Selling to the Top: David Peoples' Executive Selling Skills

I have been in sales for more than eight years and read plenty of books on this issue. I usually found those books either boring, either far from the real life, or simply stupid. But Selling to the Top - is very different. This book: 1. Gave me food for new thoughts. 2. Structured and systemized some of my approaches that I was doing by intuition. 3. Confirmed my understanding of sales profession. I have found only one weak point of the book: the author does not cover an aspect of how to start business with the customer from scratch - when the customer has never used your product, service or solution before. I think it could be very interesting for sales people in start-ups and in compnaies on so called emerging markets. In general this is the best book on Sales I have read so far.

If your product or service includes big money, multiple decision makers, a long sales cycle, top management approval, and an ongoing relationship, then this book is for you! Buy it!

This book is very informative. I have over 20 years of sales experience and seldom read How-To Sell books because I don't believe in theory and advices that much, preferring to do it the hard way (by the seat of the pants, intuition and personal experience and mistakes). When I read this book, I could not but agree more with David Peoples' observations and recommended systematic approach to attacking an account/opportunity. I have unconsciously (or naturally) done most of what Peoples has recommended in his book (obviously NOT as thoroughly as prescribed, we must not forget that it is always easier to say or write about than done). If nothing else, this book forces you to be more rigorous and strategic in your approach to selling and if the type of opportunity that you are pursuing justifies the efforts then its prescribed approach is certainly a very useful and effective one.The [person] who gave this book a bad review certainly has never sold anything of substantial value in his life. This approach obviously only makes sense for selling big ticket items, Peoples has sold IBM hardware and services and not TV sets.

This book will change your life as a Salesperson. Customers WANT you to use this methodology. Don't waste their time. DO discuss their problems and how you can solve them. These are not gimmicks, the concepts here are real. Bottom Line: Take it from a rep that went from $100K per year in commissions to over $1M a year using these techniques.

As with any book on Sales, I read this book with scepticism. I was quickly proven wrong of my assumptions. The ideas really worked!! I have recommended this book to many colleagues. A minor investment in this book has paid substantial dividends to my personal bottom-line. Get it. Read it. Read it again.