Customer Reviews

Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager

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The "sales" career seems to contain too many variations to allow anyone to construct a comprehensive method of improving sales tactics, and yet Lee Salz has done just that. "Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager" takes the reader on an easy-to-understand journey through the difficulties and benefits of "facilitating a buying process." Salz has created a design, which he calls "Sales Architecture," that gives foundational advice for the reader, allowing you to take the frame of his advice and build on it with your own techniques and within your own niche of the sales market. The book takes the reader from finding the right job all the way to completing the big sale, with a design that allows easy referencing for the future. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to improve their career in sales, and to anyone who believes they've already reached their peak.

If you're like me, you've read dozens of books that claimed they would help you become a better salesperson. Some were pretty good but in many cases, it didn't take long for me to wonder if the authors 'lived' the principles they were writing about. In "Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager", Lee Salz doesn't lecture from a corner office or a podium; instead, he offers real life anecdotes that any salesperson will relate to and learn from.

Though my numbers indicated I was successful, following the principles outlined in "Dodo" raised the bar to heights I never expected. My clients became partners and wanted to buy more from me...their trusted consultant. Even better, clients began offering to be my reference! I am no longer selling to prospects...partners are buying from me. That's a HUGE difference.

I determine whether a book is beneficial based on the number of times I reread parts or all of it. Even after the first, the second, and third read, "Dodo" is worth returning to again and again for a refresher in everything from how to create differentiators to avoiding the commodity trap...or if you're just looking for "the right place to hang your hat".

In a word, "Dodo" is the most worthwhile investment in yourself that you can make...even if you don't work for a Dodo.

As a graduate of the Wharton School of Business, I've been asked to read quite a number of how-to-sell books, from Covey's "7 Habits" to "Getting to Yes" and many in between. Most of these books provide useful concepts, but surround them with so much theory and ivory-tower fluff as to make them barely useable in the real world.

"Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager" is distinctly different. The book reads as though your personal sales coach is sitting at your desk next to you, talking you through concrete steps you can take to become a better sales person. It suggests things like "Write a three-minute description of your product" or "make a list of the top 10 attributes of your ideal employer." These are things you can do *RIGHT NOW* to improve your chances for success. The advice is practical, the ideas are well thought out and battle-tested, and the language is simple and accessible. No book will ever replace good old-fashioned experience, but this one stands more of a chance of actually helping people than any I've seen in the genre.

I should also mention that I've known Lee Salz personally for a quarter of a century now. He is everything the book shows him to be - entrepreneurial, hard working, personable, and extremely knowledgeable about the topic on which he speaks. I can personally vouch for his many successes at selling and building world-class sales organizations in several, disparate industries. This is a man who knows what he's talking about, and has proven himself right time after time after time.

I strongly urge you to give this book a try. I promise you won't be disappointed.

As a number of the other reviews indicate, this is an insightful, practical guide to sales. I've read many sales books over the years, from Neil Rackham's Spin Selling to Michael Bosworth's Solution Selling to the Miller Heiman books. While all of them have value, Soar Despite Your Dodo is the most practical. I can't wait to implement Lee's suggestions on territory management and creating a showstopper sound bite.

I previously posted Salz's ideas for sales people looking for work The rest of the book is as brilliant. This is a book which truly architects a salesman' s success, despite their manager or lack of a manager and little help from marketing. Much useful and familiar content such as :

* How do you really differentiate your product/service?
* Look at the buyers process, not a selling process.
* What are you doing for personal growth?

What is your ideal client?

* Size?
* Circumstances (new vs takeaway?)
* Process?
* Budget?
* Buying habits?

Who are the personalities in a client?

* Beneficiaries?
* Saboteurs?
* Mentors?
* Wizards (he who pays)?

His chapters on territory management and responding to RFPs are better than anything I have seen in a long time.

If there is something missing it would be the extensive work of Sharon Drew Morgen on the the early identification of stuff that will get in the way of the sale. Her material is unbeaten at the qualifying stage, to make you more efficient as well as more effective.

See lots of Lees content here [...]

Well written, clear and a great guide, this is a book for every salesperson to have in his library, I would keep in your bag, as the tips and examples are of great immediate use.

There are many books written on sales and the importance of selling or specific techniques of selling; such as focus on benefits, not features, build a relationship first, get yourself motivated, etc. This book is the first I've read that provides a roadmap to sales written from a practical, down-to-earth perspective. It's a methodology that you can implement immediately as it is not just concepts or theory, but real life application.

Lee Salz in his book Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager hits the selling nail right on the head! With a clear writing style that speaks directly, and expertly, to the reader, and plenty of graphics and visual aids to augment his points, Lee details in no uncertain terms what today's sale professionals need to know: how to win at this lonely, challenging profession even when your boss does little or nothing to help you, or even keeps getting in your way. This book will help you sell!

All of us who have been in sales can appreciate this book. My sales career started at 15 when I sold Fuller Brush door to door and I progressed through the years to work in telemarketing and sell life insurance. I think the Peter Principle, that you rise until you reach your level of incompetence, is proven out in sales. Great sales people don't always make great sales managers. Anyone who has seen the TV show The Office can appreciate that. I used to have a manager who used to say "just sell, sell sell." Or another who said "just keep telling your story to anyone who will listen." What I like about this book is that Lee Salz promotes a system. You have a methodology to follow. I believe if you want to be successful then you should model successful people. That is what I teach my clients who are professionals and consultants who can't find enough clients. This is a great sales read. This is proven stuff that really works.-- Henry DeVries, author of Client Seduction and the upcoming Pain Killer Marketing and the founder of the New Client Marketing Institute

Pain Killer Marketing: How to Turn Customer Pain into Market Gain

Dodo notes on how this book is both painfully true and insightful;

1) Too many (dodo) sales managers and (dodo) companies give reps neither the training nor the individual coaching they need to succeed.

2) Too many reps blame their lack of success on these dodo managers.

3) Reps develop dodo brains when they won't accept responsibility for their own success and get the skills and brainpower they need to make more money.

Lee Salz's book is meant to keep you from selling extinction. While most of us could use some serious sales training, if you'll just make the initial investment in this book, it'd be a great way to improve performance - in spite of the dodo managers flocking around your career.

When will you realize that you have to adjust to the corporate lack of support for your success?

Your first adjustment is to read, act on the advice of this book, then take flight over the heads of dead and dying dodo reps and managers who are ground bound by their weak, extinct thinking.

Get going, get growing, now.

"I've read dozens and dozens of books on effective selling. I've attended numerous sales training programs. What Lee Salz has done is take the best ideas related to effective selling, combined them with new and creative techniques, and using his own extensive experience, crafted an exceptional book that is a must read for anyone in sales. Sales Dodo will have you looking at the selling process in a new way, whether you are a salesperson or someone who manages salespeople. My only question is...Lee, where were you 20 years ago when I started my career? If I had read your book then, I would have eliminated a ton of mistakes and my income would have been a lot higher!"

Sam Richter
President
James J. Hill Reference Library
Author
Take the Cold Out of Cold Calling