Most sales professionals spend all their time and energy trying to perfect their own style of selling. Yet they fail to recognize that buyers all have their own individual “buying styles”...and when sellers learn how to adapt their own methods to best suit each buying style, they can dramatically increase their success rate. Presented as a “learning adventure,” Buying Styles begins with a fictional situation in which a salesperson has just lost a major sale...and decides to find out why. Readers are then brought along on an interactive lesson that shows them how to: • recognize the four key buying styles • understand what to do (and not to do) when selling to customers exhibiting each • quickly spot the tell-tale signs that they are using the wrong approach • gain the confidence of prospects • improve their relationships with existing clients • develop a strategy for approaching new prospects • increase their chances of closing each and every sale This quick and easy read, packed with tips, checklists, and on-the-go references, unveils powerful new insights for successfully selling to anyone.
Lewis makes a compelling argument that businesses must look beyond their own internal view of how something is sold, to the external reality of how customers actually buy. He asserts that no one buys anything because of a sales process; customers only buy because of their own buying process. And so, for all those whose livelihood depends upon successful revenue generation, the only rational course of action is to positively influence and effectively manage the end-to-end customer-buying journey. The simple failure of mousetrap logic—that is, the quality of the product or value proposition of the service is sufficient to convince customers to make a purchase—is at the heart of most revenue generation challenges today. How Customers Buy...and Why They Don’t shows that vendors are too often trying to solve the wrong problem, because customers actually do “get it,” they just don’t buy it. The book starts by explaining Outside-in Revenue Generation. It then decodes the six elements of the Customer Buying Journey DNA. It defines the nine Buying Concerns, any one of which can derail a purchase. It unveils the deceptively simple and elegant 4Q Buying Style Quadrant that unlocks the intricacies of how buyers actually think. The second section of the book explains what you can do about customers not buying your products or services. It reveals that there are only four things—Sales and Marketing Imperatives—that can be done to positively impact the market. It goes on to walk the reader through the development of the Market Engagement Strategy. The final section of the book translates the five components of the Market Engagement Strategy into actionable sales and marketing behaviors.
Downtown department stores were once the heart and soul of America's pulsing Broadways and Main Streets. With names such as City of Paris, Penn Traffic, The Maze, Maison Blanche, or The Popular, they suggested spheres far beyond mundane shopping. Nicknames reflected the affection customers felt for their favorites, whether Woodie's, Wanny's, Stek's, O.T.'s, Herp's, or Bam's. The history of downtown department stores is as fascinating as their names and as diverse as their merchandise. Their stories encompass many themes: the rise of decorative design, new career paths for women, the growth of consumerism, and the technological ingenuity of escalators and pneumatic tubes. Just as the big stores made up their own small universes, their stories are microcosmic narratives of American culture and society. The big stores were much more than mere businesses. They were local institutions where shoppers could listen to concerts, see fashion shows and art exhibits, learn golf or bridge, pay electric bills, and plan vacations – all while their children played in the store's nursery under the eye of a uniformed nursemaid. From Boston to San Diego and Miami to Seattle, department stores symbolized a city's spirit, wealth, and progressiveness. Situated at busy intersections, they occupied the largest and finest downtown buildings, and their massive corner clocks became popular meeting places. Their locations became the epicenters of commerce, the high point from which downtown property taxes were calculated. Spanning the late 19th century well into the 20th, their peak development mirrors the growth of cities and of industrial America when both were robust and flourishing. The time may be gone when children accompany their mothers downtown for a day of shopping and lunch in the tea room, when monogrammed trucks deliver purchases for free the very same day, and when the personality of a city or town can be read in its big stores. But they are far from forgotten and they still have power to influence how we shop today. Service and Style recreates the days of downtown department stores in their prime, from the 1890s through the 1960s. Exploring in detail the wide range of merchandise they sold, particularly style goods such as clothing and home furnishings, it examines how they displayed, promoted, and sometimes produced goods. It reveals how the stores grew, why they declined, and how they responded to and shaped the society around them.
Learn how to hone your selling skills and close more sales with this easy to read guide written by someone with extensive experience of every aspect of selling and marketing in the international arena. Based on the five stage OIMCO selling model it covers : -Opening-phase selling skills, including taking control of your selling space and sizing up the customer - Interviewing-phase selling skills, including asking open-style questions , listening actively and triggering your customer's imagination - Matching-phase selling skills , including applying the SELL formula, translating benefits into real money and mastering the art of storytelling -Closing-phase selling skills, including tuning in to buying signals, manufacturing a close and perfecting the art of silence - Objection-handling-phase selling skills, including conditioning yourself positively to objections, pre-handling predictable objections and playing CATCH with every objection raised All neatly summed up in 52 skill honing sections, with skill-enhancing exercises, to perfectly suit a busy life in sales. NOT GOT MUCH TIME? One and five-minute introductions to key principles to get you started. AUTHOR INSIGHTS Lots of instant help with common problems and quick tips for success, based on the author's many years of experience. TEST YOURSELF Tests in the book to keep track of your progress. EXTEND YOUR KNOWLEDGE Extra online articles at www.teachyourself.com to give you a richer understanding. THINGS TO REMEMBER Quick refreshers to help you remember the key facts. TRY THIS Innovative exercises illustrate what you've learnt and how to use it.
Through an astonishing series of interviews, Gay Men's Style will take you on a dizzying journey through shops, bars, clubs, gyms, workplaces and global city streets. Based on the lived experience of gay men of all ages from the UK, USA, Europe, Australia and Japan, Shaun Cole calls for a more nuanced understanding of gay male dress and style. Gay male identities in the 21st century are increasingly intersectional, fluid and flexible, from hyper-masculinity and muscularity seen in clubs and on the pages of gay magazines to self-knowing drag culture and androgynous gender play in the fashion industry. Gay Men's Style explores these multiple identities and the ways in which gay men self-identify and present themselves to the world through dress. This analysis is set alongside seismic shifts in technology, global communication and gay rights to redress and readdress the subject of gay men's style in a time of social and sexual upheaval.
Designers in the textile industry have a wide range of roles and responsibilities and are frequently required to make design decisions throughout the manufacturing process. This very practical handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the role of the textile designer within the textile industry. It deals with the all aspects of the design process from the beginning – from how to go about attracting clients through range planning and development to presentation. It firmly locates the work of the textile designer within the wider context of the global textile and clothing industries and considers the process of design for both freelance and in-house designers. Commercial considerations are also covered, together with trend forecasting and the factors influencing purchasing decisions.Based on the author's experience as a textile designer in industry and as a lecturer at UMIST, Manchester, UK, this book covers the entire textile design process from briefing through initial ideas, research and design development, to finished fabrics being sold to garment manufacturers and to retail. The Handbook of textile design is an invaluable reference for students of textile design as well as buyers and merchandisers of textile products, and anyone requiring an understanding of the textile design process. - The range and diversity of textile design techniques available to the designer - The professional practice of running a textile design studio - How design work is carried out from the initial brief all the way through to invoicing the client
The Fashion Design Manual is a comprehensive introduction to the world of fashion. It introduces the reader to the cycles and trends of fashion, the principles and practice of fashion design, the range of techniques and skills required to be successful in the industry, and the economic reality of the world of retail fashion. The Fashion Design Manual follows the path a garment takes from sketch to sample, through production and finally via the retail outlet to the wearer. The book is very generously illustrated with drawings, sketches, and photographs throughout.
