you longer than it needed to? What was the effect of going the wrong way or taking wrong turns? Lastly, and most importantly, how much more stressful was the drive when you weren’t 100% certain that you’re driving on the correct path? This ad-hoc approach is similar to the path that most salespeople experience on their way to sales success. We sort of mosey along in the general direction of chasing sales quotas and hoping to obtain the income and fulfillment we need. But due to the lack of a clear path to success, wrong turns and dead ends make the journey longer, frustrating, and more obscure than it has to be. 

 

Now let’s flip the script: Let’s say you accepted the challenge to drive from New York City to LA or, more specifically, to the famous Hollywood Bowl arena. But instead of simply driving westbound, you are given a GPS with the Hollywood Bowl address and Sedric Hill/Expert Selling/8 6/25/2014 1:43 PM 8 geo coordinates already programmed! Obviously, this journey would go much more smoothly and you would reach your goal much faster by following the most efficient path possible. Of course that probably would not be worthy of a million dollar challenge, but you can see where I’m going with this−this book has been designed to serve as your GPS to selling expertise. 

 

At this point, you’re probably saying to yourself, “So that was a cool story and all, but what can this book really do for my sales career?” That is a very good and important question. Today’s business book market is flooded with “How to” books that proclaim to teach you step by step how to do all kinds of skills. But Expert Selling is not just another “How to” book. It’s a “Mind Guide” that reveals how to systematically train your brain for expert performance. True sales performance improvement is not based on a single activity or event such as reading a book or attending a training program. It is modeled on a continuum of personal development using the principles of expert performance. This book serves as your blueprint for that journey because it brings into clarity the most influential actions that improve performance and accelerate expertise. 

 

Now back to our pending trip from New York to LA−we have now gassed up, checked the oil, and the tires are ready to roll. Even though you have the GPS, you still have to get into the car and drive to reach your goals. The good news is that I am committed to being there with you throughout the trip! So fasten your seat belt, and get ready for an enlightening and fun journey towards your success goals. Read a Sample Chapter HERE