Books in general pose somewhat of a problem. They cannot be accessed while driving a motor vehicle. Often, books need to be hand held and, in most instances, they require adequate eyesight to obtain the content. Other than the above, I really don’t see a problem with books in general; however, books that offer sales training and/or guidance are usually too long and complicated, too short, to be effective.
Recently I was perusing the shelves at a popular bookstore and found no shortage of books on selling. If you can believe it, one book was over 600 plus pages! Even the most ambitious and eager salesperson is not going to tackle a book of this size (in all fairness, the store did offer to help get the book into my vehicle).
Interestingly, I read several paragraphs from this book and found some of their advice to be contrary to my teachings and experience with sales students (but that’s not to say that most of the content wasn’t worth reading). Anything that brings a different perspective to selling is worth studying.
Then there was the little books that were so condensed they gave the appearance that selling was short, simple and easy. If selling were that easy, employers wouldn’t need to compensate salespeople for their production.
The good news with the smaller books (they are known for their specific jacket color) is you can easily carry it with you and finish its contents in several hours. In my coaching and seminars I emphasize the philosophy of “Simple, Easy & Effective” with the operative word being effective. Oversimplification can be as devastating as a voluminous approach to learning, whereby the outcome in both scenarios is not optimum.
So what’s a person to do if they want to read (an interesting word in itself) about sales and the selling process? Relax; I have some suggestions that will make your learning experience more productive.
The first thing the reader should acknowledge is precisely what they are trying to accomplish. Perhaps you’re experiencing specific problems in one aspect of the selling process, in that case, look for reading materials with an emphasis on your concern. If your primary problem is generating qualified leads you might want to seek information that dwells heavily on lead generation.
Identifying your selling deficiencies will enable you to focus on improvement in a specific area. That being said, I believe that all aspects of the discipline of selling are worth reviewing on a generalized basis. Regardless of your level of sales expertise, reading about the process from many different perspectives will benefit the reader. Regardless of the quality of books content, the more you explore different selling approaches and directions, the more complete you’ll be able to formulate an effective approach for your particular set of circumstances.
Lastly, I am not so arrogant as to emphatically state that one author is better than another. My advice in reading about sales is to know information about the author’s experience. Usually, those that can’t, teach; those that can’t teach, teach teachers how to teach.
I’m not the only author who has multiple decades of successful sales experience. My coaching and seminars, like many of my peers, has been formulated by correcting all the things I’ve done wrong and focused on those sales techniques and approaches that were consistently successful. Whatever you decide, the good news is you’ll be reading and that’s a good thing.
