Duct Tape Selling: Think Like a Marketer-Sell Like a Superstar

by John Jantsch

Many of the areas that salespeople struggle with these days have long been the domain of marketers, according to bestselling author John Jantsch. The traditional business model dictates that marketers own the message while sellers own the relationships. But now, Jantsch flips the usual sales approach on its head.It’s no longer enough to view a salesperson’s job as closing. Today’s superstars must attract, teach, convert, serve, and measure while developing a personal brand that stands for trust and expertise.In Duct Tape Selling, Jantsch shows how to tackle a changing sales environment, whether you’re an individual or charged with leading a sales team. You will learn to think like a marketer as an expert platformBecome an authority in your fieldMine networks to create critical relationships within your company and among your clientsBuild and utilize your Sales HourglassFinish the sale and stay connectedMake referrals an automatic part of your processAs Jantsch “Most people already know that the days of knocking on doors and hard-selling are over. But as I travel around the world speaking to groups of business owners, marketers, and sales professionals, the number one question I’m asked is, ‘What do we do now?’“I’ve written this book specifically to answer that question. At the heart of it, marketing and sales have become activities that no longer simply support each other so much as feed off of each other’s activity. Sales professionals must think and act like marketers in order to completely reframe their role in the mind of the customer.”

Genres: Business, Nonfiction

254 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 3, 2014

About the author

John Jantsch is a small business marketing speaker, marketing consultant, and bestselling author of Duct Tape Marketing, Duct Tape Selling, The Commitment Engine, The Referral Engine, and The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur.

Look for The Ultimate Marketing Engine out Sept 2021.

Reviews

[Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book (despite its cheesy name) was about a new philosophy of selling by teaching and establishing yourself as an expert in your field. I read it in parallel with The Start-Up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career which is about careers, however they have many similarities in promoting the necessity of promoting yourself as an expert, in other words a unique quantity. This book includes many specific recommendations of software tools to use to develop your platform. While sales and business development are not the biggest part of my job, the strategies for establishing yourself as an expert are highly relevant. Highly recommended.

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn’t like this nearly as much as Duct Tape Marketing or The Referral Engine. I learned a lot less from this book. It felt like Jantsch just reformulated his marketing content into the sales mold. I skipped Part III The World of the New Sales Coach because I don't teach sales.

Notes
Introduction: Changing the Context of Selling
"The sales professional who adds value wins."

Part I Mind-set of the New Sales Guide
You must act as a filter for the mass of available info and provide insight, context, and guidance about it. Help prospects understand the questions they need to consider, then provide the answers. Act as a guide.

"Storytelling is the new nurturing."

Listen Perceptively
Ask, "How does that make you feel?" This lets you gauge importance of situation.

Ask, "What would you do if this were solved?" This tells you what they'd rather do than solve the problem, telling you what's important to them.

Ask, "Why is now the right time?" This can uncover a hidden pain or real motivation, and tell where you stand in buying cycle.

Connect the Community
Communities don't generally form around products, services, companies. They form around ideas, methodologies, processes.

Find Your Value Proposition
Unmet needs survey questions
• What is the biggest challenge you're facing in your business?
• Why is it important that you find the solution to this challenge now?
• How hard have you worked to solve this challenge in the past?
• What is it about this challenge that makes it so hard to solve?
• How hard has it been to find an answer to your challenge?

You want to find patterns of unmet needs people are motivated to solve but had difficulty finding solutions to, even though they've looked long and hard.

A CEB study found 57% of a typical purchase decision is made before customer talks to supplier. 53% said sales experience itself was one of greatest contributing factors to continuing brand loyalty. Your sales process must be as useful and distinct as your products.

Teaching Sells
Create co-branded content with partners, to reach additional audiences.

Invite partners to workshops you host, to reach additional audiences.

Part II Practices of the New Sales Guide
Create an Expert Platform
Podcasting hardware and software
• Blue Yeti USB microphone
• Skype with Skype-in number and Call Recorder (or Pamela) add-on
• GarageBand (or Audacity)
• Libsyn
• Blubrry PowerPress
• Rev.com (transcription)

Become an Authority
If you spend extra time on any aspect of writing, spend it on headline/title, which is what attracts readers.

Build Your Sales Hourglass
Forrester Research found 65% of vendors who create buying vision during early stages get the deal. Help prospect shape problem and participate in defining parameters that will solve problem.

Sales Hourglass
1. Explore (research)
2. Collaborate (talk to prospect about research; encourage prospect to dream; sketch possible solutions)
3. Design solution with prospect
4. Define how solution will be structured, delivered, implemented, paid for (create proposal)
5. Deliver solution
6. Measure (quantify value of solution to customer)
7. Engage (act like a consultant, frequently re-engaging customers; this leads to more sales and referrals)

Finish the Sale
Jantsch says he rarely suggests monetary incentives for referrals. He suggests the incentives of supporting nonprofits or allowing referrers to win something related to your business.

[Mihai Rosca · Rating 4 out of 5]

The world has become a strange place for those that lack the spirit of novelty running through their veins. Most of the jobs we see today will be replaced by robots in the next 15 years. This probably seems a bit out of whack but all facts point to it. It's enough to consult books and like The End of Jobs or take a look at what the people in Boston Dynamics are up to have cold reality shower.

In sales, this is true just the same. Sales funnels are fully automated nowadays and at the end of your purchase you receive a very nice message complimenting you for the wise acquisition and the jolly departure of your virtual cash. Somewhere in between, lies an unspoken truth: people will always benefit from human interaction and will always prefer it to a fully automated process. The only problem is that sales people have always had a bad rep.

