The First Meeting Differentiator: Transforming Sales-Focused Discovery into Client-Centric Consultations

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The first meeting is where everything begins—or ends. Get it right, and you build unstoppable deal momentum. Get it wrong, and the deal is in big trouble.

Traditional discovery meetings must die! Today's buyer demands it. They no longer tolerate one-sided sales interrogations that serve the seller but provide no value to them. If they agree to a meeting with you, they expect something more—a consultation experience that makes them wiser as a result of time spent with you. That's the transformation The First Meeting Differentiator guides you to make.

In this breakthrough book, world-renowned sales management strategist and bestselling author Lee B. Salz reveals the strategy and the step-by-step framework for transforming your first meetings into high-impact, client-centric consultations that differentiate you and lay the foundation to win more deals at the prices you want.

This shift changes the entire buyer/seller experience. First meetings become energized, trust-building, impactful conversations that ignite interest and set the stage for closing deals.

Following the success of Salz's bestsellers Sales Differentiation and Sell Different!, The First Meeting Differentiator adds a powerful new component to your sales strategy. Packed with real-world stories, actionable insights, and hands-on workshops, this is the ultimate guide to modernizing your sales approach and outselling the competition.

• Design a first-meeting strategy that excites prospects and earns their trust. • Use techniques that differentiate the meeting experience, not just your product. • Shift from one-sided discovery to dynamic consultations that deliver value for both sides. • Engage emotions in ways that motivate them to take action by leveraging Empathetic Expertise. • Master qualifying to separate real deals from mirages. • Create intriguing questions that qualify deals, differentiate you, and make consultations magical. • Stop talking about features and benefits, and develop stories that captivate, differentiate, and lead them to want to buy from you.

© 2025 HarperCollins Leadership (Audiobook): 9781400239894

Release date

Audiobook: 30 September 2025