Dave Stein's Blog for Sales Leaders

I’ve been down with Swine Flu.  First I thought it would just kind of breeze by… an  H¾ N¾  kind-of-thing.  But I did get the full rendition—H1N1 all the way. I’ve been in bed, taking care of minor things here and there, but can’t really focus my brain on a few challenging projects on my plate.  I’ll make up the time.  I always do.

In any case, as ¾ progressed to 1.0 I did manage to read a great book on my Kindle: What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures, my first recommendation in this post.

That Malcolm Gladwell is one smart guy.  Having read his other books, Outliers, Tipping Point, and Blink, I was a bit skeptical because this was a collection of essays that Gladwell did for New Yorker magazine.  I figured, quite cynically, that his publishers were packaging up some old stuff to make some money for the Christmas season.  That may have been their plan, but I wound up with having learned a whole lot.  Gladwell employs an interesting structure for these individual pieces.  He juxtaposes two perspectives—what you might initially believe are unrelated perspectives—to bring across his point. It is very effective.

Stories featuring Ron Popeil (the infomercial pitchman), Cesar Millan (the dog whisperer) and some other interesting people you wouldn’t know, were engaging.  His takes on Enron, McKinsey (their mentors and advisors), the Challenger disaster, criminal profiling, plagiarism, and the homeless situation captured my complete attention.

There was a big, big bonus for me in this book as well.  In one of the essays, The Talent Myth, Gladwell discusses how subjectivity impacts the interviewing of job candidates, he made as strong a case as I’ve heard for structured interviewing—the kind of interviewing I’ve been writing and talking about for years.  Here’s just an excerpt.  I love it!

This interviewing technique is known as structured interviewing, and in studies by industrial psychologists it has been shown to be the only kind of interviewing that has any success at all in predicting performance in the workplace. In the structured interviews, the format is fairly rigid. Each applicant is treated in precisely the same manner. The questions are scripted. The interviewers are carefully trained, and each applicant is rated on a series of predetermined scales. What is interesting about the structured interview is how narrow its objectives are.

Read this book.  It’s fun and you’ll learn a lot.

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And here is my second recommendation.

More than a year ago, my friend and colleague, Steve Bistritz sent me a draft of a book he and a colleague were writing.  He asked for some feedback and for an endorsement for the book for when it would be published.  It’s been out a few months now, but I do want to recommend to you Selling to the C-Suite: What Every Executive Wants You to Know About Successfully Selling to the Top.  Steve, who has been recognized as an expert in the discipline of executive-level selling for decades, partnered with Nicholas Read in the writing of this book.  They make a strong team.

Whoa… Decades?  Do I really want to buy a book co-authored by a guy who has been doing this for decades, you might ask.  Yes, you do.  Steve and Nicholas have experience, perspective, and most important, an understanding of what is relevant now with regard to this subject.

Most of what it takes to sell successfully in the C-suite is timeless.  Deep knowledge of the customer’s business from an operations and financial perspective and a strong value proposition are two cornerstones.  Bistritz and Read provide all the tools you’ll need, especially the Value Proposition Worksheet (in the Appendix).

Understand, this is not just another “book about selling high.”  I know.  I’ve read most of them.  This gives you the background, understanding, strategies, tactics, tools, incentive, motivation, case studies, and step-by-step instructions for how to gain and maintain access to the C-suite.  It’s all there for you and your team.  The question is are you willing to do what it takes?

Filed under: Book Recommendation, Hiring, Sales Strategy

Tags: Gladwell, Steve Bistritz