MADblog

Selling: The Land of Confusion

2009-09-20T06:14:00.000-07:00

At the risk of sounding like the late curmudgeon Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes, I would like to share an observation: Have you ever noticed how salespeople confuse Sales and Marketing? That sellers get the two mixed up is understandable, since many jobs in selling involve both activities.

Okay, so folks get sales and marketing mixed up. What of it?

Here's what: If you sell for a living, you had best know which is which, because marketing on sales calls is usually counterproductive. All you need to see this is so, is to compare the goals of Marketing with those of selling.

THE PURPOSE OF MARKETING
In essence, the function of marketing is to attract and retain customers by:

Crafting a distinctive identity - otherwise known as a brand - for your company and its goods and services.
Promoting that brand, while preserving its integrity.
Educating and informing potential buyers.
Becoming and staying foremost, in the mind of customers.
Fostering customer loyalty.

THE PURPOSE OF SELLING
In contrast to marketing, the aim of selling is to identify parties likely to buy soon what you offer, and do business with as many of these folks as possible. As anyone who has worked a trade show can attest, the main difference between Sales and Marketing is that there is no commitment in the latter.

This distinction is lost on most salespeople, who market rather than sell to prospects. This is inadvisable because:

There is no commitment in marketing. A sale is a series of agreements that culminates in an exchange of money for goods and services. Without agreements, there is no sale. So if you are not making offers and trading commitments, you are not selling.
Marketing to prospects one at a time is inefficient, and prohibitively expensive for most businesses.
Face-to-face marketing tends to create sales resistance. Because prospects expect more from human beings than product literature, they tend to resist salespeople who tout benefits, educate them against their will, and otherwise try to persuade them.

Make no mistake: Like selling, marketing is an essential activity for any enterprise. Both have their place, and savvy salespeople keep them where they belong because they understand that, like drinking and driving, marketing while selling can be hazardous to your health.

The Rap Against Rapport

2009-08-22T10:14:00.001-07:00

The Sales profession has many sacred cows, and the holiest of the herd is that people buy from people they like.

This tenet of traditional selling is so plausible that it is rarely challenged, and I accepted it as a fact until experience forced me to question it, and when I did, I soon realized that I had been willfully ignorant, because I chose to disregard compelling evidence that prospects buy for reasons other than congeniality. Like a driver with tunnel vision, I intentionally ignored signs that rapport is not the golden road to success in sales.

SIGN #1: PEOPLE WHO SEEMED TO LIKE ME, DID NOT BUY
Appearances can be deceiving, and it is tough to tell if someone truly likes you. What seems to be liking could simply be courtesy or "playing nice" to avoid confrontation. Whether it was real or fake, I appeared to have great rapport with prospects who did little or no business with me.

SIGN #2: I HAD LITTLE IN COMMON WITH MOST OF MY BEST CUSTOMERS
More often than not, our only connection is that they wanted what I sold, and while they did not hate me we were hardly pals. Given our different backgrounds and interests, most of my clients would no sooner have hung out with me than I would have hung out with them. Despite these differences, we managed to do a lot of business together.

SIGN #3: MOST PROSPECTS CANNOT AFFORD TO DO BUSINESS WITH PEOPLE JUST BECAUSE THEY LIKE THEM
This is particularly true if they buy stuff for a living and are held accountable for their purchases. There is simply too much at stake for decision-makers to do otherwise.

Honestly: How likely is a purchase from an amiable sales rep if the prospect:

Doesn't want or need what the salesperson is offering?
Can't afford it?
Finds the terms of sale unfavorable?

Not very, in my experience.

SIGN #4: THE TOP SALESPEOPLE I KNEW DIDN'T TRY TO GET PROSPECTS TO LIKE THEM
Neither did they pretend to be like the people they called on. What's more, many of these folks lacked dynamic personalities. A few were downright dull, so wooden that they drew termites. Nevertheless, they managed to outsell the rest of us on a regular basis.

SIGN #5: RAPPORT-BUILDING IS REPULSIVE TO ME AS A CONSUMER
For a time I was so keen to be liked that I failed to consider how I feel when sellers try to establish rapport with me, which is "slimed."

At first I dismissed this feeling as unique to folks who sell for a living. Over time, however, I came to realize that most buyers react the same way, and resist salespeople who try to manipulate them psychologically.

