Sprout!: Everything I Need to Know about Sales I Learned from My Garden - Hardcover

Alan A. Vengel; Greg Wright

4.08

24 ratings by Goodreads

9781576752074: Sprout!: Everything I Need to Know about Sales I Learned from My Garden

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1576752070 ISBN 13: 9781576752074

Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2004

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Marsha Molloy has had it. Once a top medical products sales representative so crackerjack her nickname was Marsha Money, she’s been laid low by a tough economy and just plain exhaustion. The former top producer has seemingly lost her touch and grown indifferent to a sales culture that appears to value faxes, e-mails, and cell phone chats instead of the relationship building that had been her forte.

Enter Bob Rawlings, the owner of Marsha’s local gardening store. In Bob’s 30 plus years as a successful sales professional, he experienced the same career frustrations, but found that if he treated his business like his garden, his business grew—and a happier, more relaxed salesman appeared. Bob teaches Marsha the secrets of his sales garden, helping her to recharge her career.

The clever sales garden metaphor will change you the way you think about sales. By adhering to the easy, practical steps outlined in Sprout!, you, too, can beat career blues, increase your sales, and sustain yourself for the long term.

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From the Publisher:

From the Publisher SPROUT! is about sustaining a successful career in sales and keeping it both fun and profitable. Written by two guys who have had the privilege of building sales careers that have been fun and profitable and who have each worked with thousands of successful sales people in all different stages of their careers—SPROUT! combines practical wisdom with a clever gardening analogy to provide sales people with an easy to implement model for sustaining and growing their careers, while having a good time in the process.

Although all career choices present challenges for sustaining success, it seems to us that sales professionals in particular are constantly measured against very rigid, economically-driven barometers and exposed to constant internal and external competition. As a result, the potential for job burnout is very high in the sales industry. The cost to sales organizations in lost talent, rehiring and re-training negatively impacts the corporate bottom line. Unfortunately, but unmistakably, the emotional toll of burnout can be devastating to any sales professional’s career.

The authors have noticed clear plateaus in the "energy" of the salespeople they have worked with. While most sales people are well schooled in the nuts and bolts of the selling process there seems to be something missing for them that can cause premature burnout. That’s where SPROUT! comes in handy. By using a Selling Garden metaphor and its accompanying mind-set, salespeople can find relief from harmful stress, and put more fun and passion into the selling process.

By following the authors’ simple Sales Garden metaphor, and by adhering to the user-friendly steps outlined in SPROUT!, salespeople can beat the career blues and sustain themselves for the long term, regaining their passion for sales in the process. But that’s not all. Our simple formula also enables organizations to better retain precious talent, thus creating a healthy sales framework—and healthy sales professionals -- throughout the inevitable ups and downs of a long term selling career.

All this, from seeds sowed in our Sales Garden.

About the Author:

Alan Vengel is a founding partner of Vengel Lash Associates, Inc. and a strategic partner with Beverly Kaye & Associates/Career Systems International. He is a consultant, speaker, and educator in the subjects of influence, negotiation, sales, and talent development.
In addition to providing training and consulting services to more than three hundred of America’s largest corporations, he has been a featured speaker at American Society for Training & Development (ASTD) national conferences and the Linkage Leadership Conference.
Alan has an undergraduate degree from the University of Florida and a master’s degree from the University of Arizona. His last book, The Influence Edge: How to Persuade Others to Help You Achieve Your Goals (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2000), was nominated for a California Book Award.
Over the past twenty-seven years, Greg Wright has worked with business leaders and sales professionals from some of the best-performing companies in the world. His work on leadership and sales success has been implemented in a range of industries on six continents.
Greg is an Annapolis graduate with an advanced degree from the University of Arkansas. He served during the Vietnam War before starting his training and consulting business, C.G. Wright & Associates (CGWA), in San Diego, California. CGWA continues to provide performance solutions to corporate America.
A Mississippi native, Greg lives in the Florida Keys with his wife. Their garden yields bananas, mangoes, and key limes.

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