Achieve Sales Excellence: The 7 Customer Rules for Becoming the New Sales Professional [Hardcover]

Howard Stevens (Author), Theodore Kinni (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 29, 2006

"Achieve Sales Supremacy" examines the new paradigm of business-to-business sales, and outlines the seven practices sales professionals and organisations must embrace to have a world class sales force. Based on exhaustive research, "Achieve Sales Supremacy", is the result of a ten-year study by The HR Chally Group, several Fortune 500 companies and The International Benchmarking Clearing house which asked business customers, the key constituent group of professional sales people, to define the qualities of world class sales organisations. Their ratings were confirmed and bolstered by over 70,000 individual interviews and correlated against HR Chally's proprietary database of 300,000 sales professional profiles, the largest in the world. "Achieve Sales Supremacy" pinpoints the three needs of customers, which are the driving forces in the new environment, the seller's responses to this new marketplace and 7 best practice benchmarks of world class sales organisations and salespeople.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Howard Stevens is the Chairman and CEO of the HR Chally Group, the top sales performance consulting corporation in the country. He is the author of The Quadrant Solution and is a frequent speaker and expert source on radio and television. Mr Stevens World Class Bench Program has been presented over 500 times across 30 countries for corporations, trade associations, government agencies and universities.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Platinum Press (November 29, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1593376510
• ISBN-13: 978-1593376512
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #247,667 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A guide to what business-to-business customers want from salespeople, September 24, 2007

By 

Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Achieve Sales Excellence: The 7 Customer Rules for Becoming the New Sales Professional (Hardcover)

Amazon.com lists nearly half a million books about sales. You get the impression that everyone who ever made a cold call or a sales presentation has written a book about his or her experience. Sales books are often anecdotal, with little or no relevance to the difficult challenges that salespeople actually face. Some present a grab bag of supposedly "can't-lose" sales techniques that sound great on paper but always seem to fall flat during sales calls. Others present compilations of moldy maxims, such as "work smarter, not harder," and "never take `no' for an answer," that make experienced salespeople want to jump off the nearest cliff. This thoughtful and intelligent book by Howard Stevens and Theodore Kinni is a welcome exception. Instead of irrelevant anecdotes or inane aphorisms, it features the results of in-depth surveys of 80,000 business-to-business customers concerning their attitudes about salespeople. It offers an insightful analysis of this singularly informative data, along with recommendations on what salespeople can do to improve their status with customers - and thus increase their own sales. When it comes to the business-to-business salesperson, we cannot recommend this book more highly. Read it to learn precisely what business-to-business customers expect from you, and how you can use this invaluable insider knowledge to close more sales. You'll become the consummate sales professional in both your customers' eyes and your own.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars New Paradigm of Sales from Years of Research, January 31, 2007

By 

C. E. MILLER (Dayton, OH) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Achieve Sales Excellence: The 7 Customer Rules for Becoming the New Sales Professional (Hardcover)

I'm happy if a business book gives me one or two good ideas for the whole book - this one has several. In addition, they are not just opinions but based on years of research. The ideas come from 14 years of research and over 80,000 interviews with business to business customers. The insights in this book will tell you what factors lead to B2B buying decisions. And these insights are scientifically proven. This book is not just the new big thing, but a new paradigm which leads the path to building a World Class Sales Organization. It is also written really well. In short, this book outlines the future of sales, and is valuable reading for sales managers, C level business strategists, sales people, and even academicians.

Corey E. Miller, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Wright State University

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's all about the customer, February 12, 2007

By 

Gerhard Gschwandtner "Founder and Publisher, ... (Fredericksburg, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Achieve Sales Excellence: The 7 Customer Rules for Becoming the New Sales Professional (Hardcover)

Howard Stevens has clearly shifted the focus from the trite "I have been successful in selling and so can you" approach to "It's all about the customer". The power of this book comes from the in-depth research H.R.Chally has conducted on the customers of B2B companies. This book contains the best roadmap that sales leaders can use to create a customer focused, world class sales organization.