| | |  | Drew McLellan | Home » » Little Red Book of Selling: 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness | | | | | | | Description: | | Sales master Jeffrey Gitomer has created a real-world, practical, and fun book that salespeople will love and profit from -- and sales managers will buy by the case. Salespeople want answers. That's why the Little Red Book of Selling is short, sweet, and to the point. It's packed with answers that people are searching for in order to help them make sales for the moment - and for the rest of their lives. In the Little Red Book of Selling salespeople will learn why sales happen and a philosophy of success - long term, relationship driven, and referral oriented - nothing to do with manipulation or other old-world sales tactics. It has everything to do with understanding buying motives and taking ethical, relationship-building actions. People don't like to be sold but they love to buy has become more than Gitomer's registered trademark- it's a mantra. A mantra every salesperson needs to understand at the core of his selling success. Throughout this book the reader will begin to adopt a philosophy that drives them to a higher, value-driven purpose. There are 12.5 powerful principles of sales mastery. These principles are at the heart of sales success. They are the difference between red (putting your heart into your career) and black (having a job, coming to work, and making a commission). Other chapters include; What's the Difference between Failure and Success in Salespeople, The Little Salesman that Could, The Two Most Important Words in Selling, and Just Plain "How to Make a Sale." The cover is classic red cloth. The four-color graphics make it compelling and easy to read, and the content is easy to understand and implement. For your convenience there is a red satin (ok, polyester) bookmark so you can remember your place. It is small enough to carry with you - big enough to contain the answers you need — powerful enough to fill your wallet. | | | Features: | |
• ISBN13: 9781885167606
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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| | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Jeffrey Gitomer | | Hardcover:
| 220 pages | | Publisher:
| Bard Press | | Publication Date:
| September 25, 2004 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 1885167601 | | Package Length:
| 7.6 inches | | Package Width:
| 5.2 inches | | Package Height:
| 0.7 inches | | Package Weight:
| 0.85 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 126 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
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 FOR SERIOUS SALES PEOPLE ONLYOct 28, 2009
Everyone thinks there is a SECRET to selling....NOT!
Selling SUCCESSFULLY is continiously applying the PROPER effort on steps to closing a sale. The problem is that 97% will read this book and NEVER do anything with it cause they do not understand my second sentence above. This book either followed by a determined person or monitored with a sales team by a manager that holds the sales force accountable is a simple series of steps that can be used for a life time.
So don't buy it for another "read" hoping to gain something...ONLY buy it if you truly want a path to follow and have the internal fortitude to look yourself in the mirror every day to hold yourself accountable.
 He markets himself well, but a lot of things are obvious or questionableSep 28, 2009
While Jeffrey Gitomer seems to really do an effective job throughout the book of cross selling you on both his other books and his websites, I don't really find this book to really be highly compelling. Early on the in the book he emphasized that he thought an unnamed salesperson was an idiot who said that buyers needed to trust their salesperson, but not like them. Generally speaking in relationships the first step before you can like someone is that you have to trust them. Obviously you would prefer a customer who likes you as a person, but trust precedes like whether we are talking business relationships or personal ones.
He makes a good point about the importance of value as opposed to merely price, but I think that price in the post recession era is a little more important than he gives credit. Back in 2005 when this book was released particularly people weren't as concerned about price, but I think emphasizing one's bang for the buck is crucial. If your price is higher than a competitor you have to show them what they are getting for their extra cost and why they should care.
His suggestion of speaking to civic organizations seems interesting, but may have little relevance to some sales jobs particularly sales jobs that are primarily telesales jobs. Furthermore, unless you have a product/service with a fairly broad audience you probably wouldn't be getting a lot of valuable leads. That may be an interesting route to becoming a public speaker a la Gitomer himself, but may not be of much value beyond practicing your presentation skills.
What really annoys me is that Gitomer spends too much time telling you what not to do as opposed to what to do. A lot of people reading the book presumably already know that what they are doing isn't working or could be working a lot better otherwise they wouldn't be spending their time and perhaps money to read the book. In some cases his suggested alternatives to the wrong way seem dubious. Asking a salesperson to help you get to the gatekeeper for whatever department you are selling to is often a waste of time. Even if they do know that person, which they often don't because they have no need for that information in most cases, what impetus do they have to help you make an introduction? Unless there is something in it for them(ie. a sale) they would just as soon as get rid of you so that they can talk with their customers.
