Addressed to the salesperson, Why Salespeople Fail can do more than ensure a salesperson's success. The insight this book provides enables a sales manager — or a company — to reduce the cost of sales turnover.

An accurate INDEX makes possible quick location of topics, such as:

• How a salesperson unknowingly injects his doubt into sale after sale
• Why a salesperson must make clear the benefits of sales features
• Why a salesperson should never show his doubt to prospects
• How to handle the ambivalent prospect
• The difference between a "need" and a "want"
• The emphasis in selling should be on value — not price
• The importance of a salesperson's choice of words
• Three "trial closes" to test a prospect's readiness to buy
• How to uncover a prospect's real reason for not buying

Unlike books that focus on sales techniques for handling prospect doubt, Why Salespeople Fail explains that it is the mishandling of a salesperson's own doubt that usually causes him to fail.

Why Salespeople Fail focuses on what sales managers agree is the main reason for sales failure — a salesperson's negative sales attitude.

"Why Salespeople Fail" explains how a salesperson's acceptance of unrealistic guidelines is largely responsible for failure. The book makes a salesperson aware of more realistic guidelines, ones that help him handle problems of doubt and pressure.

Roy Hartmann has had forty years sales experience. His educational background, as well as his success as a salesperson and in teaching others how to sell, qualifies him to explain why salespeople fail. Roy's educational credentials include a B.A. degree from Columbia University and a Masters degree as a psychiatric social worker from Boston University. He also has a Community College Counselor Credential and a Standard Teaching Credential.

Roy started to sell part-time with the Realsilk Company, a national direct-selling company, in order to support himself while taking postgraduate courses in psychology at the University of California. He did so well in selling that when the company offered to make him their sales manager in Medford, Oregon, he accepted the offer.

As a sales manager with the Realsilk Company, he always accompanied new salespeople when they called on their first prospects. If a salesperson was having trouble making sales, Roy made calls with him or her. In accompanying salespeople in the field, Roy quickly learned it was a salesperson's attitude that determined his success or failure. His insight improved sales so dramatically in the area that it caught the attention of the home office, headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana.

In less than a year after becoming the Medford sales manager, the general manager of sales made a special trip from Realsilk's headquarters in Indiana to invite Roy to join the headquarters sales staff. Roy accepted the offer, which led to his position as sales training director for the entire organization. One of Roy's duties was to read the many books on selling that promised various ways to increase sales. He also traveled throughout the United States to hold training schools for new sales managers.

After thirty-five years with the company, Roy decided to move back to his home in Berkeley, California where he obtained a real estate broker's license and sold real estate.