The Giants of Sales: What Dale Carnegie, John Patterson, Elmer Wheeler, And Joe Girard Can Teach You About Real Sales Success

by Tom Sant

Sales theories come and sales theories go, but nothing beats learning from the original masters. The Giants of Sales introduces readers to the techniques developed by four legendary sales giants, and offers concrete examples of how they still work in the 21st century. The book reveals In his quest to sell a brand new product known as the cash register, John Henry Patterson came up with a repeatable sales process tailor-made for his own sales force* Dale Carnegie taught people how to win friends and influence customers with powerful methods that still work* Joe Girard, listed by Guinness as the world’s greatest salesman, didn’t just sell cars, he sold relationships…and developed a successful referral business* Elmer Wheeler discovered fundamental truths about persuasion by testing thousands of sales pitches on millions of people, and achieved great success in the middle of the Great DepressionPart history and part how-to, The Giants of Sales gives readers practical, real-world techniques based on the time-tested wisdom of true sales masters.

Genres: Business

228 pages, Hardcover

First published March 27, 2006

About the author

TOM SANT is a renowned proposal consultant, whose clients range from small entrepreneurial operations to Global 500 companies, including General Electric, Microsoft, Lucent, and Accenture. He is the creator of the world’s most widely used proposal automation systems, ProposalMaster and RFPMaster.

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sant enables those who read his book to stand on the shoulders of four "giants" in salesmanship: John Henry Patterson, Dale Carnegie, Elmer Wheeler, and Joe Girard. Each thought of success in terms of a pyramid that has a broad base of participation and (yes) opportunity at the point of entry but a severely limited area at the summit. In fact, the favorite greeting of Zig Ziglar, another giant of sales, is "See you at the top!"(In fact, he likes the expression so much that he used it as a new title for one of his books, Biscuits, Fleas, and Pump Handles.) Sant examines the career of each of the four men, then explains what he thinks can be learned from their quite different approaches to sales...and to life. For example, Sant credits Patterson (1867-1947) with being the first -- or at least among the first -- to institutionalize the process of selling as a standardized system. As a result, by all of them following his brother Crane's four step process, CEO Patterson and his sales force enabled their company, National Cash Register, to continue to growth profitably throughout the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Sant characterizes Carnegie (1888-1955) as "the apostle of influence" because Carnegie's original "six ways to make people like you" continue to guide and inform sales planning and initiatives more than 50 years after his death. According to Sant, Elmer Wheeler claimed there were no magic words but understood "the magic of words" which he formulated in his original five "Wheelerpoints" (e.g. "Don't sell the steak, sell the sizzle!"). As for Joe Girard (1928-present), he used various strategies and tactics for "priming the pump" to become (according to the Guinness Book of World Records) "the world's greatest salesman. Sant devotes considerable attention to how Girard developed his "Law of 250" (i.e. "Most people have about 250 other people in their lives who are important enough to invite to a wedding or to a funeral") which serves as the basis of his continuous cultivation of past, current, and prospective customers.

[Rohit Yadav · Rating 5 out of 5]

The key ideas:
Pattinson : Process oriented selling
Carnegie : Relationship oriented selling
Joe Girard : Nurturing relationships
Elmer wheeler : Using language effectively

Starting with an outline of an area you want to learn gives you great advantage e.g. sales

Most of things we take for granted & seem simple were innovated by someone e.g. selling, management, advertisement, public relations, finance

As time passes, many people constantly improved & collaborate to make the innovation even more useful

People are resistance to new ideas, way of doing things especially when they are comfortable to doing certain way e.g. telephone, cash registers

Develop good system

Listen & make the other person feel important

Use the right words

Keeping a relationship alive

[Leader Summaries · Rating 5 out of 5]

Desde Leader Summaries recomendamos la lectura del libro Los gigantes de las ventas, de Tom Sant.
Las personas interesadas en las siguientes temáticas lo encontrarán práctico y útil: marketing y ventas, las mejores técnicas de ventas, resúmenes de muestra.
En el siguiente enlace tienes el resumen del libro Los gigantes de las ventas, Enseñanzas de los pioneros de la venta profesional: Los gigantes de las ventas

[Wiley Fox · Rating 2 out of 5]

More of a historical read than anything. I found this book to be rather dull in the sense of any kind of plot, but at the same time, informative for an entrepreneurial mind.