> Greetings all,

> I recently read a post that advised everyone
> to get some experiance working in sales,
> that it would always help in business &
> life. I think it may have been posted by
> Michael, Gorden, or one of the
> "regulars" here. Maybe someone can
> confirm how good or bad my memory is? LOL

> I have a friend with over 20 yrs in
> successful sales jobs and we are considering
> a JV on an ebook of sales tips &
> experiances.

> I would like to contact whoever made the
> post advising sales work as an educational
> tool.

> Does anyone else have any advice for this
> JV/book?

> Thanks, Dave Horn

> PS: Yes Michael, I tried the search first.
> :-)

Hello, Dave,

I'd like to suggest a slightly different idea for you as far as getting the scoop on salesmanship. Try to get informal 'interviews' with some sales managers in various fields.

Try to interview people in the type of sales your JV partner has: b2b or retail, for example. You will get an entirely different perspective on sales if you approach the subject properly.

Things you might discuss with them:

What's the one thing you look for in a prospective salesperson?

What will automatically disqualify a sales applicant?

What is the biggest problem you've encountered in managing salespeople?

Any motivational tricks that really work for the majority of your sales force?

You get the idea. The purpose, of course, is to pick up some examples, quotations, and springboard ideas to help flesh out your book.

I don't know your JV partner's background but, unless he/she has some experience in sales management, your book will be too one-sided to be really useful without other input. Unless they've been in a variety of sales situations and been trained by different methods in them, you have a lot of research to do to come up with something that isn't a re-hash of what everyone else has done.

One bit of advice: don't assume that what holds true for one type of sales is equally true for another type...nothing could be further from the truth. Approaches are different, techniques are not universally interchangeable, and closing shouldn't even be discussed.

If you've made the approach and presentation correctly, the closing doesn't even exist as a separate entity...it's a natural extension of the process. If you think 'closing' you're not listening and really communicating with your prospect.

Good luck with your project.

Sandi