Code Red

What a perfect book to pick up when it’s pouring out- Jeffrey Gitonmer’s Little Red Book of Selling.  I must admit, I bought it about 1.5 years ago and did what I usually do when I buy non-fiction books. I flip through several pages to look at the layout, read the table of contents, one chapter, the testimonials and then put it away. It’s because I don’t think I’ll learn anything new and who else could possibly write one new thing about selling.

This book resurfaced for me today and gave me the attitude adjustment I deserved. I am humbled and want to commend Jeffrey for his brilliant creative writing. After training thousands of salespeople, I can honestly say that very few of them admit to not knowing anything and most of them are tough-skinned. Jeffrey knows this too and writes for this group. He is ahead of his time on personal branding and claims, it’s not who you know, it’s who knows you.  So true and applicable in today’s social networking atmosphere.

Chapter titles such as Kick your own ass and If you can’t get in front of the real decision maker, you suck are direct and insightful. He also has the cutest icons floating on the left and right side of the page. The left side is the Red Whine which always finds the typical loser whiney things to say such as “my boss won’t motivate me” or “the prospect just say there” and on the right is his Red Selling Response which takes action and recommends the positive such as “If you ask compelling questions it’s impossible for the prospect to just sit there.”

Gitomer has written tons of sales books, columns and is known as the sales guru. His packaging and branding are spot on and the best part of this book is that it’s in the form of his “bible” strategy which encourages you to take it where you go and open it and refer to it. How can I beat that when I want my book on the same shelf- actually Feigon would get filed before Gitomer so I have to have lots of extras to keep my audience from buying his. They need to buy his because they will be ready for mine.