WHAT’S HOLDING YOUR SALES BACK?

A straightforward, back-to-basics sales guide for the 21st century.

Debut authors Farkas and Atlas open their comprehensive new book by acknowledging that salespeople have faced an alarmingly new world in recent years. Professional sales managers and their field representatives now must deal with a potential customer base that has an “I'll just Google it” mindset, the authors say—also known as an “I want it now and for free or next to nothing” mentality. But although this attitude is ubiquitous, Farkas and Atlas aim to remind readers that sales principles are also everywhere: “the untrained engineer who discusses something as mundane as value engineering with her client may not be aware that she is deeply immersed in the sales process,” they write. “Well, she is!” With this in mind, they attempt to boil down the sales process to a few simple, core concepts. For example, they embrace the “80/20” rule of sorting one’s priorities—“the law of the vital few and the trivial many.” This method urges salespeople to be vigilant about any part of the sales process that wastes their most valuable product: time. They also concentrate on “TWA”—thoughts, words, and actions—and repeatedly stress that these three things, unlike other variables, are entirely under the salesperson’s control. The authors have decades of experience in business and in coaching sales teams, and this lends an ease and authority to their writing—both rare qualities in books of this type. There’s a dense wealth of material in this book, but Farkas and Atlas consistently take the time to make sure that their readers are absorbing it all (“Let’s go through the process of arriving at your answer together”), which enhances the work’s strong mentoring feel. This tone will make sales professionals at all levels feel less alone as they confront the “chemistry or catastrophe” of their calling.

A tough, knowledgeable instruction manual that gets at the essentials of modern sales.