Some Books You May Want To Take A Look At
Stephen B. Castleberry, Ph.D.
1. SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham, McGraw Hill. Used by hundreds
of firms to train salespeople. Based on research of over 35,000
sales calls over 12 years. Excellent. Needs identification is
claimed most important for success. See what it says about closing.
2. Getting Partnering Right: How Market Leaders Are Creating Long-Term Competitive Advantage by Neil Rackham, Lawrence Friedman, Richard Ruff, McGraw Hill. Excellent how-to book on developing strategic partnering relationships with key important customers.
3. Major Account Sales Strategy by Neil Rackham, McGraw Hill. Sophisticated strategies for dealing with key accounts.
4. Rethinking the Sales Force: Redefining Selling to Create and Capture Customer Value, by Neil Rackham and John R. DeVincentis, McGraw-Hill. Thought-provoking discussion on how to restructure sales forces for maximum profits.
5. Selling: Building Partnerships, 6th edition by Bart Weitz, Stephen B. Castleberry, and John F. Tanner, McGraw-Hill. Textbook on selling. A shameless attempt to sell my selling textbook! Sad!
6. Strategic Selling: The Unique Sales System Proven Successful by America's Best Companies by Robert B. Miller and Stephen E. Heiman, Morrow Books. A classic on how to sell strategically.
7. The SPIN Selling Fieldbook: Practical Tools, Methods, Exercises, and Resources by Neil Rackham, McGraw-Hill. More insights on how to use SPIN to discover customer needs.
8. Stop Selling: Start Partnering by Larry Wilson. Ways to think about and keep customers.
9. How to Sell with a Laptop by Andy Jenkins, Dick Elder, and Dave Thomas, McGraw-Hill. The title says it all.
10. Consultative Selling by Mack Hanan, AMACOM. Another classic on how to establish a consultative position with your buyers, how to quantify your solution and how to develop partnerable objectives and strategies.
11. Win-Win Negotiating by Paul Gillette and Fred Edmund Jandt. A classic book on how to negotiate anything. Full of examples and case studies.
12. Nonverbal Communication: The Upspoken Dialogue by Judee K. Burgoon, David B. Buller, and W. Gill Woodall, Boston: McGraw Hill.
13. Business Communication: Building Critical Skills by Kitty O. Locker, and Stephen Kyo Kaczmarek, McGraw Hill Irwin.
14. Know Your Customer: New Approaches to Understanding Customer Value and Satisfaction by Robert B. Woodruff and Sarah Fisher Gardial, Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, Inc. A good book on understanding and increasing customer value.
15. Beyond Selling Value: A Proven Process to Avoid the Vendor Trap by Mark Shonka and Dan Kosch, Chicago: Dearborn Trade Pub.
16. Selling to VITO: The Very Important Top Officer by Anthony Parinello, Holbrook, Mass: Adams Media.
17. Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing by Harry Beckwith, Warner Books. Book argues that customers today want relationships, not product features.
18. The Loyalty Effect: The Hidden Force Behind Growth, Profits, and Lasting Value by Frederick F. Reichheld and Thomas Teal, Harvard Business School Press. Recommends loyalty-based management, with an emphasis on developing strategies for attracting those (customers, employees, and investors) that are most likely to stay loyal over the long-term. See also Loyalty Rules! How Leaders Build Lasting Relationships by Fredrick F. Reichheld Harvard Business School Press.
19. Customer Experience Management: A Revolutionary Approach to Connecting with Your Customers by Bernd H. Schmitt, John Wiley & Sons. Book describes a five-step process for managing customer experiences, a tool for connecting with customers at every point.
20. Secrets of Question Based Selling: How the Most Powerful Tool in Business Can Double Your Sales Results by Thomas A. Freese, Sourcebooks Trade. How to ask questions effectively.
21.High Trust Selling: Making More Money -- In Less Time -- With Less Stress by Todd Duncan, Thomas Nelson Publishers. Discusses such issues as attitudes, aptitudes, and abilities required for successful selling as well as communication, courtship, camaraderie and commitments between a seller and his or her customers.
22. Winning Moves by Ken Delmar. An old book, but helpful. Talks about the body language of selling.
23. Attitude 101: What Every Leader Needs to Know by John C. Maxwell. A great, easy little read that reminds salespeople that having the proper attitude is critical.
24. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. A classic on how to develop relationships. Here's a link of a summary of that book: http://www.westegg.com/unmaintained/carnegie/win-friends.html
25. Dimensional Selling, by Victor R. Buzzotta and Robert E. Lefton, McGraw Hill Books. "The salesperson who has total focus on the customer -- who sells to each customer differently -- will have the competitive edge." This book tells you how to do that.
26. The Mind of the Customer, by Richard Hodge and Lou Schachter, McGraw Hill. Tells how to "accelerate the rate at which salepeople's customers realize tangible business results," and thus achieve greater business.
27. The Sales Success Handbook: 20 Lessons to Open and Close Sales Now, by Linda Richardson, McGraw Hill. Says that selling features/benefits isn't enough. You need to add value.
28. No Lie: Truth is the Ultimate Sales Tool, by Barry Maher, McGraw Hill. Tell both pros and cons of your product.
29. Secrets of Top Performing Salespeople, By DelGaizo, Lunford and Marone. Title says it all.
1 The Book of No: 250 Ways to Say It and Mean It, by Susan Newman, McGraw-Hill. Some folks need to read this book to stop feeling guilty about saying "no."
