Niche Selling: How to Find Your Customer in a Crowded Market [ILLUSTRATED] (Hardcover)

by William T. Brooks (Author) "The most common error in selling occurs when salespeople are so focused on what they or their company wants from a sales relationship that they..." (more)
Key Phrases: convince phase, prospecting principle, impact selling, Power-Packed Prospecting, Cellular One, Frank Bettger (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Shows how to inrease sales by finding and marketing to your most likely consumer segments. This practical, straightforward approach directs the reader through the entire niche selling process, showing how to: develop workable sales strategies based on alliances; enhance your standing in the minds of prospects and customers using the power of personal positioning; conquer the problem of ``institutionalized insulation'' that mentally and physically removes the most salespeople from their customers.

About the Author
McGraw-Hill authors represent the leading experts in their fields and are dedicated to improving the lives, careers, and interests of readers worldwide

Product Details

• Hardcover: 276 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (September 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556234996
• ISBN-13: 978-1556234996
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #996,956 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Basic concepts more relevant now than ever before , October 20, 2005

By	Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

As Brooks would be the first to point out, opinions about both sales and marketing have changed a great deal since his book was first published in 1991. (I hope that he soon produces a revised and updated version of it in which he discusses those changes.) That said, the fact remains that Brooks's core concepts of selling remain relevant. As he explains in the Introduction, "Ever increasingly, the power of mass communications, macro- and microeconomic realities, consumer issues, value shifts, and even politics and global affairs will dictate day-to-day selling activities. As such, most traditional sales philosophies are outdated in today's crowded marketplace. The future belongs to the sales organizations that are [in italics] flexible [end italics] and [in italics] nontraditional [end italics] in their thinking." Quite true. And keep in mind that this was expressed fifteen years ago.

Brooks carefully organizes his material within three Parts: Knowing Your Organization and Its Markets (i.e. Focus on Focus, Leverage, and Alignment), Knowing Your Customers (i.e. "IMPACT" Selling, Investigate, Meet, Probe, Apply, Convince, and Tie-It-Up), and Knowing Yourself (i.e. Vales and Sales Success, and, Person versus Personality). Granted, for those who read this book in 2005, there are no head-snapping revelations. How could there be? However, Brooks provides a wealth of insights, strategies, and tactics which can help his reader find her or his customer in a crowded market.

I especially appreciate the fact that, at the end of each of the twelve chapters, Brooks provides a "Key Tips" section which serves two important functions: It summarizes key points, and, it facilitates a subsequent later review of whatever specific counsel which may then be needed. For example, in Chapter 7, Brooks explains how effective probing will help both current and prospective customers to "discover what they need and want most" as well as how the salesperson can determine what people will buy, when they will buy, and under what conditions they will buy, "then listening them into buying." This is precisely what Neil Rackham has in mind when discussing "SPIN selling": ask questions which reveal the Situation, identify the given Problems, determine the Implications of buying (or not buying), and specify the nature and extent of Need fulfillment. At the end of Chapter 7, Brooks then offers six "Key Tips" which summarize how to probe effectively. Appropriately, one of them reiterates what he calls "The Fatal Flaw in Selling: Most salespeople talk their way out of more sales than they talk their way into."

For whom will this book be most valuable? Probably for anyone involved in sales but especially for those responsible for the training and supervision of a sales force, and, for those salespersons who are relatively inexperienced.

One caveat: No single source offers everything one needs to know about sales. For that reason, I presume to suggest that other books also be consulted. For example, Rackham's SPIN Selling, Jacques Werth and Nicholas E. Ruben's High Probability Selling, Keith M. Eades's The New Solution Selling, and Tom Hopkins' How to Master the Art of Selling.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Worth noting! Old material, June 7, 2006

By	D. D'Eugenio (Palm Beach, United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A lot has changed since this book was published in 1992. There are more up to date books availalbe. Buyer beware!

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Unknown quantity, October 28, 2006

By	Richard Neiman "Rick in SC" (Travelers Rest, SC USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I'd love to give this book a great review. However, I never received it! I kept getting messages saying it would ship soon, but it was on back order. Then Amazon cancelled my order.

If you REALLY want this book, go to your local B&N or other quality book store and order it, if it's not on the shelf. Or go to your local library and borrow it.