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Secrets of Great Rainmakers: The Keys to Success and Wealth
In Secrets of Great Rainmakers , you'll learn how to outsmart the competition and set yourself apart from the pack. In over 50 interviews with industry leaders from a wide variety of fields, bestselling author Jeffrey J. Fox will share the proven techniques and hard-won wisdom that have helped great rainmakers get ahead, along with his trademark brand of counterintuitive insight and commentary that have made his books so popular.
- GenresBusinessNonfiction
208 pages, Hardcover
Published March 1, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
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July 8, 2019"Don't take 'no' from a person who cannot say 'yes'" (10).
"Never knock the competitor. Knocking a competitor insults your customer. Knocking the other guy or gal is tantamount to telling your customer that they are stupid for considering someone else. Knocking the competitor will diminish you in the eyes of your customer" (14).
"Rainmakers always ask their contact this killer sales question, 'In addition to yourself, who else is involved in making this solution happen in your company?' This question does not impugn, embarrass, or disparage the customer: It simply assumes reality. After the customer fully answers the question, giving names, titles, responsibilities, the Rainmaker asks the second killer question: 'And what might their concerns be about going ahead?' The answer to the second question blueprints the continuing selling stategy, the needs to address, the objectiions to handle, the customer consensus to get" (66).
"Never knock the competitor. Knocking a competitor insults your customer. Knocking the other guy or gal is tantamount to telling your customer that they are stupid for considering someone else. Knocking the competitor will diminish you in the eyes of your customer" (14).
"Rainmakers always ask their contact this killer sales question, 'In addition to yourself, who else is involved in making this solution happen in your company?' This question does not impugn, embarrass, or disparage the customer: It simply assumes reality. After the customer fully answers the question, giving names, titles, responsibilities, the Rainmaker asks the second killer question: 'And what might their concerns be about going ahead?' The answer to the second question blueprints the continuing selling stategy, the needs to address, the objectiions to handle, the customer consensus to get" (66).
March 1, 2017
Secrets of Great Rainmakers by Jeffrey Fox
It's a good book-even though I do not totally agree with all of J.Fox's insights presented in the book. Chapter 9(How to get an appointment) is my favourite chapter. In this chapter, you would learn about practicable procedures involved in getting an appointment, which are:
1. Do your homework to identify the key decision makers, areas of need and how salesperson can help the customer. This would enable the Rainmaker to get an idea of what it is going to cost the customer if he decides not to go with his(or her) services.
2. Next, carryout precall planning to gain insights in to the possible customer concerns, dollarized value of seller's services, questions to ask, barriers to overcome and objections to make.
3. Write your sales plan- three to four-sentence letter- to the decision maker. The objective of the letter is to get customer to accept the follow-up phone call that would come next. The letter should also include a nice postscript to get the decision maker more interested in meeting with the seller.
4. Give the decision maker a carefully preplanned and practised phone call and during the call, ensure you secure an appointment with him.
There are few other stuffs which I also enjoyed reading from the book. The killer sales questions for the decision maker: "In addition to yourself, who else is involved in making the solution( for services) happen in your company?" and "What might be their concerns about going ahead?".
The concept of reducing to the absurd("Reductio ad absurdum") when trying to convince a potential customer dwells on the argument that: showing the logical ending of an idea is absurd makes the beginning also absurd. For instance, in the case of a customer who is not okay with the price of your services but needs it badly, reduce his concerns to the absurd by asking him : what if you didn't go for our services at all, what would be the outcome?
Another concept which I found amazing is the Tripple-outcome offer. This involves giving the customer the privilege of choosing from three offers. Consider a situation where you want to implement cost-saving mechanisms for your customer-which automatically creates his demand for your product. The offer could come in the form:
- If we didn't find how to save cost, no audit charges would be demanded and you get our cost reduction idea for free( giving idea out for free would generate a demand for your product if later they would later like to implement your ideas).
-If we found how to reduce your costs and you didn't do business with us,You pay us an audit fee of £xx and get our cost reduction idea for free.
- Go for our service and get the audit fee(£xx) rebated to you.
Also, you should learn to let the customer do 80% of the talking during a sales call- as your(salesperson's) share of the conversation goes up in a sales call, the probability of achieving your sales objective reduces.
Killer sales questions 3&4(applicable when you are being asked a question by your potential customer) : "why do you ask?" & "How is that important to you?"
Carrying out needs assessment to determine what a customer needs to improve his or her situation is crucial to ultimately helping the customer. This involves seeking solutions to the following questions from the customer(Create two columns in your sales jotter and write all the questions on the left column and customer's answers to each on the right column):
-What are your goals & challenges?