SIGN #6: BUYERS ARE MORE SOPHISTICATED THAN EVER
By "sophisticated" I mean more worldly and better informed. Throngs of prospects are now wise to the machinations of salespeople, especially their use of rapport-building techniques. Whether or not these techniques work - if such a thing can be determined - is beside the point: The point is that these methods are clearly manipulative, and increasingly familiar to buyers who resent their use.

SIGN #7: LIKING IS NICE BUT NOT NECESSARY
If a prospective buyer likes you it is a plus but not essential. What is essential, is that you not turn prospects into adversaries. This, I believe, is the true meaning of the adage that "people buy from people they like," which properly translates as, "prospects don't buy from repulsive salespeople" - sellers who try to manipulate, bully, or bluff them into a purchase.

Whether or not somebody likes you is beyond your control. What you can control is your behavior, which either creates or eliminates sales resistance.

SIGN #8: RAPPORT IS AN EFFECT AS WELL AS A CAUSE
Over time we can grow to like people different from us who are respectful, honest, and direct. As proof, I submit most of my friends.

More often than not, rapport develops between buyers and sellers AFTER they do business together, if neither party is manipulative, aggressive, or deceptive.

These realities forced me to conclude that people don't buy from people they like: They buy from people they trust and respect, who can satisfy their specific wants.

Like most of the sacred cows in traditional selling, the value of rapport is just plain bull.

The Best Defense

2009-08-19T05:08:00.000-07:00

In the competitive world of selling, one inevitably has what I call ‘Peterson days,’ times when you feel like the Norm Peterson character in the barroom comedy Cheers, who famously lamented, “it’s a dog-eat-dog world, and I’m wearing Milk Bone underwear.”

A common fear among salespeople is that if they are direct and honest with prospects, they, too, will be donning Milk Bone underwear. Though groundless, this fear is understandable, as every salesperson has been burned by a deceptive buyer, or lost out to a competitor who used dirty tricks to get a sale.

Regrettably, these experiences leave such a strong impression that most salespeople mistake the exception for the rule and fail to grasp one of the greatest paradoxes in sales, which is that the best defense is no offense - a fancy way of saying that salespeople are least vulnerable to unscrupulous buyers and competitors, when they do not offend prospects by being manipulative, aggressive, or deceptive.

On the whole, buyers tend to treat salespeople the way salespeople treat them. As a result, if you treat prospects with trust and respect, there is a good - albeit not one hundred percent - chance that prospects will respond in kind.

And let's not forget wiggle room: MAD salespeople make it easy for buyers to renege on their promises, as prospects can later claim with reason that they were misled or buffaloed into a purchase. Sellers who are honest and direct, on the other hand, obtain firm commitments (unambiguous and unequivocal agreements) that can only be broken, something most buyers won't do.

So when it comes to armoring yourself against bad actors, how better to do it than by being blatantly honest, utterly straightforward, and pressure-free?

© Bradley P. Simpson 2009

Touting Benefits

2009-08-16T07:36:00.000-07:00

Every profession has its chestnuts, maxims repeated so often that they grow old.

Sales is no exception, and one of the oldest nuts in the orchard that benefits sell a product or service. Unfortunately, this adage has been misconstrued and misapplied by advocates of traditional selling. Which would be no big deal, if touting benefits did not create sales resistance in potential customers. Lest you doubt that it does, I challenge you to apply the Shoe Test.

To perform the Shoe Test, put yourself in a prospect's shoes and ask the following question: How do you feel when a salesperson touts the benefits of their offering with statements like, "you'll save time and money."

If you are like most buyers, such assertions provoke skepticism, especially if they sound like a come-on.

By "assertions" I mean claims that might not apply to you personally. Benefit statements are presumptuous because they assume you will reap the same gains others have, and suppose that what is beneficial to some, is advantageous to all.

Which brings us to the main problem with benefits:

Like beauty, benefit is in the eye of the beholder.

Because benefit is in the eye of the beholder, it is best for salespeople to enumerate the features of their offerings and let prospects see the advantages for themselves. This makes sense because:

Virtues extolled by the seller might not be benefits a prospective customer wants.
Touting benefits creates sales resistance in most buyers.
If the advantages of a product are obvious, prospects don't need to be told what they are.
Benefit claims are dismissed as hype until a prospect concludes - in their own way, in their own time, for their own reasons - that those claims are true.

