We just received notice from Amazon that our new book, The New Sales Guy Project* , has risen to number 503 on Amazon’s List of Top Selling books in the Sales and Selling category.     Considering that our book is designed exclusively for the small group of folks just launching their selling career in the Knowledge-based Distribution world, which isn’t exactly a massive market, and that we have invested exactly zero dollars in advertising, we are kind of proud of the ground swell of support from our friends in the industry.   The top books in this category include works from some of Frank Hurtte’s personal heroes who produced books like: The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon Drive and To Sell is Human by Daniel Pink Spin Selling by Neil Rackham   While checking out the list we also discovered that Hurtte’s other books are scoring well too.   The Distributor Fee-Based Services Manifest is tracking at 187 in the Distribution category. ...

Who needs to read this book, who doesn’t, and why? Ask any authors and they will freely tell you about the inspiration behind their penned masterpiece.  They will also give you a list of reasons to buy (and read) the book.  It’s unheard of for an author to tell you NOT to make the purchase.  But, I’m not just any author.   My motivation for writing this book. I have been personally involved in the sales process for Knowledge-based Distributors for a very long time; forty-five years at last count.  I have assisted new salespeople in some way or another for at least thirty years. As a Knowledge-based distributor salesperson with over 45 years of experience, I acknowledge that most of the skills and methodologies I learned early in my career are outdated.  While most experienced salespeople do not have as much experience as me, it’s safe to say sales leaders who started their journey after the launch of the iPhone in 2007 have a completely different exper...

Sales managers are under pressure to increase sales calls and productivity. This leads to scrutiny of call reports, which often reveal poor results.  To improve their reports, salespeople are counting drop-by visits with no customer contact as sales calls, which is ineffective. Several factors contribute to the lack of customer visits: poor time planning, inefficient travel, failure to make appointments, getting caught up in trivial tasks, excessive focus on customer emergencies, and complex individual situations.  To address these issues, you need a coaching plan. Over a 6-8 week period, sales managers should review each seller's planned activities for the upcoming week, log data on their plans, and compare them with the actual results. This allows for the identification of: • Scheduling issues.  Are they really planning ahead? • Issues with setting appointments.  Do they need some coaching here? • Emergencies that took them out of the field.  Are they j...