Lead, Sell, or Get Out of the Way

This week’s book review is Lead, Sell, or Get Out of the Way by Ron Karr

Karr explains his time-proven and successful sales philosophy in this book. Essentially, salesmen need to be leaders and sales leaders have five beliefs:

1. You have everything you need
2. You can improve any area of your life that you choose
3. Everything is possible
4. Preparation maximizes your potential
5. Customers come first

These beliefs enable the seven essential traits of a sales leader:

1. Visualizing – start with the end in mind
2. Positioning – position yourself in the mind of your customer in a way that you add as much value as possible
3. Building alliances – maintaining relationships and building new relationships is critical
4. Asking good questions – connect your vision to the customers world
5. Creating valuable value propositions
6. Communicate persuasively – inspire others to action
7. Holding yourself accountable – take responsibility for your outcomes

My takeaway from this book is two major ideas:

1. We all need a personal vision statement that Karr calls Resource Proclamation (See How to Craft a Vision Statement for more details).
2. CNC-CC=PV (see The Cost of No Change for more details)
   • CNC – cost of no change. The consequence cost if your customer does not accept your proposal
   • CC – cost of change. What does your proposed solution cost (to acquire, learn and implement)
   • PV – perceived value. The difference between CNC and CC is the value your customer will perceive

Note that I have previously reviewed the following books in 2017:

1. Les McKeown’s Predictable Success
2. Exponential Organzations by Salim Ismail, Michael S. Malone and  Yuri van Geest
3. Smart Thinking by Art Markman
4. Arianna Huffington’s The Sleep Revolution
5. RG LeTourneau’s Mover of Men and Mountains
6. Kevin Kelly’s The Inevitable
7. Ram Charan’s The Attacker’s Advantage
8. Jeff Goins’s The Art of Work

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