The Best Sales Books You’ve Never Heard Of… Some Webinars and an Important Study

In my Sales and Marketing Management magazine column this month, I write about sales books. Being an author myself, I enjoyed talking about the three types of sales books:

  • “Here’s How I Did It.”
  • “Here’s How Our Firm Does It”
  • What You Should Do
Which type provide the most value to you?  I’m clear on the answer to that question.
The books I highlight in the piece include:
  • Mahan Khalsa and Randy Illig’s Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play
  • Greg Alexander, et. al.’s Making the Number
  • Linda Richardson’s Perfect Selling, and
  • Jeff Lehman’s The Sales Manager’s Mentor.
I think you’ll like the column. Please let us know your thoughts in a comment.

Important! Research on Negotiation. ESR and BayGroup International are collaborating to determine the answers to some important questions around the subject of B2B negotiation. Among them are, What do procurement people really think about salespeople, their approaches, strategies, and tactics? And what do salespeople think about their counterparts in procurement? In effect, we want to know What Works in Negotiation. This clever survey applies to both procurement and sales so we can get both sides of the same story. Anyone who completes the survey will be entitled to a copy of the final report when it is published. Click here to take survey.
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ESR and BayGroup International will discuss the findings and offer recommendations in a special webinar to be held on Thursday, November 29th at 12:00 noon ET. Register here.

Inspiring Buyers to Buy (Even When They Weren’t Thinking of Buying) During this one-hour webinar, ES Research Group, Inc. will host Mike Schultz, co-president of Rain Group. One of the 10 Rainmaker Principles is “Set the Agenda, Be a Change Agent,” but too many sales people do not know how to do this and, indeed, don’t believe they should. There is a heavy reliance on reactive problem solving and a lack of comfort in selling when there isn’t a clear directive from the prospect or client for what is needed.

In this webinar, Mike Schultz, President of RAIN Group and co-author of the Wall Street Journal bestselling Rainmaking Conversations, will cover how sales managers and company leaders can help their sales teams inspire buyers to buy even when they weren’t thinking of buying.
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This event will be held Wednesday, Oct 24 12:00 noon ET. Here is more information and registration.

Show Me the Money! 10 Imperatives for Improving Financial Acumen for Key Account Managers.  During this one-hour webinar, ES Research Group, Inc. will feature Mercuri International and their customer, Siemens. The pressures we put on our account managers are complex, demanding, and increasing.  Successful KAMs are experts in their customers as well as their own companies. They need to be able to define and articulate effective business cases for both.

The two presenters will be Dr Hajo Rapp -– Senior Vice President for Siemens One Key Account Management. Dr Rapp joined Siemens in 1997 and since that time has held positions in sales, sales management and key account management. And also presenting will be Dave Cusdin,  Global Sector Leader at Mercuri International, where he is responsible for the firm’s technology sector clients. He has co-designed, developed and deployed sales, account management, sales management & leadership development programs for global clients.
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This event will be held Thursday, Oct. 25 at 10:00 am ET. More information and registration.

Filed under: Account Management, Book Recommendation, Buyers, Procurement, Sales Strategy

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6 Responses to “The Best Sales Books You’ve Never Heard Of… Some Webinars and an Important Study”

  1. Brian MacIver, on October 22nd, 2012 at 3:14 pm Said:

    Dave,
    You really made me smile.
    Firstly, you did not promote your own book. The book that you carefully built on your own Sales experience and insight. Together, that is with the Strategies of Miller, Heiman and Tuleja, Stephen Covey, Jack Welch and of course the ancient wisdom of Sun Tzu.

    It would, in my opinion, fall into all three of your categories!

    The second reason, you made smile, was the Flanking attack on The Challenger Sale, the number one best book on Selling on Amazon dot Com list.

    TCS written by Researchers, who may have never sold and you suggest they fall short in the area of “How you should do it.” The alternative you put is a “Good ‘ole How to…” based on “Practical” experience and insight for example Linda Richardson (amongst others).

    I think, you really missed a fourth and vital category; Sales Skills books based on active first hand research.

