Book Review: Buyer First by Carole Mahoney

I have known Carole Mahoney for years so I was excited when I discovered she had new book coming out. The book is Buyer First: Grow Your Business with Collaborative Selling and it is on probably my favorite subject - collaborative selling. And oh my goodness does it ever pack a wallop!

First let me share that I *love* well-researched books that include their references. And I like them even better when they reveal research and insights I've never seen before. And Buyer Frist does both. For me, just the references alone are worth the price of the book, but there's far more here than research.

The book is ambitious and broken-down into 10 chapters:

• You Are a Salesperson
• Not About You
• Follow the New Golden Rule
• Get Your Head in the Game
• Find Your People
• Uncover Your MVPs
• Sell With Your Buyers
• Feed the Fire in Your Belly
• Set Your Goals, Not Someone Else's
• Stop Chasing Shiny Balls

The first few chapters, Carole challenges the conventional wisdom about selling and encourages readers to forget everything they think they know about it. She then presents compelling data from 2.2 million professional sellers and research on the psychology of decision-making and behavior change. (again, I really enjoyed this) This sets the stage for the rest of the book, where she introduces a dramatically better approach to selling.

Most notable is the concept that the sales is not about you - it's about the buyer. Throughout the book we are reminded that: "Sales is not something you do *to* other people, it is something you do *with* them."

Carole then transitions to where the leverage is - mindset. I was surprised how much data there is around this. I won't ruin the surprise for you here, but the facts are indisputable. Mahoney puts it this way: "Change your mind, change your life." And not many would dispute this fact. It what comes next that I enjoyed so much. Virtually every chapter ends with a series of questions that help you discover where your thinking and feeling really is for that chapter's topic. And in chapter 4 not only does that mean you will discover any issues or roadblocks you have, it will actually change your paradigm. Not many books can deliver on that. Do the exercises. You'll be glad you did.

I guess I should mention that there is an entire online workbook to help you through the material as well. It's absolutely worth visiting the site. Taken together it comes complete with worksheets and exercises, allowing readers to apply all the concepts discussed in the book.

The next few chapters delve into the subjects of targeting, personas, and how to conduct a discovery that is mutually beneficial and inherently valuable to clients. This also includes a process for selling with clients from the same side of the table where you are both collaborating.

The remainder of the book takes it up a notch by diving into finding your purpose, tapping into motivation and aligning your goals with the same. As I mentioned above, this is pretty ambitious and Carole pulls it off. I'm going to be using this material in Jan 2025 during our annual family goal-setting retreat. For me it was unexpected treasure.

I've completely tipped my hand at this point, but I absolutely loved Buyer First by Carole Mahoney and I think every sales professional and C-level executive can benefit from reading it and applying it. I assure you it will make you a better salesperson, executive and human being. I give it my highest recommendation. Two big thumbs up!

You can find Buyer First: Grow Your Business with Collaborative Selling by Carole Mahoney on AMAZON.

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Until next time!

James

Get my latest bestselling book Unsticking Deals: Why Deals Stall, How to Unstick Them and How to Prevent Them from Sticking in the First Place on AMAZON.