In reality, prospects buy benefits but don't like to be sold them. That is why a benefit touted is a claim to be doubted, and an advantage perceived, is a benefit indeed.

Detriments 101

2009-08-15T10:45:00.000-07:00

In a previous post I suggested that it is not only a salesperson's responsibility, but in their best interest to disclose the negative as well as the positive aspects of their offerings.

While many sellers withhold detriments on purpose, some omit disadvantages because they don't know what they are. Which isn't all that surprising, when you consider that most salespeople are not trained to seek the drawbacks of their products and services. In reality, there are lots of potential "cons" to any proposal. So many, in fact, that even the most conscientious sales representative can miss one, from time to time.

Daunting as it may seem, identifying detriments is fairly easy when you consider the three components of every offering:

Products
Services
Terms and Conditions of Sale

Less obvious but equally important are what I call "impacts," which are consequences of agreeing to do business together under a given set of terms and conditions.

For example: If a business decides to upgrade its computer hardware and software, two impacts of that decision are periodic downtime during the changeover, and an initial loss of productivity while users learn the new system. Some buyers are willing to accept these impacts, and others are not. In either case, these consequences are detriments because they are potential minuses to a prospective buyer, at least in the short term.

My research suggests that there are ten types of detriments that need to be covered if you want to discover the possible drawbacks of an offering, which are:

Omissions – things missing that the prospect wants, like a money-back guarantee.
Unwanteds – things the prospect doesn't want or need.
Excesses – stuff the prospect wants that your offer has too much of, like SKUs (stock keeping units).
Increases – things your offer increases, that the prospect wants to decrease or maintain, like labor costs.
Reductions – things your offer decreases, that the prospect wants to increase or maintain, such as profit margins.
Losses – things your offer takes away, that the prospect may want to keep, such as choices and privileges.
Burdens – unwanted obligations that your offer imposes on the prospect, like carrying additional inventory.
Limitations – restrictions on things the prospect may not want limited, such as the quantity of product they can buy at a deep discount.
Variances – aspects of your offer that do not conform to a prospect’s requirements, such as color, quality, and compliance with codes or industry standards.
Dangers – features of your offer that expose the prospect to new or increased risks, such as the side effects of new drugs.

Though incomplete, this list should help any salesperson disclose all the detriments of their offering - something virtually every product, service, and business proposition, has.

© Bradley P. Simpson 2009

What Prospects Don't Know

2009-08-15T05:33:00.000-07:00

As a rule, salespeople excel at touting benefits but stink at disclosing detriments. That is a shame, because sharing both serves buyer and seller alike. That being the case, I have long wondered why salespeople fail to cover the disadvantages of their offerings.

Experience has convinced me that salespeople withhold detriments for four main reasons:

REASON #1: TRAINING
Most salespeople are taught not to raise negatives because they have been taught it is self-sabotage, and the prospect's job to find weak spots in their proposals.

In truth it is in a salesperson's best interest - and therefore their responsibility - to fully disclose the unfavorable aspects of their offerings. Why? Because doing so:

Engenders trust and respect, which reduces sales resistance.
Helps separate possible drawbacks from actual ones.
Brings potential roadblocks into the open, so they can be addressed.
Saves time. If there is a showstopper, disclosing detriments exposes deal-killers quickly, freeing the seller to pursue other opportunities.
Strengthens commitments. If the salesperson enumerates all of the minuses of a proposal, the prospect can make a fully-informed decision. This, in turn, decreases cancellations and returns due to buyer’s remorse.

Furthermore, any good seller knows the flaws in their solutions. This places the burden of disclosure squarely on the sales representative.

REASON #2: IGNORANCE
Because sellers are accustomed to casting their wares in the best light, they tend have a blind spot for their negative features. This handicap is worsened by the fact that few salespeople are taught to identify the potential drawbacks of their proposals.

REASON #3: SELF-DISHONESTY
Though most prospects would beg to differ, some salespeople think withholding detriments is okay because it is not lying. Whether it is or not, is debatable. What cannot be debated is that keeping minuses to yourself is deceptive, and denying it is intellectually dishonest.

REASON #4: FEAR
In my estimation, fear is the main reason salespeople fail to disclose the downsides of their offerings. Specifically, the fear of:

Losing the sale.
Losing the sale to a crooked competitor.
Recrimination by superiors who subscribe to manipulative, aggressive, and deceptive sales practices.