-What solutions have you tried and what's the problem costing you?
-What are consequences if problem continues?
-What's your timetable and what's your budget?
-Who else are you talking to? and who, in addition to yourself , will be involved in choosing a supplier?
The author also advised that a salesman should keep Customer Value Files and should only mail proposals only if he would- unavoidably- not be able to present it in person.
Lastly, the Mean Expected Value(MEV) sales promotion system is very useful*
*The table has four columns-separated by "|" - as shown below:
____________________________________________________________________
|Sales opportunity| Potential revenue | Probability of close | MEV |
|----------------------------|-------------------------------| ----------------------------------|-----------|
| | | | |
Sales opportunity: The name of the potential customers and their locations.
Potential revenue: The amount that could be realised by doing business with the customer.
Probability of close: Likeliness of the customer doing business with the salesperson( ranges from 0 to 1).
MEV: Probability of close X Potential revenue
You might select the best deal based on high MEV or Probability of close. However, it's better to use the probability of close to know the sale which is worth pursuing.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
PS: If your nature is close to mine, this is all you would find useful in the book. The rest of the book contain a number of mundane examples and uninteresting stuffs. Now my verdict:
I should have given the book 3.5* but that's not available. So where do I get 0.5 or where do I deduct it? I finished the book in a few days... The uninteresting aspect of the book did not keep me bored for long... and therein lies an additional 0.5pts.
****
It's a good book-even though I do not totally agree with all of J.Fox's insights presented in the book. Chapter 9(How to get an appointment) is my favourite chapter. In this chapter, you would learn about practicable procedures involved in getting an appointment, which are:
1. Do your homework to identify the key decision makers, areas of need and how salesperson can help the customer. This would enable the Rainmaker to get an idea of what it is going to cost the customer if he decides not to go with his(or her) services.
2. Next, carryout precall planning to gain insights in to the possible customer concerns, dollarized value of seller's services, questions to ask, barriers to overcome and objections to make.
3. Write your sales plan- three to four-sentence letter- to the decision maker. The objective of the letter is to get customer to accept the follow-up phone call that would come next. The letter should also include a nice postscript to get the decision maker more interested in meeting with the seller.
4. Give the decision maker a carefully preplanned and practised phone call and during the call, ensure you secure an appointment with him.
There are few other stuffs which I also enjoyed reading from the book. The killer sales questions for the decision maker: "In addition to yourself, who else is involved in making the solution( for services) happen in your company?" and "What might be their concerns about going ahead?".
The concept of reducing to the absurd("Reductio ad absurdum") when trying to convince a potential customer dwells on the argument that: showing the logical ending of an idea is absurd makes the beginning also absurd. For instance, in the case of a customer who is not okay with the price of your services but needs it badly, reduce his concerns to the absurd by asking him : what if you didn't go for our services at all, what would be the outcome?
Another concept which I found amazing is the Tripple-outcome offer. This involves giving the customer the privilege of choosing from three offers. Consider a situation where you want to implement cost-saving mechanisms for your customer-which automatically creates his demand for your product. The offer could come in the form:
- If we didn't find how to save cost, no audit charges would be demanded and you get our cost reduction idea for free( giving idea out for free would generate a demand for your product if later they would later like to implement your ideas).
-If we found how to reduce your costs and you didn't do business with us,You pay us an audit fee of £xx and get our cost reduction idea for free.
- Go for our service and get the audit fee(£xx) rebated to you.
Also, you should learn to let the customer do 80% of the talking during a sales call- as your(salesperson's) share of the conversation goes up in a sales call, the probability of achieving your sales objective reduces.
Killer sales questions 3&4(applicable when you are being asked a question by your potential customer) : "why do you ask?" & "How is that important to you?"
Carrying out needs assessment to determine what a customer needs to improve his or her situation is crucial to ultimately helping the customer. This involves seeking solutions to the following questions from the customer(Create two columns in your sales jotter and write all the questions on the left column and customer's answers to each on the right column):
-What are your goals & challenges?
-What solutions have you tried and what's the problem costing you?
-What are consequences if problem continues?
-What's your timetable and what's your budget?
-Who else are you talking to? and who, in addition to yourself , will be involved in choosing a supplier?
The author also advised that a salesman should keep Customer Value Files and should only mail proposals only if he would- unavoidably- not be able to present it in person.
