I did an interview with Jack Malcolm a while back entitled, “Are You Finally Ready to Invest in Financial Acumen for Your Salespeople.” As many of you know this is a very important topic to me. (In fact, I just discussed it at length last week during my webinar “Sales 101 Doesn’t Get the Job Done Anymore.” Here is the link to the recording of that event.)
Jack’s a smart guy. He has a lot to offer many of you because he understands the importance of financial acumen, and, most important, is strategic in his thinking.
Which brings up the subject of this post. Jack wrote a new book, Strategic Sales Presentations. The keyword here is strategic. This is an important one for me, and it should be for you as well. The reason is there are plenty of books out there about presentations. A few are good, most are not. Why? They’re tactical—they’re full of tips and tricks. They don’t provide what you need to create a platform to clearly, concisely, and compellingly articulate to those senior executive decision-makers what it is that you can do for them and their operations during the course of a presentation. This book is refreshingly different in that regard.
Jack has organized his book into three parts: planning and positioning, preparing, and delivering. The content of any of these three is worth the price of the book. All three together puts it in the best-in-class category.
Jack’s writing style isn’t ambiguous and therefore doesn’t leave room for much interpretation. He’s a teacher and a challenger. He tells you what you need to know and lays out, in significant detail, the who, what, when, where, why, and especially the how.
Another thing. This is not one of those books written by someone who was good at something and is now trying to teach the world to do it as they did it. Jack has performed significant research (see the Sources and Notes Section), and, from my perspective, has nailed all the key issues.
I’ll leave you with what I contributed to the back cover:
“Do you want to learn, step-by-step, how to design, build, and deliver compelling strategic sales presentations that will achieve your objectives with senior executives? This is where you need to start—and finish. It’s the most comprehensive, direct, and insightful book on the subject that I’ve read.”
Congratulations, Jack. Great job.
(Disclosure: I received a copy of a draft for review and a signed copy of the finished book.)
