By Tim Hughes
This blog previously appeared on the DLA blog here
The other day I spotted a message from a social media guru where he said that people shouldn’t read sales and marketing books.
Maybe it’s because he hasn’t written one, and I have (so maybe I’m biased), but even before I had written a book, I completely disagreed and still do disagree with this.
There are three reasons for this:
- At my previous company we did some research on the “A-Players” in the business. What was it that made these people continually over achieve their number year in and year out? One of the factors was the continual investment in personal training. “B-Players” always said they didn’t have time. “A-Players” realised they had to continually learn new techniques and for that reason alone, books will teach you new things.
- I’m continually reading sales and marketing books and there is always something new. A technique or a new way of working I haven’t thought about before. Yes, in many of the traditional sales books I’ve heard (and read it) all before. How many books on prospecting can you read and expect something new. But I’m always finding nuggets about staying ahead of your competition.
- The feedback from people who have read my book. I have to admit that Matt and I wrote it in a way to be a “how”, rather than a “why”. So while the first few chapters are about why you need to social sell, we get straight into techniques on how you can change what you do now to meet the way that the modern buyer works. It is, after all, a buyers’ market. There are currently (as I write) 38 x 5-star reviews.
This blog is continued here