Customer Reviews

The Sales Advantage: How to Get It, Keep It, and Sell More Than Ever

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a good introductory work for a salesperson or
someone opening his/her own business. The author teaches
how to develop credibility, interest, stories, instructional
approaches, needs analysis and a host of other components aimed
at cultivating customer sales. Later on, the work builds
upon a negotiation scheme involving information gathering,
resolution of concerns, conflict resolution, collaboration,
customer needs and multiple solution sets in order to produce
a successful sale through advanced negotiation techniques.
The thrust of the work teaches how to gain and cultivate
customer commitments. The book is a good introductory
rendition for budding salespeople. It will provide reinforcement
for experienced salespeople.

J. Oliver Crom and Michael Crom have written a very good book for sales professionals who are on a learning curve, particularly newcomers and those with intermediate sales experience. Although veterans might know most of the new ideas here, the authors present valuable concepts in the excellent prospecting section and in the review of how to close a sale. The book presents a somewhat institutional Dale Carnegie approach to sales, including a strong emphasis on maintaining a positive attitude and a customer-centered approach. The section on overcoming objections could be juiced up a bit and many of the illustrative anecdotes could be developed more richly, but the book supplies significant expertise for newer sales professionals - and that alone, we believe, should make it an easy sell.

There are a ton of different sales books out there, and more written each day. From strategic to rainmaker, each plows into a well-worked strategy to get the sale and be the star. Yet, one must know the basics well, and this book does that in a complete fashion. Great for beginers, but essential for us all to run through so our heads don't get to big. The biggest message in this book is process - setting one and keeping to it. By having a process, one can look for the next target, with the knowledge that the ones in the pipeline are easy to identify as to status and progress. The fact that ACT! chose to use the 11 steps was also interesting. Worth the amazon.com price!

This book takes off to a good start. The tone is straightforward. The first three elements in the sales process are focused on improving the odds that the prospect will spend time with us. Seeing things from the other person's point of view is the backbone of the "Sales Advantage" approach to selling.

The content in this book does a good job selling itself to you while it teaches you how to sell to others. However, being a partial offshoot of "How to Win Friends and Influence People" you tend to find the same excessive rambling you found in this earlier work.

The Sales Advantage tools and principles can energize your selling efforts. They can empower you, challenge you, and give you a new level of confidence in your sales abilities. The objective of The Sales Advantage is to strengthen the performance and behavior of salespeople. The concepts provide a repeatable sales process that helps salespeople to sell from a buyer's point of view.

Written in step-by-step form, the Sales Advantage will enable any person in sales to design a win-win selling model. This how-to guide has chock full of examples covering a gamut of sales undertakings. Your attitude makes all the difference in whether the tools will motivate you to build the solid customer-focused relationships you need for long-term success in selling.

Learning how to sell using the Sales Advantage tools and principles will increase the odds that we will overcome sales challenges successfully. How? By learning to see the buying and selling process from the customer's point of view.



FEW IDEAS:

1) Get around people who are passionate about selling.

2) Read, Watch, and listen to inspirational material.

3) Talk to customers who love the product or service you sell.

4) Write out your vision and invest yourself emotionally in your job.


THREE THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND:

1) You get the sales advantage by learning how to use the tools and principles.

2) You keep the advantage by committing to practicing the use of the tools, day in and day out, until they become second nature.

3) You sell more than ever by having the right attitude about selling, by building customer-focused relationships, and by looking for ways to get out of your comfort zone and try something different.

In any field, sales people must deal with people. There is no Mr. IBM or Ms. Microsoft - there are just people. We make sales too complicated when we overlook that people do the purchasing, even in complex teams - people just want someone to listen to their needs and provide a solution with some integrity. Dale Carnegie's Human relations approach boils it all down to sincerely trying to see things from the buyer's point of view, and just be honest! Wow - what a concept! It's important to read "How to win friends" first to really get the human relationship princples down pat. Then read this book - and then go make some sales!

As an agent for one of the largest life insurance companies in the world, I am always looking for "THAT" book which will reveal a missed point that can give the edge over my very capable competition. When I saw this I thought this might be it. After reading this book, my search must continue. The book may hold some value for someone brand new to the field of sales, but for anyone who has sold for more than a few months, the teachings are old hat with no nuggets to be found. I have other Carnegie books and this one is not worthy to be on the shelf beside the others. I would recommend books by Tracy or maybe "SuperSelf" by Charles Givens. Now there is a book to chew on for days. My advice, save your money and buy something else.

Reinforces Carnegie. I thought this book was good. Good golden nuggets. Very good insight into overcoming objections. Solid read.

I read this book with great expectations, thinking that the Dale Carnegie School of Thought should have something useful and great to say about selling this time.

As it turns out, this book is poorly written, and is so naive about selling in such a hypercompetitive business world these days.

If Dale Carnegie is still alive, he can definitely write a better book on selling since his writing is more persuasive, and his suggestions on selling should be more practical and convincing.

At least, Dale Carnegie is a good salesman himself, with a strong philosophical rather than just how-tos, jargons-filled perspective on selling.

Try Non-manipulative Selling or SPIN Selling, you can get more dollars out of reading them instead.

I read this book with great expectations, thinking that the Dale Carnegie School of Thought should have something useful and great to say about selling this time.

As it turns out, this book is poorly written, and is so naive about selling in such a hypercompetitive business world these days.

If Dale Carnegie is still alive, he can definitely write a better book on selling since his writing is more persuasive, and his suggestions on selling should be more practical and convincing.

At least, Dale Carnegie is a good salesman himself, with a strong philosophical rather than just how-tos, jargons-filled perspective on selling.

Try Non-manipulative Selling or SPIN Selling, you can get more dollars out of reading them instead.

We've reached a era as consumers where we stop questioning what others waive in front of our noses and accept it as good for us. This Kindle thing is a racket! Amazon wants $18 for this book in Kindle form. You must think most of us have the mind of a 10 year-old and will not realize you are marketing to suckers. It costs you pennies to upload these files and you are profitting from the frenzy of consumers who are buying with their emotions instead of their minds. Shame on you, Amazon. You represent the sad aspect of capitalism that most of us detest.