Notes to a book review

Not even marketing, or trade marketing tools or loyalty programs can guarantee a competitive advantage in the long run. Sales personnel are still the key figures in sales. Most companies provide very comprehensive training for sales staff which focuses on a wide range of sales techniques. However, the question is whether such a complex inventory of techniques is really needed or not? Perfecting sales activities is often regarded as a kind of magical tool which can persuade people to purchase from us even when they don’t want to. For many years, individuality came second to being part of a system. However, sales activities need to be based on a new approach. Methods and priorities are changing. Sales organisations need to respond to the changes in their environment. Slower, rather static, reactive organisational models need to be replaced by others based on a proactive approach which allow a “dynamic balance” to be achieved. Ever more often, we are faced with the need to be different, individualistic. As a result, it is not uncommon for 4-5 different sales methods to be used simultaneously. We ourselves make complex processes even more complicated. Often, this is absolutely unnecessary. Unfortunately, more complicated solutions often appear to be more impressive, whereas simpler is usually better. We should try to be more efficient through simplicity. This is the basic idea behind the methodology recommended by the two authors of the book reviewed by us, which gives us a new perspective of the sales process. This new approach – the simplification of methods – helps us to be more efficient and successful in our sales work and also allows our individuality to contribute to our development.