Power Base Selling: Secrets of an Ivy League Street Fighter [Paperback]

Jim Holden (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 1999

"Holden's book is rich with wisdom and sage advice and should be required reading for any salesperson who wants to understand how to merge a sales strategy and a political strategy to win the hearts of their customers' Power Base."-Rodney D. Cotton, Vice President, Sales-United States, Baxter Healthcare, Renal Division.

"Jim Holden's book is for serious salespeople and executives who are focused on winning. It provides insights, techniques, and everyday tools to reach the highest possible level of success. The book is most insightful and is a required reading and work tool for enterprise salespeople and executives."-Grant Evans, Vice President, Sales and Marketing Identicator Technology.

"The Holden Power Base Selling techniques have provided our sales teams with a common language from which to develop and plan strategies and tactics."- Colin Latham, President and CEO, MT&T (Canada).

"Power Base Selling is essential. . . . The book is rich with lessons such as how to avoid being defeated by desperate 'end-games,' and how to 'snatch various victories from the jaws of defeat.' The conclusion is a revealing 'self-test.'. . . [Holden's] principles are more applicable today than ever."- Glenn W. Coleman, President, South Africa Branch, Lockheed Martin Overseas Services Corporation.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Focuses on competitive selling: the range of skills that sales professionals need to reach their full potential. It offers practical, step-by-step advice that salespeople can take to prevent the competition from selling their products or services, revealing the components involved in gaining full control of a sales situation. Discusses a key step in this process--the politics of selling--showing how to establish the right relationships with people who are powerful enough to give the salesperson an edge. Will help those who are already good at selling become competitive salespeople capable of strengthening their position with the customer, while at the same time weakening the competition. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Inside Flap

The company you represent was first in the field and their product line is still the best. You’ve got a number of solid, long-standing accounts with whom you have terrific rapport, and your hot new customer is wild about your discount plan. You’ve done your job, and now you can just sit back and reap the rewards…right? Wrong! Because right now there’s an ambitious upstart out there with designs on your territory. Someone who’ll use every trick in the book to take what you’ve worked so hard to secure—a hardnosed streetfighter who’s made it his or her job to cut you out of any future accounts you may be considering. A savvy sharpshooter for whom sales is definitely not the gentle art of persuasion. Destined to become the bible of the next generation salesforce, Power Base Selling shows you why, in today’s ever-more competitive marketplace, persuading a customer to buy your product is only one part of the sales equation. It offers you revolutionary strategies guaranteed to help you outthink, outmaneuver, outclass, and outsell all competitors. Packed with cases, tactics and no-nonsense guidelines, Power Base Selling grooms you to take control of events, set the pace within accounts, and generally make life as hard as possible for the competition.

• Getting past the bureaucrats and straight to the "foxes," with whom the real power resides—meeting, forging, and cementing relationships with them
• Strategies for defeating the competition by taking advantage of their weaknesses and turning their strengths against them
• Anticipating your competitors’ best moves and neutralizing their efforts
• Becoming the ultimate sales soldier of fortune, sharp, aggressive, sassy, classy

Power Base Selling is not another book on the art of persuasion—it is a sales workout that sharpens your eye, quickens your reflexes and prepares you to be a prize winner in today’s street-smart sales arena. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (March 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471327336
• ISBN-13: 978-0471327332
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #104,347 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great sales book...as long as it is not your only approach, December 12, 2001

By 

Scott Ross (Prosper, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Power Base Selling: Secrets of an Ivy League Street Fighter (Paperback)

Almost all sales books have two major flaws: 1) They give you high level advise, such as "have a strategy" without giving you the "rubber-meets-the-road" actions to take. 2) They expect you to operate within a vaccuum where their selling system or methodology will work every time.

Power Base selling does not contain the first flaw and does an admirable job of trying to avoid the second. It is the first and best book I have read attacking the problem of organizational politics and the human dynamics in a corporate or complex selling environment. It gives very practical ideas on what to do in most political/selling situations to tilt the decision in your favor.

What this book does not do, nor attempt to do, is discuss the importance of a value proposition and the solution you are trying to sell. This is a great book to complement other famous sales books such as "Solution Selling."

I recommend this book highly to anyone that sells in a complex sales world.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incisive and unconventional thinking, April 24, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Power Base Selling: Secrets of an Ivy League Street Fighter (Hardcover)

Power Base Selling is incisive, unconventional and a hell of a good read. The book started with a clean slate as to how sales (and for that matter, all business relationships)should be conducted, and it comes up with some completely counterintuitive positions. Each section of the book draws something from the warrior/philosopher Sun Tzu, often condensing the section's poignant examples and real-world techniques into a memorable sound-bite that I find myself muttering under my breath as I ponder strategies. Stylistically, the book is crisp and accessible. Since I first encountered Power Base a few years ago, I have given away probably a dozen copies, many to friends who aren't even in sales. Like Carnegie's "How to Win Friends . . .", the insight on the workings of business politics are useful for almost everything. Highly recommended!

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything is "bought and sold" for a reason..., June 11, 2001

By 

E. Stafford (San Jose, Ca.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Power Base Selling: Secrets of an Ivy League Street Fighter (Paperback)

Great read. Maybe too many stories...yet they explain his point in a clear sense. If you read between the lines and get the big picture of his strategic principles you can no doubt improve you sales performance.