Gap Selling (Summary)

This audio summary explores a gentler, clearer way to sell—one that treats sales as professional guidance rather than persuasion. Instead of leading with features and pitches, the approach starts with diagnosis: understanding a customer’s current reality, the impact of what isn’t working, and the future they actually want.

Through practical principles like identifying the “gap,” building credibility through expertise, and using the first meeting to ask thoughtful questions, the summary shows how selling can become more ethical and more effective. It also offers something many people find relieving: permission to step back when the fit isn’t right, and to keep growing as markets evolve.

• Salespeople who want to replace pressure and pushing with a calmer, more consultative way of helping buyers make change.
• Entrepreneurs and small business owners who want a reliable framework for understanding what customers truly value—and when to walk away.
• Managers and teams who want a shared language for discovery, decision-making, and long-term sales consistency.

Jim Keenan is a sales leader and the author of Gap Selling, known for teaching a practical, customer-centered framework that focuses on diagnosing problems, clarifying the distance between a buyer’s current and desired future state, and building credibility through expertise.