Back to Home Page
Back to Essential Reading
Call 1-800-4321-WIN to create
profitable new sales opportunities

Going for the Green: Selling in the 21st Century

by Doug Peterson, with Walter G. Meyer

This book presents the principles of selling in the 21st century by weaving a story around a top salesperson faced with the task of reinventing herself. You will find this to be a book you won't want to put down. Doug Peterson brings a wealth of sales experience and insights into the book about the challenges and changes facing salespeople in a digital environment. Peterson keeps the principles focused on those critical to bringing business value to customers that have the potential to become business partners who can increase your sales dramatically.

This thoroughly researched book describes a principle of success: it is difficult for successful companies to exploit major changes in technology (and keep growing).

Successful companies find it difficult to take advantage of what the author calls disruptive technology. (Disruptive technology is technology that takes a leap forward. It is not incremental technology.) Successful companies find it difficult to take advantage of disruptive technology because at first, their customers don't need it and the companies don't see the same profit potential in it. New companies, not bound by the existing paradigms, capitalize on the disruptive technology. They go after the customers that the existing company won't pursue, but after they improve the technology and it becomes more attractive to mainstream customers, they are able to move up to capture customers who initially rejected the technology. (These are customers of the larger, more successful companies, whose existence is threatened by the new technology and the companies that are exploiting it.)

Christensen uses many examples to illustrate this principle. If you are a business leader invovled with technology, thisbook is must reading.

Succeeding in the Workplace, by Susan E. Race

Here is a noteworthy resource for anyone who is at a juncture with their career or who wants to make the most or their career opportunities. Race, a career coach, has provided a game plan that covers the important bases. An example: advice that says that if you can find something in which you are both interested and skilled, that is your strength. People who make decisions based on just one of those factors may find themselves struggling to make work satisfying. Others who select a career based only on money and who ignore their interests and skills often find themselves realizing that money isn't the only reason to work. She provides tips to SOAR, to seize opportunities and rewards. She describes what employers want, which new employees may not be aware of, but which can hurt their career success. She discusses leadership styles for those who might aspire to higher level positions. This book is for anyone who wants to make the most of their career.

Smart Choices
John S. Hammond, Ralph Keeney
Howard Raiffa

One of the most useful books you will ever want to read or to share with employees or team members. So many of the problems we encounter in life and business are generated through bad decisions that a better approach for making decisions is needed. We don't learn it in school. We learn it through experience, if we learn it at all. And that can be expensive. This is an easy to read book with practical examples.
Hardcover - 272 pages (September 1998)

 

Success is a Choice - Ten Steps to Overachieving in Business and Life, Rick Pitino

You don't need to be a basketball fan to benefit from Pitino's advice. Pitino is a winning coach who took the Kentucky Wildcats to the NCAA national championship. He illustrates the ten steps he has used to build championship players and teams with a wealth of examples. The ten steps include how to be ferociously persistent, how to learn from adversity and how to thrive on pressure. For example, he says "When nothing's at stake, extraordinary efforts rarely occur. When everything's at stake they often do." "If nothing and no one are demanding a superior performance from you, demand it of yourself." These ten steps can be applied in just about any situation to be more successful.

The Corporate Coach by James B. Miller, Paul B. Brown, Ron Zemke
Paperback - 235 pages (June 1994)

The Corporate Coach - How to build a team of loyal customers and happy employees.

Jim Miller, author of the Corporate Coach, is a CEO who grew his office-supply company dramatically by following the precept that the customer is always right. Too often, this saying is cast about as a trite reminder of how important the customer is. But Miller thrusts it to a new level. What he meant by the customer is always right, and what he instilled in his employees, is that if the customer wants his or her bill, for example, to arrive on a certain date or with a certain format, you didn't say "Our system won't allow it." Instead, you found a way to do it. This is a powerful illustration of what it means to be willing and able to do just about anything for customers.

The books outlines the successful techniques Miller used in working with team members and with customers to keep a focus on satisfying customers and, hence, growing his business. Add this to book your library today.

This 8-cassette audio program contains 301 tactics to help increase your income. There are also 4 workbooks, one for each of the four volumes. An excellent resource for anyone who wants to sell more effectively! Topics include how to gain visibility, focusing to open closed doors, using the mailbox, creating a partnership with customers, overcoming skepticism and many more strategies.

Unlimited Prospects by C. Richard Weylman

 

Leadership Is an Art
by Max De Pree

This quick-reading book gives a successful business owners views on success. For example, De Pree writes that the first job of a leader is to define reality and the last is to say thank you. In difficult situations, especially with unpopular decisions or unpleasant information, the leader must confront reality. When this isn't done, issues fester. De Pree's approach is what it takes for a leader to move beyond problems into solutions. Saying thank you is giving people recognition. When a leader does people want to do more. Share this book with your team.

Customers for Life, How to Turn That One-Time Buyer into a Lifetime Customer Carl Sewell and Paul Brown

Carl Sewell is a highly successful automobile franchise owner. His short book provides many practical, easy-to-use tips for sales leaders. This book was first recommended to me when I was conducting seminars with sales people from the Chrysler Corporation. I went out that night, bought the book and finished reading it in two evenings. One example of why you'll want to get this book. Carl says that in his car stores whenever a customer picks up a car that was brought in for repair, the customer is asked to answer three questions when they pay for the repair. 1) Was the car ready when promised? 2) Was the final bill equal to, greater than or less than the estimate? (It is never more since he won't let the customer be unpleasantly surprised and the goal is to get it to be less than the estimate.) 3) Was this the second time for the same repair? If there is a problem, the customer service person addresses it right then. The reason for these three questions are that these are three of the most frequent problems that car owners run into with repairs. The same type of quick follow-up questions can be used in almost any customer situation to address problems quickly, which is one way to keep customers coming back.

___________________

A comprehensive book that provides many ideas about how to sell strategically, creatively and professionally. Of particular note are chapters 10 and 16. Chapter 10 describes how to Build Business Cases. Business cases demonstrate financially how your product or service produces a ROI for the customer. An example is turnover. (The cost is usually much higher than people think). Chapter 16 covers Commitment to a Concept/Philosophy. An example Baber uses is a security salesperson whose sales philosophy is selling "low price-to-earnings stocks out of favor with the experts." This is a resource you'll definitely find immediately useful.

___________________

Usually a book is written by one or two authors. Here's a different look at leadership.

31 previously unpublished essays by a notable list of contributors, including Peter Senge, Charles Handy, Rosabeth Kanter, and Stephen Covey. The authors offer their views on leadership, examining what the organization of the future will be like and how leaders might be developed.

Hesselbein, former CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA and now head of the Drucker Foundation, and her coeditors have put together an extensive menu of ideas.

___________________

The Platinum Rule, Dr. Tony Alessandra, Michael J. O'Connor

Have you ever met someone, and almost instantly took a dislike to him or her? You may not be sure why, but something about them rubbed you the wrong way. When that person is someone you want to land as an account, someone you work with or for or a sales support person, it will be a difficult relationship and perhaps, not a successful one. Understanding why people have these differences in the ways they prefer to work and act, what the differences are and how to accommodate them so we can work effectively with everyone, is what this book is about.

The most successful sales leaders have learned to recognize these differences and the benefits of accommodating them so they can more quickly and more easily reach their goals. The strategies that Dr. Alessandra shares in this book can help you increase sales to many of the people you find more difficult to work with.

Interview with Dr. Tony Alessandra