Sales Book Reviews
Sales Book Reviews
How were these sales book reviews developed? A few years ago, over the course of thirteen months, Rob Reed read over 43 sales and marketing books – each of them at least twice. He’s subsequently read many more. In addition, he’s read thousands of pages of research on the sales process and trust development. He’s combined this “book” knowledge with over a decade of experience in complex medical sales and management consulting
You’ll notice that a few of his recommendations in these sales book reviews go “against the mainstream.” These recommendations are different because he’s analyzed and reviewed these books
based on his research and understanding of trust development. His review orientation: If you use the suggestions in these sales books, how will it impact your personal, trusted selling brand? You personal selling brand is the key to your selling success.
There are fourteen extensive reviews of popular sales and marketing books. These review summaries include an overall recommendation, based on their impact on trust development, as well as main takeaways from the books. The main takeaways include the beneficial “nuggets” from the books that you can immediately start using to improve your current sales process. The takeaways also include advice on those things included in the book that you should not use or discard from your current sales process to also improve results.
SPIN Selling
Although this book was originally published over twenty years ago, it still contains tactical selling information that can be used by most sellers today. In his book, SPIN Selling, Mr. Rackham suggests that by using the SPIN questions will “get your customers to feel a genuine need for your product.” It is certainly appropriate to use effective questioning to better understand your customers’ needs. At the same time, if you increase your level of trust with customers (trust factor), you’re much more likely to uncover the “true needs” that are important to them.
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Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play
In Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play, Mahan Khalsa presents a well thought out and carefully explained approach to ethical selling. The book teaches sellers how to help clients succeed, so that the buy/sell environment becomes a win/win situation, instead of an environment where one party wins and the other loses.
The Trusted Advisor
The Trusted Advisor aligns very well with an ethical selling philosophy. The authors disapprove of manipulative and deceptive sales tactics. However, the book is specifically written for those working in advisory professions such as consulting, law, and accounting, so it is directed at sellers who sell in cycles that occur over a significant period of time. If you sell in a transactional environment, this book is unlikely to be helpful.
Read The Trusted Advisor Review
Integrity Selling for the 21st Century
The phrase, “selling is an inside job” captures the essence of Integrity Selling for the 21st Century. It looks at the internal attitudes that drive selling and buying behavior, including internal emotions, beliefs, and psychological needs. According to author Ron Willingham, “Customers want to do business with people they can trust. That’s why strong ethics and values contribute more to selling success than strategies and techniques.” Sellers who agree with this statement will find this book an excellent read.
Read Integrity Selling Review
High Trust Selling
This book provides ideas that could help you sell more effectively, particularly if you are just beginning in sales. If you’ve read a lot of sales or management books, though, you will already be familiar with many of the ideas it presents. In my opinion, the book title is misleading. This book reads like it was originally named “Fourteen Laws for Better Sales” before the publisher decided to boost sales by renaming it. The author seems to feel that if he sprinkles the words “high trust” throughout the text, then that’s what the book is about. It’s really not. It’s a nice book on selling, but the content and title are misaligned.
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Non-Manipulative Selling
Non-Manipulative Selling is a great overall book that includes some theory and a lot of tactical selling advice. It offers an overall emphasis on understanding behavioral styles. With its details on behavior styles, Non-Manipulative Selling will be beneficial for those involved in complex and transactional sales.
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You Can’t Teach A Kid To Ride A Bike At A Seminar
Early in the book, Sandler writes, “[the] prospect’s value system says that lies to salespeople do not count…it doesn’t matter what prospects say…they are (almost always) lying!” This attitude infects all advice in the book and leads to the use of manipulative selling techniques.
Read You Can’t Teach A Kid Review
Selling With Integrity
Most buyer and seller relationships are typically adversarial. Sharon Drew Morgen suggests the reason for this complex relationship is that sellers have historically focused on controlling the buying process and using all necessary means to convince buyers to buy their products.
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Solution Selling
“In an era of plentiful choices, businesses and their sellers can learn to differentiate themselves from their competition by the way they sell.” Michael Bosworth, the author of Solution Selling, says his book is about “making the way you sell as big an advantage as your product or service. Since most buyers have a negative impression of salespeople, one of the best things salespeople can do is sell in less stereotypical ways.” This is an excellent point for those who truly grasp the concept and adapt different behaviors to differentiate themselves from other sellers. The key issue, however, is the way in which Mr. Bosworth suggests you sell differently or “less stereotypically” than other sales processes. Unfortunately, the difference is lacking.
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Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
Have you ever bought something you really didn’t need and then wonder why? How about the boxes of candy or cookies you buy from the neighbors’ kids even though you’re on a diet or don’t really have a sweet tooth? Just what are the underlying factors that cause us to say “yes” to another person? In his book, Influence, Dr. Robert Cialdini identifies and explains these factors or “weapons of influence” that dictate our course of action – oftentimes without any conscious direction.
Read Influence Review
Be Your Own Brand
Most people associate the word “brand” exclusively with products and services. In Be Your Own Brand, McNally and Speak make the point that it is equally important to create a distinctive personal brand by consciously taking actions that will create a specific personal brand in the minds of others.
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SalesDogs
If you were a dog, what kind would you be? Although this sounds like a question you would most likely hear in a psychologist’s office, it’s also a question that Blair Singer asks in his book SalesDogs. Mr. Singer uses five breeds of dogs to help identify and describe the characteristics of five distinct “breeds” of salespeople. While the analogy is a bit unconventional, the book effectively addresses the notion that there isn’t an “ideal” personality to be a successful salesperson.
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High Probability Selling
High Probability Selling is one of the more unique sales books both in its presentation and content. The book uses a conversational format between different “characters” to explain a variety of selling concepts. The basic premise of the authors is that “traditional” selling techniques of the past were focused on getting the prospect to buy through whatever means necessary – convincing, persuading or even pressuring. According to Werth and Ruben, the paradigm shifts with High Probability Selling from “getting the prospect to buy to determining whether there is a mutually acceptable basis for doing business and, if not, to go your separate ways.”
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Soft Sell
Soft Sell, The New Art of Selling, Self-Empowerment and Persuasion, is okay for transactional sellers (one-time sale of a few hundred dollars or less), but I do not recommend this sales book for professionals who sell services or more complex products because of Soft Sell’s suggested approach and some of its content.”
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Trust-Based Selling
If Trust-Based Selling, Using Customer Focus and Collaboration to Build Long-Term Relationships, is comparable to Mr. Green’s previous work with Mr. Maister in The Trusted Advisor, I’m sure a similar selling audience will find Mr. Green’s book worthwhile. Trust-based Selling is on my current sales book review list and I’ll post my review summary here in the near future.
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Never Cold Call Again
In Never Cold Call Again, Frank Rumbauskas says that “salespeople everywhere are learning the hard way that cold calling just doesn’t work anymore.” Mr. Rumbauskas claims that today’s most successful salespeople “are using modern technology to bring prospects to them, rather than fishing for prospects over the phone.” Is he right?
Read Never Cold Call Again Review
