The Unfair Advantage is a "workshop-in-a-workbook." It contains practical ideas and exercises for applying NLP (neurolinguistic programming) to sales and marketing. It includes "how-to" ideas for selling face-to-face, telemarketing, direct mail, and other real-world situations. Included are examples of scripts and techniques that have produced proven sales increases in direct sales and in telemarketing. It is a theory-free collection of techniques based on a workshop that has been presented to CEOs and sales professionals in over 500 companies in North America and England.
People who suggest this book isn't entirely accurate (which it isn't) are missing the point. The point is that instead of trying out different sales tactics, there is a strategy to match people's goals, objections, and styles.
When said like this, it appears obvious. However, most of us (including most sales people) find themselves ignoring this advice in pursuit of the 'best sales deck' or 'most effective pitch.'
The message: there's 'no perfect pitch' or 'deck'; you have to match your audience and respond in language they can understand.
Why this book is so useful is that it gives you actionable frameworks for matching the audience. Each framework may be a bit too vague and I'm not even sure I agree with the 'VAK' coding that the author proposes...however, giving clear examples and exercises provides you with training wheels for you to come up with your own framework if you can.
It'sa quite technical book about communication, very practical, it has lots of exercises, great learning tool on how to communicate in a way that delivers the right message to the subconscious of listeners. It may be geeky for some, others may find it lacks depth, meaning there is not enough given context, why and when would this work, what's the mindset behind the techniques, when it is ethically to use them and when it's not.
It is a very well structured book. I found a lot of useful tactics on improving communication and getting better results. I guess, the only small concern is that it will be if the reader has some NLP experience for better understanding.
A perfect introduction to Neuro -Linguistic Programming for the non-Practitioner. Delivers practical ways to unleash the power of emotional language. Complete w exercises.