The best way to make a sales pitch is to understand the needs of the consumer, and that idea is reinforced by Amit Agarwal in his book The Ultimate Sales Accelerator. The unique discussion point in the book is the use case selling, a new sales strategy to win both in business and life about which he talks in detail through the book.
Use case selling, Agarwal explains, denotes a holistic approach to the world of sales. An updated version of his book that was published earlier, this one builds further on the scope of use case selling, highlighting success stories of people who had read the earlier version. Tips and advices that he shares in the book—andthere are quite a few of them—come from his own experiences.
“While telling a story, we are inclined towards telling our version of the truth. However, if we want to be relevant to the user, we have to understand his or her experiences, needs and notions and illustrate their version of the truth,” Agarwal writes.
Here is an excerpt from the book:
Now that’s a statement. There is nothing more to it.
But what if you ask them, ‘What colour is the sky?’ One kid may say it is blue. A few others may say it is black at night. Some may say that the sky has different colours throughout the day. Just look at the vast possibilities a simple question can create.
Imagine that you are addressing a seminar on sales for 300 attendees. You have two options at hand to start your speech:
Option 1: ‘Sales is a life skill.’
Option 2: ‘Is sales a life skill or a profession?’
It is no surprise that the second option is your obvious choice. By starting with a question, you will generate participant engagement as your audience will now interact with you and not just attend the seminar as passive listeners.
According to Agarwal, the inspiration to write the book came over breakfast with his wife one day. “A thought occurred to me. What if someone asked me, ‘If you were to share only one simple thing that has contributed the most to your success in sales, what would that be?’ The answer came immediately. Use case Selling,” he shares.
The answer brought a smile to his face. That was when he decided to write a book because “a book offers a fantastic opportunity to share and connect with a broader community”.
The book, he says, aims to help readers appreciate sales as a life skill. “Typically, sales is perceived to be a profession. In our various roles, we sell a product, a service oran idea.A child is asking his father to buy an expensive video game.A sales director is giving a software demo to his prospective clients.An employee is giving her manager reasons why her salary should be increased,” he adds. The book covers 42 such scenarios.
“While writing the expanded and updated edition in 2022, I was curious to know how the book has benefited readers and how they have adopted the learnings. I thought that including a few adoption stories within the new edition would inspire the larger community,” says Agarwal, talking about the inclusion of case studies.
When he started talking to his readers, he saw these sales applications in life and business coveringjob search, parental communication, strategy, value proposition, demand generation and deal closure. “These diverse experiences validate that we are selling all the time. Each of these experiences is now featured in detail in the expanded edition,” he adds.
What Next
Agarwal says that all that he does is aimed at harnessing four life skills—sales, mindfulness, nutritional diet and personal finance. “I believe incremental progress in harnessing these life skills helps us balance material accomplishments and spiritual growth,” he elaborates.His next venture, he says, will be about these four skills that he has been emphasising on.
