Soft Selling in a Hard World: Plain Talk on the Art of Persuasion

by Jerry Vass

An essential handbook for professionals and small business owners. This best-seller has become a standard resource for those people looking for guidance on the actual words to use in a persuasive presentation.

Genres: Business, Self Help, Nonfiction, Entrepreneurship

244 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1993

Reviews

[Andreas Aristidou]

This is an interesting read. Definitely a good read for salespeople, but I found it a bit dated and not very well targeted to me. It started off very promising when the author made the connections between traditional salespeople and that literally everyone is selling something (politicians, CEOs, romantic partners, parents, etc) but then the book became more and more focused on the salespeople's job and how to pass through the buyer's automatic defenses. It has some pretty interesting psychological insights and I have certainly taken some insights away from this book, but at times it was hard to convince myself to keep listening. Overall, while this book has value to provide to certain people, I don't think it's for everyone and could use a refreshing.

[Amanda]

This book was a recommended read by my brokerage, and as I'm a huge introvert and having a hard time with hard selling, I could really relate to this. If you are a fan of the principles of inbound marketing and nurturing before selling, you should definitely read this book.

[Mairenn Mancina]

Boss for a new job wanted me to read and take notes over this before starting so we could discuss it on my first day. Super quick read and very insightful. Obviously no ACOTAR but I appreciate it being under 200 pages lol.

[John]

Some books are meant to be read and others to be studied. I’ll be revisiting this book shortly. Great guideline.

[Polo]

A powerful, compact book about persuasion/selling in a way that is strong but inoffensive/respectful to the buyer/persuadee. Good for anyone in a business role/who has to convince others their product/solution/idea is the way to go. 3 for content, probably 4 if you do the followup work and can make the formulas habitual and apply them to daily persuasion.

[Art Flores]

Great book for thinking outside the box with ideas for sales.

[Nick Woodall]

Good little book on selling.