    I would cite SPIN Selling, in this category, Rackham’s Sales Classic still topping many, of the Amazon categories. In addition, in high end selling SPIN is still THE most influential book.

    Could it be we should ignore it because Neil was initially a researcher, before becoming a very successful Seller of his own programs? It had great how and what, more than enough to qualify as “Practical” but did not make your list.

    I reject category one, “Selling my way” I have read hundreds, because sellers do not know what makes them successful, they just believe they do.

    I reject category two, “Selling our way” which despite their success for a given Company IBM, Xerox or Apple, for a given Product-Marketplace, at a given point in time. They seldom (unless you are a current competitor of theirs) transfer to an alternative Product-Market, and a different point in time, for a different Company.

    Moreover, as for the “secret sauce”, withheld by Sales Training companies, there is not any.
    If there were, they would bottle it and sell it!

    As to your third Category, the “What you should do” books, these (IMO) are not dominated by Researchers, who are rarer than Chicken’s teeth. No, the “what you should do” books are dominated by Categories one and two being sold as Category three!

    And, that not only makes me smile, it makes me laugh.

    As any Gen Y, would tell you being “hot” on social media and Amazon may not be everything, but being cold on Social Media and Amazon tells you everything you need to know!

  2. Dave Stein, on October 22nd, 2012 at 3:37 pm Said:

    Hi Brian,

    You made me smile as well…

    A few points:

    • I have a limit of only 600 or so words for the column.
    • I wrote about books that were less known, rather than the “usual suspects.”
    • There is no doubt that SPIN Selling and The Challenger Sale are driven from research and they are both best-sellers.

    Thanks, as always for your comments.

    Dave

  3. Mike Kunkle, on October 22nd, 2012 at 9:50 pm Said:

    Intriguing list, Dave. We could all debate which exact books to include, and opinions are…. well, let’s just say that we all have them. But your thought process was on track, for me personally, and you included two books that I couldn’t agree more about – Let’s Get Real and Making the Number. I was not familiar with Lehman’s work, so appreciate the recommendation, especially on that topic.

    Brian, you can fix anything with enough duct tape, right? Oh, never mind, that’s the OTHER McGuyver… ;-)

    Seriously, gents, I had lunch today with someone pursuing her PhD in organizational effectiveness (I like to hang with smarter people; not hard to do ;-) and we had a fascinating conversation (to us, anyway) about evidence-based management practices (and the opposite, or what seems to be the “normal” management approach these days). I found myself quipping, as usual, that business books are dangerous, especially sales books, because of the “here’s how I did it” approach. It bothers me that advice is frequently dispensed without regard for what I’ve started to call “sales nuances:” things like B2B vs. B2C, high-ticket vs. low-price, long-cycle vs. short-cycle, complex vs. simple, product vs. service, etc. I find this about as disturbing as company leaders thinking that they can buy sales training off the shelf, run a few classes, and get results.

    Anyway, here’s a cheer for evidence-based approaches, great research, and consideration for the specific sales nuances and forces at play that influence effective implementation, and a special cheer for any companies or books authors who take those things into consideration.

  4. Dave Stein, on October 23rd, 2012 at 6:49 am Said:

    Thanks, Mike.

    The point you made here: “It bothers me that advice is frequently dispensed without regard for what I’ve started to call “sales nuances:” things like B2B vs. B2C, high-ticket vs. low-price, long-cycle vs. short-cycle, complex vs. simple, product vs. service, etc.” is right on target.

  5. Chris Carson, on October 23rd, 2012 at 12:36 pm Said:

    Dave,

    I enjoyed reading your article in SMM (I receive the printed copy every month). Thank you for mentioning Let’s Get Real—obviously I agree that it is a useful book. I am looking forward to reading your other suggestions.

    I wanted to let you know that we are offering a free copy of Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play for a limited time on our website: http://www.helpingclientssucceed.com/lets-get-real-or-lets-not-play

    Hope you are well. I would love to chat with you soon.

    Chris Carson

  6. Dave Stein, on October 23rd, 2012 at 12:52 pm Said:

    Great offer, Chris. Hopefully some of my readers will take you up on this.

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