Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager. Lee B. Salz. 2007. ISBN 9780832950094.   I previously posted Salz’s ideas for sales people looking for work (Time to look for a new sales job? New and seasoned sales guys???? )   The rest of the book is as brilliant.  This is a book which truly architects a salesman’ s success, despite their manager or lack of a manager and little help from marketing.   Much useful and familiar content such as :

• How do you really differentiate your product/service?
• Look at the buyers process, not a selling process.
• What are you doing for personal growth?

What is your ideal client?

• Size?
• Circumstances (new vs takeaway?)
• Process?
• Budget?
• Buying habits?

Who are the personalities in a client?

• Beneficiaries?
• Saboteurs?
• Mentors?
• Wizards (he who pays)?

His chapters on territory management and responding to RFPs are better than anything I have seen in a long time.

If there is something missing it would be the extensive work of Sharon Drew  Morgen on the the early identification of stuff that will get in the way of the sale. Her material is unbeaten at the qualifying stage, to make you more efficient as well as more effective.  Plus you really do need to get marketing to help you with some of this stuff, if you can.

See lots of Lees content belowhttp://changingminds.org/articles/lee_salz_articles.htm

Well written, clear and a great guide, this is a book for every salesperson to have in his library, I would keep in your bag, as the tips and examples are of great immediate use.

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Time to look for a new sales job?.

I am devouring a book called Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager. (www.wbusiness.biz) by Lee B. Salz. (Maybe a theme developing?) This is a good book (Review will follow)  His second chapter is all about finding the right sales job and I loved it.  He talks about interviewing  the company while they interview you  since you have as much to lose as the company by signing up for the wrong job.

Its usually the wrong job if:

• The company has no proven plan in place to help salesmen succeed
• The company hires  hunters but you see they need farmers
• They want strong salespeople with no idea what strong really means
• The manager is stuck in ABC thinking
• There is no demand for the product, yet no plans to develop it.
• Or there is no name recognition, no brand, few marketing dollars, no prospects calling in

Sound familiar? It rang my bell a few times. we have seen all this and more in helpin gtech companies through the year.  Here’[s a clue, if you do not see why this is a costly problem for you, do not worry, your company will not make it anyway.

Points about finidng the ideal company (like finding the ideal client right? ) :

1. Define what is the ideal company for you
2. Where and what are the opportunities for you?
3. What do they expect of a sales person? What do you expect of them?
4. What skills are they willing to teach? What do you want to learn?
5. What is their commitment to training and development? What is your commitment?
6. What won’t they teach?What don’t you want to be taught?
7. What do they feel can’t be taught?
8. Services sellers need to know how to customize, configure and create based on customer requirements. Are you that type?
9. Product sellers are limited by what the box does. Is that your success type?
10. Did you thrive on short cycle or long cycle sales?
11. Same with single buyers or multiple enterprise buyers?
12. What type of hunter are you? Do you generate your own leads or answer in-bounds?
13. Are you able to straddle the likable/driven divide of the farmer?
14. How do you adapt to change? How flexible are you? Is the comp plan overly  changable?
15. What is the size of your financial risk? Will your cheques clear?
16. Where do they stand with the competition; leaders. followers. laggards, off the radar?  Which do you prefer?
17. Are they boutique or low price?  Where do they win or lose sales?
18. What is the offering breadth? All of it, or just part of the puzzle?
19. How do they differentiate themselves? Do you believe it?
20. How is sales managed? Your preferance?
21. What sales support is there?  Proof materials?
22. The money; salary, recoverable/nonrecoverable draws, commission how does it all work together?  What defines revenue? What about chargebacks?
23. Any deal breakers such as ; pay is too low to survive on , commute too long, location?

Told you it was thorough. This is just Chapter 2!

