Book Review: Winning Big in Sales by Rebecca Jenkins

Perhaps, now more than ever, we need to stand out from our competition. Winning Big in Sales: Proven Steps for Ambitious Teams to Win, Grow and Retain the Best Accounts by Rebecca Jenkins can help sharpen your skills and transform your business.

In this step-by-step approach, Jenkins shares her decades of experience winning big accounts (often against larger competitors). Everything from how to prepare for prospecting through winning the big accounts and then how to grow and keep them is included in this helpful resource.

One other important aspect of Winning Big in Sales is creating a success mindset. They have proven repeatedly that successful people have a certain mindset that allows them to perform at such high levels. Staying focused, having an accountability partner, and creating a mental vision of what you want to achieve are some concepts in this chapter. Once you get to the end of Winning Big in Sales your journey is just beginning, and Jenkins provides you with the next steps to move forward.

This book has a conversational style providing advice learned from over two decades in leadership. Not geared toward a specific industry, the advice can be adapted to a variety of businesses.

Looking to transform your business? Let Winning Big in Sales show you how.

File Size: 688 KB
Print Length: 124 pages
Publisher: Discover Your Bounce Publishing (January 19, 2020)
Publication Date: January 19, 2020
Sold by: Amazon.com Services LLC
Language: English
ASIN: B08428LXQ4

I received a digital copy from the author's publicist. This review contains my honest opinions, which I have not been compensated for in any way.

Book Review: Social Leads by Shay Banks

Looking to grow your business using social media? Then Social Leads: Your Social Media Playbook to Generating More Leads in the Next 90 Days by Shay Banks needs to be your next purchase.

This helpful resource offers great advice you can quickly put into practice to make a difference. Even more than that, it lets you know what doesn't work in social media and gives you exercises to move you forward. Banks also mentions free resources on her website like her Social Media Toolkit, so it's not all about paying for her book, sharing advice, and letting you figure out the rest.

Because Banks provides succinct valuable information for those looking to generate more social media leads, she was able to put together a book that comes in under 100 pages, making it a quick read; one you will want to keep handy and keep referring back to in order to stay focused and be encouraged if those leads don't come in ... because, yes, there is a chapter on fixing that.

Social Leads winds down with a FAQ section where Banks shares answers to several of the frequent questions people ask her. It concludes on a note of encouragement, which is something we can all use.

Honestly, I didn't know the name Shay Banks before reading Social Leads, but I do now. She is someone to watch. I recommend this book to anyone looking to generate new leads.


Paperback: 92 pages
Publisher: Independently published (February 18, 2020)
Language: English
ISBN-13: 979-8614993603
ASIN: B0851MHTQL

I received a free digital copy of this book. This review contains my honest opinions, which I have not been compensated for in any way.

Book Reviews: Outrageous Authenticity and The 7 Deadly Sins of Sales by Leigh Brown

I met this author when she was speaking at a real estate convention. There is a reason she is called the No Bullshit Realtor®. Leigh Brown always tells it like it is--whether you like it or not. She does, however, tell you with humor and Southern charm.

In Outrageous Authenticity, Leigh shows you the importance of being true to yourself, and how being that authentic person will, ultimately, result in growing your business.

Leigh learned during the housing crisis that sitting down and telling people the way it was and helping people come up with a plan--even if it wasn't what they wanted to hear--earned her a lot of respect and repeat business. She is proof you don't have to use some script or tactic to grow your business. With Outrageous Authenticity, she inspires you to be the best you possible, so that your honesty and integrity become front and center.

Highly recommended!

In her second book, Leigh Brown shoots as straight from the hip as she did in Outrageous Authenticity. She goes through the "Seven Deadly Sins of Sales," some of which she herself has committed, and shares ways to solve these issues that are easy and make sense.

In true Leigh Brown style, her honesty will help transform your business with easy techniques. First she identifies your sins, and then dissects them one at a time, ending with key takeaways from each section. Leigh shows you how to go from sinner to saint and develop the good habits that will keep you happily selling and growing your business for years to come.

A notes section is included in the back. Maybe I'll use it to write down more about my own sins and how I'll use Leigh's tips to fix them.

If you're in sales, Leigh Brown should be on your list of authors to read.

I purchased both of these books at a real estate conference.   These reviews contain my honest opinions, which I have not been compensated for in any way.

