Hedge Hogs: The Cowboy Traders Behind Wall Street’s Largest Hedge Fund Disaster. Barbara T. Dreyfuss. 2013. ISBN  78-1400068395.

Guest post by Nora McCalluum , Senior Wealth Advisor, Portfolio Manager, ScotiaMcLeod.

Thank you for passing along the book Hedge Hogs  to me. I read it this weekend. What an interesting illustration of the personalities of the people who have caused so much damage and pain to so many people.

Makes me wonder if hedge fund traders need to have some (substantial!)degree of sociopathic tendencies.

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Whiteboard Selling. Empowering sales through visuals. Corey Sommers , David Jenkins. 2013. ISBN 9781118379769.  Good line in the book – Why try to improve your PowerPoint? That is putting lipstick on the pig, lets just fry up some bacon!   The two authors make a compelling case for killing  the PowerPoint and getting good at white-boarding your solutions in sales calls.   This rings true for us as we work to help sales teams simplify things for their buyers – when all too often they just add our material to an an already bulging PPoint deck!   The analyses and use cases are terrific and the test is easy to read.  Top performers will grab this book  and make their sales callas even more productive.   Terrific tool and something every b2b salesperson should have.

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Video Marketing for the rest of us. How to create amazing video in less than 10 minutes a day. Mike Shreeve. 2013.  Kindle book.  Mike contacted me to read this book and boy am I glad I did!  This is a quick and easy read yet it contains so many time and effort saving tips on how to get great quality videos up on YouTube and then how to make best use of YouTube and other social media sites  to drive quality traffic to your site.    There is  much quality content here for anyone who is really on top of content marketing and is now moving to putting up video.  Every content marketer should have this book.

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The Sales Magnet. How to get more customers without cold calling.  Kendra Lee. 2013.  ISBN 9780985782917.  A very good book for the experienced salesperson who want/needs to crank their efforts up  a big notch. This approach toward regular campaigns and lead generation efforts works as we  have been using similar efforts for a dozen years.  I appreciate her realistic view – if there are no leads in the sales funnel and marketing is ineffective – you have to call – but you also have to do this  method if you want your life to improve.   Many sales people have been classed as not that organized and tactics driven, however my experience has been that any sales person will find this approach as patently obvious.   As well,  if you think you are one of the “past it ” generation that has not adopted LinkedIn and other tools into your sales bag, she gives you an easy way to start to adopt it.   One caveat  not every salesperson is adept at writing good content – and if you are one of those you can learn to be better as the author gives useful templates on how to do it.  When you start, I would getting some  hard hitting copy advice from a real writer – if you do that you will reap a great harvest in sales leads. One of my colleagues calls this  ”a paint by numbers” way to be successful  Good resource site http://www.thesalesmagnet.com/

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Sidetracked. Why our decisions get derailed and how we can stick with the plan. Francesca Gino. 2013.ISBN 139781422142691. The author is a colleague of Dan Ariely, so if you have read his books a few of the experiments are repeated here, but along the lines of  Predictably Irrational there are many more experiments here that are new and fascinating.  The author is very insightful and asks very good questions.   She comes up with nine rules to live by in order to get done what you intend to get done.

Be aware of:

1. Your surroundings
2. Your emotions
3. Zooming out not just focusing in
4. The other persons point of view
5. What bonds to question
6. Checking reference points
7. Considering the source
8. Investigating and questioning your frame
9. how to make your standards shine.

Clearly written and well edited,  this book flows so nicely you may,  like me,  read it in one sitting. Good book for that five hour flight across country. It brings insight into so many of our decisions.

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Tubes. A journey to the centre of the internet. Andrew Blum.   2012. ISBN 9780061994937  While reading this book I was  taken back  to Tracy Kidders technical. philosophical and anthropological approach to  The Soul of  a New Machine (1981) , in that you really end up knowing this topic.  A lot of technical information is summarized here, but it is in the context of the people doing the work. The careful reader will come away with a good idea of the hardware and fibre pipes driving the internet. It is a good starting point for anyone who wants to delve into the business and technical model of worldwide broadband.   My nerdy self was a bit frustrated with the “local colour” that dressed up many of the pages – but it will allow this book to have a broader appeal.  The author is an experienced journalist, so his content rolls along smoothly ( with the faint New Yorker “air” still about it).  The book will not change your life – but you should know this material as an educated person.

Bunch of Amateurs. Inside America’s hidden world of inventors, tinkerers and job creators. Jack Hitt.2012. iSBN 9780307393760. The author is a regular contributor on science related material to New York Times magazine and others of that ilk. This is a fairly slow moving non trivial journey through the realms of the people you would never hear about who are doing some very curious and interesting things.  On first contact you might classify them as cranks or eccentrics who have carried a hobby to an obsession. The author takes the time to peel the onion of their life back to show how they just may have something for you to learn here.  As well you will learn a few different psychological applications of anchoring and  crowd sourcing on our belief structures.   Hitt carefully removes much of the mistaken assumptions around several American urban myths.  The book does not race, but it flows nicely and might fit as a useful summer read.

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Decisive. How to make better choices in life and work. Chip Heath and Dan Heath.2013. ISBN 9780307361134. I am a fan of these guys work ( SWITCH & MADE TO STICK) . and this book is another treasure.  First several examples about how bad we really are about making decisions.  Then they provide  lots of clear examples to illustrate using their process WRAP:

• Widen your options
• Reality-test your assumptions
• Attain distance before deciding
• Prepare to be wrong.

Add their clear writing and breezy style and this will make that cross country air trip go rapidly by.  I recommend this to anyone at any time in their life. Like the Mastercard commercial. Priceless.

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Customer Centric Selling Field Guide to Prospecting and Business Development. Gary Walker. 2013. ISBN 9780071808057.  All too often a sales book starts out assuming no help from marketing and/or the sales person has to do everything.  This book is better than most in that it lays out exactly where marketing can best help sales.  The book is realistic through using field guide style for what to do in prospecting and BD. It is interactive, pragmatic and immediately useful to every salesperson. I appreciated that the author has woven in all the latest techniques and tools to help you make your number efficiently and effectively.  I read the authors blog regularly and it too is full of very useful content to rocket launch your sales.  A book for all the high producers, those to aspire to be a high producer and all sales leaders.

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SOAR Selling. How to get through to almost anyone- the proven method for reaching decision makers. David & Marhnelle Hibbard.2013. ISBN 9780071793711. The authors have found what Rocket Builders ( my firm) have as well, today’s salespeople are often poorly equipped to initially get through to prospects and engage them.  This is not limited just to the rookies but pervades the industry.  Part of this is mindset and self limits but another huge part is the lack of clear value statements  (and practice) that works when you have the prospect on the phone.   There is nothing really new in this book – but it is a powerful package that the authors have put together that our firm know works since ewe have approached sales this way for many years.   The caution I have is that despite this being almost a pragmatic cookbook to increasing net new sales, few firms will be able to apply just book learning. The roots of the struggles in sales are partially training, attitude and company culture.   However , I suggest that this is good wake up book for any senior sales manager – and it will help to keep the blade sharp.

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