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Energize Growth Now. The marketing guide to a wealthy company. Lisa Nirell.2009. ISBN 9780470413920. From the foreward by Guy Kawasaki to the appendix pages full of sample plans and templates, this book give full value. Written in an easy style, it is very useful to those of you who may be starting to feel a bit overwhelmed and tired of the multi- year struggle that building a successful company entails. Yes you wiull start with an overview of the impact that marketing can make , but the author also goes into things that are very relevant today , for instance where social media marketing can help but what you have to decide first before you launch in.  She gives you road maps, relevant examples and the pitfalls along the way.  Pragmatic and a very useful book. Eg. In trying to identify the economic buyer:

• Who has the most to gain from this project
• Who has the most to lose if it is canceled or fails
• Which exec will sponsor this
• Who will report your results and succcess back to the board
• Who budget will support this project
• Which dept or div will be most supportive
• Who in the org tried to solve this in the past and with what results
• Whose bonus and performance will be most affected by the success of this project?

Check out more at http://blog.energizegrowth.com

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The Integration Imperative. Erasing marketing and business development silos – once and for all in professional service firms. Suzanne C. Lowe. 2009. ISBN 9780615292144.  I was really looking forward to this book as the topic is core to RocketBuilders own type of Rocket Science.  The book is extremely helpful to large multinational firms who are struggling with full integration.  Core to her solution is a that the Co must desire this to happen and it gets behind it full bore.

The book is in three parts. First you see how these silos develop and strengthen, then models of how to address it singularly and company wide, and finally several pertinent case studies. All in all a very thorough ambitious book.  Yet I was disappointed.  The prose is weighty, slightly detached,  stopping short of being academic. This is such an important topic that the vehicle of learning should not raise any more barriers to understanding. If you can get through the book and give it your attention, it is very valuable (especially for me was part two). I know several of the firms in the case studies and enjoyed the discussions. A bonus is a good glossary of common words misunderstood in marketing and business development. ( I would  argue that marketing and business development should be one department, sales is another. ) She writes a good blog for Marketing fix

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Dirty Little Secret: Why sellers can’t sell and buyers can’t buy, and what you can do about it. Sharon Drew Morgen. I am a Sharon Drew fan. She has taken up the gauntlet this time of showing the gap between what sellers are trying to do and what buyers are trying to achieve. Just let buyers be smart about what they want to do! She leads the field in giving you,the vendor, insights into what really goes on inside the prospect company and what you need to do up front to dramatically improve your chances of selling more successfully, regardless of what the marketplace is doing. She clearly points out that the present increased difficulties in selling are just a manifestation of all that sales has been doing wrong for years.
This is not a business as usual with a few tweaks book. She is asking sales folks to make a dramatic change in how they approach clients and how they think about selling. If you are not a very secure salesperson, you will balk at this approach. Once again, unless you read this, you won’t know what you do not know. Yet all the research on sales and marketing we have done confirms out that Sharon Drew is in the forefront, pointing out what really must be done to move selling from its dismal yet commonly accepted closing rates. Someday we will all sell like Sharon Drew, our clients will force us. check out the website for more http://sharondrewmorgen.com/.  Available Oct 15.

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Perspectives on Increasing Sales. Marvin N. Miletsky & James A. Calander. 2009. ISBN 9781598638745.    This is a very useful book. The two authors, one a seasoned salesman and one a veteran buyer were given the same 97 questions on selling. They penned their answers without consulting each other.  The learning enshrined in these answers is priceless.  You get firsthand the duality of the buy- sell process and the  hidden buyers side. The insights into what is really important to the buyer vs what the seller believes is unique.  If you buy or sell things , are a rookie or a pro, there is a lot here for everyone.  This book is timely and a definite add to my sales library shelf.  It is an easy read that I could not put down.

