Book by: Todd Duncan

Summary by: Rob Reed

Introduction – High Trust Selling

High Trust Selling provides good ideas that could help you sell more effectively, particularly if you are just beginning in sales. If you’ve read a lot of sales or management books, though, you will already be familiar with many of the ideas it presents.

In my opinion, the book title, High Trust Selling, is misleading. This book reads like it was originally named Fourteen Laws for Better Sales before the publisher decided to boost sales by renaming it. Someone seemed to think that if they sprinkled the words “high trust” throughout the text, then that’s what the book is about. It’s really not.

If you want to learn how to develop greater levels of trust with potential buyers, the book falls short. In that case, your better off with other options.

Summary – High Trust Selling

Author Todd Duncan follows a standard sales model. His innovation is identifying fourteen “laws” that he uses to discuss the sales cycle. He organizes methods, information, and tips by assigning each of them to one of the laws.

I’ll summarize the content of the book by taking a look at each of his laws. One caveat before we begin: The author’s sales background leans toward simpler, transactional sales, so if you compete in a complex sales environment, the book may not fully address your situation.

The Law of the Iceberg: The truest measure of your success is invisible to your clients.

With this law, Todd Duncan holds that real success occurs inside the salesperson, and that your success is determined by your fulfillment, not your finances. To be successful, he argues, you must align your job with a greater sense of purpose. This sense of purpose will then pull you to success in sales. To begin, you should ask yourself what is important to you about being successful.

The Law of the Summit: Your direction is a result of your perception.

Here the author argues that to succeed you must first understand failure. You must recognize that successful people fail more often than unsuccessful ones. This law boils down to an everyday idea – to succeed you must learn from failure.

The Law of the Shareholder: Successful salespeople buy stock in themselves.

View yourself as a business owner making sales, and adopt a “CEO mind-set.” For example, says the author, CEOs invest money to make money, while a typical salesperson might pay only for what can be reimbursed. According to Duncan, if you have a CEO mind-set you might invest in personal development and an exercise program. He also recommends investing in a web site, even if you conduct most business face-to-face or by phone.

The Law of the Ladder: The success you achieve is directly related to the steps you conceive.

This law says that to succeed you need a plan — four plans, in fact. And Duncan wants you to write them down, not just…[Please click to learn how to get the rest of this sales book review and much more.]