Books

Four new books written by distinguished contributors to the Journal offer business leaders, sales professionals, students and academics new insights and guidance as they seek to navigate the complexities of selling and sales leadership today. Each of the authors delivers that rare combination of academic credibility and practical business experience. Sales Management That Works by Frank V Cespedes Rather than moving… 

Business leaders need to understand that it’s the fit of People, Process, Pricing, and Partners that drives sales effectiveness. Selling is changing. When managers make decisions based on obsolete assumptions, they fall victim to those who do understand cause-and-effect links between buying and selling. For over a half-century, buying has been framed in terms of a hierarchy-of-effects model: moving a… 

Jeb Blount (author), Anthony Iannarino (foreword) The sales profession is in the midst of a perfect storm. Buyers have more power more information, more at stake, and more control over the sales process than any time in history. Technology is bringing disruptive change at an ever–increasing pace, creating fear and uncertainty that leaves buyers clinging to the status quo. Deteriorating… 

Mark Weinberg Why do sales organisations fall short? Every day, expert consultants like Mike Weinberg are called on by companies large and small to find the answer – and it’s one that may surprise you. Typically, the issue lies not with the sales team – but with how it is being led. Through their attitude and actions, senior executives and… 

Aaron Ross, Jason Lemkin Why are you struggling to grow your business when everyone else seems to be crushing their goals? If you needed to triple revenue within the next three years, would you know exactly how to do it? Doubling the size of your business, tripling it, even growing ten times larger isn’t about magic. There’s a template that… 

Mark Davies During the recessionary period of 2008-9, many organizations followed a business model that was ill-suited to long-term prosperity and strong profits, instead focusing on cost-cutting initiatives in order to survive. Post-recession, there is more optimism around investment, but changing from an entrenched cost-focused strategy can prove to be challenging. Infinite Value offers a value-based business model approach, which… 

Luis R. Gomez-Mejia (author), Pascual Berrone (contributor), Monica Franco-Santos (contributor) This research-oriented textbook focuses on the relationship between compensation systems and overall firm performance. In contrast to more traditional compensation texts, it provides a strategic perspective to compensation administration rather than a functional viewpoint. The text emphasizes the role of managerial pay, its importance, determinants, and impact on organizations. It… 

Authors Bill Donaldson, Javier Marcos Cuevas, Régis Lemmens Professional selling and sales management have become more complex and multifaceted than ever before, but also a more exciting and stimulating function and profession. Sales Management provides a comprehensive introduction to selling and sales management. Packed full of insightful real-world case studies, the fully updated and revised fourth edition of this highly… 

by Professor Malcolm McDonald, Dr Beth Rogers This book explores the challenges of winning, retaining and developing key accounts. Key accounts are customers who help their suppliers grow, and consequently, they wield significant power. Although they are the key to market share and revenue growth, the costs of serving key accounts can erode profitability unless they are thoroughly understood and… 

Antonio Garcia Martinez Billed as “an adrenaline-fuelled exposé of life inside the tech bubble”, Chaos Monkeys lays bare the secrets, power plays and lifestyle excesses of the visionaries, grunts, sociopaths, opportunists and money cowboys who are revolutionising our world. Author Antonio García Martínez left Wall Street to make his fortune in Silicon Valley, becoming CEO of his own startup, before… 

Duncan Clark Alibaba is a Chinese e-commerce company that provides consumer-to-consumer, business-to-consumer and business-to-business sales services via web portals. It also provides electronic payment services, a shopping search engine and data-centric cloud computing services. Alibaba’s consumer-to-consumer portal Taobao, similar to eBay.com, features nearly a billion products and is one of the 20 most-visited websites globally. This book is billed as… 

Robert James Author Robert James has been a business developer tasked with selling software and services to Fortune 500, public sector and SMB accounts in search for new business since 2005. During that time, he says he has generated more than $25 million in new client revenue from cold calling and exceeded quota multiple times for five different companies. Since… 

Joe Morone, Karen Benjamin and Marty Smith This book is aimed at CEOs and sales leaders who feel their organisations have not yet won their fair share of their potential market. Co-author Joe Morone tells readers: “You have great products and services. You’ve amassed a dedicated team. You have loyal clients realising tangible success with your offerings. But improving sales… 

In the pantheon of CEOs, few people have the visibility, charisma and hunger of Bill McDermott, sole CEO of SAP SE since May 2014, the first American to hold that position. His career is a classic story of ambition and drive: from the hard-knock streets of his youth in Long Island, to his first forays in business behind the counter… 

Rightly praised as a text that exemplifies how an understanding of sales management can be firmly founded on academic rigour, the fourth edition of this book provides a comprehensive introduction to selling and sales management – of potential benefit to undergraduates, postgraduates and postgraduate practitioners alike. Case studies ground this book in the real world, while international examples make it… 

Strategic alliances provide organisations with an alternative approach to delivering growth and shareholder value from either organic or acquisition-led growth. A successful strategic alliance can enable a company to grow faster and more profitably through leveraging the strengths of one or more alliance partner compared with just going it alone. Alliances are gaining recognition as a core strategy to enable… 

Making the leap into sales management means meeting a whole new set of challenges, says Schwartz. As a manager, you’re going to have to quickly develop the skills that allow you to build and supervise a sales team, communicate effectively, set goals, be a mentor, and much more. Now that you’ve been handed these unfamiliar responsibilities, you’re going to have… 

This book starts with the assumption that readers know how to sell, but recognises getting CEOs and VIPs to call you back is the tricky part. Hall-of-Fame-nominated marketer and Wall Street Journal cartoonist Stu Heinecke discovered he could get past traditional gatekeepers to reach those elusive executives by thinking outside the box and using personalized approaches he calls ‘contact campaigns.’… 

This book is about not just growth, but high-growth, even explosive-growth. “The kind of growth that weather satellites can see from space,” as the author says. She adds: “The success of any business-to-business company is directly linked to how effectively they acquire new pipeline. To skyrocket growth, sales development is the answer.” This book encapsulates author Trish Bertuzzi’s three decades… 

According to Weinberg, no matter how much repeat business you get from loyal customers, the lifeblood of your business is a constant flow of new accounts. “Whether you’re a sales rep, sales manager, or a professional services executive, if you are expected to bring in new business, you need a proven formula for prospecting, developing, and closing deals,” he says….