Discover Your Sales Strengths: How the World's Greatest Salespeople Develop Winning Careers [Abridged, Audiobook] [Audio CD]

Benson Smith (Author), Tony Rutigliano (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2003

Based on 40 years of research by the Gallup Organization, this innovative program focuses on utilizing individual strengths to develop successful sales skills. DISCOVER YOUR SALES STRENGTHS is an amazing program built upon the concept that every person already has all the tools necessary to become an amazing salesperson.Grounded in extensive Gallup researchbased on hundreds of thousands of interviews with sales managers, salespeople, and consumers, the program teaches individuals to focus on personal strengths and talents, and then guides them to transform those assets into solid sales skills-and powerful, successful careers.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Unlike many how-to-sell books written by motivational gurus and successful salespeople, Smith and Rutigliano's work is backed up by facts and figures gleaned from 40 years of Gallup research. The authors, both Gallup consultants, dissect stereotypes and debunk popular "myths" about selling to determine that there is no one formula for success, and that training, knowledge and experience cannot make a great salesperson. Instead, they find, great salesmanship stems from exploiting individual talents. Top salespeople succeed by figuring out what they do best and then finding a way and a place to do it. With that argument established, Smith and Rutigliano take an interactive approach to help readers find their own "Signature Themes," directing readers to www.strengthsfinder.com (for which they'll need an "ID code" from a Gallup publication) to gauge whether they fit their current situation by taking a quiz based on a 12-step "hierarchy of employee engagement." Since the authors contend that good managers help sales stars shine, they analyze what makes a good sales manager and relay advice from those they deem "the world's best." This inventive book should help people with a knack for sales achieve better results.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

Based on years of research by the Gallup Organization, this innovative program focuses on utilizing individual strengths to develop successful sales skills. --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Hachette Audio; Abridged edition (February 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 158621456X
• ISBN-13: 978-1586214562
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.8 x 5.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,484,417 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best book I have ever read on Sales, June 15, 2003

By 

Eileen Woods (Alpharetta, GA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Discover Your Sales Strengths: How the World's Greatest Salespeople Develop Winning Careers (Hardcover)

Bar none, this is the best book you will ever read about the art of selling. Moreover, this book will change the way you think about hiring, training, managing and motivating anyone who is responsible for bringing new customers to your organization and keeping those customers engaged.

See of you can answer this question from the book correctly:
What do the top sales and marketing professionals have in common?
a. Experience and background
b. Education and training
c. Great presentation skills
d. Aggressive closers
e. None of the above

If you guessed "e", you are correct. According Gallup's extensive research spanning 30 years and interviews with 250,000 sales people, over 1 million customers and 25,000 sales managers, this is what the top sales people have in common:
* They were in the type of sales job where they were able to use their top talents every day
* They developed their own unique selling style based on their top talents
* They had a productive relationship with their manager.

Since the top 25 % of the sales force accounts for 57% of the sales revenue in most organizations, the more sales people get to use their top talents, the more likely they are to build a sustainable and profitable customer base.

So, how do you discover your individual strengths and talents? One of the unique features of this book is that you go to an Internet site and take an assessment that will immediately tell you what your top five strengths are. What I found intriguing is that these strengths are much more practical than the strengths I have seen in any other kind of assessment instruments. You can then use the book to determine how to put these strengths to work for you so they become true talents. (By focusing on these strengths I have increased my own productivity by 100%!!)

The other thing I really liked about this book is the easy to read format and the fact that the author includes great real world stories and examples of how top sales people used their talents to excel in their job. The author, Benson Smith, who started his career as a successful salesperson with a Fortune 500 medical device company and eventually became the CEO, writes in clear business language and does not spend a lot of time espousing complicated theories. If anything, the book is too short and leaves you wanting more.

The book also talks about the key role that managers play in insuring the success of the sales effort. The chapter on management should be required reading for anyone who is a manager or thinks they want to become one. (You will also find this chapter extremely helpful if your current manager is less than ideal.)

I have spent over 20 years in the medical and pharmaceutical industry in sales, management, marketing and training. Over the last 9 years, I have had a successful business focused on performance development consulting and training. This book has inspired me to rethink my approach. I hope it will do the same for others in my profession. Most organizations tie training to "improvement opportunities." Gallup's research has found that training will be far more productive if you focus on strengths and how to build them into true talents.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Understand Your Sales Career - Know which job to pursue, March 2, 2003

By 

Matthew Gethins (Atlanta GA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Discover Your Sales Strengths: How the World's Greatest Salespeople Develop Winning Careers (Hardcover)

I will first tell you that I have read thousands of books over the course of my life, many were books on business and sales. This is the first time that I have ever felt compelled to write a review. Also this is the first time I ever read a business book and then felt disappointed when the book was over, I would normally feel that way at the end of a particularly good novel.
I'll just have to go and buy all the other books in the series.

The information imparted by "Discovering Your Sales Strengths" has had a profound impact on me. Undoubtedly many salespeople that read the book will suddenly understand their own career a whole lot better. And hopefully this will be the beginning of the end of unenlightened and just plain dumb sales management.

This book has also greatly improved my overall confidence. I will probably be changing jobs later this year and I'll actually really know what kinds of jobs to aggressively pursue.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Strengths & Sales = Gallup Delivers, March 11, 2003

By 

Joseph Valentine Dworak (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Discover Your Sales Strengths: How the World's Greatest Salespeople Develop Winning Careers (Hardcover)

Once again the Gallup organization, specifically Benson Smith and Tony Ruttigliano, deliver a good usable book to help improve your career based on strengths. This book begins with Gallup's common message, based on research, that if you focus on what you are good at; you will get better at it. This book continues on showing you what makes up a these strengths, based on a combination of talents which cluster together and come out as things like Competition, Empathy, and Command. This book will allow you to focus more on how you are wired, and what you have, than what you do not, and will never have.

Most importantly this book gives you access to your 'Top Five' strengths, or patterns for success. These strengths, ranging from Harmony to Woo, will show you how you alone are as unique as 1 in 30 million people. The book could have been 5 stars if Gallup would have provided more patterns of strength and how they work in sales careers, they only give you a few morsels from their vault of knowledge and what patterns and combinations of strengths work in sales. They do let you in on the fact that Competition, Command and Empathy were themes commonly found in successful sales-agents.

Overall this book is an A-, another great work from Gallup based on research, not just theory.

Joseph Dworak