The Phenomenology of Selling

Journalist Philip Broughton has written The Art of the Sale, far and away the best book on sales I've ever read.

Good old-fashioned reporting is the reason for the book's success.

"There are more lies told about selling than any other aspect of business life," Broughton writes in the introduction. "So I went in search of some truths."

Along the way, Broughton interviews dozens of top-flight sales executives—including Tony Sullivan (The Smart Mop), Ted Leonsis (AOL), Jeffrey Gitomer (Little Red Book of Selling), Larry Gagosian (Gagosian Gallery), Augie Turak (MTV), Marc Benioff (Salesforce.com) and Howard Anderson (Yankee Group)—in hopes of learning what makes a great salesperson tick.

He uncovers a ton of truths and, in the end, learns that, "The traits required to sell (resilience, conviction, persistence, and likability) are not just needed in business, but in life."

Rather than a quilt of Ziglar-esque adages or some impossible-to-grasp system, The Art of the Sale offers a phenomenology of selling.

If you have to drive revenue, the picture Broughton paints will inspire.

Going Broke? Maybe Your Website's Broken.

Research firm Forrester asked 5,200 customers what they do when a Website fails them.

According to the study, Websites That Don’t Support Customers Waste Millions, they:

• Pick up the phone. 35% call when your Website lets them down.
• Take their business elsewhere. 17% move to a competitor. 
• Give up. 17% abandon their purchase.

Forrester also gauged the cost of broken Websites and concluded:

• Large e-retailers are losing $47 million in direct income every year.
• Large e-retailers are adding $47 million to their cost of sales every year.

For 14 years, Forrester has been evaluating B2C and B2B Websites. 

It estimates that only 3% aren't broken.

To learn if yours is broken, Forrester recommends you ask. "The only way to know whether a site visit was a success is to ask the customers," the report states. 

Ask visitors three simple questions:

• What did you come to the site to do today?
• Were you able to accomplish that goal?
• If not, why not?

More on Mobile-Friendly Websites

"Is your Website changing with the mobile revolution, or is it remaining stagnant?" asks online marketer Sarah Tharp, writing for Biznology.

An unfriendly site costs your business dearly, Tharp insists.

 

"I cannot begin to tell you the number of times I’ve attempted to access a Website online, and because of glaring functionality and usability issues, have gone back to the search results and given my business to a competitor site," Tharp writes.

 

What's fundamental to a mobile-friendly site?

• Fast page-loading
• Navigation with tabs to information most needed by mobile users
• Pages that require little or no scrolling
• Large buttons that can be easily pressed
• An easily accessible search bar
• A phone number with a “click to call” option
• An address that can be clicked to automatically present directions

At a minimum, every business should know how its Website appears on mobile devices and how mobile users are experiencing it, Tharp says.

The Secrets of Teamwork

Thomas Edison's great grandniece has penned Midnight Lunch, a 300-page book that reveals the inventor's four-faceted approach to teamwork.

• Edison built teams from diverse disciplines. The team that invented the lightbulb included chemists, mathmeticians and glassblowers.
  
  
• The inventorlearned from his mistakes. After state and local governments rejected his electronic vote recorder, Edison decided to focus exclusively on consumer products.
  
  
• Edison's vision kept the teams on track. When team members floundered or disagreed, the boss quickly intervened, deciding the course.
  
  
• Edison changed direction with the market. Other inventors of the day ignored the fact that consumers wanted products powered by electricity—and they failed.

Want to Write Better Case Sudies? Ask Aristotle.

In Poetics, Aristotle wrote that every tragedy has three stages:

1. An inciting moment

2. A climactic struggle and

3. A resolution

Every case study, when you think about it, has the same structure as well:

1. The opening scene depicts a disturbing incident. Your customer suddenly finds her welfare threatened. Readers feel her pain.

2. A climactic struggle ensues. Your company helps the customer solve her problem. She emerges a hero.

3. A resolution is reached. Things resort to status quo. And readers are compelled to act. Because they, too, can be heroes.