Everyday someone in my network will ask, ‘Josh what sales book should I read?’ or ‘Haddon, what sales book had the biggest impact on your career?’ Today, someone emailed me who I had never met, asking what books I would suggest a new sales person read. So I figured I'd reply here, since this blog is how they found me.
By no means do I want to sound cynical or holier than thou, but a majority of the ‘sales’ books out there are garbage. I’ve read 100’s of these ‘sales’ books. Early in my career I bought every book I could get my hands on. All the books promised methods, systems and strategies to guarantee riches and success.
About two years ago I realized that I will never be truly great while using someone else’s verbiage, system, script or ‘master process’. Those crutches and tricks and scripts helped me be better than the average Jane, but I soon noticed I had reached a plateau.
I have a book in my library that is titled, ‘Sales Scripts That Sell’. This same guy might as well of made a book called, ‘Book Titles That Sell’ because the best sales training I received from that book is that people buy when they perceive you have a solution to their problem. Back then, my problem was I wanted to sell more, in turn, I bought the book.
I constantly talk about becoming a true Sales Professional not a typical salesperson. Therefore, wouldn’t it be counter-intuitive to walk around sounding the same way every other salesperson who bought that book sounds? Of course it would be!
When you first start on your path from typical salesperson to Sales Professional; morally sound, respectful, brand creating, referral producing sales is an art, and not a science. Once you’ve mastered the art, it appears to those on the outside looking in, as a science. Many art forms become quasi-sciences once mastered and preformed very well. Look back in history to when philosophy branched off into a science we now call psychology.
Pick three people from history who were considered ‘great’ at what they do. In almost every case you’ll find that they had similar traits. They were creative, focussed and had passion. Becoming a great Sales Professional requires the same three traits. Now, some may argue that you can in fact learn those three traits by reading a book. I would differ.
Napoleon Hill talked about having a ‘master mind alliance’. The saying goes, “Forty years from today, you will be the same person you are now, expect for the books you read and the people you meet.” I’d advocate that 40% if the people you meet, 10% are the books you read, 50% is what you choose to emulate from the people you have met or the books you have read.
Breaking down the quote my way should inspire hope. Hope that you do have a controlling share in your destiny. If you want change and you want to succeed, start changing – something. Anything. While you are at it, introduce yourself to some new people. Step out of what you know and experience something new. Familiar surroundings will almost always produce familiar results.
Typical salespeople are for the most part are actors. They recite old ‘lines’, ‘openers’ and ‘closes’, They paint by numbers. These are the guys who walk into my office at 45 years old needing a job while talking about how they are ‘the best’. They have all the ‘tricks’ of a weathered salesperson but lack of the traits of a great Sales Professional.
If you want to be the best Sales Professional possible, find a mentor and shadow him or her. While reading the hundreds of books I mentioned I read above, I used to spend thousands of hours with the top sales people in my first sales job. I would hang on their every word. When the time came that I had learned all I could from them, I found new people to absorb information from. I read books, but for every book I read, I learned 10 times more from interacting with the great minds around me.
Ty Cobb re-invented baseball.
Einstein would sit for days just thinking.
Picasso didn’t paint by numbers.
Be yourself.
Sales is a conversation, not scripted dialog.
Find a mentor or at least someone better than you to learn from.
Take some risks.
Put yourself into unfamiliar situations.
Stop listening to what your friends, family or co-workers say. Unless they are saying, ‘you are unique and beautiful; and correct to want to shoot for the stars, because every other successful person in history was also only flesh and blood, just as you are’. If they are saying anything else, forget it.
And if you have time during all of this, read books that promote character building more than you read books that promise wealth.
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