Book summary “You Can Sell”: summary

Introduction

You likely face rejection, fear of cold calling, and sluggish sales numbers that fail to match your daily effort. You might struggle to understand why hard work alone does not guarantee a closed deal or a stable commission check.

Shiv Khera argues in You Can Sell that selling is a profession of results where willpower, ethics, and structured processes triumph over mere effort. You control your own destiny through attitude, systematic prospecting, and professional closing techniques rather than empty persuasion.

The book guides you through mindset shifts, buyer psychology, modern sales processes, prospecting methods, and ethical time management.

You will discover answers to questions such as:

• How do you overcome the fear of rejection and maintain a positive mental attitude?
• What motivates a buyer to purchase from you instead of a competitor?
• How do you build an effective prospecting pipeline and handle objections with confidence?

1. Mindset and Attitude in Selling

Commission-based sales is one of the highest-paid professions because salespeople write their own paychecks and create their own destiny based on results rather than effort. You discover that salaried work rewards time, but the world rewards actual results.

Commission-based sales reward actual results rather than effort, requiring strong willpower, positive mental attitude, and unwavering conviction.

Willpower matters more than raw skill because sheer will helps you recover from failure and make one more call. In 1975, the author started his career in selling in North America when he responded to a vacuum cleaner demo ad. After District Manager Joe Bonny offered a $150 weekly draw, the author was fired from life insurance after three months of zero sales. He went on to sell nearly $1 million worth of life insurance the next year and $3 million the second year.

The Choice of Commission Sales

Success in selling depends more on your positive mental attitude, mental toughness, and discipline than on external circumstances or inherent advantages. Winners turn negatives into positives and perform in spite of problems, whereas losers rationalize and make excuses.

• Form the habit of doing things that losers do not like to do.
• Practice discipline by doing what ought to be done when it ought to be done.
• Feed the mind with positive thoughts daily.

A top vacuum cleaner salesperson achieved twenty-four sales in a single day during a severe twelve-inch snowstorm because he recognized that both decision-making spouses would be at home and all neighbors represented immediate prospects.

Attitude and Conviction

Selling is fundamentally the transfer of enthusiasm and 90 percent conviction from the seller to the buyer. You have no right to sell a product you do not personally believe in. People buy more from the heart than the head, relying heavily on the comfort level and trust factor with the salesperson.

• Commit to being a good sales professional.
• Focus on goals and acquire competencies in selling skills.
• Create and follow a selling system with an organized effort.
• Uncover customer needs, provide solutions, and handle post-sale commitments.

Selling is a rejection business governed by the law of averages, where rejections should not be taken personally. Amateur salespeople suffer demotivation from rejections because they take them personally, whereas top producers view every rejection as moving closer to the next yes.

• Reduce the risk factor and increase the trust reward to raise closing ratios.
• Treat every no as the next opportunity.

Eighty percent of selling relies on mental conditioning, self-esteem, and self-image, which can be reprogrammed using visualization and auto-suggestions. Internal mental states communicate non-verbally to buyers.

• Form a crystal clear mental picture of the desired person you want to become through visualization.
• Create auto-suggestions in the present tense rather than the future tense.
• Read auto-suggestions twice a day upon waking up and right before going to bed.
• Practice the mental conditioning routine for a minimum of thirty days.

2. Psychology and Buyer Motivation

Buyers purchase to gain profit or avoid loss, valuing quality, reliability, and dependability over mere price while seeking emotional alignment.

Why People Buy

People purchase products and services for strictly two reasons: either to gain a profit or to avoid a loss. Logic opens the mind, but emotions open the checkbook. You must identify underlying buying motives such as saving, love for family, status, or utility.

In 1727, Voltaire visited England when hatred toward the French was intense. Surrounded by an angry mob shouting to kill him, Voltaire saved his life by appealing to their emotions, asking if he wasn't already punished enough by not being an Englishman.

A sales professional should never state the price or investment required until they have successfully established the perceived value and appropriate solution. Giving out the price prematurely sends the wrong message and leads to rejection. If a customer impatiently asks for the price early on, you must condition the quote on mutual agreement that the solution fits their needs.

• Refuse to quote the price immediately if asked prematurely.
• Evaluate the customer's situation to determine the proper solution first.
• State willingness to share the investment provided both parties agree the solution meets the needs.

What Buyers Need and Want

People do not buy what they need; they always buy what they want. You find that buyers willingly pay a 10 to 15 percent price differential without a second thought for three key elements: quality, reliability, and dependability. Retaining an existing customer is significantly cheaper than acquiring a new one.

A corporate CEO bidding on multi-million dollar tenders noted that their bid price is consistently about 20 percent higher than competitors. They successfully win the contracts due to their reputation for quality, reliability, and dependability. Gaining a new customer costs 6 to 10 times more than retaining an existing one.