If a salesman needs to survive and thrive, he must change too. That's what this book is all about: transformation and adaptation. The salesperson no longer needs to knock door to door or make cold calls. In a world where the client no longer buys because he needs just any solution, anyone who sells must become insightful and choose the best outcome for the client, even if that is not his product.

It's all about guiding the client. In the age of information where he might be even more informed than the salesperson, the selling value must come from insight and filtered information delivered by a way of a trustful relationship built by delivering value first by various channels. John Jantsch is truly adept at delivering this info and for any small business salesman, this is gold.

I'm not a salesman, but his content is good. He practices what he preaches and I'm probably going to go through his other books too.

[Kevin Eikenberry · Rating 5 out of 5]

The words marketing and selling get tossed around a lot. People from either discipline often think of them separately. As a business owner (and actually long before that), I consider them joined at the hip – in fact, in my company, the line between them is pretty blurred.

This book written by the bestselling author, renowned blogger and marketing expert, John Jantsch, blurs the line completely. Written for professional sales people, Jantsch encourages the reader to think like a marketer and work with the marketing people in their companies. Beyond that he describes how individual sales people can create thought leadership, attract their perfect customer and much more.

Read more...

[Stan Skrabut · Rating 5 out of 5]

Duct Tape Selling: Think Like a Marketer-Sell Like a Superstar is the third book I have read that John Jantsch has written. I also had the privilege to see him speak at Social Media Marketing World. I am a fan of his message and this book did not disappoint. Basically, you must bring value to the world in the content you create. Read more

[AKT · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is a big difference between marketing and sales, but one thing is certain that they both have in common: customers
I always say that marketers need to learn how to sell and sales people need to understand the customers in marketers’ way. This is very theoretical that I felt some of the highlighted points are all too obvious already. I mean, even first time salesperson knows this. It’s common sense. There’s really no best new approaches I’ve gathered so far, though some points make sense and quite helpful.

[Lino Matteo · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some very useful tips, processes and strategies.

Developed a plan for a retail client while reading the book

Scanned later chapters, but good meat at the beginning

[Tosan]

I loved the first part of the book more than any other part because it opened my eyes to a new meaning on what selling was really all about. I was glad to know that teaching and educating was part of the whole customer journey and even though sometimes it may seem like those things are not getting you the deals with some people, they do eventually get you the deals with your ideal customers. I was also really impressed with the amount of social apps and tools suggestions provided in the book, also some new ways on how to use older tools – facebook, twitter etc.

Dislike: At some point I was wondering if the book was written for writers, bloggers or speakers rather than sales people. The author spent a lot of time (and with examples) on how to improve the listed areas to ensure you build a solid reputation as a professional. I am all of the above yet would not have thought to get more information on being better at all three from a book I read to help improve my sales. Unfortunately, If you are new to any of these skills, you could get either bored or overwhelmed with the details provided on them. see more at http://wp.me/p805jF-fD

[Christopher Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A sale isn’t a sale until the customer gets a result" -John Jantsch

If Seth Godin is a magician, John Jantsch is pure tactician.

This book is the most important, most accessible, most easily implimented sales book that's out there today. It's a well researched, well written, sublimely useful book that almost everyone will be able to benefit from.

The difference between Duct Tape and other sales books is that it addresses reality and has a point of view. IT doesn't delve into "closing techniques" so much as "how to build value."

In addition to referencing his earlier work, it has a great & accessible way to get the best of other work: he draws from The Challenger Sale, Fascinate (Sally Hogshead) Jill Rowley, and many other experts to bring you a fantastic synthesis of the modern sales landscape.

John has written a few books over the years, Duct Tape Selling, The Referral Engine, The Commitment Engine, and yet this one is the one to buy because it will be able to be deployed in moments.

The one critique is that there is much to do and much to implement: Jantsch leaves it up to you to decide what to do and some more bold guidance might be useful to help people prioritize. Being a writer is more important than bing a good 'twiterer.' yet, he doesn't make a huge distinction.

Minor quibble- and it's the compulsory neg at the end of a review more than anything else. GO buy this book today.




(Disclosure- we worked on this some).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UuAI...

[Shawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of information. Lots of references on social media practices. There are quite a few sites I was unfamiliar with which is great. I haven't seen anyone find a good alternative to overused sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Both sites are inundated by marketers looking to create content with only a small percentage really providing great content which is turning away many users from paying attention to any marketing content. So despite this book giving great advice on how to manage these sites it would be nice to find someone who has leveraged social media but managed to stay relevant using other valuable methods.

[Jap Hengky · Rating 4 out of 5]

“In the traditional model, marketing owned the message of any given business, while sales owned the relationships. The sales team often had little impact on the way marketing messages were developed and, correspondingly, marketing often had little interaction with the end customer….
In the new business model, there can be little distinction between who owns the message and who owns the relationship. Marketing must improve its relationship building and sales must get better at message building and delivery.” It is essential for us marketer to sell not only the product, but also giving services that may increase relationship with customers.

[Lori Tian Sailiata · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone who has the genius to brand himself as the Duct Tape Marketer is worthy of your attention. If you are skeptical, lend an ear to his free podcast via iTunes. Not fancy. Not expensive. Highly effective. And you can most likely start implementing his core ideas with items already in your virtual junk drawer.

[Trish · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for anyone wanting to up their marketing, sales, community building, and/or content strategy game. Full of useful information easily broken down in to applicable tips.

[Janne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book about modern sales and marketing. Quick read, I recommend for anyone working in any job related to sales or marketing.