BOOKS
“Life Happened Because I Turned The Pages”
There are a number of books I would recommend to be in the library of every Sales Engineer. Some are Pre-Sales specific, some deal with demos and presentations, and others are regular business books. Having these books in your library can only serve to make you a stronger, smarter, and more successful Sales Engineer. Although these are the English versions, many have been translated into other languages. Start reading!
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Download the Reading List in PDF format or Word format or click on any book cover below to visit Amazon.com (US)
The Sales (Engineer) Book Of The Month:
Nudge – The Final Edition
Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein
“Apparently insignificant details can have major impacts on people’s behavior.”
I truly enjoyed reading Nudge, The Final Edition. I found it funny, insightful, well-written, and full of ideas – not just for Sales Engineers. If you think about our profession, extending the analogy, salespeople tend to be aggressive and push and shove, while SEs are kinder and gentler, and we like to nudge our customers, peers, and partners. Nobel Prize winner Richard Thaler and his colleague Cass Sunstein explain the process of becoming a choice architect and how that can subtly influence the behavior of others.
And we are choice architects. Think about it. We know about starting and finishing with the most important thing in our demos and presentations, packing things in threes, and using gain to alleviate business pain. The book details some of the psychology and science behind small choices. There is also a great Chapter (#8) on #Sludge. Sludge is basically people or processes that create friction and slow things down instead of making them easy. You can apply some of the sludge removal techniques to the sales cycle, customer support/escalations, product management, and even engineering.
As an added bonus, you can use the ideas for improving your personal life around health, wealth, and happiness. Buy this book. You’ll need to do some conversion work to make it relevant to your personal situation, but it’s worth it.
