Business Resource Center › Todd's Results 2008

Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable
by Seth Godin

Key takeaway tip — The author quickly recounts the issues facing today's marketers — easily-solved problems have already been solved, information overload causes prospects to ignore you, and satisfied customers are less likely to tell their friends about you. How to address these issues? By being remarkable, that is, by being the purple cow that stands out in a field of commonplace brown cows. Some concepts I especially liked:

• A list comparing "ho-hum" products with comparable "purple cow" products (page 19).
• A critique of why a full page ad introducing the BearingPoint name was unremarkable (page 22).
• Examples of companies who "cheat" because they do not play by the rules of old-fashioned advertising-based marketing (page 38).
• Brainstorm techniques to help you find what's remarkable about your product or service (pages 122-137).

While most of the examples deal with tangible products, a number deal with services — which are the hardest of all to differentiate as remarkable. But just because it's hard to determine why a service is "purple" doesn't make it impossible.

Networking Works! Program: Building Relationships, Building Business
by Abby Donnelly

Key takeaway tip — Although this is a workbook to accompany a skills development program, the material is complete enough to stand "as is" and be used outside of a program. Abby does a wonderful job boiling her 22+ years of networking experience into 70 pages. This book is about focused planning and consistent execution — no time wasted. Some things I especially liked:

• Emotionally engage your network through a concise and creative unique selling proposition, or "USP" (pages 13-17).
• Expand your network through a benefit net, jealousy net, "they like me" net, "I like them" net, alliance net, and client net — with good examples for each (pages 25-30).
• Specific questions that will help you engage others in conversation (pages 49-50).
• Know what constitutes a good referral and know how to give one (pages 52-54).

Finally, I like the usability in the design of this book — wide margins for notes and ideas, attractive page layout, concise exercises with "fill in the blanks" format, and the program steps which organize the entire book.

To fnd out more about this book, please contact Abby directly ( 336.884.1348 or Abby@TrainingforSales.com ).

Attitude 101
by John C. Maxwell

Key takeaway tip — I find business development to be very hard — probably because I get more "no's" than I would like (I would like zero...). How do you go about framing a "no" as a success? It depends on your attitude. This book discusses the impact of attitude on you individually and on the team you lead. Unlike typical books on attitude, there is very little "rah-rah" fluff here — instead, the author presents concise and thought-provoking topics such as:

• "No-Limit People" — People who "are determined to walk to the very edge of their potential and the potential of their goals before accepting defeat." (page 23)
• "Self-Image" — "It is impossible to perform consistently in a manner inconsistent with the way we see ourselves." (page 35)
• "Encouraging and Leading Others" — "Value people. Praise effort. Reward performance." (page 76)
• "Growing to Your Potential" — "The only true measure of success is the ratio between what we might have been and what we have become." (page 90)

What distinguishes this book from others is how it links "attitude" and "success" — and how it encourages clarity on what "success" means to each of us.

The New Solution Selling
by Keith M. Eades

Key takeaway tip — This book really helps you think about sales as a process through helpful and concise flowcharts and diagrams that illustrate ideas simply.

After developing initial principles and concepts in the first two chapters, the third chapter details the "Solution Selling Sales Process" with a sensible process flow model, which focuses on managing two kinds of opportunities:

• Latent — buyers who aren't looking to buy now.
• Active — buyers who do want to buy now and to find you.

The balance of the book devotes a chapter to each major step in the process for these two types of opportunities. Because most of our business comes from referrals, most of my work is in the area of "active" opportunities, which means that we — or a trusted referral source — already have a relationship and a new opportunity surfaces.

The Fred Factor
by Mark Sanborn

Key takeaway tip —This book is about lessons the author learned from his home mail carrier, Fred, who applied passion to his job and changed it from ordinary to extraordinary. The author briefly describes the following "Fred Principles" early in the book, and then explains them more fully later:

1. Everyone Makes A Difference.
2. Success Is Built On Relationships.
3. You Must Continually Create Value For Others, And It Doesn't Have To Cost A Penny.
4. You Can Reinvent Yourself Regularly.

