21 Secrets of Million-Dollar Sellers

July 17, 2017
Top salespeople don’t fit in a single personality mold but they do have behaviors in common that lead to their success, according to this excellent manual from Harvill, leader of the consulting firm Creative Ventures. For this book, Harvill, who has spent 30 years teaching corporate sales forces, conducted a year-long study of 175 top people in the field, diverse across gender, age, and racial lines, each of whom bring in more than $1 million annually for their employers. His research yielded 21 common strategies for successful selling. Readers are urged to keep it simple, hone their storytelling skills, make their clients friends before they make them customers, get in face time, charm the gatekeepers, and learn from their mistakes. Nothing in here is “earth-shattering or universe-changing on its own,” he freely admits, but the combination of these skills with his knowledge and experience adds up to a winning equation for effective selling. Well-organized and full of snappy, memorable aphorisms, Harvill’s friendly, easy-to-grasp approach makes this a strong contender for the only sales book most superstar hopefuls will need.