Relationships Matter

The new way to transform a sales culture with clarity, authenticity, and emotional intelligence.

Too often, the sales process is all about fear.

Customers are afraid that they will be talked into making a mistake; salespeople dread being unable to close the deal and make their quotas. No one is happy.

Mahan Khalsa and Randy Illig offer a better way. Salespeople, they argue, do best when they focus 100 percent on helping clients succeed. When customers are successful, both buyer and seller win. When they aren’t, both lose. It’s no longer sufficient to get clients to buy—a salesperson must also help the client reduce costs, increase revenues, and improve productivity, quality, and customer satisfaction.

This book shares the unique FranklinCovey Sales Performance Group methodology that will help readers:

• Start new business from scratch in a way both salespeople and clients can feel good about
• Ask hard questions in a soft way
• Close the deal by opening minds

User Reviews about Let's Get Real or Let's Not Play: Transforming the Buyer Seller Relationship

The key to success in sales is, according to Mahan Khalsa and Randy Illig, authors of Let's Get Real or Let's Not Play: Transforming the Buyer/Seller Relationship (Portfolio: 2008), helping the client reach their goals, that is, putting the client's success first.

Nice, but hardly a novel sentiment.

We've all read dozens upon dozens of books telling us that we must put the client first. Nothing new here.
The problem with all those other books is they haven't given us a workable way to deal with the unspoken but paramount issue separating clients and sellers and preventing us from truly putting our client first--fear. The client's fear of being taken advantage of and our fear of losing a sale.

Creating a way, a path, for us to work with our clients in a format that eliminates the ingrained fears of our clients and ourselves is the primary contribution of Let's Get Real or Let's Not Play.

The authors begin their journey in creating a process that will allow us as sellers to really seek our client's success first and foremost by outlining their 5 key beliefs:
1. Consultants (sellers) and Clients Want the Same Thing.
2. Intent Counts More than Technique
3. Solutions Have No Inherent Value
4. Methodology Matters
5. World-class Inquiry Precedes World-class Advocacy

The authors argue that these five key beliefs set the groundwork for a process that will allow sellers to deal with prospects and clients in an honest, straightforward manner where we can work with them to really discover their issues and needs, gather the hard information we need to create a solution that puts our client's success above all else, and we can do these without the fear of wasting our time and resources pursuing non-business.

Khalsa and Illig devote almost half of the book to discussing how to qualify an opportunity because the qualification process sets the stage for remainder of the process. As sellers, we must make sure that we a pursuing a legitimate business opportunity. We cannot afford to waste our time and energy pursuing non-business. Consequently, we have to qualify based on Opportunity (is it worth pursuing); Time (reasonable and adequate); People (who does what and is it the right mix); Money (can the client afford it); and Decision Process (who, what, when, and how decisions are made).

Exploring each of these areas reveals whether or not we should go forward. Naturally, getting a green light in each area means we go forward. A red light in any area means there isn't a viable business opportunity now. The real key is looking out for and understanding how to handle yellow lights--situations, questions, and issues that must be fully and honestly investigated to determine whether they are actually red lights or can be clarified into green lights.

The last half of the book is dedicated primarily to discussing how, when and where to present the solution proposal. At the crux of the proposal is its purpose--to enable a decision. Everything has lead up to this, the decision enabling meeting. The authors walk us through the process of creating a meeting plan that leads naturally to making the purchase commitment. Although useful and well laid out, I found this part of the book to be less compelling than the first half that dealt with qualifying.

The process Khalsa and Illig layout is thorough and workable if not seeming a bit cumbersome at times (the "Quick Reference Guide" in the appendix 16 pages long, hardly `quick'). It does, however, address the fear issues that keep sellers and clients from working together to clarify and address core issues with which the client is struggling.

Designed for and well worth the read of any salesperson or sales leader engaged in the complex sale, the book is also worthwhile for salespeople and managers engaged in any relationship driven sale, even for those engaged in consumer sales as many of the observations are applicable in numerous sales environments.

-- Rethinking the sales process

These two authors helped Andersen and Microsoft define and execute their sales strategies. In essence, they chart a path that helps avoid the endless, counter-productive (and often adversarial) relationships between client and professional services firms.

They start at the right point: by showing that consultants are often guilty of arrogantly not listening. However, they also take clients to task for demanding endless RFP and proposals from consultants from whom the client has no intention of purchasing.

The solution is a mindset that fully accepts that not every client wants a true partnership-based relationship, and choosing only to work with those who do. It is a gutsy book, but also an important one for anyone selling (or buying) professional services -- Clarify your Sales Process while Creating Trust

I was lucky enough about 10 years ago to participate in a 4-day training program on "Let's Get Real" by Mark Welsh of Franklin Covey. Ever since, the basic principles of the method have stuck in my mind and have helped me create more meaningful engagements with my clients. Where most sales methods tend to overwhelm with process and theoretical concepts, this book has some very hands-on practical conversation tips and tricks for when you end up talking to a client or prospect. All my consulting team is adopting the method now to become better trusted advisors who have only one intent: help our clients succeed. Oh yes, the audio version is really good to: if you can stand the accent it's a great way to rerun some thoughts while in your car for instance. Enjoy! -- A Must Read for All Consultants and Sales Professionals

This excellent book is simply the best of the 100+ sales books I have ever read. It is so because it deals so much with the existing dysfunctional paradigm of selling. And as long as you have an image of the discipline of selling that is very negative you will NEVER be a successful sales person. Because even if you get the worlds best training in the right skillset based on the best possible toolset you will never succeed as long as you have the wrong mindset. Most persons have a very negative image of selling, because they consider sales reps as some of the least trustworthy persons. You can of course try to force your logical and rational mind that your way of selling do not need to be that way and that it is good for your career to sell more. But if you are not convinced "by heart" that selling is not an unethical activity, then your subconscious mind will continously help you to screew up your sales success, because deep within you simply uncontiously ressist to succeed in selling, because it would create cognitive dissonanse - you would become very good at something you "hate". I have explored that my-self and seen dozens of other sales reps and sales managers experience the same. This book helped my to create a totally new paradigm for selling at a worthy, value creating and highly ethical activity pursued to help customers succeed - this new paradigm has improved my sales results more than all the techniques in the more than 100 books on sales techniques I have read have created all together. So if you should only read ONE book on (advanced) selling I highly recommend this book ! -- The best book on Sales Performance ever written....