Book Review: The Seven Levels of Communication by Michael Maher

The Seven Levels of Communication by Michael Maher came recommended to me by the manager at our real estate office. Unlike typical business or sales related books that are non-fiction, this tells the story of fictional real estate agent, Rick Masters. Rick is down on his luck when he meets Michelle, a mortgage professional who has built a successful business through word or mouth and referral marketing. With nothing to lose, he attends a conference with her to learn more about her system and reaps the numerous rewards as a result.

I found The Seven Levels of Communication fascinating because it is a real life working method to increase your sphere of influence but told without an authority telling you how to implement it. The book's unusual format allows it to be less threatening because you can focus on Rick's story without feeling like you need to compare yourself to him, He's not a real guy. He doesn't have tons of real life examples of his success to jam down your throat. Now, perhaps, some might think that's a negative; but as a newer real estate sales person it allowed me to better focus on the actual method instead of worrying over how I might not match up. I definitely came away with some ideas to implement in my business for 2015.

Highly recommended.


Hardcover: 170 pages
Publisher: AuthorHouse (October 13, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1452033978
ISBN-13: 978-1452033976

I purchased a used copy of this book through Amazon. This review contains my honest opinions, which I have not been compensated for in any way.

I read this book for the following challenge.

Five Sales Pitch Fundamentals That Win Business in a Recession by Joey Asher

Today's special guest is Joey Asher, President of Speechworks and author of How to Win a Pitch: The Five Fundamentals that Will Distinguish You from the Competition.

Keeping your current customers satisfied and securing new business is vital to a company's success, especially during tough economic times such as these. Today, Joey Asher discusses the Five Fundamentals found in How to Win a Pitch and how they can help you.


The difference between life and death for many businesses today is one big win – one new piece of business that will allow your firm to ride out the economic storm. If that’s the case for your business, then you better know how to deliver a killer pitch: a new business presentation that allows your firm to stand out from the competition.

Over the last 23 years, my business has helped businesses win billions of dollars in new business contracts. In that time, we have learned that the key to winning business isn’t showing that you’re the “best”. Your prospect usually can’t tell which firm is the best. And if you’re on a short list of candidate companies pitching for the business, all your competition is most likely excellent.

Rather, the key is showing that you’re going to be the best partner for the project. To do that, you need to execute five fundamentals.

Fundamental #1. Present a solution and nothing else. Many of your competitors start presentations by talking about themselves. “Before we start, let me tell you about how our company began . . .” Blah. Blah. Blah. Who cares? Your prospect only cares about is how you can save them money, grow their revenues, or reduce their risk. Detail your plan to help your prospect and tell stories about how the plan has worked for others.

Fundamental #2. Keep it simple. I watched three construction firms pitch to build a new school. No presentation had less than 10 points. None of the messages were memorable. Instead, you should hammer at three messages. “We’ll build your project on time. We’ll meet your budget. We’ll deliver quality work.” Simplicity separates you from the competition.

Fundamental #3. Speak with Passion. If you’re one of three firms competing, you know that your competition can do a great job. Personal style can be the separator. “When it’s close, many of the decisions just come down to who connects with us best,” one CEO told me. Passion in the voice helps you connect.

Fundamental #4. Leave half of your time for questions. Questions address your prospect’s hot buttons. Your competition often makes Q&A an afterthought. Avoid that mistake.

Fundamental #5. Rehearse. “I can always tell who has rehearsed,” said one CEO who has heard hundreds of sales presentations. Most people don’t rehearse much. Practicing sets you apart.

In a recession, the pool of new business is small. Focus on fundamentals to grab your share.

This article is adapted from Joey Asher’s new book “How to Win a Pitch: The Five Fundamentals that Will Distinguish You from the Competition. It is available at www.howtowinapitch.com and on Amazon. To read Joey’s blog go to www.talkingpointsblog.com.

HOW TO WIN A PITCH VIRTUAL BOOK TOUR JUNE ‘09

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Join author Joey Asher as he travels the blogosphere in June 2009 with Pump Up Your Book Promotion Public Relations on his first virtual book tour to discuss his new business book, How To Win a Pitch (Persuasive Speaker Press).

How to Win a Pitch will help you learn how to: Develop presentations that win contracts. Create connections to secure business relationships. Identify, discuss and fulfill client needs effectively. Veteran business coach Joey Asher has helped his clients win over five billion dollars in new business contracts. He uses his former experience as an attorney and journalist to help readers and clients rise above their competition. He has authored two previous books, Selling & Communication Skills for Lawyers and Even a Geek Can Speak: Low-Tech Presentation Skills For High-Tech People.