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Winning the Professional Services Sale. Unconventional strategies to reach more clients, land profitable work, and maintain your sanity. Michael W. McLaughlin. 2009. ISBN 9780470455852.  A very valuable book and at the front of my line to be the sales book for 2009 IMHO.  There is just too much great stuff in this book to summarize for you.  The author published with Jay Levinson Guerilla Marketing for Consultants, which I also found very useful.  The core (book jacket)  is  rather than pressing the sale, salespeople must help clients buy–the way that works best for each client.  Only by fully understanding a sale from every angle, including its impact on the client’s business and career, can salespeople thrive in the new era of the service economy.  He really makes the point that selling is getting harder all the time, and the pro salesman must  always search for and learn  new things. I really liked hearing his comments on long term clients expecting more from you over time as well as expecting you to be always getting faster at doing it.

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Targets look for any reason to disqualify you. This was said to me by a client this week.  At first blush it seemed a harsh statement.Then I asked one of my usual suspects, Colin McWhinney  (SalesXperts) about it. He said, ” Yes! They are absolutely looking for anything to disqualify you.  That’s why the more you give a target, the more they have to say no to.  So we send short vs long emails, terse vs long case studies and we never ever send out a brochure . That is  the kiss of death.”

That comment  rang my bell.  I know how I react to blatant pitches, strident emails.  I quickly trash anything with misspelling, mis naming, grammar and content errors, garish HTML, long messages.  I absolutely never return salesy voice messages as well as those from “acquaintances” who are only ever looking to get free help for themselves  with nothing (no money) offered to me.

What I hear, is that if a target ever really asks you for something it must be tightly focused on what they say they want. Generic does not cut it. Except to cut you out of the running.

Why targets do this is likely a survival tactic to help deal with the increasing amount of incoming info.  Its not personal, nor is it that conscious. It just happens. Why is not as important as to what you do about it.

As sales guys we can be  (and sometimes rightly so) accused of poor attention to detail.  We need to be confident that we are doing things in the best  way  that works, in order to keep at this work, since hearing no is a part of our everyday life.  So we must be diligent that all our communication is free from anything that  gives a target any reason to disqualify us.  Let’s not create our own nos!

• Memo to Startups: Waiting for that Moment (cloudave.com)

who’s got your back. The secret to finding the 3 people who will change your life. Keith Ferrazzi. 2009. ISBN 9780385521338.  Keith wrote the very enjoyable. Never Eat Alone. Now he comes up with an even better book that is relevant to us all who try to be authentic in every way.

I knew he was on top of things when he quoted an exchange at one of his Greenlight Group meetings.

” I really do not think my sales group is up to snuff. ”

“Yes?  So what is your marketing group  saying?  ”

“What does that have to do with it?  I am having trouble with my sales. ”

“Well, it usually comes back to what marketing is saying.”

Had to love the guy right off the bat!

He has four mindsets that you need in order to proceed:

• generosity
• vulnerability
• candor
• accountability.

The tenets he lays out for high performance relationships and companies have somethings in common with The Rockefeller Habits, but this book goes much further.   You need:

• a vision  cw an exit strategy
• commitment
• comprehension
• chemistry & curiosity
• diversity

On top of the wonderful stuff in the book  there is a host of supporting info on his website and blog:

• http://www.keithferrazzi.com/WGYB/resources2.php
• http://www.keithferrazzi.com/blog/
• http://www.ferrazzigreenlight.com/

I especially liked his chapter on what this means for team based sales.  It is extremely relevant in todays’ selling environment. Read it on the website

http://www.keithferrazzi.com/WGYB/docs/Never_Sell_Alone_Extended_Chapter.pdf

Buy this one and read it a few times. Get one for your children  Well written and clear, I found it hard to put down.

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Pop! Stand out in any crowd. Sam Horn. 2006. ISBN 0399532765.  I vote this my marketing book choice for Q1-Q2! This is a terrific read , but its way more than that. By showing you how to find and build on catchy ideas, Horn helps make you a more engaging writer.   To paraphrase her , if you are asking people to spend their time on your content, it is your responsibility to make it worth their while. If you follow her easy step by step chapters on the many ways to do this, you should dramatically improve your communication impact.   A short and easy read, it is still just stuffed with great ideas worth  a lifetimes worth of work stuck inside. Buy , read and re read this one, its a library keeper.

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