Target Opportunity Selling: Top Sales Performers Reveal What Really Works

Foreword

The modern sales approach was born in the rise of postwar industrialism nearly a century ago as factories retooled to crank out new products in fabric, plastic, and chromium steel. Competitors with similar products sent salespeople door-to-door, and their telephone-based equivalents were given territories, demo kits, and rich incentives to hit the bricks and bring home the bacon.

Those who had the right features, price, network, or personality to “sell the sizzle” raked in the orders and pocketed the commissions. Advertising executives created slogans, marketing departments offered incentives, and engineering teams developed new widgets. But it was always the salespeople on the front lines whose task it was to outpace, outtalk, and outsell ...