The Accidental Salesperson: How to Take Control of Your Sales Career and Earn the Respect and Income You Deserve

By Chris Lytle

Not all salespeople plan on a career in sales. Often, sales chooses them and suddenly they find themselves in a profession they arenÆt fully prepared for. The Accidental Salesperson is the answer, providing the advice and inspiration they need to master the essentials and hit the ground running. Fully updated to reflect the changes in the marketplace, the second edition provides a much-needed roadmap anyone can use to excel in sales. Filled with money-generating strategies, humorous yet instructive anecdotes, thought-provoking axioms, and powerful tools, the book includes brand new guidance on: Selling to people who donÆt have time to meet ò Differentiating between infor mation seekers and genuine prospects ò Using social media, Skype, GoToMeeting, WebEx, and other online tools ò Building relation ships competitors canÆt steal Lively, entertaining, and mercifully free of the dull theories, manipulative methods, and high-pressure tactics of most sales booksùthe second edition of The Accidental Salesperson guides readers through every aspect of selling to todayÆs customers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AMACOM
• Release date: Jun 20, 2012
• ISBN: 9780814430873

Reviews for The Accidental Salesperson

[chuewyc_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

i thought this was a pretty good sales book. I don't think it helped to much in the latter chapters with life insurance, which is what i sell but i thought it was a worthwhile book. I would add this to my must read sales books for new agents.

[davehaslett · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

If you already work in a sales department, you call prospects to arrange meetings, qualify clients, present proposals and close sales, then this is a great book and you should definitely buy it. Five stars, no question.But I'd been led to believe that this book covered more than that, and it doesn't. Specifically, I'm interested in improving back-of-room sales of my books and other products when I run workshops and seminars. I would definitely call myself an accidental salesperson, in the sense that I now find myself trying to sell things as well as delivering my talks or leading workshops. I don't work in a sales department and have no wish to. I don't phone corporate clients to arrange meetings, I don't present proposals, etc, which is what this book is all about. I don't have any problems getting people to come to my workshops and seminars - in fact they're often over-subscribed.But the author's definition of an accidental salesperson differs from mine. His (only) definition is someone who now works in a sales department when it wasn't their original ambition to do so.Since the author runs seminars and is a speaker himself, I hoped he'd have some useful tips to pass on about increasing back-of-room sales. But from reading the book it appears that he only gives seminars and courses for corporate clients, and all of his sales efforts are concentrated on getting those bookings. So he is a salesperson in the traditional sense, presenting proposals to his corporate clients about how much better their sales people will perform after taking his course or attending his seminar. He doesn't appear to have any back-of-of room sales. Or if he does, he doesn't mention anything about it in his book. So for me it was useless - no stars.I've compromised and given it a middling score of 3, because if you do work in a sales department I can see that it would be a useful book.