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Heavy Hitter Sales Wisdom: Proven Sales Warfare Strategies, Secrets of Persuasion, and Common-Sense Tips for Success
Praise for Heavy Hitter Sales Wisdom "Steve Martin takes a much-needed look at how successful executives read verbal and nonverbal messages, which allows them to quickly understand the subtext of their customers' minds. The best part is that the author shares effective strategies that put more fun into selling and more money into salespeople's pockets."
―Gerhard Gschwandtner Founder and Publisher, Selling Power magazine "Steve Martin's interesting examination of great leaders in history and the parallels he draws between waging a war and waging a sales campaign should be required reading for enterprise salespeople."
―Jay Fulcher, Chief Executive Officer, Agile Software "This powerful book provides real-world strategies you can use to increase sales immediately!"
―Brian Tracy, President, Brian Tracy International, author, Getting Rich Your Own Way "Heavy Hitter Sales Wisdom goes beyond the traditional description of sales cycles to the heart of selling. It's about the emotional connection with the customer, but also the attack and destruction of the competition."
―Olivier Helleboid, Vice President, Software Operations, Hewlett-Packard "Heavy Hitter Sales Wisdom provides field sales generals and sales soldiers with tons of strategy, persuasion techniques, and common-sense approaches to winning the hearts and minds of prospects. This book will add new weapons to your arsenal."
―Tim Kelliher, Senior Vice President, Sales, DHL Global Mail
―Gerhard Gschwandtner Founder and Publisher, Selling Power magazine "Steve Martin's interesting examination of great leaders in history and the parallels he draws between waging a war and waging a sales campaign should be required reading for enterprise salespeople."
―Jay Fulcher, Chief Executive Officer, Agile Software "This powerful book provides real-world strategies you can use to increase sales immediately!"
―Brian Tracy, President, Brian Tracy International, author, Getting Rich Your Own Way "Heavy Hitter Sales Wisdom goes beyond the traditional description of sales cycles to the heart of selling. It's about the emotional connection with the customer, but also the attack and destruction of the competition."
―Olivier Helleboid, Vice President, Software Operations, Hewlett-Packard "Heavy Hitter Sales Wisdom provides field sales generals and sales soldiers with tons of strategy, persuasion techniques, and common-sense approaches to winning the hearts and minds of prospects. This book will add new weapons to your arsenal."
―Tim Kelliher, Senior Vice President, Sales, DHL Global Mail
272 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 13, 2019
Steve Martin embodies many of the traits that I despise about the sales profession.
Disclosure: I only read this book as it was recommended to me as the basis for my companies sales philosophy. Needless to say, I am terrified.
This book, with misguided tips such as keep annoying a customer until they buy, get an anti-sponsor removed from the purchasing committee or fired by discrediting his opinion, and introduce unnecessary steps in the purchasing process in order to keep your competition busy, is an absolute mess. The writing is choppy, starting points only to randomly drop them to say something completely unrelated. The entire premise that salespeople are war, while does highlight a typically ignored need for strategy, creates a subconscious picture that undermines the entire reason salespeople exist. No, it is not to manipulate the customer or to focus on destroying the competition. It’s to work *with* the customer, and highlight how (if) your products fit in the solution image the customer has.
Yes, there are some good nuggets of information in this book. Emphasis on strategy, the realization that customer perception is the most important thing, avoidance of dog and pony shows, and focusing on the non-feature related reasons to buy. But they are clouded by so much negativity and sleezy sales tactics that any good you could pull from the book is outweighed by the unfortunate, and probably dangerous, tactics and strategies that make up the bulk of the “wisdom”.
The arrogance of this man is beyond me. He even goes as far as a section of “6 comments you should never say to your spouse in sales”, which includes chastising your spouse for offering advice, even if it was asked for. “We are only seeking your empathy to our plight and reminding you how hard it is being in sales. Maybe deep down we also want you to be a little scared...[so you might] think twice before spend[ing] money on things we don’t need right now.”
Even better. Don’t say knock em dead tiger! “We don’t want to hear a superficial rah-rah speech as if we were eight-year-olds at a little league game. We are in the fight of our lives everyday...”
Jesus Steve. You’re a mess, and while I’m sure you were successful, it saddens me that you used that success to preach you’re outdated opinions of sales.
Then again, if you want to miss the entire point of sales, this book may be for you.
Disclosure: I only read this book as it was recommended to me as the basis for my companies sales philosophy. Needless to say, I am terrified.
This book, with misguided tips such as keep annoying a customer until they buy, get an anti-sponsor removed from the purchasing committee or fired by discrediting his opinion, and introduce unnecessary steps in the purchasing process in order to keep your competition busy, is an absolute mess. The writing is choppy, starting points only to randomly drop them to say something completely unrelated. The entire premise that salespeople are war, while does highlight a typically ignored need for strategy, creates a subconscious picture that undermines the entire reason salespeople exist. No, it is not to manipulate the customer or to focus on destroying the competition. It’s to work *with* the customer, and highlight how (if) your products fit in the solution image the customer has.
Yes, there are some good nuggets of information in this book. Emphasis on strategy, the realization that customer perception is the most important thing, avoidance of dog and pony shows, and focusing on the non-feature related reasons to buy. But they are clouded by so much negativity and sleezy sales tactics that any good you could pull from the book is outweighed by the unfortunate, and probably dangerous, tactics and strategies that make up the bulk of the “wisdom”.
The arrogance of this man is beyond me. He even goes as far as a section of “6 comments you should never say to your spouse in sales”, which includes chastising your spouse for offering advice, even if it was asked for. “We are only seeking your empathy to our plight and reminding you how hard it is being in sales. Maybe deep down we also want you to be a little scared...[so you might] think twice before spend[ing] money on things we don’t need right now.”
Even better. Don’t say knock em dead tiger! “We don’t want to hear a superficial rah-rah speech as if we were eight-year-olds at a little league game. We are in the fight of our lives everyday...”
Jesus Steve. You’re a mess, and while I’m sure you were successful, it saddens me that you used that success to preach you’re outdated opinions of sales.
Then again, if you want to miss the entire point of sales, this book may be for you.
Displaying 1 of 1 review