PRAISE FOR HOW TO WIN A PITCH:

“How to Win a Pitch…should be considered required reading for every sales professional.” — Karen Schweitzer, Business School Guide for About.com

“This book will definitely change the way sales presentations are made.” — Vivek Singh, All About Presentations

“How to Win a Pitch is a fine choice for those who want to pitch themselves in a more appealing way.” — Midwest Book Review

“If you like winning, you will want to read this book…This book is bound to improve the presentations of anyone who reads it.” — Charles F. Bowman, Finance Business Executive and the North Carolina Market President, Bank of America

Joey Asher is one of the country’s preeminent experts on selling skills and communication. As President of Speechworks, an Atlanta-based communication and selling skills coaching firm that has been helping business people deliver presentations that win business for over 20 years, Asher combines his skills as an attorney and journalist to help sellers communicate a clear, simple message that connects with prospects and wins business.

Asher is author of Even a Geek Can Speak: Low-Tech Presentation Skills For High-Tech People, which was originally published by Longstreet Press in 2001 and is now in its third printing by Persuasive Speaker Press, and Selling and Communication Skills for Lawyers, which was published in 2005 by American Lawyer Media. How to Win a Pitch: The Five Fundamentals that Will Distinguish You from the Competition is his latest book.

A graduate of Cornell University, Asher earned his JD from Emory University Law School. Prior to attending law school, Asher worked as a newspaper reporter for the Gannett newspaper chain in Georgia and New York. Asher practiced law with Troutman Sanders L.L.P. in Atlanta, and worked as an adjunct professor of law at Emory University School of Law.

Joey Asher lives in the Atlanta, Georgia area with his wife and family

You can find Joey online at www.speechworks.net.

If you would like to follow Joey Asher on his virtual book tour, visit the official Pump Up Your Book Promotion Virtual Book Tour site at http://virtualbooktours.wordpress.com/.

Joey Asher’s virtual book tour is brought to you by Pump Up Your Book Promotion Virtual Book Tours, a virtual book tour agency for authors who want quality service for an affordable price. More information can be found on their website at www.pumpupyourbookpromotion.com.

Whale Hunting Women with Barbara Weaver Smith

Joining us today is Dr. Barbara Weaver Smith, author of Whale Hunting Women: How Women Do Big Deals. Barbara is the president and CEO of The Whale Hunters, a training and consulting company helping clients accelerate their business growth through large account sales. We’ll discuss Whale Hunters, her latest book, and how even small companies can be whale hunters.

Welcome to The Book Connection, Barbara. It is an honor to have you with us.

Please start off by telling us a bit about yourself and your background.

Thank you, Cheryl. I could say, and I think many women will resonate with this fact; I’m in my fourth career! Early on, before I completed my formal education, I had several service and secretarial jobs in retail, higher education, and manufacturing. Next I began a higher ed teaching career at two universities, ending up with significant administrative responsibilities as an academic dean. I moved on to become president of a statewide cultural nonprofit organization. And thirteen years ago, I took the plunge to become an entrepreneur. My husband Larry and I between us have four adult children and seven grandchildren. We live and work in downtown Indianapolis, and we spend significant time in Phoenix, where we’ve opened a new office.

How did The Whale Hunters begin?

I have had a consulting business since 1996; my first business supports deal-making in higher education and large nonprofits. I entered the market of business owners/entrepreneurs with a former partner, about six years ago. He had the concept of sales process development, and I had the concept of organizational learning and change. We built out the intellectual property of whale hunting over several years’ time. As we began to envision different scenarios for the company’s future, I was successful in buying out his interest last December.

Did you have any idea how successful this company would be?

I always believed it would be successful. Our team is now taking the company in some very new directions—especially building a strong online community space where we can support whale hunters at a distance and in a way that is affordable for a large number of companies.

When did you turn your attention to writing?

Cheryl, I was an English major and an English professor—I have three college degrees in English! So I have always been a writer. What’s more interesting is writing for a new audience—I think it is a more direct, perhaps even more authentic kind of writing. Processes that I have invented, methods that I have learned in practice with clients—I have a strong desire to share those with others who want to hunt whales.


Let’s talk about Whale Hunting Women: How Women Do Big Deals. Where did the idea for this book come from?

