The One Minute Sales Person review

By:  September 6, 2021 Categories: 

The book is a bit full of typical American self-help advice, and some of its exaggerated ‘pump-yourself-up’ self believes don’t land — but despite this, I still rate it five out of five. I read it about 6 years ago and I bought it again in China to read it again now.

Key points for me are:

  • Everyone’s a salesperson; you also sell ideas or want stuff from other people
  • Earning money is a goal, but you’ll have more fun & enjoy more financial success when you stop trying to get what you want, and start helping other people get what they want. This is a good salesperson’s purpose.
  • Focus on your purpose, not your goals. How to distinguish between a goal & purpose? Do the Tombstone test: What do you want to have written on your tombstone?
  • Good selling is just helping the customer. You are helping them achieve their goals, and make them feel good about what they just purchased. Don’t feel bad that you’re selling to them; you are helping them achieve their goals! You’ll also feel less stressed this way, because you no longer make people try to do what they don’t want.
  • People don’t buy services, products, or ideas. They buy how they imagine using the product will make them feel. Let them imagine how they feel before they buy it.
  • To find out what people want, ask “Have” and “want” questions.
  • You need to put yourself in their position + Study features & advantages of what you may sell to solve problems.
  • This sounds easy but a nice example they gave, a truck company had received dozens of phone calls of tyre companies all talking about milage. But then a salesperson saw a family photo on the CEO’s desk, and he mentioned how safe their tyres are to protect us from harm.
  • Repetitively ask yourself; am I concerned with what they want (achieve their goals), or just what I want? (sales)
  • Make buying as easy and risk-free as possible, for instance by offering a demo or offering a money-back guarantee.
  • After the sale, follow up to solve problems or if they are happy, ask for active referrals.
  • 80% of sales come from 20% of the clients. Focus on those.

Latest

Travel plugs

Travel plugs

In our new house, many appliances still get their power through a travel adapter. Eight years in China was long enough to not only put down roots and settle in, but also for everything we owned to end in a Chinese plug: my MacBook, the coffee machine, the rice cooker, the baby monitor. The appliances […]
September 21, 2026
Twenty-three years

Twenty-three years

In June we moved back to the Netherlands, six suitcases across 8000 kilometres, and after a brief spell at my parents’ place, we moved into our own home. This second move also involved putting down carpet, curtains, buying appliances and furniture — so that our new garage quickly filled with cardboard boxes and other packaging […]
August 29, 2026
Searching for meadows

Searching for meadows

Our new home in the Netherlands sits in a mundane residential area full of young families like ours. The street name comes from made (‘meadow’), still referring to a field that once lay here and now survives only in the name (just how the name Shanghai refers to a river that no longer exists). And […]
August 5, 2026
Degrees of wealth

Degrees of wealth

In eight years of living in China, taxi drivers or older colleagues loved to ask, “Which is better, the Netherlands or China?”, hoping for a single insightful answer that would explain everything. And now, back as a resident in the Netherlands, people ask the mirrored version: do I miss living in China? Neither question is […]
July 11, 2026