The Optimal Salesperson: Mastering the Mindset of Sales Superstars and Overachievers [Hardcover]

Dan Caramanico (Author), Marie Maguire (Author), Dave Kurlan (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2009

The Optimal Salesperson - Mastering the Mindset of Sales Superstars and Overachievers describes in detail the essential attributes of top performers in the sales profession. Even more importantly it identifies the hidden weaknesses which prevent talented people from reaching their full potential. If you are a sales professional who has studied all of the sales techniques and are frustrated with your progress you will not only discover what is holding you back but learn how to overcome those hidden obstacles to success. If you are a business owner or VP of sales and have spent tens of thousands of dollars on sales training with little return, this book will explain why the training didn't work and where you should expend your effort in the future. Dan Caramanico and Marie Maguire have provided something for everyone who is involved in sales

Editorial Reviews

Review

Dan and Marie have written the best material yet when it comes to really explaining how to overcome some of the nastiest, most powerful, most detrimental obstacles that salespeople face - their hidden weaknesses. --Dave Kurlan, president, Objective Management Group

The principles of The Optimal Salesperson quickly jump-started my early sales production and continue to help me remove personal limitations and accelerate my success in the commercial real estate industry. --Kirk K. Miller, top commercial real estate producer, Cushman & Wakefield

I searched for years for the key to sales success. Dan and Marie give a roadmap for reaching the top and they do it in an easy to read, no-nonsense format. --Bill Loftus, CEO Gestalt, Inc.

Dan and Marie capture the absolute science behind professional selling. If you are committed to reaching the top and achieving your goals, this book will change your life. It did mine. --Robert Cenci, Assistant VP, Sales Manager, Bank of America

Product Details

• Hardcover: 248 pages
• Publisher: LINX Corp (September 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0980211859
• ISBN-13: 978-0980211856
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,043,292 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I am a Sales Force Development Expert and have been engaged in helping companies grow their sales force for over 20 years. At Caramanico Maguire Associates we specialize in helping companies build a world class sales force. We help CEO's determine what is holding their company and people from achieving their goals. We then implement systems and processes to manage the team to extraordinary results. When the evaluation indicates that an investment is warranted, we coach the sales people and the managers to overcome their hidden weaknesses and develop the skills to become overachievers. We also help companies hire the right people through our revolutionary recruiting services.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy Cycle, March 24, 2010

By 

David A. Reber "Be a Hammer!!!" (Kansas City) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Optimal Salesperson: Mastering the Mindset of Sales Superstars and Overachievers (Hardcover)

I read this book from cover to cover twice, back to back. The booked is now pretty marked up with underlinings from my Sharpie pen and I have taken nine pages of notes in my Moleskine notebook from it.

There are five parts to the book and the authors do a great job at defining and then supporting with illustrations and examples. They define the Optimal Salesperson (I), discuss how they get motivated (II) and the tools they must possess (III), and then the meat and potatoes of the book for me was identifying hidden obstacles (IV) and how to apply them to specific parts of the selling process (V).

One of the many takeaways I gained from the book was that of identifying the hidden obstacle of a Sales Rep's buying cycle. A Sales Rep will find it hard to expect their clients to buy different from the way they themselves will buy, referenced as a non-supportive buy cycle in the book. I have a report that tracks first night closes vs. the overall close rate of each Rep so I pulled that report for a complete year. I looked at two of my top Reps who produced nearly the same volume and compared their first time close rates. The Rep with the highest first time close is one of those guys that goes out and buys what he wants when he wants it. He's the guy that will buy every book offered at a seminar and if somebody is selling Girl Scout cookies in the office, they are going to get an order from him. This is not to say that he spends his money frivolously, he just makes a decision and goes with it.

The Rep with the lower first time close rate is a shopper. He will go from store to store and do loads of research on-line investing valuable time before he finally decides on making a purchase. Considering that time is money, how much does he really save? So he empathizes with a client that "needs to get other quotes" or "wants to sleep on it."

In a sales meeting I had a lot of fun with this concept of "buy cycle". Without naming names I described the characteristics of the higher first night closer and that of the lower fist night closer. As I was setting this up I could see each Rep identifying with which category they were in and then I revealed the numbers from the report on the overhead. It was a revelation to my lower first night closer that he was working twice as hard as the other guy producing the same bottom line volume because of his own buy cycle. Now that we have identified his hidden obstacle we can work towards overcoming it and making him better

Just identifying it may have done that. He came up to me shortly after that meeting telling me that he'd been thinking about taking his daughter to a Yo-Yo Ma concert for her birthday. This usually would have required a lot of shopping around and bargaining on ebay and then he would have to figure out the best section to sit in, etc. He told me that as a result of that meeting he decided to just purchase the tickets immediately and to get seats in the front middle section so they could see Yo-Yo up close. He said he realized his daughter deserved the best seats for her special night and he didn't need to waste a lot of time on getting what he decided he wanted.

This is just one example of what I learned from this book but if it were all I got, I think it was well worth the read.

In their summary on page 241 they say, "The "hard" work of sales is overcoming the hidden weaknesses that hold you back." That is so true.

I will say that one small negative is that the editing of the book was poorly done as it is covered with typographical errors throughout which was very distracting for me.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is one great sales book, May 12, 2010

By 

Alan Strauss "Al Strauss" (Westlake, OH) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Optimal Salesperson: Mastering the Mindset of Sales Superstars and Overachievers (Hardcover)

I have known Dan and Marie for well over 20 years. Have respected them and frankly, I thought that they and I were all pretty much on the same page, and that I had personally mastered a lot of the concepts that they would be covering in the book. But, I've read their book, because of my prior history with them, and truthfully, I was blown away. They have summarized what it takes to be an optimal sales person so succinctly, and so uniquely, that actually, what I discovered in reading the book is not only that it is a great book, but that I personally need to get to work, and follow their process to improve my own sales results. This, in spite of the fact that I had, prior to reading that book, thought I wasn't all that bad. Kudos to Dan and Marie for a phenomenal little volume that gets an awful lot of marvelous information into less than 250 pages. I would highly recommend it to anybody interested in sales success, whether they're new in the sales career, or someone like myself who has been on straight commission for well over 30 years.

Al Strauss, Founder of Sales Concepts, Inc. Westlake, OH

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must-Have Tool!!!!!, May 4, 2010

By 

Diana Kirschner "author of Love in 90 Days." (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Optimal Salesperson: Mastering the Mindset of Sales Superstars and Overachievers (Hardcover)

The Optimal Salesperson is a fantastic, in-depth, sophisticated and indispensable training tool!!! The seasoned authors possess a keen psychological depth of knowledge plus the practical step-by-step how-to's that can help you achieve sales goals beyond your wildest dreams. I have seen them do it with client after client. Buy this book for yourself and everyone on your sales team right now. You can jump forward and become a sales superstar!