Dave Stein's Blog for Sales Leaders

Sales: Books, Blog Posts, a Conference, and a Survey

Posted on October 9th, 2009 by Dave Stein

I thought I’d bring you up to speed on a few things going on.

First, several new books on selling have recently been published:

Smart Selling on the Phone and Online by Josiane Chriqui Feignon. Josiane gets it. I normally don’t endorse books like this, but because inside salespeople so often don’t have the skills, training and ongoing support to perform their jobs, they need what this book offers: strategy, tactics and a wealth of smart moves.
Selling to the C-Suite by Stephen Bistritz and Nicholas Read. If you’ve been in the sales business for a while, you’ll remember Steve’s fine work at Target Marketing Systems. Steve hasn’t lost his edge. On the contrary. This book really gets to the heart of the matter. With no quick fixes or silver bullets, this book is serious about getting you into the C-Suite and keeping you there. The rest is up to you.
World-Class Selling: New Sales Competencies by Brian Lambert, Tim Ohai, and Eric Kerkhoff. This important book is the result of a significant project managed by Brian with help from Tim, Eric and some others of us who volunteer our time with ASTD.
RFP’s Suck by Tom Searcy. Here is a book that provides intelligent and no-nonsense guidance for salespeople who find themselves chasing RFPs that they haven’t written. A winner!
The Business Battlecard. Winning Moves for Growing Companies by Paul O’Dea. I raved about this book in a recent post. I consider it required reading for senior executives of growing companies.

I’ve recently reviewed drafts of a few other books on selling. One is in the superb category. Believe me, I’ll tell you all about it when it’s published. I can’t wait.

And here’s my disclosure: Paul, Josiane and Steve asked me to review drafts of their books and to provide endorsements, which I did. Tom asked my to write the forward for his. I received a signed copy of each of these books as a thank you.

Second, our friends Barry Trailer and Jim Dickie at CSO Insights asked me to inform you of their…

Complimentary 200+ Page Sales Performance Optimization Report Offer

CSO Insights is currently in the process of launching their 16^th annual Sales Performance Optimization study, the past results from which have been regularly featured in Harvard Business Review, Business Week, Entrepreneur Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Inc., CRM Magazine, etc.

I would like to encourage you to take part in the new survey. In return for your time, CSO Insights will send you receive a copy of the full 200+ page analysis when it is published in January, 2010, so you can tap into the insights of your peers to optimize the performance of your organization.

In addition, you will be able to immediately download CSO Insight’s new Sales Management 2.0 e-book upon completing the survey.

To take part in this research project click on the following:

CSO Insights’ 2010 Sales Performance Optimization Survey Link

Next, I was interviewed for two posts on ZoomInfo’s new blog. The first one is about a favorite subject of mine and one that is at the root cause of many companies’ sales problems: hiring. The second is about my core focus: sales training. Watch for an upcoming webinar I’ll be delivering with ZoomInfo. Nice work, blogger Matthew Schwartz.

Finally, I’ll be at SMT’s annual conference in Orlando next week. My keynote on Wednesday will cover sales effectiveness in a challenged economy and details about what buyers and deliverers of sales learning will have to do to increase performance of their customer—the sales rep. I’ll be highlighting specific training companies and individual trainers who are on the right track and are delivering real value to their customers.

Photo credit: Sea World, Orlando.