Unreceptive. A better way to sell, lead and influence. Tom Stanfill,2021. ISBN 9781400225811.  This author really gets it. How to deal with those folks in your life who just don’t/can’t hear you. He gives you the context for how a person becomes unreceptive and then how to better approach them. Then as a sales pro he leads you through how to apply this to your interview practice.  I was glued to this book and read it nonstop.  {How come all this good stuff comes along now? I could have used it years ago).  Terrific book, very readable, something to really kick start your year.  Go get em’.

Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions. A tactical playbook for managers and executives. Keith Rosen. 2008.  A very useful book as it is full of things that managers can actually do.  Its Olympics time and one of the sponsors had made spotlight videos of the impact of coaching to the high performance athlete.  The is  true for sales teams ( since its all about people and not stuff) .  Rosen is very recognized in this field and he writes a no nonsense book stuffed full of impactful insights.  I took copious notes and constantly refer this book to my own coaching clients.   Buy it, read it and keep it handy for regular referral.

Channel Force. A modern methodology for channel revenue growth. Craig H. Booth. 2020. 9781734891553.

A recent book on the issues surrounding Channel Sales. Written with a technology company in mind, the solutions suggested applying to any channel sales. The organization of the book is very logical and it allows the reader to build up a comprehensive model for their channel sales.  I appreciated the depth of thought put into this book.  This is helpful when you build your program but also you will learn the root of your channel problems and then be able to troubleshoot.  IMHO many, most channel problems are self-created through errors in the original set up and inattention.  It is difficult and painful to fix but needed to improve your revenue picture. This book will help, but the reader has to pay attention and work through the whole process, there are no short cuts. But once you understand the logic,  the work you need to do is easy to  see

Standout Virtual Events. How to create an experience an audience will love. David Meerman Scott. 2020. A very timely book. What these authors do is give you the psychology behind why to do these events a certain way.   The book is short in length but deep in content. Essentially these are lessons learned this year during the pandemic.   If you desire to be better at your virtual events, read this book.  Don’t just try to do the same old stuff as before – It will not work.

Read This Before Our Next Meeting. How we can get more done. Al Pittampalli. 2015.  ISBN 9780698409033.   A very short but impactful book.   The author blows a hole in our propensity to “have a meeting”.  I laughed as he described various tedious meetings, having lived through all that and more.   The actions to remedy this are simple and compelling.   Today, with online meetings being the norma, his mantra that meetings are for decisions is very apt.  I recently tried this out with an organization and the participants came back with a resounding yes to the format.  I recommend this book to all who meet with others.

Stop Killing Deals. How to avoid deadly assumptions and achieve sales excellence. George Bronten. 2020.

The author has really hit to the core of much that causes sales initiatives to fail.  I agree with his three false assumptions:
Salespeople are born, not made..
Salespeople are disciplined..
Buyers and sellers are logical.

From these is built a solid argument on how to make things better.  A rigorous and proven sales process model with resources, better coaching from sales management and getting away from a reliance on CRM systems that have false assumptions.

The author also provides a plethora of useful tools to help an organization transition to to better way.  Along the way you learn a little bit about his product Membrain.   Its all good. I recommend this book.

run_frictionless. Free a founder from a sales role. Antony Coundouris. 2018.  A concise road map and workbook on how to build a sales system that allows a founder to step away from daily driving sales. Using four quadrants to lay out the building blocks with many examples and a  full case study the author takes you through all the work and stages needed to be followed.   The quadrants are

• Who we serve
• What we serve
• Who we are
• How we serve

Under each are many statements of work to be done, how to do it and why you do it.

This is a useful book for any startup founder or those who are still driving all the sales after many years.

There is a better  way.

Trillion Dollar Coach . The leadership playbook from silicon valley’s Bill Campbell. Eric Schmidt. Jonathan Rosenberg. Alan Eagle.  2019. ISBN 9780062839268. A very timely book. Its a book that should be the basis of  every leadership seminar and a well read reference on all leader’s bookshelves.  As sports coaches ourselves, my partners and I see the applicability of high performance sports coaching to technology companies. Whether if its in a non profit board community committee or a business, these “lessons’ are applicable and very useful.  This book is deserving of the kudos it has been receiving.  I enjoyed it so much I read it in two session and intend to reread it often.

Play Bigger. How pirates, dreamers, and innovators create and dominate markets. Alan Ramadan, Dave Peterson, Christopher Lochhead.   2016.  ISBN 9780062407610.   This book was referenced in Traversing the Traction Gap so I had to read it.  It is very good and specifically addresses category creation, which is something that wildly successful companies do over and over. The authors take you through a proven  methodology of becoming a category kind. ( For many types to organizations and individuals). You will appreciate the highly specific and recognizable examples used by the authors.  Unlike other books in this genre , it has the benefits of depth and thought coming from the experiences of four individuals.  It could be a life changing book for executives and individuals.  But you need to want to be more than better, you want to be recognized as different  ( Apple is not just better, it is different)

Finite and Infinite Games. A vision of life as play and possibility. James P. Carse. 2012. ISBN 9780029059807.   A seminal book on the subject, (Game theory)  which has became quite topical in the technology world with speakers such as Simon Sinek.  This is a deceptively thin book that will warrant several rereads to tease out the ideas Carse puts forward.  I would very often find myself lost in the ideas and then the author would hit me with a particularly resonating section. This would be sufficient to push me into the next few sections.  I found the first few sections challenging and then it caught in the dialectal discussion. Like the Phenomena of Man by DeCardin, this can be a mind changing book, full of life lessons.