In addition, I think that he does a dubious job of explaining how to differentiate yourself when you sell a commodity. Contrary to what Gitomer says there are a lot of things that are *commodities* beyond food. He says that you have to change customer's perception, but that contradicts his argument that you shouldn't "educate" the customer about your company or your product.
He also contradicts himself by emphasizing frugality at the beginning of the book, but admits that he made a testimonial video that cost him more than he could afford to spend. He suggests to fire the bean counters if they don't want to spend that much, but unless you are the you are a very high level manager(eg. VP of Sales/Marketing) or you are in a very small organization I don't think you are going to have much success convincing the big wigs of that. It somewhat makes me think that the book is more focused on sales management than actual sales people.
Another thing that I thought was somewhat lame was saying that names don't matter with testimonials. Testimonials for any product or service are a dime a dozen if your product or service has been on the market for a while and unless your customer is stupid or really gullible a random testimonial isn't going to sway them much if at all. Trustworthy testimonials from people or organizations they recogize and trust can be very influential, but finding a good testimonial isn't hard if your product or service has been around long enough and any decent salesperson could write a wonderful fake testimonial. I have known a few small businesses owners to write positive reviews for their business on Yelp. If you think that your customers don't have good BS meters than you are pretty naive.
Gitomer seems great at selling his services by liberally sprinkling mentions that he has other books, his speaking engagements and of course his related websites, but I didn't really learn a whole lot from his book about being a better salesperson. As one of the other negative reviews implied I think that this book is a lot more about motivation than it is about actual sales techniques. Furthermore, his book doesn't really explore why people buy? This book isn't useless, but after one considers some of the questionable advice and the wasted space I think that this book could have been much better.
 Sell THIS!Sep 21, 2009
Do not read this book if you are a sales person with thin skin... but then again, if you have thin skin WHY are you in sales?! ;-) Jeffrey Gitomer does not waste time on niceties (hence the word "little" in the title). Instead he uses his tongue-in-cheek humor to illustrate key ways that one can become a great sales person WITHOUT silly tricks or useless positive affirmations. I recommend this book whole heartedly, but only after one sufficiently swallow their pride and get ready to listen to how our current selling techniques do not work.
Some of Jeffrey's suggestions are a bit outlandish, even by my standards: I do not think I will ever leave only half a message for a person to call me back, or have a kid call in my place saying that their father is too busy trying to secure college tuition to call for the fourth time... but who knows those might work too! One key principle that I have applied with great results is the concept of Free Speech. Jeffrey suggests and I concur that each of us can create a talk about a Problem that we are trying to solve with our business and then to find audiences who would like to learn about this problems and ways to fix them. Free speech is not about selling one's product, but instead creating upfront value for potential customers. I have had great results with this technique and I owe it all to Jeffrey. :-)
Little Red Book of SuccessAug 01, 2009
When I first picked up this book, I was under the impression that this book will focus on direct selling techniques. However, as soon as I started reading, I began to realize that this book goes much beyond that, in presenting and explaining the principles and philosophy of sales. It teaches us to focus first on ourselves, our motivation, preparation, focus etc. and then understanding the customer: reasons for buying, perceived risks etc. If these principles are mastered, the sale would be a natural consequence. For me what I enjoyed the most was that I found these ideas very applicable in my work as a software developer although from a strict sense I am not a salesperson. The book is also written in a very entertaining way and is easy to read as well as to refer to quickly. If I had one area of improvement to suggest was for the book to contain more sales scenarios that help illustrate in practice how the principles work. Overall an excellent book, I definitely recommend it.
Needs work... a LOT of workMay 11, 2009
This book is poorly written, poorly formatted, poorly laid out... that said, there are some good things (else he gets 1 star) but they are few and far between and almost not worth searching for.
Mostly a self-aggrandizing tome to himself. Not worth the money or your time as he makes the reading of it fairly painful...
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