10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Meet the First Product Life Cycle and Its Top Sales Team!, July 19, 2000
This book would make a five star read either as a book about sales or as humor. You can read it for both, and get twice the benefit.
The premise for this fable is based on a character named Max inventing the wheel in ancient Egypt, and then quickly adapting to the evolving market place with different product focus, marketing, and sales efforts.
With the help of his wife and the Oracle, Max finds different sales people to create demand for the wheel. Initially, no one can see a purpose for the wheel. Soon there is lots of competition, and Max has to adjust.
Based on research by Howard Stevens, a coauthor, there are four types of customers: gateswingers who want to be first with the new, progressive customers who want advanced products, relationship customers who want relatively acceptable products from a company they can trust, and world customers who want a standard product that is reliable at a good price.
Each type of customer needs a different type of salesperson: closers work best with gateswingers; wizards (technically competent people) do well with progressive customers; relationship salespeople do well with relationship customers; and the reliable captain and his crew (solving the customer's problem) are best for the world customer.
The key point is to choose customers for whom you can deliver the most value.
There is also lots of information about sales planning, the marketing and sales process, and how to measure your effectivenss. All of this information is solid and valuable, especially to those who are just learning about sales and marketing.
The beauty of using the wheel as the basis for the fable is to make the point about developing a product into a mass industry is easier to understand. Everyone knows about wheels. But the point is that every product was once a breakthrough and will at some point become a low-price, undifferentiated commodity. This allows you to understand how that life cycle affects what will make you most successful.
This book will help you overcome your stalled thinking that there is only one way to sell products. If you are in sales, you can apply this to getting a sales job that fits your preferred sales style. If you are a customer, it will help you know which kind of a sales person will best meet your needs. If you are running a business, it will help you plan your business and monitor your effectiveness. That's quite a lot of stalled thinking to overcome from one book.
The authors point out in a note that few sales forces are measured for effectiveness, and little hiring is done to match sales style to customer need. Be sure to focus on improving over that set of practices if you want to become more successful.
Enjoy faster and more profitable growth as your 2,000 percent solution from this wonderful tale!
Donald Mitchell
Coauthor of The Irresistible Growth Enterprise (available in September 2000) and The 2,000 Percent Solution
(donmitch@fastforward400.com)
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best book for entrepreneurs hiring sales people, January 19, 2004
This review is from: Selling The Wheel: Choosing The Best Way To Sell For You Your Company Your Customers (Paperback)
What more can you ask for in a book?
1) It is an easy read.
2) It makes complete sense
3) The message is memorable
I read this book a few years ago, and it still resonates with me.
The makeup of a sales force evolves over time. For a new product, you need a person who can sell anything to anyone. A real rainmaker. As your business grows, you need someone who can engineer custom solutions. Grow more, and you'll need someone who can manage long-term relationships. Finally, in the most mature market, you'll need someone who can manage and motivate a sales force in a commodity-based system.
If you are an entrepreneur growing a business, this book is written for you. It will help you decide what stage your business is in, and what type of sales person/force you need to succeed in each stage.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An interesting treatment of a boring topic, February 17, 2000
Business self-help books are rarely lively. And books about sales are usually the most boring of all. And yet, "Selling the wheel" is fascinating. I enjoyed it even though I am not a sales professional, nor a businessman of any kind. What makes the book a quick read is that the practical sales information is couched in the form of a fictional narrative. This story, about the efforts of the ancient inventor of the wheel to sell his invention, is funny and engaging. But all the while, you are learning valuable information about the various types of salesman required to sell products at different stages in a product's technolgoical development: a "closer" for new products; a "wizard" for developed products that require a high-degree of technical expertise to select, install and service; a "builder" for standardized products that are purchased primarily by large, bureaucratic organizations; and a "captain" for products that are so common they have become commodiztized. If only all business self-help books were this interesting and well-conceived!
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