BOOK REVIEWS
POCKET SCIENCE Two books in a ‘genius’ series that majors on research are reviewed by MARC BEISHON
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here’s nothing quite like appealing to be the very best and to stand out from the crowd, and this book series has the magic word – genius – that sounds like it will set off more than a few lightbulb moments. We got hold of two of the volumes most suitable for selling, namely Sales Genius and Presentation Genius – will they really help you be an Einstein among your sales colleagues? SALES GENIUS Taking Sales Genius first, it’s written by Graham Jones, who has an interesting background, to say the least – he started off in biology, then worked in the music industry and as a journalist, before going back to college to specialise in psychology. It’s the latter domain that he now uses as a self-styled ‘Internet psychologist’, where selling is just one of many business-related issues he turns his hand, or rather his mind, to. In Sales Genius, he sets his approach apart from most other books by saying it’s based on science, which a number of other Winning Edge article authors also major on, and we must say that solid evidence is what we should be looking for in sales if indeed we are to see it as more of a science than an art. Jones’s pitch is that it’s no good desperately reading sales book after book where clearly you aren’t getting the nuggets that stick, so instead he mines for real rather than fool’s gold, and gives 40 short, evidence-based chapters with references. (And 40 seems to be the magic number as the other Genius titles also have the same chapter count – the blurb says this is about assembling a ‘fast track MBA’.)
LOSS ADJUSTE R One chapter that stands out is entitled “Customers have no idea about prices”, in which Jones discusses studies from two psychologists, one of whom won a Nobel prize. “When we are deciding to buy something we are calculating whether we will lose something by purchasing it, or lose something if we don’t buy it,” writes Jones. At the same time, we are working out what we gain from buying it or gain by 40 WINNING EDGE
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not buying it. Price is a small factor and it’s “loss aversion” that’s key. But salespeople are often concerned about their prices rather than the risks and losses their customers are weighing up. Having a price range rather than one fixed price is also advantageous to the psychology of pricing which, although being a well-researched area, is not one that always gets a good airing in sales.
Sales Genius is not so much a book as a set of articles, and not surprisingly is aimed more at the behavioural side of selling, with some topics that will appeal to managers. The first chapter is “Consultative selling is expected”, in which the key is that buying things entails risk and salespeople are still pivotal to this in the Internet age. Customers are turning to chat rooms and review sites, where they want guidance, and salespeople should act as problem solvers, also using the Internet to do research and knowing that the customer isn’t always right… Adaptive selling, covered next, is about listening, bearing in mind that you may think you’re adapting to customers but evidence suggests you may be using an inflexible formula to pigeonhole people, who are more complex than standard training will prepare you for. There’s a chapter on why direct selling still works, but this is mainly about consumer selling – ISMM.CO.UK
19/01/2016 16:58
