A richly personal view of improving the interactions at the heart of sales.
Cowan outlines principles of salesmanship distilled from a lifetime in the business.
Drawing on his more than six decades of selling and sales management experience, the author shares his vision of the best principles and practices of sales (concentrating on one-on-one interactions rather than group sales, telephone sales, or the internet) and proposes ways that salespeople can adapt their psyches to improve their sales. As Cowan notes at the outset of his nonfiction debut, the general public tends to view sales and salespeople in a less than favorable light, evidenced by the fact that very few institutions offer university-level training in salesmanship. “We all recognize that to travel the same road we have traveled for a long time is quite comfortable,” he writes, invoking Robert Frost’s famous poem. “To choose a road less traveled takes courage and faith to meet new and exciting challenges.” Central to much of the author’s advice about selling is an emphasis on good interviewing, which often boils down to the art of listening. “Too often,” he observes, “the salesperson who loves to talk can’t wait for the prospect to stop talking so he can talk more.” Cowan includes not only diverting cartoons and sketches of some of the people he references but also affectionate stories about individuals who’ve shaped his own journey in sales. This is in line with the warmly personal tone he adopts throughout the book; there’s an enormous amount of wisdom conveyed, but it’s all delivered in such an invitingly personal way that the reader will feel encouraged rather than lectured to. (The author’s stress on listening as the true basis of trust is refreshing in a professional world that loves to hear itself talk.) Cowan’s focus on individual psychology is equally thought provoking as he posits that, in order to be truly good at what they do, salespeople should understand themselves before they try to understand their potential customers.
A richly personal view of improving the interactions at the heart of sales.Pub Date: Dec. 21, 2023
ISBN: 9798218260613
Page Count: 128
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 27, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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