Smart, on target, and born of experience, this strong volume should be highly instructive for the novice and reassuring to...
A debut book characterizes the art of selling as building relationships.
Any volume about the sales profession has a hard enough time being noticed, much less rising above the pack. There are countless books on the topic, some classics, that preach selling philosophies, encourage the use of sales systems, and proffer countless tips. So it’s valid to question whether yet another title has anything new to add. This volume by a professional sales coach doesn’t necessarily deliver something brand new; still, it packages advice in an easy-to-read manner with a nice balance of the conceptual and the concrete. The overarching theme—building relationships with prospects and customers—may seem obvious to the more experienced consultative salesperson, but it is skillfully driven home in chapter after chapter. The author sets the stage by describing modern-day prospects who, because of the vast availability of information, “may have a better idea of the product they require.” He suggests this is a key reason salespeople must act as consultants who lead potential customers to buy rather than imposing their wills. The secret sauce of selling is simple to state but hard to deliver: “Confidence, trust, belief, and transparency are the difference,” Knowles writes. The book then delves into two areas of critical importance: self-development and skills development. Knowles addresses such personal attributes as attitude, positive thinking, and enthusiasm as well as skills, including professionalism and time management. He is at his strongest when discussing relationship-building: how to become an active listener, how to read and use body language, and, perhaps most important, how to ask great questions. Knowles provides specific examples of “goal-oriented questioning,” a technique that “reveals key hot buttons you can use later in your presentation to” prospects. His counsel on handling objections and closing techniques is sensible and wise. His explanation of the “four pillars of selling” is also useful; balanced correctly, they can potentially lead to higher success in selling.
Smart, on target, and born of experience, this strong volume should be highly instructive for the novice and reassuring to the accomplished salesperson.Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4922-2791-5
Page Count: 160
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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