Book Review - The Art of the Sale by Philip Delves Broughton

The Art of the Sale by Philip Delves Broughton

I read the author's first book, Ahead of the Curve: Two Years at Harvard Business School back in 2008, and really enjoyed it. I just finished my own MBA back in 2007 so it was interesting to read about the differences between Harvard, and my non-Harvard school. So when I found out he had a new book out I was curious about it - especially since I felt the same way as he did, why isn't sales part of the MBA program. I know salesperson (think car salesperson, insurance salesperson) usually get rep, but sales really is all around us, just that we usually associate sales with profit. But it really is all around us - including "selling yourself" when you are at a job interview.

Unlike his first book, this one is not a memoir. This is also not a how-to book either. This book includes stories of different top salesperson and what makes them successful. Some believe that they shouldn't sell ice to Eskimo ("we'll sell them jackets or heaters instead!"), while others have a different philosophy - e.g. one hiring manage asked the candidate what he'd spend the money on if they suddenly came across a large amount of money. If the candidate answered "paid off debt, saved it...", they won't get hired. If the candidate answered, "I'd go buy this luxury car" or something to that effect, then they'd be hired because they understand the the desire to spend the money. I found that reading these stories rather interesting as there really is no one-size-fits-all.

If I have one feedback, I wish the book is organized differently - Right now there are 8 chapters based on some broad categories. I wish each chapter is the story of a one sales person, so that each chapter is shorter, and easier to go back to for reference.

I am not going to rate this book for the time being - only because due to my pregnancy, I am not absorbing the information as much as I usually would, and I don't have as much attention span, so I will likely rate this lower than what this book is worth (it seems like even with fiction, I can only do YA right now... haven't touched an adult novel for almost 2 months, which is unheard of! And those were books of my favorite murder/mystery genre too!) But I know I won't be giving this book away anytime soon, I'd like to revisit this book in the future when my pregnancy brain is back to somewhat normal :)


Note -  I got a free copy of this book as part of the TLC Tour. Check out all the other reviews on this tour! :)

Thursday, April 12th: Patricia’s Wisdom
Friday, April 13th: 800 CEO Read
Monday, April 16th: Mental Foodie
Tuesday, April 17th: Ed Roach: The Branding Guy
Wednesday, April 18th: Nanxi Liu
Thursday, April 19th: Business Growth Strategies
Tuesday, April 24th: Man of La Book
Wednesday, April 25th: Balance In Me
Thursday, April 26th: Less Ordinary Living
Wednesday, May 2nd: The Mom Renewal Project
TBD: Dave Stein’s Blog


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