On Selling

Rating:
Summary: A Good Guide for an In-Experienced Salesman
Review: Although it can be said everyone is in the marketing game, not all of us can say we sell for a living. Mark offers some great insights into an area that I have limited experience. From a 20 year veteran, I could see where this book presents a very high level view. However, for myself, the book is a great tool that can be applied to any selling opportunity. The insights and stories bring the examples to life and can be easilly be applied to my own situation. Business reading can be boring and uneventful, but Mark has the ability to create a scene where I can place myself sitting right next to him. Nodding in agreement to the client. Visualization is powerful tool and everytime I listen to his tapes I'm there selling my heart out. Hmmm, I wonder where my commission check is?

The only book of Mark's that I have not read is the one on communication and I have already purchased it.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Guide for an In-Experienced Salesman
Review: Although it can be said everyone is in the marketing game, not all of us can say we sell for a living. Mark offers some great insights into an area that I have limited experience. From a 20 year veteran, I could see where this book presents a very high level view. However, for myself, the book is a great tool that can be applied to any selling opportunity. The insights and stories bring the examples to life and can be easilly be applied to my own situation. Business reading can be boring and uneventful, but Mark has the ability to create a scene where I can place myself sitting right next to him. Nodding in agreement to the client. Visualization is powerful tool and everytime I listen to his tapes I'm there selling my heart out. Hmmm, I wonder where my commission check is?

The only book of Mark's that I have not read is the one on communication and I have already purchased it.

Rating:
Summary: Many tips and ancedotes make it a good general sales book.
Review: Mark offers an experienced view on sales. He uses many real life experiences to give the reader a good overview. Although this book offers many experiences there is little organization. Mark is attempting to tell as many stories as he can within the confines of a few hundred pages. This style is similar to his earlier book titled "What they Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School" which was full of many great stories, but in the end there was nothing solid to refer back to. However, I would still recommend Mark's book On Selling to anyone in the sales game. It is a valuable source of information on high end sales and it is written by a great salesperson.

Rating:
Summary: Too specific
Review: The book is written by the CEO of IMG, a company that manages international stars and athletes. The book is supposed to be about selling however I found it too specific to sports marketing and IMG. For example he talks about taking time, sometimes years to close a deal. He talks about large customers who expect you to "entertain him and his people...at least once a month". There are many salespeople out there who cannot relate to these scenarios. Many have only one shot to close a deal. Many don't sell to the type of clients who need to be wined and dined.

There are many more examples in this book of situations which I feel are not widely applicable. In many senses it is not so much a book on selling as a manual on how IMG conducts its business. There are some useful sales tips inside the book but they are interspersed between largely irrelevant anecdotes.