SPIN Selling: Situation Problem Implication Need-payoff


Neil Rackham - 1988
    Unquestionably the best-documented account of sales success ever collected and the result of the Huthwaite corporation's massive 12-year, $1-million dollar research into effective sales performance, this groundbreaking resource details the revolutionary SPIN (Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-payoff) strategy.In SPIN Selling, Rackham, who has advised leading companies such as IBM and Honeywell delivers the first book to specifically examine selling high-value product and services. By following the simple, practical, and easy-to-apply techniques of SPIN, readers will be able to dramatically increase their sales volume from major accounts. Rackham answers key questions such as "What makes success in major sales" and "Why do techniques like closing work in small sales but fail in larger ones?"You will learn why traditional sales methods which were developed for small consumer sales, just won't work for large sales and why conventional selling methods are doomed to fail in major sales. Packed with real-world examples, illuminating graphics, and informative case studies - and backed by hard research data - SPIN Selling is the million-dollar key to understanding and producing record-breaking high-end sales performance.

Smartcuts: How Hackers, Innovators, and Icons Accelerate Success


Shane Snow - 2014
    They employ what psychologists call "lateral thinking: to rethink convention and break "rules" that aren't rules.These are not shortcuts, which produce often dubious short-term gains, but ethical "smartcuts" that eliminate unnecessary effort and yield sustainable momentum. In Smartcuts, Snow shatters common wisdom about success, revealing how conventions like "paying dues" prevent progress, why kids shouldn't learn times tables, and how, paradoxically, it's easier to build a huge business than a small one.From SpaceX to The Cuban Revolution, from Ferrari to Skrillex, Smartcuts is a narrative adventure that busts old myths about success and shows how innovators and icons do the incredible by working smarter—and how perhaps the rest of us can, too.

Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing


Harry Beckwith - 1997
    A comprehensive guide to service marketing furnishes tips and advice on how one can apply one's business knowledge to any area of sales and marketing, from a home-based consultancy to a multinational brokerage firm.

Ultimate Sales Machine


Chet Holmes - 2007
    And his advice starts with one simple concept: focus! Instead of trying to master four thousand strategies to improve your business, zero in on the few essential skill areas that make the big difference. Too many managers jump at every new trend, but don’t stick with any of them. Instead, says Holmes, focus on twelve critical areas of improvement—one at a time—and practice them over and over with pigheaded discipline. The Ultimate Sales Machine shows you how to tune up and soup up virtually every part of your business by spending just an hour per week on each impact area you want to improve. Like a tennis player who hits nothing but backhands for a few hours a week to perfect his game, you can systematically improve each key area. Holmes offers proven strategies for: • Management: Teach your people how to work smarter, not harder • Marketing: Get more bang from your Web site, advertising, trade shows, and public relations • Sales: Perfect every sales interaction by working on sales, not just in sales The Ultimate Sales Machine will put you and your company on a path to success and help you stay there!

Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen


Donald Miller - 2017
    This revolutionary method for connecting with customers provides readers with the ultimate competitive advantage, revealing the secret for helping their customers understand the compelling benefits of using their products, ideas, or services. Building a StoryBrand does this by teaching readers the seven universal story points all humans respond to; the real reason customers make purchases; how to simplify a brand message so people understand it; and how to create the most effective messaging for websites, brochures, and social media. Whether you are the marketing director of a multibillion dollar company, the owner of a small business, a politician running for office, or the lead singer of a rock band, Building a StoryBrand will forever transform the way you talk about who you are, what you do, and the unique value you bring to your customers.

Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World


Gary Vaynerchuk - 2013
    Even companies committed to jabbing-patiently engaging with customers to build the relationships so crucial to successful social media campaigns-still yearn to land the powerful, bruising swing that will knock out their opponent or their customer's resistance in one tooth-spritzing, killer blow. Right hooks, after all, convert traffic to sales. They easily show results and ROI. Except when they don't.In the same passionate, street-wise style readers have come to expect, Gary Vaynerchuk is on a mission to improve marketers' right hooks by changing the way they fight to make their customers happy, and ultimately to compete. Thanks to the massive change and proliferation in social media platforms in the last four years, the winning combination of jabs and right hooks is different now. Communication is still key, but context matters more than ever. It's not just about developing high-quality content, but developing high-quality content perfectly adapted to specific social media platforms and mobile devices-content tailor-made for Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and Tumblr. A mash-up of the best elements of Crush It! and The Thank You Economy with a 2013 spin, here is a blueprint to social media marketing strategies that really works.

