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Next time you join a new company or change your sales role in your company, you’re going to want to have a copy of Jill Konrath’s new book: Agile Selling.
Actually if you know what’s really good for you, you’re going to want to read this book now and learn the skills in the book before you need them in a hurry–and one thing is for sure when you need these skills it will be in short order.
When you’re in a new sales job you will have a very limited amount of time to produce results or you’re going to end up looking for new gig. This book shows you how to deal with that situation and come through in great shape.
This new book is about an unusual topic for a sales book. Nearly all sales books I’ve ever seen focus on how to sell. This book focuses on a “meta skill”: Learning.
That’s right Agile Selling is not that much about teaching you how to sell (Jill already wrote two classic books about sales process: Selling To Big Companies and Snap Selling–two of my favorite sales books of all time.) Agile Selling teaches you how to learn…but tailored to sales people.
There are 3 main parts to the book.
The first part (it’s actually “part 3” in the book) teaches you to learn all that info that you have to absorb quickly when you take on a new gig. I think this part is going to be the most obviously useful to you.
This part of the book alone could be the difference between you keeping your new job and losing it. In the companies I’ve worked at, getting off to a fast start in sales is critical. CEO’s and senior managers expect you to bring in revenue within a few months–within a month is better.
Meanwhile you’re thrown into an environment you don’t understand. New products, new prospects, new colleagues, new systems…new everything. How you process this, actually how quickly you process this, may well determine if you get to stay at your new company.
The book teaches you techniques for effectively dealing with all the information about your company and market that typically gets dumped on your during your orientation or initial training sessions. It teaches you how to come up with messaging that appeals to your prospects so you sell effectively and bring in business quickly.
The second part of the book is about how to improve your sales skills. This part applies to everyone: newbie and seasoned veteran. It focus on adding sales skills in a short period of time. Again it’s all about saving your bacon. It applies not only to a new sales gig. It applies to everyone that needs to up their sales game.
The third and final part of the book is about keeping sharp at selling, developing habits that will keep you on top of your game.
The sales profession has changed a lot in the last decade. Buyers habits have changed radically with the advent of the Internet. With all the great tools still coming to market it’s likely these changes will continue or even accelerate in the next decade.
You’ll need to learn how to sell in this constantly changing environment and probably learn the offerings of a few different companies while you’re at it. In order to pull this off you’re going to need to have superior learning skills.
Agile Selling lays out how to get these superior learning skills. It’s not your typical sales book but it’s a must-read if you want to prosper in the coming years as a sales professional. And it’s really well-written too.