New books

“The New Solution Seling” is the follow-up to the “Solution Selling” book, a process and tools for effective sales.I’m no salesman, but the Solution Selling course I took a few years ago, was one of the most useful I ever took. I use the stuff I learned there almost every day. Much of it is about finding the real problems of the customer (the “pain”) and finding a good solution to the problem. It’s a whole process, from identifying (or surfacing) the customer’s pain to the implementation of the solution. Much of the process is what is also known as “consulting” or “analysis”. I recommend everyone to look into it, not only to become a better consultant/salesperson, but also to become a better buyer…

I bought the Fieldbook to feed my “Toyota Way” habit. The book contains tips, stories and tools to implement the 14 principles of the Toyota Way.I opened the book at random, and saw the heading “We don’t just build cars, we build people.” The headline is accompanied by a Trap section, which warns of a potential trap: “How do you refer to people?”. If managers refer to people as “heads”, “warm bodies” (as opposed to “cold bodies”?), “resources” or “FTEs”, this says something about how they really feel about their “greatest asset”… I was recently told I had used the word “resource” to refer to people several times during a workshop. So, take care what words you use, they might betray how you really feel 😉

More about the books when I’ve finished them…