While the third concern is sometimes valid, the first fear is irrational, as most sales fail not because they are lost, but because there is no mutually-acceptable basis for the buyer and seller to do business together at a particular point in time. To take these failed sales personally is thus just crazy, and a recipe for chronic discouragement.

And as far as losing an occasional sale to a dirty competitor goes: It happens, and stinks when it does. Every dog has its day, even a MAD one.

Thankfully, sellers who practice full disclosure have more days than their grimy opponents, because they realize that what prospects don't know, can hurt them.

© Bradley P. Simpson 2009

The Trouble With AIDA

2009-08-14T04:39:00.000-07:00

One of the most fascinating periods in American history is the Progressive Era, which, according to the Library of Congress, began in 1890 and ended in 1913 with the outbreak of World War I. The age was progressive in the sense that the country was changing from an agrarian society to an industrial nation, a tectonic shift that spurred widespread reforms in American life.

The most prominent reformer of the age was efficiency expert Frederick W. Taylor, who sought to remake American business by replacing practices rooted in tradition with ‘scientific’ methods - techniques based on careful observation of people at work. Taylor’s ideas revolutionized manufacturing, and were so influential that they spread to other disciplines.

One of those infected by the virus of Scientific Management was advertising pioneer E. St. Elmo Lewis, who studied consumer behavior and concluded that buyers go through four distinct stages when making a purchase: Awareness, Interest, Decision, and Action.

The Lewis model was appealing, so attractive that legions of managers adopted it as a blueprint for selling, to the extent that scores of executives still consider it a salesperson's job to:

Make prospects aware of their product or service
Generate interest in what they are selling
Persuade prospects to decide in favor of their offering
Get prospects to buy, today

Though useful for marketing and a reasonable facsimile of buyer behavior, AIDA is not a working sales model because people cannot be led through the buying process at will. Prospects buy in their own time for their own reasons, and are seldom swayed by salespeople who try to get them to buy in their time, for their reasons. Were it not so, it would be unnecessary for companies to promote their offerings continuously, and make recurring offers to potential customers.

Let’s face it: Prospects are unpredictable creatures. They come into season at random, and are receptive to suitors only when they are ready.

That is why for all of its allure, AIDA doesn't work as a selling process, and salespeople who try to manipulate, bully, and bluff prospects into buying, are likely to fail.

© Bradley P. Simpson 2009

Signs of MADness: Cognitive Dissonance

2009-07-19T14:03:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in the introduction, I try to avoid traditional sales practices because they make me uneasy. This discomfort has a name: Cognitive Dissonance.

A phenomenon first described by social psychologist Leon Festinger, Cognitive Dissonance was originally defined as "the unpleasant feeling that arises when we confront facts that clash with our beliefs." This definition was later modified by psychologist Elliot Aronson, who characterized Cognitive Dissonance as "the discomfort we feel when we sense a conflict between our behavior and self-concept" - a fancy way of saying that Cognitive Dissonance is The Feeling of Phoniness.

According to Aronson, self-concept tends to be positive, and it is something we try to preserve. Since most of see ourselves as competent and ethical people, dissonance occurs when we are inept, or sense that we are behaving dishonorably.

It should be no surprise, then, that manipulation, aggressiveness, and deception create Cognitive Dissonance in salespeople, because:

MAD sales tactics rarely work.
Most sellers see themselves as honest, straightforward, and decent folks, and
The majority of salespeople know viscerally when they are mistreating prospects

Ultimately, there are only three things you can do with Cognitive Dissonance: Accept it, reduce it, or eliminate it. Because acceptance is untenable for most of us, I will discuss different strategies salespeople use to mitigate the stress of internal conflict.

HOW SALESPEOPLE REDUCE COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
In my experience, sellers use one or more of the following strategies to reduce the tension of Cognitive Dissonance:

Denial – they refuse to admit that their methods are ineffective, or acknowledge that their conduct is ethically unsound.
Rationalization - they justify their behavior with reasons like, “Buyers are liars,” and, “If I don't sell the way management wants me to, I'll be fired."
Avoidance - they shun activities that create dissonance, like conventional cold-calling.
Compartmentalization – they try to separate who they are on the job, from their True Selves.
Distraction – they divert their attention from their discomfort
Self-Medication – they elevate their mood temporarily with food, alcohol, or risky behavior.
Selective Compliance - they sell in a traditional manner, only when management is present.