Sales relationships are severely damaged by common negative behaviors such as dishonesty, shabby appearance, oversized egos, smooth-talking manipulation, and lack of transparency. Dishonesty includes lying, hiding material facts, and making exaggerated claims. Treating courtesy as a manipulative sales strategy rather than a genuine way of life is perceived as crookedness and instantly destroys customer trust. Nine out of 10 times, people arriving late falsely blame traffic.

Building credibility requires comprehensive product knowledge, realistic commitments, and strict adherence to customer service quality standards. You act as the company's ambassador on the front line. Proactive professionals constantly evaluate customer sentiment by monitoring indifference, praise of competitors, rising complaints, and declining purchase volumes.

The author contrasts a negative buying experience where a vendor lied about delivery times for verandah lights and delivered the wrong color with a positive experience where a shower stall vendor kept every promise and delivered ahead of schedule.

• Evaluate whether commitments are realistic and add a safety margin for delays.
• Establish clear response time benchmarks for phone calls, service, and maintenance.
• Regularly seek customer feedback to assess satisfaction levels.

3. The Modern Selling Process

Traditional selling focused heavily on the close. Modern professional selling allocates 40 percent of the process to rapport, 30 percent to needs, 20 percent to solutions, and only 10 percent to closing.

Professional selling prioritizes rapport, questioning techniques, uncovering invisible needs, and translating product features into concrete benefits.

Rapport and Needs Discovery

Effective sales presentations rely on thorough preparation, self-explanatory sales tools that engage multiple senses, and direct access to actual decision-makers. You must avoid wasting time talking to titleholders who lack purchasing authority. Instead, you must tactfully uncover the organization's decision-making process, identify key influencers, and utilize comprehensive presentation kits.

A salesperson lost a potential deal because he assumed the prospective client would have a computer available to play his presentation DVD and arrived completely unprepared.

• Check the client's website and background information before the meeting.
• Prepare a presentation kit containing business cards, brochures, product catalogues, portable samples, and testimonial letters.
• Ask tactful questions about the organization's decision-making process rather than asking direct, potentially offensive questions about authority.

Visible needs are urgent necessities like food and shelter where buyers act proactively without salespeople. Invisible needs stem from complacence, indifference, or ignorance, requiring you to highlight the pain of waiting and the gain of acting. Invisible needs account for nearly all sales opportunities and require education to uncover.

John, a water-filter seller looking for visible needs, went out of business by asking people if they needed a filter. Steve succeeded by educating prospects about rising water-borne diseases and offering complimentary water analysis reports.

Features, Benefits, and Closing

Customers buy perceived benefits, value, and solutions rather than product features or price. A feature describes a product, but a benefit explains what the feature means to you in terms of gaining a profit, avoiding a loss, gaining a pleasure, or avoiding a pain.

An untrained computer salesperson talks about technical specifications, whereas a professional translates 30 percent faster speed into 20 percent savings, which means an additional profit of 5 percent.

• Use the phrase "What it means to you is..." to translate product features into customer benefits.

Always Be Closing is a valid philosophy only when you have earned the right to close through rapport and verified needs. Timing the close requires intuition derived from experience. Rushing or delaying a close causes lost opportunities. When answering customer inquiries, you should always end with a trial close.

When a prospect asks about product sizes, the professional lists the available sizes, notes that medium and large account for 80 percent of the business, and asks which one they prefer.

• Gain attention using the AIDA principle.
• Create interest by uncovering needs through questioning techniques.
• Generate desire for the solution and secure acceptance through action.

4. Prospecting, Calls, and Referrals

Successful prospecting relies on natural markets, lead prioritization, structured phone scripts, and utilizing customer referrals to borrow credibility.

A prospect must meet three specific criteria: a need for the product, the ability to take a decision, and the money to buy. If any one of the three criteria is missing from an individual, they are considered a suspect rather than a prospect. You must focus your target market carefully based on industry, age, occupation, and income.

Sales professionals must prioritize their leads into hot, warm, and cold categories and allocate their working time accordingly to maximize revenue. Hot leads are excited about the product, warm leads are fence sitters, and cold leads are indifferent. Successful professionals spend 80 per cent of their time on hot leads, 15 per cent on warm leads, and 5 per cent on cold leads because 80 per cent of the revenue comes from hot leads.

Targeting and Project 100

The natural market consists of friends, relatives, and acquaintances who provide an immediate source of prospects without requiring credibility to be built from scratch.

• Make a list of 100 people you know, including friends, relatives, and acquaintances, listed in your personal diary.

Shiv Khera learned about the natural market through Project 100 at MetLife, where he listed 100 people he knows personally to build his initial client base. Friends and relatives share a need to protect their families, making it easier to secure appointments and gather referrals.

