Books and training that have influenced me.
Last week, I completed a couple of separate articles on the people who have impacted my development, both those that I reported to and an article on those that I've worked with over the years. In both cases, I stopped in the mid-2000s as I'd like to leave the more recent influences and interactions for a future discussion.
This week, I'm turning to the Books, training, and just general events that have impacted my career and the way I see things from a Sales Management perspective. I'll start with training and I'll try to keep these influences listed chronologically, tieing roughly to the point in which I first interacted with them.
I was fortunate to start my career at a company that believed in investing in training for their employees, I was even more fortunate that despite the fact that our company's "Data Products" team (yes, I'm that old!) was split between the "Low End" Personal Computer related products and the higher end Digital Equipment Corporation products - normally the "PC Guys" didn't get to attend the DEC training classes. However, I was chosen to attend the DEC "BASE" training. Compaq acquired DEC and HP eventually acquired Compaq --- and somewhere in all these mergers and acquisitions this training material seems to have been lost to the ether - I can't even find too many references to it online - It's too bad because I still use some of the skills I learned in this class today.
The Acronym "BASE" stood for Build, Acknowledge, Support, and Expand. And it was essentially a 4 step sales process you worked through to bring a customer along in their buying process as follows:
'BASE' was the first formal Sales training program that I was exposed to and while I think the former SPI Solution Selling program is better, BASE was pretty good for an era where very few were focussed on solution selling as most were still in the features and Benefits hustle mode.
One thing that I learned over the years is that you can ALWAYS pick up new skills or beat back bad habits with a Sales training course. The next formal training that I remember was the Xerox PSS training. Xerox 'Professional Selling Skills' was a more structured approach than BASE, which relied heavily on Features, Advantages, and Benefits as an approach and almost a formulaic approach to sales. If X happens then you respond with Y. You should follow this step, then that step, then the next step. This was a little too structured for my more consultative style, BUT - what was really handled well in PSS was dealing with objections. PSS taught me that it's Almost Never about price, even when the customer says it is!, There's usually still a hidden objection that you haven't uncovered with your probing skills. Using this training made me better because I learned how to uncover what I refer to as the "Real Objections" - Most customers throw out objections in what I refer to as a "Piling On" mode where only 1 or 2 of the objections are real and everything else is secondary. Getting down to the real objection will help you sell better too!
I had several formal Sales Training programs that I went to following BASE and PSS, but I was in a long period where I didn't really feel any of the training programs brought anything new to the table: They were always valuable ... but the value the brought was more refresher time and shedding some bad habits that had accumulated over the couple of years since my last training class. The next class that made an impact and where I really saw a shift in my approach was the first time I took Parker's 'WinValue' sales class. I've spoken about this material in several prior posts, so I won't provide a lot of detail here, but this course was based on SPI's Solution Selling material and really made the link between what I was doing in my Sales Process and how it linked (or should at least) directly to where the customer was at in their buying stages --- This was a revelation, that improved my game once again. I liked this class so much that I eventually chose to lead it for several years of the Parker cATCh recruiting class - I had fun teaching this class each year and I hope that most of the cATCh class graduates did too!
领英推荐
Moving on to books that have influenced me, I'm going to provide a simple list with Amazon links. There's enough Reviews and Data out there on most of these that you don't need my input and feedback - follow the links, look at the reviews and consider if they include something you may want to learn about!:
The Three Laws of Performance: https://www.amazon.com/Three-Laws-Performance-Rewriting-Organization/dp/111804312X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=28F54DVN5IYHH&keywords=3+laws+of+performance&qid=1678135816&sprefix=3+Laws+o%2Caps%2C157&sr=8-1
The New Solution Selling: https://www.amazon.com/New-Solution-Selling-Revolutionary-Changing/dp/0071435395/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3AK6MMNIE3AVQ&keywords=The+new+Solution+Selling&qid=1678135875&sprefix=the+new+solution+selling%2Caps%2C151&sr=8-1
Spin Selling: https://www.amazon.com/SPIN-Selling-Neil-Rackham/dp/0070511136/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3N78RLTC31SHI&keywords=SPIN+Selling&qid=1678135925&sprefix=spin+selling%2Caps%2C161&sr=8-1
The Challenger Sale: https://www.amazon.com/Challenger-Sale-Control-Customer-Conversation/dp/1591844355/ref=sr_1_1?crid=PWDU3X70KVJM&keywords=The+Challenger+Sale&qid=1678135973&sprefix=the+challenger+sale%2Caps%2C170&sr=8-1
The Machine: https://www.amazon.com/Machine-Radical-Approach-Design-Function/dp/1096000555/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=GC55VOLHKV01&keywords=The+Machine&qid=1678136013&sprefix=the+machine%2Caps%2C168&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExR1JZVTk0N0dGWFhFJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwMTQ1NDIySDRJVUdQT1VBSDVZJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTA2MTY2NTcxS1lIVDA3SzJISDhSJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==
Of course, there were many other books that I read along the way, some of my own volition and others at the direction of the management that I worked for at the time. Much like my comments on the training, there's almost always something to take away from a book - but these are the ones that influenced me the most and that I can clearly recall having an impact that I could take action on! One particularly amusing assigned reading that I recall was in a period when management was trying to send a message of accountability to a Sales team, while I was still an individual contributor. They gave us all an assignment to read a book called "Invinceable Principles" by an Author name Vince Poscente - The advice in the book was solid enough, I'd summarize it as saying that you must go through life with a set of principles and always act with integrity - that the journey was more important than the result. The author tells a story about his incredible journey from being a recreational skier to attending the Olympics in only 4 years ... but, in the end, his result was coming in something like 15th place. Absolutely Incredible if you think about his enormous progress ... but not really the message to send when you are trying to drive accountability to achieve the revenue goals.
That's it for this article, I'd love to hear about your influences and recommended reading - Please share in the comments!