This book came first from my consulting experiences with The Whale Hunters. Disproportionately, our clients have been women-owned businesses or companies with a strong female executive team. It’s been quite extraordinary. Secondarily, ideas have come from women who are leaders in education systems and in community development and philanthropy, at both the executive and board levels. Many of these women have read my first book and helped me to realize that they, too, are whale hunters. So now it’s not only about business and sales—it’s about doing big deals in all kinds of ways.

Why is that women are well poised to hunt whales?

I believe that women have innate gifts that are essential for business success in today’s complex sales environment. Whale hunting requires cooperation, teaching, patience, preparation, empowering others, and trust in a well-prepared team. Not only are we born with these gifts, we are socialized to practice them and rewarded for these so-called “soft skills.” Whale hunting is not about rock stars—it is about disciplined, high performing teams. I think it’s a natural for how women prefer to operate.

Can even small companies be whale hunters?

Yes. Any company can aspire to grow fast by selling bigger deals to bigger customers. That’s what whale hunting is all about—getting deals that are 10 times or 20 times the size of your average. So the size of what constitutes a whale for one company might be much larger or much smaller than another company. It doesn’t matter. The point is that you grow your company by focusing on ideal clients, larger than the ones you have at the moment, and you build an organization that is not only capable of making the sale, but delivering the products and services at a high level of excellence.

How can companies work on their culture to grow faster?

I’ve written quite a bit about my notion of a fast growth culture. I believe it’s a combination of resources and collaboration. Fast growth requires that everybody have a sense of the whole and where they fit in—that takes collaboration. And it requires faith that when new work comes on board, the resources will be deployed to get the work done properly. In other words, there is a trust that the company’s growth won’t come about by just expecting everyone to work harder or longer. In a company where people are denied access to important information, and where there is competition for resources, growth stagnates. The way to change is to involve everyone in designing the change model, assign resources according to need and contribution rather than seniority or even-handedness, and engage in a series of conversations about where this village is headed and why whale hunting is a necessity if we are going to survive and thrive. That strategic-level change should be accompanied by relaxation of top-down rules, greater empowerment of the people closest to the customers, and more productive habits of exchanging information and ideas.

Tell us about the “Reflection” and “Action” pages found in the book.

These pages follow every chapter. Their purpose is to prompt a woman reader to think about the concepts, strategies, or tactics presented in the chapter and apply them deliberately to her own personal whale hunt. It makes the book more like a personal journal in which we can record our thoughts and write down our action steps for a whale hunt.

Where can readers purchase a copy Whale Hunting Women?

Whale Hunting Women is a downloadable eBook available exclusively on the Whale Hunters website—www.thewhalehunters.com.

Do you have a website or blog?

I blog at http://blog.thewhalehunters.com. I would love to have your audience subscribe to my blog and offer comments. I will personally respond to all blog comments.

What is up next for you and The Whale Hunters?

Thank you for asking! For the next 18 months, we will focus on our Whale Hunting Women program, conducted in 24 key cities in the U.S. and Canada, and featuring an annual Summit in each community and the opportunity for women to join a local chapter focused on supporting one another in doing big deals. Concurrently, we are building out an online community environment to provide resources, discussion, and training to whale hunters.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

I would certainly like to thank you for hosting me and to thank all of your authors for spending time to learn about Whale Hunters and Whale Hunting Women. I’d encourage people to visit our website and learn more about our products and services. We have a number of books and audio books available, and we conduct a series of whale hunting workshops around the U.S. Sign up (on the website) for our free biweekly newsletter and you’ll be assured of getting a constant stream of good whale hunting advice plus notice of upcoming training opportunities and community events.

Thank you for spending time with us today, Barbara. You’ve certainly given us a lot to think about. I wish you continued success.

Thank you for visiting this post about Barbara Weaver Smith and Whale Hunting Women. We are offering a free giveaway to two people who comment during the tour and to the hosts where they posted. It is simple to be entered in the giveaway – just post a comment on any post about the tour and you will be entered. But, an interesting post is more likely to get our attention. The host on the site where the winning comments are posted will also win a three-volume set of Whale Hunters Wisdom in audio format. Volumes include I: Mind of a Hunter, II: The Hunt, and III: The Whale Hunting Culture. This is a $90 value. To see the tour schedule visit http://virtualblogtour.blogspot.com/2009/04/whale-hunting-with-barbara-weaver-smith.html

Barbara Weaver Smith’s website - www.thewhalehunters.com

Barbara Weaver Smith’s blog - http://blog.thewhalehunters.com

Order your copy of Whale Hunting Women – http://cli.gs/WHWEbook