Getting referrals and written testimonials allows you to borrow customer credibility, eliminating skepticism and closing sales more easily. Referrals act as proof and reduce risk for the prospect because a satisfied customer puts their own credibility on the line. Testimonials must be drafted by you factually and honestly, using real names, addresses, and phone numbers.

Shiv Khera utilized a testimonial letter for nearly a decade written by a client whose husband passed away shortly after signing a mortgage insurance application, where he delivered a $63,000 cheque that paid off her mortgage. The initial cheque amount for the mortgage insurance application was $27.

• Confirm that the client is totally satisfied.
• Ask if you could use their name in case somebody wants to talk to a satisfied client.
• Offer to draft a letter subject to their approval to be reproduced on their letterhead.

Overcoming Call Reluctance

Call reluctance leads to inaction, but statistics show that the vast majority of sales require multiple closing attempts that most salespeople fail to complete. Approximately 50 per cent of salespeople quit after the first rejection, 60 per cent quit after the second, 70 per cent quit after the third, and 80 per cent quit after the fourth. Only 20 per cent persist past the fourth call, and 80 per cent of sales are made around the fifth closing attempt.

To bypass a secretary or gatekeeper when making phone calls, you must state that the call is about increasing productivity rather than a personal matter. Secretaries are tasked with shielding their bosses and increasing productivity.

• Introduce yourself clearly, by name and company.
• Be pleasant and courteous without being pompous.
• Answer that the call is about increasing productivity when asked what it is about.
• Make your point and remain silent for a few seconds to put pressure on the secretary.

Telephone prospecting scripts must follow a specific sequence starting with a short introduction, gaining permission to talk, and offering a benefit statement. You should structure your phone calls to secure a yes response to benefit-driven questions and prepare to handle common objections. A cardinal rule is not speaking for more than 35 to 40 seconds without getting a response.

• Give a short introduction with your name and company.
• Ask permission to talk.
• Provide a benefit statement opener.
• Frame questions where the prospect's response can only be a yes.
• Prepare to handle the three most common objections.

5. Communication, Negotiation, and Closing

Mastering active listening, non-verbal communication, win-win negotiation, and systematic objection handling leads directly to closed sales.

Selling is fundamentally problem-solving through careful questioning and listening. Hearing is a passive, physical process, whereas listening is an active, emotional one that helps uncover customer needs. Active listening goes beyond mere hearing by paying attention to hidden messages and feelings, which makes the prospect feel significant and receptive.

A father comes home, turns on the TV, and tells his children he is listening while switching channels. He hears their voices but fails to actually listen.

You must follow specific rules during every conversation to show genuine engagement:

• While listening, avoid creating distractions such as playing with a pen or the paper weight or tapping your fingers.
• Slow down, listen to the prospect, and collect your thoughts before responding.
• Don't interrupt.
• Acknowledge and encourage the other person by nodding your head, smiling and occasionally saying 'yes'.
• Maintain eye contact, without staring at the other person.
• Give a warm smile.
• Ask questions to clarify and make notes.
• Rephrase and paraphrase to show that you understand.
• Don't finish the other person's sentence.
• Keep the conversation focussed and to the point.
• Don't behave as if you know it all.
• Don't act as if by listening you are doing them a favor.

Dr. Albert Mehrabian concluded through a study that communication relies heavily on non-verbal body language and tone of voice, making non-verbal cues the most reliable indicator of a communicator's true state. Specifically, 55 percent of our communication is non-verbal, 38 percent is the tone of voice, and 7 percent is verbal. A communicator states verbally that they are interested while simultaneously looking at their watch or ceiling fan, revealing a mismatch between words and non-verbal actions. Replacing negative or scary terminology with positive, empowering vocabulary prevents customer objections and builds trust.

• Replace 'buy/sell' with 'own'.
• Replace 'sign' with 'confirm this order'.
• Replace 'contract' with 'formalities/paperwork/agreement'.
• Replace 'price/payment/money/pay/cash/cost' with 'investment'.

Cross-selling and up-selling optimize revenues and fulfill your obligation to provide total solutions after trust is established. After a customer buys a bike, you cross-sell front and rear lights and a safety helmet for a $23 investment.

Objection Handling and Negotiation

Negotiation aims for a win-win solution built on mutual respect, whereas haggling is a destructive process that leaves both parties dissatisfied.

Haggling involves mutual outsmarting and constant concessions without counter-offers, resulting in strained relationships. A buyer and a vendor in a flea market engage in aggressive price chipping over handicraft items, bringing a $100 starting price down to $37 without counter-offers, leading to mutual dissatisfaction. True negotiation relies on structured ground rules and specific steps:

• Maintain mutual respect.
• Avoid interruptions.
• Handle one issue at a time.
• Come to agreements on minor matters quickly.
• Start to build on your points of agreement.
• Separate negotiable and non-negotiable items.
• Set priorities.

