Book Review: ‘Selling Through Your Heart’ by Shirlene Reeves

Shirlene Reeves’ Selling Through Your Heart: Empowering You to Build Relationships for Financial Freedom goes beyond most sales and business books in offering practical advice and examples for finding customers, getting them interested, sealing the deal, keeping them coming back, and even referring their friends to you. After reading Shirlene’s personal story and her advice, you’ll find your sales increasing, and more importantly, you’ll find yourself developing meaningful relationships that make you happier because you’re not just making money but also making a difference in your life and the lives of your clients.

Few books start out with such dramatic openings as Selling Through Your Heart. Shirlene tells us briefly about her two marriages and how she built successful businesses with both husbands, only one day to discover she was divorced and broke. Not having food for her children, she found herself standing in front of a dumpster that people were diving in to retrieve spoiling watermelons to eat. In that moment, she knew she would find a way to turn this situation around.

Of course, she did, and it led to her growing her own business — Signing Pro, Inc., the second-largest notary document-signing business in the nation, worth multi-millions and with 23,000 people working under her. Shirlene retired from that business after seventeen years, and now she coaches people in sales so they can learn to do what she did.

While Selling Through Your Heart is full of practical techniques, Shirlene also focuses on how to make yourself happy by first being on good terms with yourself. She gives us examples of how we can choose what is right for us, framing it as “choosing peace or pain” when we make decisions. Then she walks readers through what she calls the 3 Cs: Clearing, Clarity, and Confidence. The 3 Cs help you deal with your past and unresolved issues or emotions so you can focus your energy on sales rather than your personal baggage. Ultimately, the 3 Cs will help boost your confidence so you’re a better salesperson. Shirlene explains:

The ultimate goal of the 3 Cs is to get people talking about how much they love you. The rules for accomplishing this goal are to say nothing unkind about anyone, give of your time and knowledge from the deepest recesses of your heart, and understand what you give to another may not be returned by the same person, but it will most assuredly come back to you in other unexpected, positive ways.

Now that you have you figured out, it’s time to figure out your clients. Shirlene walks the reader through how to understand and recognize potential clients’ personality types so you can learn to communicate with them where they’re at and mirror their language. She also teaches you how to define your target market and reach out to it.

Of course, networking is a big part of finding clients. Shirlene understands the frustration many people have with networking because it doesn’t lead to the results they want. She teaches readers how to find the right networking groups and how to avoid the ones that aren’t helpful. At times, she is very straightforward in her tone, which I love; for example, she has no qualms about saying:

Don’t give in to joining a group simply because your friends are there. In fact, it’s better if your friends aren’t there. There’s no point in networking with your friends. This is your business, not a social gathering. Let go of any or all networking groups that haven’t contributed to your income unless you believe you didn’t earn the income because you didn’t know how to sell and weren’t prepared.

I also love her approach for dealing with rejection. She understands that people are busy and can’t always commit right away for a variety of reasons. She’s gotten around this issue by learning that when someone tells her, “I can’t do this right now,” it’s best to ask, “Is it no for now or no forever?” If it’s no for now, she can follow up with them at a better time, while if it’s no forever, she can thank the person for being honest and then be glad she didn’t waste her time pursuing the person further.

Finally, Shirlene offers her 3 Step Sales Waltz™. I won’t give you all the steps here, but I promise that Shirlene waltzes us through these steps in a masterful way, full of detail. She provides scripts and examples for how to initiate a conversation with a client, and then she shows us how to talk to clients in an understanding manner that focuses on where the client is at rather than just focusing on making the sale. This way, you won’t come off as pushy or scare off your client; instead, you’ll build a relationship of trust that will make your prospect more willing to commit.

Shirlene also has a practical way for getting referrals. Not only does she ask her customers whether they might know someone else interested in the same service they just received, but she narrows down the possibilities by asking, “Do you know someone at your church?” or “Do you know someone at your school?” By asking these more specific questions, the person is able to focus on one group of people at a time rather than searching for everyone she knows, only to answer you with a “No.”

The book’s final chapters go far beyond sales to teach readers how to achieve financial freedom and even how to become celebrity experts the media will seek out. Shirlene is one of only 253 CFE Certified Financial Educators® in the nation, and she has more than twenty-eight years of experience in the financial field, so she knows how to help people invest and put their money to the best use once they make it. She’s also hosted her own radio and TV Web shows so she’s knowledgeable about what the media is looking for in its guest experts. All this extra advice will only boost your career more as you learn how to sell yourself.

There’s much more I could say about Selling Through Your Heart. Shirlene is definitely a master of the soft sell, which has led to her personal success. There are plenty of books on sales out there, but this one stands apart because it really teaches readers how to connect on a human level, which results in a more fulfilling experience for both the salesperson and the customer.

For more information about Shirlene Reeves and Selling Through Your Heart, visit the author’s website.