HOW SALESPEOPLE ELIMINATE COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
Since most folks have a low tolerance of Cognitive Dissonance, sellers who can't stand it usually deal with it in one of two ways:

Defection – they go somewhere else, or decide to do something else, to make a living.
Behavior Modification – they change the way they act, so their actions are consistent with their self-image.

Sadly, Cognitive Dissonance is a way of life for salespeople who trade their honor for bread. Afraid to change or ignorant of alternatives, they cope with the pain of self-betrayal using the aforementioned strategies, plus the most popular palliative of all: Motivation.

Traditional salespeople tend to be motivation junkies because they are constantly at war with prospects and themselves. Forever under siege, they return repeatedly to Dr. Peptalk for a fix that ultimately fixes nothing.

What salespeople really need is trust and respect, including self-respect. That, and an approach to selling that fosters open and honest participation by prospects. Because motivation cannot meet these needs its impact is short-lived, making the demand for pump-ups insatiable.

It is not rejection that drives sellers to the street corners where the motivation merchants ply their wares: It is the the resistance created by manipulative, aggressive, and deceptive sales tactics.

© Bradley P. Simpson 2009. All rights reserved.

The Contradictions of Consultative Selling

2009-07-16T12:49:00.000-07:00

When Mahatma Gandhi was asked his opinion of Western Civilization, he famously quipped, "I think it would be a good idea."

That is how I feel about Consultative Selling, most of which is just traditional selling in drag.

Conceptually, Consultative Selling is attractive, because in this model the salesperson acts as a consultant instead of a peddler. This enhances the self-esteem of folks who have qualms about selling for a living, and creates less resistance in buyers than traditional sales techniques.

In reality, though, it is tough to be a consultative salesperson if you are not self-employed. So difficult, in fact, that I am tempted to regard the term "consultative selling" as an oxymoron.

Consider what real consultants do: They give impartial advice, and are paid for their time and expertise.

Sales reps, by contrast, spend the bulk of their time identifying opportunities and harvesting sales, and are compensated accordingly. In addition, few sellers are impartial because they are not free to fully disclose the detriments of their offerings and recommend the best solution, when that solution is somebody else's. Thus constrained, they are not true advisors.

Such are the contradictions of Consultative Selling, which is only consultative if you are:

An expert in your field or industry.
As familiar with competitive products and services as you are with your own.
Free (have unconditional support from management) to enumerate all the drawbacks of your offering, and recommend any provider whose solution is the best fit for a prospective customer.
Willing and able to "bet on the come,” i.e. forgo sales today, in favor of business over the long term from referrals.
Paid in whole or in part, for dispensing advice.

Introduction

2009-07-15T10:00:00.000-07:00

This blog shouldn’t be necessary.

Unfortunately it us, because most salespeople are MAD. For all its insanity, crazy conduct not only persists, but remains widespread in the world of Selling - which, by my reckoning, is a parallel universe where the the Golden Rule doesn’t apply.

Which prompts the question: What, exactly, is MAD sales behavior?

Derived from the acronym MAD (short for Manipulative, Aggressive, and Deceptive), MAD behavior is salesperson behavior that creates resistance in prospects.

Though the concept of sales resistance seems obvious, the term warrants clarification since it has a special meaning in this blog. Commonly understood to mean, "opposition to being sold," I define sales resistance as follows:

Sales resistance is an aversion to buying or selling.

This definition includes sellers as well as buyers, because tactics that compel prospects to oppose salespeople, are the very same behaviors that make salespeople want to avoid prospects.

Can you say, “call reluctance?”

Since it creates resistance without and within, MAD conduct makes selling doubly difficult. It also fosters a dynamic that Robert Fritz calls oscillation, which is a tendency to seesaw between conflicting goals.

According to Fritz, people who oscillate are like rocking chairs: They do not advance because they waffle between opposing objectives. Since oscillators are at constantly working at cross purposes, every gain is offset by a loss. Alternately advancing and retreating, they shuffle in place doing a dance I call The Pendulum.

I know its rhythms well. As a salesperson, I spent most of my career trying to get prospects to buy, which clashed with my desire to gain their trust and respect. What success I had, I credit to my avoidance of traditional sales techniques, which I could never use with conviction.

