Secrets of Closing the Sale
Learn the secrets of persuasion and successful salesmanship from bestselling author Zig Ziglar in this inspirational book. Doctors, housewives, ministers, parents, teachers...everyone has to "sell" their ideas and themselves to be successful. This guide by America’s #1 professional in the art of persuasion focuses on the most essential part of the sale—how to make them say "Yes, I will!" Zig Ziglar lets you in on the secrets of his own sure-fire, tested methods: • Over 100 successful closings for every kind of persuasion • Over 700 questions that will open your eyes to new possibilities you may have overlooked • How to paint word pictures and use your imagination to get results • Professional tips from America's 100 most successful salespeople Do what millions of Americans have already done—open this book and start learning from Zig Ziglar's Secrets of Closing the Sale!
Stats for nerds
7recommend
9mentions
8people
2014–2022years
89% recommend11% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Wow... this is a much MUCH bigger question than you think it is. My answer will be obviously extremely incomplete.
Sales was my first profession. I was good at my work. After a decade, I decided I wanted a change of pace and moved into programming. I very much miss selling and will probably go back someday.
I got my start as a concert promoter selling concert tickets for my friends bands. I eventually tried most of the major categories of sales: SMB, Enterprise, Retail, Door to door, Patent sales, etc but ended up preferring mostly retail and SMB because the sales cycles were quicker and it made the job a little more fun. Enterprise tends to be the best paid, but much slower and often feels more like project management than a sales gig.
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To answer your question"sales" isn't just sales. There are many different types, approaches, techniques, skills, cultures, etc. If you are inclusive of any job performed by a "compliance professional" (Cialdini) or where there is a transaction involving two or more people, sales is the largest profession in the United States.
If you are just looking to get started I'd recommend 1) To actually sell something 2) get reading the literature.
As far as actually selling something: try reselling something at the farmers market, or go door to door and sell basic manual labor... those two things have high demand which you should be able to land a sale or two right away to get a vibe on a basic process.
As far as literature here are a couple of classics:
Once you get your feet under you go find a strong team with a great product and good leadership, or hang out with sales people and have them tell you stories.- Influence - the little red book of selling - SPIN selling - Secrets of closing the sale - The challenger sale - The presentation secrets of steve jobs (for presentation skills) - The rules of the game (neil strauss) - Nudge(sorry for the terrible and short answer)
- I'm a developer who hated sales and was pushed into it because all the other members of the team were developers who hated it more than I did.
Some great tactical recommendations have been made here, but the author who got me to re-think what sales was and to see it as honourable and helpful was Zig Ziggler.
His books are old-school, but reading them will make you enjoy selling.
I'd recommend "Secrets of Closing the Sale" to start, but all of his early work is good. His later books get a bit self-helpy.
- - SPIN selling
- The Challenger Sale
- The Little Red Book of Sales
- The Charisma Myth
- Rules of the Game (Neil Strauss... and yes it is also a sales book)
- Secrets of Closing the Sale (transactional sales, but still fun)
- I have a program like this that my dad passed on to me, which I often re-start when I feel I'm loosing it:
0. "How to win friends and influence others" by Carnergie
1. "Zig Ziglar on Selling"
2. "Unlimited Power" by Tony Robbins
3. "Secrets of closing the sale" by Zig Ziglar
4. "Influence psychology of persuasion" by Caldini
Really made the difference for me when feeding the kids became a challenge.
- Sales: The very best books/resources on the subject are:
1. The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes 2. Zig Ziglar's The Secrets of Closing the Sale 3. Brian Tracy's The Psychology of Selling
Copywriting: The 3 Best Books (All out of print):
1. Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples 2. Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins 3. Breakthrough Advertising by Eugene Schwartz
If I could add a fourth it would be: 4. The Ultimate Sales Letter by Dan Kennedy
If you want to get even deeper, here is a longer list:
https://capitalandgrowth.org/questions/627/what-are-some-goo...
- It may be that you haven't come across a mental model that makes sense to you. There are honest sales people, even ones selling used cars.
Zig Ziglar's Secrets of Closing the Sale is a good model for thinking about sales.
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