Overview

When thinking of sales, it’s easy to pick out the heroes and the villains, but Adrian Davis is here to spell it out in detail. With relatable analogies of comparing sales to cinematic superhero tropes, Heroes, Villains, and the Thrill of Professional Selling explains how to find success in every story in the marketplace. Rooted in SAMA and the concept of “Co-Creating Value” this book describes an approach to creating value that draws upon an ideal from the movie industry and is imperative for mutual success: Your client is the hero in the story. Adrian Davis simplifies the hero’s journey with real-life examples, compelling stories, and templates to guide your learning. Movie genres are compared to different client types, and analogies are drawn between the screen and the sales floor to educate the salesperson, or in this case, the director, on creating a positive buying experience for clients. Adding to this insight, Adrian offers a path to develop your SOCKET solution, and a way to engage “inside-outsiders” to help in the journey. Find a robust series of 100 questions to discover value and a stakeholder checklist to guide you through the maze and knowledge on “Co-Creating Value” to garner success. Whether you prefer action, mystery, romance, sci-fi, comedy, horror, or drama, Adrian’s explanations are sure to make you a sharper salesperson and cinephile as you continue working with your client. Take Adrian’s advice and don’t come out of the story to editorialize — let the story do the work! You can read his lessons learned, put them into practice, and embark on your own journey for stronger relationships and success.

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9781642255461

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Reviews

"Adrian is a deep friend and business partner. Here, his true depth of wisdom wrapped in narrative and metaphor is on full display. This book will fundamentally reframe your perspective and approach to how you ""occupy your space"" in the future of strategic selling. He has drawn on the wisdom of the ages and made it consumable for all of us to be a ""special resource"" in our personal and professional lives. This book is a true gift for you to unwrap and then give away as you make resulting changes to how you engage with others in life and work. Unpack, unwrap, and unleash the tools and design principles Adrian has curated and created for us all. -Phil Styrlund CEO, The Summit Group Hero's, Villain's, and the Thrill of Professional Selling is the type of book that can transform the way you interact with others. Adrian has developed a framework based on proven neuroscience concepts that is a meaningful, compelling, and enjoyable concept. Stories have nurtured our lives since our childhoods. In this book, Adrian shows us how to leverage the full potential of stories thru an analogy that speaks to anyone. It's a very powerful tool that can be applied even in your personal life (try it with your kids, it works!). -Florent Bühler Digital Marketing Innovation Director, MSD France Adrian uses the very relatable analogy of moviemaking to describe how salespeople can go from good to great. If you're looking for a compelling, punchy read that will challenge your assumptions about your role in sales, the role of your customers, and the companies you're targeting, you've found the right book. We all want to be heroes in our own organization. This book shows you how, if you're prepared to side-step that role in your customers' own stories, you can achieve exactly that. -Catherine Grainger Development & Education Manager, 3M This is a great piece of work! In this book, Adrian succeeds in drawing a parallel between selling and making a movie. A must-read for understanding who the real ""hero"" in the sales process should be. -Lonnie Essex VP of Global Accounts, AVI-SPL I'm a huge film buff, and I write about sales and marketing. If anyone had told me movie production was like sales, I would have waved them away. And then I read Heroes, Villains, and the Thrill of Professional Selling. In his book, Adrian Davis uses stories to reveal their power in sales settings. Through movie metaphors, readers learn how the hero's story applies to sales and how to craft emotional, personal stories that guide buyers on a journey in which they emerge as the hero in their new world. (Yes, that C-suite decision maker is like Tom Hanks's role in Captain Philip.) More than that, though, Davis gives readers concrete strategies and methods to help salespeople write and direct their own winning buyer experiences. If you are a salesperson or manage a team of sellers, add this book to your reading list. -Michelle Davidson Marketer and Media Strategist, Allego I was blown away by the innovative approach taken in this book. The use of movie analogies to illustrate key points made it not only relatable and easy to follow, but also highly memorable. As a sales leader, I found this book to be an invaluable resource for inspiring my team and helping us stay relevant to our customers. I highly recommend it to anyone looking to take their sales strategies to the next level. -Susan Milwit Global Account Manager, AVI-SPL"

Author Information

ADRIAN DAVIS is the President & CEO of Whetstone Inc., a management consulting firm. Companies such as DuPont and Johnson & Johnson have partnered with Adrian to create greater value for their customers. He is a Certified Speaking Professional (CSP), a Certified Professional in Business Process Management (P.BPM) and a Certified Competitive Intelligence Professional (CIP). The author of Human-to-Human Selling, Adrian is an internationally recognized, thought-provoking speaker and trusted advisor to CEOs and sales leaders.

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