What does this mean for business development? Nothing, in the short-term — and everything, in the long-run. The firm celebrated its eighteenth anniversary on August 1, 2007. Because the firm is only as good as the people who are part of it, we choose to make a difference to our clients, helping develop relationships with our clients and referral sources. Over the firm's lifetime, we have also chosen to realign our service lines at times, to adapt to the changing needs of clients — and all of these changes have helped us continue to provide value for our clients. Our 18 years in business show that long-term success does come from consistently applying the "Fred Principles."

What Clients Love
by Harry Beckwith

Key takeaway tip — This book is best thought of as roughly 120 short essays grouped by the "Four Building Blocks" of things that cause clients to love doing business with you:

• Clear Communications.
• A Compelling Message.
• A Reassuring Brand.
• Caring Service.

How to evaluate all this quickly and easily? Look at your people — are they passionate about their work? As the author notes near the end of the book, "Clients love passionate people and passionate businesses because passion stimulates them — they feel it and feel better, too — and because they know that passion produces great work." Passionate people deliver the caring service that builds a reassuring brand, and clearly communicate — through action — your business' compelling message.

Lead Generation for the Complex Sale
by Brian J. Carroll

Key takeaway tip — Do you have a sales process that requires education and nurturing over a long time (6 to 36 months), involving a sophisticated, highly customized solution to a key business issue facing a company? If so, you have a "complex sale." The author first discusses the implications of a complex sale and then outlines some steps to address these, including:

• Defining your best leads, and focusing on quality, not quantity.
• Getting crystal clear about your value proposition, so that it can be consistently communicated throughout the marketing and selling processes.
• Defining and executing a consistent multimodal lead generation plan with tactics relevant to your line of business — phone calls, e-mail, online marketing, events, direct mail, referrals, public relations, web site, and the like.

A convenient executive summary of the entire book can be found in chapter six — the critical success factors for building a lead generation plan.

LET'S GET REAL or Let's Not Play
by Mahan Khalsa

Key takeaway tip — This book takes aim at both buyers and sellers — and helps both parties create effective dialog to break a dysfunctional cycle and replace it with buying and selling processes based on honesty and integrity.

• The only alternative to dysfunctional selling and buying processes is for the seller and the buyer to mutually explore a solution that truly meets the client's needs — "No Guessing!"
• Mutual exploration requires asking hard questions in a soft way, so the questions and overall process reflect concepts from emotional intelligence.
• The ORDER process — Opportunity, Resources, Decision Process, Exact Solution, and Relationship — comprises the bulk of the book, and is clearly explained and illustrated with real-life dialog.

The Referral of a Lifetime
by Tim Templeton

Key takeaway tip — This book presents the cure for the dreaded cold call — a networking system that maximizes results based on genuine relationship techniques, such as:

• Using your contact database to identify, monitor and reach your referral sources — because everyone you know can be a referral source, once they know what you do.
• Ranking your contacts as A (around 10% to 12% of the total number), B (17% to 20%), and C.
• Staying in touch consistently — monthly, quarterly, or annually — as appropriate to the relation. The Appendix lists a suggestion for each month.
• Asking for ways you can help your referral sources, and then act on these, quickly and flawlessly. You will earn their respect — and their referrals!

Jeffrey Gitomer's Little Red Book of Sales Answers – 99.5 Real World Answers that make sense, make sales and MAKE MONEY
by Jeffrey Gitomer

Key takeaway tip — Many valuable insights on selling, told in a concise — and frequently funny — way. Some of my favorite questions, from among the 99.5 Sales Answers:

• #1 — What is the meaning of sales? (His one-word answer: WORK. His two-word answer: WORK HARD.).
• # 27 — Why did the last 10 prospects say yes?
• # 49 — How can I create more valuable questions?
• # 93 — How can I differentiate myself from the competition?

The Sales Success Handbook: 20 Lessons to Open and Close Sales Now
by Linda Richardson

Key takeaway tip — 20 lessons about better communication — plus some subtle, but important, tips for achieving this. The lessons I found particularly valuable were (and, yes, the strikethrough text is part of the lesson title):

• Ask questions off the cuff Develop a questioning strategy.
• Focus on the questions you ask Focus on how skillfully you ask questions.
• Tell about your products Position your message.
• Trust your instincts Validate the opportunity.

Sales Techniques
by William T. Brooks

Key takeaway tip — On pages 63 and 64, the author lists approximate chances of selling to:

• A current customer — 1:2..
• A referral or a former customer — 1:4.
• Someone who has never dealt with you — 1:14-16.