Power Base Selling: Secrets of an Ivy League Street Fighter

by Jim Holden

Book Overview

Holden's book is rich with wisdom and sage advice and should be required reading for any salesperson who wants to understand how to merge a sales strategy and a political strategy to win the hearts of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471510335
• ISBN13: 9780471510338
• Release Date: March 1990
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

This is no "one minute" sales guide

Forget all the Zig Ziglar-type sales technique books! This is the real deal; It's about methodology, not how to glad hand or do an end run around the CFO or purchasing manager. If you want to understand the nature of truly competitive selling read this book, then watch the movie "Glegarry Glen Ross" for contrast. We trained the worldwide sales force of a F500 company on the Holden methodology. Results speak for themselves

Everything is "bought and sold" for a reason...

Great read. Maybe too many stories...yet they explain his point in a clear sense. If you read between the lines and get the big picture of his strategic principles you can no doubt improve you sales performance.

A"How-To" that separates professionals from practitioners.

The recipes for success remind the entire salesforce that "high tech" still needs "high touch." Lessons learned will be relearned if the instructions are not followed. I turn to it for insight even after 25 years of experience.

Incisive and unconventional thinking

Power Base Selling is incisive, unconventional and a hell of a good read. The book started with a clean slate as to how sales (and for that matter, all business relationships)should be conducted, and it comes up with some completely counterintuitive positions. Each section of the book draws something from the warrior/philosopher Sun Tzu, often condensing the section's poignant examples and real-world techniques into a memorable sound-bite that I find myself muttering under my breath as I ponder strategies. Stylistically, the book is crisp and accessible. Since I first encountered Power Base a few years ago, I have given away probably a dozen copies, many to friends who aren't even in sales. Like Carnegie's "How to Win Friends . . .", the insight on the workings of business politics are useful for almost everything. Highly recommended!

A rough diamond, but a diamond nonetheless...

Holden's book _Power Base Selling_ has long been considered a definitive work. With good reason -- it explains some of the Home Truths of the political aspect of the Sell. As a concept, _Power Base Selling_ is incomplete, as it ignores the *value* side of selling: how do you align your customer's perception of Value to your sales efforts? Fortunately, Holden has addressed this gap with his current _ValuBase Selling_ courses. Viewed purely as a political selling tool, though, _Power Base Selling_ is superb. The problem is, Holden uses a rather annoying, light-weight writing style which tends to lessen the impact of his very important message. Couple that with an attempt to somehow hook in with concepts from Sun Tsu's classic _The Art of War_, and introduce the concept of the "Ivy League Streetfighter", and you end up with a sometimes confusing set of images permeating the book. For this reason, the book is a rough diamond -- it would benefit from a re-write. However, it is the best book of its kind.