An enlightened, valuable, and humanistic view of sales management.
In this guide, a longtime manager proposes empathetic conversations as a prescription for sales team success.
With a background in the tech industry, Fanucci is particularly familiar with the intricacies of enterprise sales, which, by their very nature, demand a team of highly skilled sellers. Managing these individuals, writes the author, is “built on three principles: Trust…Transparency…Caring.” She believes these principles underlie “five categories of conversations” that “an enterprise sales manager must master to manage, retain, and support their team.” While the brutal world of sales may not seem like the logical place for preaching love, seasoned executive Fanucci believes that compassion is just what a sales team needs to flourish, especially in a hybrid work environment. Her philosophy, “that the bedrock of commitment, performance, and retention is human, not transactional,” resonates loud and clear throughout the book’s three well-conceived segments. Part 1 introduces the notion of having specific kinds of conversations with sellers; Part 2 shows how to implement each type of dialogue; and Part 3 offers a look at the skills generally needed to be an effective communicator. For each of the 17 conversation types in the five categories, Fanucci clearly and methodically lays out the purpose, intended outcomes, steps for implementation, and how to assess effectiveness. For every conversation, the author starts by helpfully contrasting the actions of the “Traditional Sales Manager” against the “Love Your Team Sales Manager.” She provides detailed counsel, using many examples from her own experience to illustrate the conversations. Some exchanges, such as “Getting To Know Your Team,” may seem obvious but can easily be overlooked by a business-focused sales manager. Others, particularly “Managing Underperformers,” will be among the most difficult to have. Fanucci’s advice is uniformly on target and especially poignant when she admits her own vulnerabilities. For example, the author observes that she has sometimes missed underperformance while, at other times, incorrectly assuming a team member was not performing at a high enough level to warrant a promotion. Whether conversations concern connection, performance, strategy, customer engagement, or internal alignment, Fanucci has worthwhile, battle-tested insights to share.
An enlightened, valuable, and humanistic view of sales management.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 9781544534015
Page Count: 254
Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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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
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