A quick summary of my situation: I have virtually no experience in sales and have not read anything on the matter. I am looking at this for selling services for private English lessons/a language school within a series of small, close-knit communities where everyone seems to know everyone else's business.
As per the title, I have looked at other threads and found different suggestions for books about sales.
Here are the books that seem to be highly regarded (in no particular order):
To Sell is Human
How to Master the Art of Selling
Pitch Anything
Secrets of Closing the Sale
There was another (I forget which), but it seemed more applicable to big, complex or high volume deals than what I'm looking at. I have also followed links/recommendations on Amazon and found these two books to be highly regarded:
The Art of Persuasion
Endless Referrals
I'd like to purchase one, perhaps two, books. Can anyone give some feedback (pros and cons) of the above books?
Here are the results of my rudimentary research so far, based upon looking at the most recent (print) editions of each book.
Firstly, I did a quantitative analysis (flawed as that is), based upon customer ratings at Amazon, and got the following (out of a maximum of five):
Endless Referrals – 4.73
Pitch Anything – 4.70
The Art of Persuasion – 4.67
How to Master the Art of Selling – 4.63
Secrets of Closing the Sale – 4.60
To Sell is Human – 4.53
Basically, there's not a massive amount separating them. So, then I looked at the distribution of those rankings, specifically looking at the percentage of ratings that were one or two stars. My rationale for this is that there are always going to be lots of people who sing a book's praises, but I wanted to see how many people disliked a book (and later, why).
The Art of Persuasion – 0% (low number of customers though)
Endless Referrals – 1%, no 1 stars
Pitch Anything – 3%
Secrets of Closing the Sale – 4%
To Sell is Human – 5%
How to Master the Art of Selling – 6% (low number of customers though)
I then did a qualitative analysis based upon those negative reviews, and here are thoughts on each book:
Bob Burg's books (The Art of Persuasion and Endless Referrals) both rate really well and don't seem to really have strong detractors, though a couple of people reviewed them as having too much padding with the stories (which seems to be a common theme in the genre).
Pitch Anything has been described as "The Game for sales" and "high testosterone power games" and appears to be confrontational/adversarial. I have reservations about this for two reasons. The first is that I want to build relationships/customers in a fairly small community (as an outsider), so I don't want to antagonise anyone. The second is cultural. Westerners are already considered too direct and confrontational in Taiwanese society, and I am concerned that this style of sales could be a little over the top for the environment here.
Secrets of Closing the Sale seems to be outdated in a lot of its advice.
To Sell is Human gets a bad rap for having a lot of filler and not being particularly practical.
How to Master the Art of Selling has a few negative reviews, but they're not particularly scathing. One suggests that the most recent edition hasn't really been updated and that the material is still a little outdated with regard to the use of technology. That's not such an issue for me as mostly I do face to face anyway.
So, I am leaning towards The Art of Persuasion, but am unsure about the others (since Endless Referrals is by the same author, it might be putting all of my eggs in one basket). I'd very much appreciate any feedback (or suggestions for other books).
As per the title, I have looked at other threads and found different suggestions for books about sales.
Here are the books that seem to be highly regarded (in no particular order):
To Sell is Human
How to Master the Art of Selling
Pitch Anything
Secrets of Closing the Sale
There was another (I forget which), but it seemed more applicable to big, complex or high volume deals than what I'm looking at. I have also followed links/recommendations on Amazon and found these two books to be highly regarded:
The Art of Persuasion
Endless Referrals
I'd like to purchase one, perhaps two, books. Can anyone give some feedback (pros and cons) of the above books?
Here are the results of my rudimentary research so far, based upon looking at the most recent (print) editions of each book.
Firstly, I did a quantitative analysis (flawed as that is), based upon customer ratings at Amazon, and got the following (out of a maximum of five):
Endless Referrals – 4.73
Pitch Anything – 4.70
The Art of Persuasion – 4.67
How to Master the Art of Selling – 4.63
Secrets of Closing the Sale – 4.60
To Sell is Human – 4.53
Basically, there's not a massive amount separating them. So, then I looked at the distribution of those rankings, specifically looking at the percentage of ratings that were one or two stars. My rationale for this is that there are always going to be lots of people who sing a book's praises, but I wanted to see how many people disliked a book (and later, why).
The Art of Persuasion – 0% (low number of customers though)
Endless Referrals – 1%, no 1 stars
Pitch Anything – 3%
Secrets of Closing the Sale – 4%
To Sell is Human – 5%
How to Master the Art of Selling – 6% (low number of customers though)
I then did a qualitative analysis based upon those negative reviews, and here are thoughts on each book:
Bob Burg's books (The Art of Persuasion and Endless Referrals) both rate really well and don't seem to really have strong detractors, though a couple of people reviewed them as having too much padding with the stories (which seems to be a common theme in the genre).
Pitch Anything has been described as "The Game for sales" and "high testosterone power games" and appears to be confrontational/adversarial. I have reservations about this for two reasons. The first is that I want to build relationships/customers in a fairly small community (as an outsider), so I don't want to antagonise anyone. The second is cultural. Westerners are already considered too direct and confrontational in Taiwanese society, and I am concerned that this style of sales could be a little over the top for the environment here.
Secrets of Closing the Sale seems to be outdated in a lot of its advice.
To Sell is Human gets a bad rap for having a lot of filler and not being particularly practical.
How to Master the Art of Selling has a few negative reviews, but they're not particularly scathing. One suggests that the most recent edition hasn't really been updated and that the material is still a little outdated with regard to the use of technology. That's not such an issue for me as mostly I do face to face anyway.
So, I am leaning towards The Art of Persuasion, but am unsure about the others (since Endless Referrals is by the same author, it might be putting all of my eggs in one basket). I'd very much appreciate any feedback (or suggestions for other books).