In selling as in life, oscillation is a recipe for mediocrity. Which is why every top producer I have met has either been a person of stellar integrity, or a professional actor with an M.A. in B.S. from Screw U. Thankfully the former outnumber the latter, for while no cakewalk, it is easier to succeed in sales being honorable than it is by manipulating, pressuring, and deceiving people.

And if you're wondering who I am to write about this stuff, let me first tell you who I am not, and that is a superstar. If a pedigree is what you seek, you had best keep looking, because what I am, is a Sales Mutt.

I call myself as a Sales Mutt because my background in selling is motley: Diverse, and checkered with ups and downs. The son of a salesman, I have been a retail salesperson (three years), a telemarketer (one year), and a traveling sales and marketing rep (sixteen years on the road).

Furthermore, I have both "scratched the pad" and generated pull-through sales for which I never wrote an order (if you are not familiar with Pull-Through selling, the goal is to create demand with an end customer, and shepherd the sale through a host of middlemen, any of whom can squash the deal).

So much for the diversity.

As for the ups and downs, I have:

Been promoted five times, and canned once.
Resigned after a takeover by an arch rival, and lost my job in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization.
Been a top salesperson, a middle-of-the-packer, and (for a brief time) a bottom-dweller.
Successfully revived four ailing sales territories, and failed to resuscitate another. I also pioneered a new territory in hostile surroundings, an achievement for which my chief reward was arrows.

In short: Mine has pretty much been your typical sales and marketing career in corporate America.

It is also worth noting that, out of compulsion and curiosity, I have been exposed to most sales methodologies. Plus, I have worked for a company as keen on branding its salespeople, as it was on branding its products. Such was that firm’s reputation for teaching reps to sell "their way," that, upon learning of my graduation from training, a jaded buyer once directed me to a local laundromat, implying that, since I just had my brain washed, I ought to have it dried as well.

Besides having been a salesman, I am also a consumer, a target for manipulation, aggressiveness, and deception. I know as only a salesperson knows, what it is like to be in a prospect’s shoes, when the shoe is on the other foot.

None of this qualifies me to publish a How-To blog on selling. It does, however, qualify me to speak to the subject of how not to sell, by mistreating prospective customers.

Publishing a How-Not-To blog might seem like an odd choice, and reading one, even odder. It is not as strange as it seems, though, because I am sure you will become a better salesperson by avoiding the conduct detailed on this site. What’s more, those behaviors will, by way of negative example, suggest ways to help you improve further.

WHY I AM PUBLISHING THIS BLOG

Now that you know who I am - and more importantly, who I am not - let me share my reasons for publishing this blog, which are:

I aspire to change the lives of salespeople for the better. Abraham Lincoln said, “He has a heart to criticize, who has a heart to help.” I have a heart to help folks who sell for a living, and by casting a critical eye on traditional sales methods, I hope to improve their lot.
I want to drive slimy operators out of selling. If you'll pardon the pun, my goal is nothing less than the Ethic Cleansing of the sales profession. Since sunlight is the best disinfectant, I aim to expose the sleaze in all of its squalor.
Proponents of integrity-based selling tend to address bad salesperson behavior superficially in their articles and training materials. Given its ubiquity, I thought a publication dedicated solely to sales misconduct was warranted.
Without being able to pinpoint exactly what, I have long felt there is something fundamentally wrong with the way most salespeople are taught to sell. This blog is my attempt to explain what that "something" is.
I wish someone had cautioned me about MADness before I decided to go into selling. Had I known how ingrained manipulation, aggressiveness, and deception were in sales orthodoxy, I might have chosen a different profession. If I knew then what I know now, I would have sold differently, and been more resolute in my rejection of traditional methods. It may be too late for me, but it’s not too late for you.

Having decided to publish this blog, my goals are to:

Persuade you that manipulative, aggressive, and deceptive sales tactics are self-defeating.
Identify MAD sales behaviors, so you can avoid them.
Explain why, for all its insanity, MAD sales behavior persists.
Suggest ways to transition from MADness to sanity in selling.

Finally, I need to make an important disclosure. Two individuals transformed my views about the way salespeople comport themselves: Jacques Werth and Gill Wagner. Each has been so influential that I can scarecely tell where their thoughts end and mine begin. My aim is not to pawn off their ideas as my own, but rather to expand upon them, and weave their insights into a case against behavior that is just plain nutty.

I hope you find that case compelling.

© Bradley P. Simpson 2009. All rights reserved.