"Sales 101"

Well, I had ZERO sales background... I worked in a plastics mfg plant as a lab tech for 14 years, till it shut down several months ago. While working there, I'd always wanted to try something different, hence the self-improvement books, ie, sales.
Regarding Don's report, I had a good run with the "Oil Cleaning Business" and using his sales "training", approached a few local businesses and landed a few jobs (seventeen to be exact), made some good money for a few months, then stopped when I was hired on by another plastics company in Houston. I'm sure that my particular sales approach wasn't as complex as a salesman selling insurance or online-digital-retina-recognition-software, lol, but I'd bet that getting to a "yes" is always just as satisfying.
I don't regret reading all the sales books, as each had something great to offer. My point is, from that moment in time that you are waiting for the owner to free himself to come speak with you, at least for me, to the point of walking out the door, a lot of the slick and flowery phrases and verbal strategies presented in the guru-books kinda vanished, and all I was left with was what I knew about the product I was selling... which seemed to be enough.
Again, that was my experience, as a beginner, just barely getting up the nerve to go into a business in the first place. Seasoned professionals probably have a different perspective regarding sales training materials and what helps them in their particular situations....