1. The Handbook of Online Marketing Research: Knowing Your Customer Using the Net by Joshua Grossnickle and Oliver Raskin, McGraw-Hill. Everything you need to know to do research on the web.
2. The Focus Group Research Handbook by Holly Edmunds, McGraw-Hill/Contemporary Books. How to book on planning and conducting a focus group.
3. Mail and Internet Surveys: The Tailored Design Method by Don A. Dillman, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. How to plan and conduct survey research.
4. The Market Research Toolbox: A Concise Guide for Beginners by Edward F. McQuarrie, Sage Publications. Title says it all.
5. Marketing Research That Won't Break the Bank: A Practical Guide to Getting the Information You Need, 2nd Edition by Alan R. Andreasen, Jossey-Bass. A complete how-to book.
6. Qualitative Market Research: A Comprehensive Guide by Hy Mariampolski, Sage Publications. This 328 page book tells you about everything you would need to know to conduct focus groups, depth interviews, etc.
7. Focus Groups: A Practical Guide For Applied Research, 3rd edition by Richard A. Krueger and Mary Anne Casey, Sage Publications. Another great source.
1. The Moral Dimensions of Marketing: Essays on Business Ethics, by D. Kirk Davidson, American Marketing Association. Includes essays on most marketing ethics topics.
2. Trust Us, We're Experts by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, Putnam Press. Reveals the dark side of the public relations industry.
3. Coercion, Why We Listen to What "They" Say by Douglas Rushkoff, Riverhead Books. Reveals and discusses how we are manipulated by marketers.
4. Marketing Ethics by Bodo Schlegelmiclch, Thomson Learning. Looks at all aspects of marketing ethics from an international perspective.
5. Power Failure: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Enron by Mimi Swartz with Sherron Watkins, Doubleday. A fascinating look at how a well-respected firm operated day-to-day.
6. The Number: How the Drive for Quarterly Earnings Corrupted Wall Street and Corporate America, by Alex Berenson, Random House. Shows that reported eps are often lies.
7. Final Accounting: Ambition, Greed, and the Fall of Arthur Andersen by Barbara Ley Toffler with Jennifer Reingold, Broadway Books. The title says it all.
8. One Market Under God: Extreme Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of Economic Democracy Anchor Books. Proclaims that free-markets are not where we want to go.
9. Best Business Crime Writing of the Year edited by James Surowiecki, Anchor Books. A compilation of business crimes. Hopefully this won't become an annual edition series.
10. How Companies Lie: Why Enron is Just the Tip of the Iceberg by A. Larry Elliott and Richard J. Schroth, Crown Business Books. Shows "how to think about and measure the candor of corporations."
11. Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption Are Undermining America by Arianna Huffington, Crown Books. A great book to read.
12. Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire by Michzel T. Kaufman. Theme is that happiness doesn't come from amassing millions (or make that billions) but in giving it away and making a difference in the world.
13. World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability by Amy Chua, Anchor Books. If you want to read explicit, often bloody details about how much the world hates us then you might think this is a fun book to read. The author suggests that free markets concentrate "starkly disproportionate wealth in the heands of a resented ethnic minority . . . and these minorities become objects of violent hatred." At the same time, the new-found democracy in these countries gives the repressed people power to express themselves. In terms of business ethics, the book helps explain why many people in developing nations don't really care for multi-national corporations.
14. The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us, and What to Do About It by Marcia Angell, Random House, Incorporated. Dr. Angell was the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine for two decades and gives us her inside view of the corruption of the pharmaceutical industry.
15. The Integrity Advantage by Adrian Gostick and Dana Telford. A great little book with chapter titles like: honesty but modest, little things count, act like you're being watched, you mess up/you fess up, and keep your word.
16. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, by Eric Schlosser, Houghton Mifflin Company. Want to know what goes in your fast food? I doubt it. But here you go. Want to know how often are USDA inspectors at plants to inspect the food you eat? I doubt it. But here you go. You get the idea. A great read if you're not in the know about this kind of thing. It's a dangerous world out there. For example, is it true that if the beef isn't good enough to sell at a fast food restaurant, then they sell it to the school lunch programs, and if it's not good enough for that, then they sell it to your supermarket? Really? By the way, a good fast food place is In-N-Out (in California and Nevada) -- wholesome food, pay their workers well, and all this for just a few pennies more a sandwich.
1. What Color Is Your Parachute?, by Richard Nelson Bolles. Ten Speed Press. An excellent practical manual for job hunters and career changers. It covers aptitudes, the secrets of successful job hunting, rejection shock, a resource list of books, where the best jobs are, etc.
2. The Five Minute Interview, by Richard H. Beatty John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Discusses types of interviews, interview techniques, advance preparation, hundreds of common interview questions, interview strategy, and questions you'll need to ask.
3. Never Work For a Jerk by Patricia King, Dell Books. A very interesting book that describes many types of bosses that you could possibly work for. The chapter titles give a good clue to the book's content: Ignoramuses and Incompetents; Devils, Scoundrels, Liars, Thieves, and Snakes in the Grass; Slave Drivers, Bullies, Tyrants, and Dictators; Cheapskates; etc. Reading the book my help you avoid working for such a boss!
4. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen R. Covey, Free Press. Only about 10 million copies of this book have been sold. Helps you determine what your life's mission is and then how to achieve it. Great read!