Objections are not rejections but emotional responses and requests for more information, marking the starting point of real selling. You must handle objections through a systematic process:

• Confirm the objection
• Isolate the objection
• Empathize
• Answer, respond or overcome the objection
• Reconfirm the acceptance of your answer
• Go for a trial close
• Close

Price objections are relative and require breaking down the cost over time to demonstrate the value of peace of mind over a cheap alternative. A 3 percent initial investment price difference higher than most other brands on a $1,000 purchase over 6 years translates to 35 cents a week or less than 5 cents a day, yielding a 47 percent return and a 50 percent running equipment saving within 5 years. Closing is the natural outcome of a good presentation and requires leading the prospect toward a positive decision using specific techniques, where the assumed consent close succeeds 9 times out of 10 if there is no resistance.

6. Time Management, Ethics, and Mastery

Long-term professional survival requires rigorous life and time management, adherence to strict ethical standards, and continuous self-improvement.

Time and Goal Management

Every person receives 1440 minutes daily as a perishable commodity that cannot be stored or carried forward. You must prioritize tasks to focus on accomplishments rather than mere activities. Less than 3 percent of people have written goals, while 97 percent do not have them. A fisherman threw back every big fish because he carried a small frying pan, illustrating limited thinking.

To optimize your schedule and results, you can follow specific steps:

• Set short-term goals up to one year.
• Set medium-term goals up to three years.
• Set long-term goals up to five years.
• Divide yearly goals into semi-annual, quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily, and hourly increments.
• Read goals twice a day and plan the day one week in advance.
• Make every effort to qualify your prospect.
• Divide your prospects into three categories: hot leads, lukewarm and cold leads. Go after the hot leads first.
• Don't allow unscheduled visitors to drop in.
• Don't make unnecessary friendly calls and waste time.
• Always confirm your appointments in advance.
• Have a good night’s sleep.
• Keep yourself physically fit.
• Maintain an external memory jogger system for paperwork and follow-up, such as thirty-one dated files.
• Utilize unproductive waiting and driving time to listen to motivational messages or rehearse presentations.

Ethics and Professionalism

Character represents what you do even when no one is watching, whereas reputation is merely what other people think. Unethical actions destroy long-term goodwill and credibility. A computer consultant padded referral bills by 400 percent, demonstrating the destructive nature of dishonesty. Shiv Khera returned a $2,000 commission the next day and canceled a life insurance sale because his conscience told him the client would not genuinely benefit.

To maintain professional integrity, you can apply these guidelines:

• Evaluate your values by checking if you conceal information, exaggerate claims, degrade competitors, or fudge expense accounts.
• Apply the Rotary four-way test: Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendships? Will it be beneficial to all concerned?
• Ask yourself key ethical questions regarding who would be hurt and whether your mother or children would respect your actions.
• Make ethics a way of life (Character).
• Continue despite setbacks (Courage).
• Maintain belief in product, profession, and organization (Conviction).
• Have clear goals and purpose (Clarity).
• Develop skills and the will to sell (Competence).
• Master persuasive skills and conviction (Communication).
• Invest five to seven hours a week in education.
• Appear well groomed and look neat and clean.
• Dress formally and one notch more formal than the client.
• Greet with a warm smile and a firm, non-crushing handshake.
• Wear pleasant-smelling, non-overpowering cologne.
• Keep mannerisms gentle and observe surroundings.
• Convert customers into clients and suppliers into strategic partners.
• Maintain contact with clients at least six times a year through cards, newsletters, or mementos.
• Send a reassuring thank-you letter within twenty-four hours of closing a sale to prevent buyer's remorse.

10 Key Ideas

1. Commission-based sales reward actual results rather than effort, requiring strong willpower, positive mental attitude, and unwavering conviction.
2. Buyers purchase products and services for strictly two reasons: either to gain a profit or to avoid a loss.
3. Invisible needs stem from complacence, indifference, or ignorance, requiring you to highlight the pain of waiting and the gain of acting.
4. Professional selling prioritizes rapport, questioning techniques, uncovering invisible needs, and translating product features into concrete benefits.
5. Successful prospecting relies on natural markets, lead prioritization, structured phone scripts, and utilizing customer referrals to borrow credibility.
6. Hearing is a passive, physical process, whereas listening is an active, emotional one that helps uncover customer needs.
7. Negotiation aims for a win-win solution built on mutual respect, whereas haggling is a destructive process that leaves both parties dissatisfied.
8. Approximately 50 per cent of salespeople quit after the first rejection, while 80 per cent of sales are made around the fifth closing attempt.
9. You must prioritize tasks to focus on accomplishments rather than mere activities, utilizing unproductive waiting and driving time to listen to motivational messages or rehearse presentations.
10. Character represents what you do even when no one is watching, whereas unethical actions destroy long-term goodwill and credibility.