Lastly, the Mean Expected Value(MEV) sales promotion system is very useful*
*The table has four columns-separated by "|" - as shown below:
____________________________________________________________________
|Sales opportunity| Potential revenue | Probability of close | MEV |
|----------------------------|-------------------------------| ----------------------------------|-----------|
| | | | |
Sales opportunity: The name of the potential customers and their locations.
Potential revenue: The amount that could be realised by doing business with the customer.
Probability of close: Likeliness of the customer doing business with the salesperson( ranges from 0 to 1).
MEV: Probability of close X Potential revenue
You might select the best deal based on high MEV or Probability of close. However, it's better to use the probability of close to know the sale which is worth pursuing.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
PS: If your nature is close to mine, this is all you would find useful in the book. The rest of the book contain a number of mundane examples and uninteresting stuffs. Now my verdict:
I should have given the book 3.5* but that's not available. So where do I get 0.5 or where do I deduct it? I finished the book in a few days... The uninteresting aspect of the book did not keep me bored for long... and therein lies an additional 0.5pts.
****
September 21, 2018
Good pithy advice including specific recommendations about the attitudes, attributes, habits, and activities that will make you successful in sales. Recommendations were backed up by real sales stories. I've read many sales books over time - many excellent ones with detailed strategies & tactics to win deals - but this was one of the most direct & simple I've encountered. It wasn't just bland platitudes. It didn't go into much detail on how to build a business case and formulate a strategy but then it didn't claim it was going to.
April 18, 2018
Ok book on selling, nothing crazy.
August 8, 2019
It was a good Audio CD but not as moving as I thought it was going to be. I learned a bit from it.
January 3, 2017
I picked up this book with low expectations, mostly because it was the only book available to me at the time. As the title indicates, "Secrets of Great Rainmakers: The Keys to Success and Wealth" is pretty much an expanded list of techniques and lessons learned from "rainmakers" (or successful salespeople) throughout their years selling various products and services in various industries. It was a quick and relatively engaging read, and although I am not directly in the sales industry myself, I was able to finish the book with a few takeaways to apply to my own life/career. Most interesting to me was the distinction between the price of the product/service you provide and the value that can offer the customer, and how one should focus on the latter in their discussions with clients. The other lessons were largely variations on the theme of being persistent, doing diligent pre-call research, and working harder than your competitors. I wouldn't classify any of the contents of the book as groundbreaking by any means, but given the low investment of time required to get through it, I would recommend to anyone at all interested in anything sales-related.
March 18, 2016
I suppose there is some value in this sales handbook, but you must work pretty hard to get it. Lots of case studies, but the author never attaches names to specific situations, so I'm not sure if he is talking about real-world cases or if he just made them up to prove a point. Frankly, I found this to be mostly an annoying waste of time and stopped reading after 44 pages. Jeffrey J. Fox is a Harvard-trained consultant with lots of marketing experience, but, to me, this book was excruciatingly simple-minded, filled with platitudes. Nothing new. SPOILER ALERT: The big secret revealed in the Epilogue? Be nice. Oops. The secret's out. Oh my.
March 16, 2010
If you don't do business with me "we both lose". Us Rainmakers "live to sell" We never knock the competition. We take care of ourselves we work hard to sell hard we are always selling. We absolutly believe that with out a doubt we have improved the customers current state. We always ask for the order. We love customer tours. We fish where big fish are.
June 17, 2011
Rainmakers get the business.
Rainmakers don't build relationships.
Rainmakers understand that customers wants business value and not deep meaningful conversations.
Natural born rainmakers won't read this book.
However, this book is a quick, useful read for all all salespeople who are not getting anywhere with their customers.
Rainmakers don't build relationships.
Rainmakers understand that customers wants business value and not deep meaningful conversations.
Natural born rainmakers won't read this book.
However, this book is a quick, useful read for all all salespeople who are not getting anywhere with their customers.
June 20, 2007
I read only 30 pages of this book. It was not that great.
April 4, 2008
Pretty much the same book as "How to Become a Rainmaker". A few new ideas.
May 2, 2011
Good tips on how to do better in your sales career and inspiring at the same time.
October 8, 2023
Nothing new but a great summary. Listening to it before marketing calls is good motivation!
February 7, 2015
the gem in this one for me is the needs analysis template (the way to set up your notebook prior to engaging a prospect) on page 125.
October 29, 2018
you know - boring business stuff - couple good lines in there. 2.5 hours - quickie
April 21, 2015
I liked it a lot. Concise lesson in each chapter well illustrated by story or anecdote. Clever.
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August 23, 2009great info on making it happen and taking charge of making it rain in your life
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews