Rating: 
Summary: Buy this book and save your company!
Review: Buy this book and read it twice. The future of your company is at stake. The evolution from Hunters & Farmers to Rock Stars & Rainmakers will be like holding a mirror in front of your sales team and asking them if any of these sales styles look familiar. It's a great way to discuss re-engineering your sales team to add value to your company and your customer. It clearly defines a place for the Internet in transactional sales and provides ideas for developing the role of the sales rep's relationship with the customer in the new sales environment. I'm looking forward to Rackham's next book.
Rating:
Summary: Rackham In Touch With Today's World
Review: I have always been impressed with how Neil Rackham has a hand on the pulse of what is going on in the current marketplace. In reading his latest book I could have sworn that he has inside information about our company and some of the struggles we are having with keeping customer margins at acceptable levels. His examples about instrinsic and extrinsic customers is right on target and the type of sales organizations you should consider to go after each of these customer segments. Creating customer value is essential in keeping profit margins elevated. Enterprise sales was also an interesting topic, but it did not offer much value to me at this time. Great reading for any sales or marketing person around the world.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointment
Review: I really came prepared to read a terrific book. I think a great deal of Rackham's book SPIN Selling; it was based in some surprising research, and offered a detailed "how to" for those interested in mastering complex sales. Based on my strong endorsement as a marketing professor and later as a manager, I have doubtless sold many hundreds of copies of SPIN selling for Rackham. But this one is not very good. This new book is disappointing because it reads like boilerplate McKinsey stuff. It is superficial, weakly case-based (I say weakly because they aren't cases per se but little illustrative vignettes or examples from the authors' consulting experience, or reading, or both), and even in some cases already out of date. Wordy, too. I can see some use for the book, especially if you are fairly new to the world of sales force management. For example, if you have never really thought about whether your clients are seeking "transactional," "consultative," or "enterprise" selling processes, this will define them for you and point out that what is appropriate for one is not appropriate for another. If you want some advice on how to organize and deliver one or the other of those strategies, the book offers some guidance, again in a fairly general and superficial way. Rackham is an author whose knowledge I respect, and from whom I would have expected something new to say. That is why, although I don't like to say it, I cannot recommend this book to anyone with more than a passing knowledge of salesforce management.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I really came prepared to read a terrific book. I think a great deal of Rackham's book SPIN Selling; it was based in some surprising research, and offered a detailed "how to" for those interested in mastering complex sales. Based on my strong endorsement as a marketing professor and later as a manager, I have doubtless sold many hundreds of copies of SPIN selling for Rackham. But this one is not very good. This new book is disappointing because it reads like boilerplate McKinsey stuff. It is superficial, weakly case-based (I say weakly because they aren't cases per se but little illustrative vignettes or examples from the authors' consulting experience, or reading, or both), and even in some cases already out of date. Wordy, too. I can see some use for the book, especially if you are fairly new to the world of sales force management. For example, if you have never really thought about whether your clients are seeking "transactional," "consultative," or "enterprise" selling processes, this will define them for you and point out that what is appropriate for one is not appropriate for another. If you want some advice on how to organize and deliver one or the other of those strategies, the book offers some guidance, again in a fairly general and superficial way. Rackham is an author whose knowledge I respect, and from whom I would have expected something new to say. That is why, although I don't like to say it, I cannot recommend this book to anyone with more than a passing knowledge of salesforce management.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I really came prepared to read a terrific book. I think a great deal of Rackham's book SPIN Selling; it was based in some surprising research, and offered a detailed "how to" for those interested in mastering complex sales. Based on my strong endorsement as a marketing professor and later as a manager, I have doubtless sold many hundreds of copies of SPIN selling for Rackham. But this one is not very good. This new book is disappointing because it reads like boilerplate McKinsey stuff. It is superficial, weakly case-based (I say weakly because they aren't cases per se but little illustrative vignettes or examples from the authors' consulting experience, or reading, or both), and even in some cases already out of date. Wordy, too. I can see some use for the book, especially if you are fairly new to the world of sales force management. For example, if you have never really thought about whether your clients are seeking "transactional," "consultative," or "enterprise" selling processes, this will define them for you and point out that what is appropriate for one is not appropriate for another. If you want some advice on how to organize and deliver one or the other of those strategies, the book offers some guidance, again in a fairly general and superficial way. Rackham is an author whose knowledge I respect, and from whom I would have expected something new to say. That is why, although I don't like to say it, I cannot recommend this book to anyone with more than a passing knowledge of salesforce management.
Rating: 
Summary: It is a very good overview of the buying styles
Review: I would have named the book: Buying Styles, how to approach them. The book details how buying processes are made and suggests how to approach them, but as a sales rep stand point it leaves a lot of details out, such as, defining strategies, identifiying unique business value, compelling reasons and so forth. Still, you can consider it good material, if you are looking for something on the surface; if you want to drill down you'll have to look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended!
Review: In this new classic and hot-seller, Neil Rackham and John DeVincentis write convincingly about the need for sales forces to change with the rapidly changing times, and about how they can successfully adapt. Devoid of cutesy gimmicks, the book takes a solid look at what it takes to sell in today's market (no matter what your product or service). It gives plenty of strategies and corporate examples, all focused on the new imperative of creating value, as opposed to just communicating it. We [...] recommend this thorough, intelligent, and conversational book to executives, managers and everyone involved in sales and marketing.
Rating: 
Summary: Updating Sales
Review: Neil Rackham and John R. De Vincentis masterfully divide their examination of selling into transactional sales, consultative sales, and enterprise sales that coexist in many organizations. Enterprise sales are also known under such terms as partnership and strategic alliance. Rackham and De Vincentis concisely look at the key challenges that sales forces face in dealing with increasingly sophisticated buying consumers and businesses that are "ruthless" in the definition of their value scale and options. Rackham and De Vincentis then examine the fundamental pillars that characterize each type of selling and how to be successful in each type of sales, even in times of drastic changes observed in the buying landscape. Rackham and De Vincentis rightly warn their audience against the temptation to move up from either transactional selling to consultative selling or from consultative selling to enterprise selling. Most consumers and businesses will not pay for what they perceive as beyond the value provided to them. In their examination of the sales process, Rackham and De Vincentis stress the importance of removing boundaries from product management to technical support that stymie the efficiency of both transactional and enterprise selling. In their analysis of the sales process behind consultative selling, Rackham and De Vincentis counter-intuitively but rightly observe that improvement lies in the creation of milestones reflecting results and not activities. They logically note that salespeople tend to do what is compensated rather than what is effective. Rackham and De Vincentis also help their readers rethink their channels of distribution for creating and capturing value as well as deal with channel conflict. Finally, Rackham and De Vincentis explore how to change a sales force for improving its performance in each type of selling and how to migrate that sales force from one type of selling to another following changes in buying patterns. Ultimately, the key value of "Rethinking of the Sales Force" lies in its mental combination with books like "SPIN Selling", "Major Account Sales Strategy", "Managing Major Sales", and "The New Strategic Selling." That combination is indeed powerful in devising a strategy that is actionable in the field to help differentiate one organization from its competition.
Rating:
Summary: Refreshing Breeze in Sales Force Optimization
Review: Neil Rackham and John R. De Vincentis masterfully divide their examination of selling into transactional sales, consultative sales, and enterprise sales that coexist in many organizations. Enterprise sales are also known under such terms as partnership and strategic alliance. Rackham and De Vincentis concisely look at the key challenges that sales forces face in dealing with increasingly sophisticated buying consumers and businesses that are "ruthless" in the definition of their value scale and options. Rackham and De Vincentis then examine the fundamental pillars that characterize each type of selling and how to be successful in each type of sales, even in times of drastic changes observed in the buying landscape. Rackham and De Vincentis rightly warn their audience against the temptation to move up from either transactional selling to consultative selling or from consultative selling to enterprise selling. Most consumers and businesses will not pay for what they perceive as beyond the value provided to them. In their examination of the sales process, Rackham and De Vincentis stress the importance of removing boundaries from product management to technical support that stymie the efficiency of both transactional and enterprise selling. In their analysis of the sales process behind consultative selling, Rackham and De Vincentis counter-intuitively but rightly observe that improvement lies in the creation of milestones reflecting results and not activities. They logically note that salespeople tend to do what is compensated rather than what is effective. Rackham and De Vincentis also help their readers rethink their channels of distribution for creating and capturing value as well as deal with channel conflict. Finally, Rackham and De Vincentis explore how to change a sales force for improving its performance in each type of selling and how to migrate that sales force from one type of selling to another following changes in buying patterns. Ultimately, the key value of "Rethinking of the Sales Force" lies in its mental combination with books like "SPIN Selling", "Major Account Sales Strategy", "Managing Major Sales", and "The New Strategic Selling." That combination is indeed powerful in devising a strategy that is actionable in the field to help differentiate one organization from its competition.
Rating:
Summary: Concerned with revenue and profits? Read this book!
Review: Neil Rackham, along with various co-contributors, has written six excellent and thought-provoking books on different aspects of sales and sales effectiveness. If your business involves selling and you haven't read these books, your revenues and profits are not where they could be! This latest one, "Rethinking the Sales Force" reinforces that. I learned that first hand.In June of 1996, I was asked by my company to join a cross-functional team whose major responsibility was to re-engineer the company's selling processes. It took ten of us - along with countless consultants, many from Big Six firms - and a LOT of money over two years to complete that process. The ideas in this book could have saved us months and probably hundreds of thousands! Unfortunately it wasn't written then. But that's no longer a valid excuse, so if you haven't read "Rethinking the Sales Force", I'd go to One-Click on this page and order it right away. Early in the book, the authors point out that while many aspects of business have changed, many sales managers and sales people are still following the precepts first referred to in a book written in 1925 by E.K. Strong called "The Psychology of Selling". A nice way of saying that selling hasn't kept up with the times. The ideas in this book can help any company begin this "catching up" process. Like the five previous books, this one is very well written. Rackham has the ability to present new ideas or new perspectives in an entertaining manner reinforced with real world examples. Many books on selling and the sales process have one or two decent ideas explained in one or two pages and surrounded by 240 pages of filler. None of Rackham's books will ever be accused of that.
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