Building a Successful Selling Organization: The Critical Path to Extraordinary Results

by Art Wilson

In Building a Successful Selling Organization , Art Wilson draws upon his three decades of experience as one of IBM's top sales leaders and as counsel to Fortune 500 sales executives to create a proven blueprint for building successful, profitable customer relationships. Written specifically for the chief sales officer and the leadership of the entire customer-facing organization, this book documents tested best practices among leading sales organizations and incorporates them into practical ways to implement high-performance, customer-centric sales strategies. After sharpening and honing the skills of thousands of sales teams challenged by demanding corporate customers, Wilson distills the lessons of goal-driven sales leadership into this one compact volume. Citing real-world examples, Wilson shares a disciplined, how-to sales process that empowers a sales leader to transform good sales teams into those that demonstrate sales excellence and extraordinary results. Use the five-level Sales Agenda Model to design, deploy, develop, and support a selling organization. Implement the Account Management Execution Model to improve strategic account management, ensure client alignment, and deliver convincing client value. Sales leaders who adopt the strategies presented in Building a Successful Sales Organization possess the secrets of building, organizing, and managing effective selling teams that consistently deliver predictable, sustainable, superior results.

240 pages, Hardcover

First published August 25, 2005

Reviews

[Archer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve aged since I started this account, and somehow now I even find myself doing sales. When I first started talking to my uncle about it, who wrote this book, I could immediately tell he had deep deep wisdom on the subject.
Uncle Art will not drown you in bullshit, he will not tell you things that do not matter to make himself seem smarter, (although he is a secret Mensa member, and largely self-taught as he grew up on a Texas ranch).
The man was repeatedly top-five salesmen at IBM at its peak, and for one year at least in title, was the best that there was. If that doesn’t speak for itself I’m not sure what does.
But if you pay attention and read between the lines he will also teach you the most important thing I have found thus far, which is to do the same in sales interactions. See between the lines. It’s a person, you’re both people. Build it off that.