An Easy Way to Accelerate Your Sales Career
I frequently get comments and letters from readers who enjoyed a post and who want to know: "where do I go from here?" Sometimes I can point them to a blog post on Sales Machine, and I include links to books that provide deeper levels of information.
Sometimes that's not enough, though. So I'm going to point Sales Machine readers to what I believe is the best source for advanced discussions of sales strategy, sales management and sales technology: Sellingpower Magazine and Gerhard Gschwandtner's blog (he's the publisher of SellingPower).
I've written for SellingPower for almost a decade, and still write a major feature segment for every issue. So if you like my writing, you can find more of it simply by subscribing to the magazine or checking out their website. But this isn't about my contribution, but rather the contributions of others and why you need that contribution as part of your career growth.
What I like best about the magazine is that it publishes articles that delve into real controversies. The latest issue, for example, has an article that completely eviscerates the lamebrain Salon.com article claiming that sales professionals were about to become obsolete. The magazine got a team of experts to deconstruct the half-baked opinions of the original article. Great stuff and very fun to read.
What I like best about Gerhard's blog is that he is both a deep thinker and deeply committed to the sales profession. He's plugged into the world of sales and selling at a level that's unique in the industry and his observations are prescient, witty, and informative. He's widely read by top managers, too, so he is the voice of the sales culture to the highest level of the business world.
Gerhard is also a great example of how a career in sales can make you a better person. I consider him something of a personal hero to me.
For one thing, he's managed to keep his magazine and business growing throughout the recession, while other publications have fallen and died. That's pretty amazing in and of itself. But he's also managed to expand his business out into conferences. His Sales Leadership and Sales 2.0 conferences (both of which I have attended in the past) are head and shoulders above anything else that is out there.
Gerhard runs his conferences so that there's little none of the BS that you run into at traditional trade shows. Instead, there's all sorts of useful content, real life descriptions and case studies, and really interesting speakers, like marketing Seth Godin and SAP CEO Bill McDermott (a true sales guy from WAY back.)
Gerhard is also the head of an entire family that's very much part of the sales world. His wife, Laura, edits the magazine, even though (based upon her recent novel, which is quite moving), she could make a living writing literature and fiction.
Gerhard's older daughter, Larissa, is the company's top sales person -- a model example of somebody who sells real solutions and a pleasure to work with. His youngest daughter, Lisa, edits the website and, in addition to looking like somebody who could compete in America's Next Top Model, she's tough and savvy, and refuses to accept anything less than the best.
Talk to anybody in the top echelon of the sales management, sales training, or sales technology world, and you'll hear about how the Gerhard and SellingPower have changed the sales business. Not surprisingly, Gerhard will be this year's winner of the lifetime achievement award from the industry organization Sales & Marketing Executives International.
In short, if you're serious about being in sales, I highly recommend that you subscribe to the magazine, browse their website and RSS to Gerhard's blog. It will be time well spent. Trust me on this.
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