How to Become a Rainmaker: The Rules for Getting and Keeping Customers and Clients


Jeffrey J. Fox - 2000
    They are made. And Jeffrey Fox's powerful How to Become a Rainmaker will get you there. Now Updated and with New Success Tips! Filled with smart tips given in the Fox signature style, counter-intuitive, controversial, and practiced, this hard-hitting collection of sales advice shows readers how to woo, pursue, and finally win any customer. In witty, succinct chapters, Fox offers surprising, daring, and totally practical wisdom that will help readers rise above the competition in any company in any field. A terrific resource for CEOs, as well as anyone looking to distinguish themselves in sales--be it books, cars, or real estate--How to Become a Rainmaker offers the opportunity to rise above the competition in any company, in any field.

Key Person of Influence (Revised Edition): The Five-Step Method to become one of the most highly valued and highly paid people in your industry


Daniel Priestley - 2010
    Every industry revolves around Key People of Influence Their names come up in conversation. They attract opportunity. They earn more money. Many people think it takes decades of hard work, academic qualifications and a generous measure of good luck to become a Key Person of Influence. This book shows that there is a strategy for fast-tracking your way to the inner circle of the industry you love. Your ability to succeed depends on your ability to influence. Start now by reading this book.

Superconnector: Stop Networking and Start Building Business Relationships that Matter


Scott Gerber - 2018
    STOP NETWORKING. Seriously, stop doing it. Now. It is time to ditch the old networking-for networking's-sake mentality in favor of a more powerful and effective approach to creating and enhancing connections. In Superconnector, Scott Gerber and Ryan Paugh reveal a new category of professionals born out of the social media era: highly valuable community-builders who make things happen through their keen understanding and utilization of social capital. Superconnectors understand the power of relationship-building, problem-solve by connecting the dots at high levels, and purposefully cause different worlds and communities to interact with the intention of creating mutual value. How can you become a Superconnector? Gerber and Paugh share instructive anecdotes from a who's who roster of high achievers, revealing how to systematically manage a professional community and maximize its value. Of utmost importance is practicing Habitual Generosity, acting on the knowledge that your greatest returns come when you least expect them, and that by putting others' needs first the good karma will flow back to you tenfold. Gerber and Paugh also explore winning strategies such as The Art of Selectivity, a well-honed ability to define which relationships matter most for you and decide how you will maintain them over time. Full of helpful advice on how to communicate with anyone about anything, Google-proof your reputation, and much more, Superconnector is a must-read for those seeking personal and business success.

Fascinate: Unlocking the Secret Triggers of Influence, Persuasion, and Captivation


Sally Hogshead - 2010
    It's more persuasive than marketing, advertising, or any other form of communication. And it all starts with seven universal triggers: lust, mystique, alarm, prestige, power, vice, and trust.Fascination plays a role in every type of decision making, from the brands you choose to the songs you remember, from the person you marry to the employees you hire. And by activating the right triggers, you can make anything become fascinating.To explore and explain fascination's irresistible influence, Sally Hogshead looks beyond marketing, delving into behavioral and social studies, historical precedents, neurobiology and evolutionary anthropology, as well as conducting in-depth interviews and a national study of a thousand consumers, to emerge with deeply rooted patterns for why, and how, we become captivated.Hogshead reveals why the Salem witch trials began with the same fixations as those in "Sex and the City." How Olympic athletes are subject to obsessions similar to those of fetishists. How a 1636 frenzy over Dutch tulip bulbs perfectly mirrors the 2006 real estate bubble. And why a billion-dollar "Just Say No" program actually increased drug use among teens, by activating the same "forbidden fruit" syndrome as a Victoria's Secret catalog.Whether you realize it or not, you're already using the seven triggers. The question is, are you using the right triggers, in the right way, to get your desired result? This book will show you.

Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind: How to Be Seen and Heard in the Overcrowded Marketplace


Al Ries - 1980
    Writing in their trademark witty, fast-paced style, advertising gurus Ries and Trout explain how to:Make and position an industry leader so that its name and message wheedles its way into the collective subconscious of your market-and stays therePosition a follower so that it can occupy a niche not claimed by the leaderAvoid letting a second product ride on the coattails of an established one.Positioning also shows you how to:Use leading ad agency techniques to capture the biggest market share and become a household nameBuild your strategy around your competition's weaknessesReposition a strong competitor and create a weak spotUse your present position to its best advantageChoose the best name for your productDetermine when-and why-less is moreAnalyze recent trends that affect your positioning.Ries and Trout provide many valuable case histories and penetrating analyses of some of the most phenomenal successes and failures in advertising history. Revised to reflect significant developments in the five years since its original publication, Positioning is required reading for anyone in business today.

Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You


John Warrillow - 2010
    Thus, when the time comes to sell, buyers aren't confident that the company-even if it's profitable-can stand on its own. To illustrate this, Warrillow introduces us to a fictional small business owner named Alex who is struggling to sell his advertising agency. Alex turns to Ted, an entrepreneur and old family friend, who encourages Alex to pursue three criteria to make his business sellable: * Teachable: focus on products and services that you can teach employees to deliver. * Valuable: avoid price wars by specialising in doing one thing better than anyone else. * Repeatable: generate recurring revenue by engineering products that customers have to repurchase often.

The (7L) The Seven Levels of Communication: Go From Relationships to Referrals


Michael J. Maher - 2010
    In (7L) The Seven Levels of Communication, Michael J. Maher tells the inspiring story of real estate agent Rick Masters who is suffering through a down market when he meets a mortgage professional who has built a successful business without advertising or personal promotion. Step by step he learns to change the way he interacts with his clients and begins to focus on people instead of numbers. Yet with each new success comes a new challenge and Rick soon realizes that if he is to fully utilize the lessons of the (7L), he must be willing to change himself as well as his business. He soon learns, however, that the rewards for doing so are far greater than he had ever imagined. (7L) shows Rick how to build a more profitable business and a more fulfilling life in the process. (7L) is available now at www.7LBook.com/Pre.

The Perfect Close: The Secret To Closing Sales - The Best Selling Practices & Techniques For Closing The Deal


James Muir - 2016
     Author James Muir shares unique insights on how ‘closing the sale’ can be done with a natural, non-pushy sales strategy that breaks the stigma often associated with professional sales. Everything has changed. The latest science shows that old, counter-productive closing tactics backfire and hold you back. In The Perfect Close you will learn a closing method that is nearly always successful (in the 95% range). It’s zero pressure and involves just two questions. It’s a clear & simple approach that is flexible enough to use on every kind of sale at every given stage. It can be learned in less than an hour and mastered in a day. It is especially helpful for new and inexperienced salespeople and professionals who dislike the “stigma” of selling or find the selling process awkward or uncomfortable. In The Perfect Close: The Secret to Closing Sales you will learn: A simple method to closing that is nearly always successful (95% range), is zero pressure & involves just two questions. How traditional closing techniques damage trust & what you can do remain on emotionally higher ground. How to close more sales in way that makes clients feel more educated, in control and see you as a facilitator & consultant. A proven and repeatable process for advancing sales that can be used in any kind of sale at any given stage. How to add continuous momentum & advance your sales in a way that results in more closed business & faster closed business. A natural way to close that doesn't require that you change your personality or become someone you're not. How to completely eliminate the stress & tension that some people feel when it comes to asking for commitments. How to add value on every sales encounter. Everything you need to know to advance every sale to closure The Perfect Close represents the best practice in closing sales today. Apply it yourself and discover how this simple technique along with being genuinely authentic creates the highest levels of success and happiness. This is more than a just a book. It's a sales training course that outlines step-by-step what you need to do to advance your sales to closure. If you are new to sales, make this the first book you read. It will teach you how to be effective immediately and will literally teach you the rest of the steps in your sales process. If you are an experienced professional looking for ways to improve your performance, this book will help take your closing skills to a whole new level. SPECIAL BONUSES! With this book you will get access to a myriad of complimentary online resources including: The Perfect Close Reference Model, The Perfect Close Mind Map, Opportunity Research Forms, Encounter Planning Forms, Sample Meeting Agendas, The 21 Closing Secrets Reference Guide, Special Reports and more. Print them out and use these resources to help you while selling or just to refresh what you've learned.

Love Is the Killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends


Tim Sanders - 2002
    By that I mean: Your knowledge: everything that comes from all the books that I’ll encourage you to devour.Your network: the collection of friends and contacts you now have, which I’ll teach you how to grow and nurture.Your compassion: that human warmth you already possess—in these pages I’ll convince you that you can show it freely at the office.What happens when you do all this?* You become a rich source of information to all around you.* You are seen as a person with valuable insight.* You are perceived as generous to a fault, producing surprise and delight.* You double your business intelligence in one year.* You triple your network of personal relationships in two years.* You quadruple the number of colleagues in your life who love you like family.In short, you become one of those amazing, outstanding people to whom everyone turns, who leads rather than follows, who never runs out of ideas, contacts, or friendship.Here’s the real scoop: Nice guys don’t finish last. They rule!From the Hardcover edition.