The Power of Selling is the perfect textbook to teach students about the proven process of selling. More important, it teaches students how to apply the tenets of selling to how to sell themselves and get the job they want, with the same process professional sales people learn (or brush up) on their own selling skills.
Type of Material:
Open (Access) Textbook
Recommended Uses:
This material would best be used as a core textbook for a sales course.
There are good readings for outside of class preparation and some parts can be incorporated for in-class group and individual activities
Technical Requirements:
Chrome, Safari, Firefox, PDF reader.
Identify Major Learning Goals:
The goal of this text is to provide students with an overview of the aspects of professional selling. Additionally, it challenges students to apply those same principles to their personal job search.
Each chapter includes section specific learning goals. The main learning goals include understanding the following:
Careers in sales
Building relationships with customers
Ethics of selling
Effective Communication
Understanding the customer
Prospecting and qualifying the customer
Approaching the sales presentation
Handling objections
Closing the sale and follow up
Target Student Population:
College Lower Division, College Upper Division
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:
Principles of Marketing course
Content Quality
Rating:
Strengths:
The textbook seems to be well written with examples to explain the materials in more detail. There are videos embedded within the pdf for students to have a mixture of text and video instruction. Exercises take students through questions and possible scenarios faced in selling situations. There are fifteen dedicated chapters, graphics, and regularly cited sources. Additionally, it provides a plethora of recognizable examples, and incorporates video content for deeper understanding.
Concerns:
The text is “authored, remixed, and/or curated by Anonymous.” It also doesn’t seem to incorporate any discussion of the sales analytical tools that are available and widely used by today’s salespeople.
Some of the examples may be outdated from a student's perspective.
Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool
Rating:
Strengths:
The textbook provides a good basic overview of professional selling. Each chapter opens with a “video ride-along” that exposes the reader to a real-world sales professional. The chapter sections contain identified learning objectives, further videos and graphics to enhance understanding, familiar companies in the discussion, and “Key Takeaways” and “Exercises” as concluding content. In some spots there are areas to “Test Your Knowledge” with answers provided, and Role Plays. Instructors could easily assign the exercises already created.
Concerns:
This text does not review the analytical tools available to sales professionals and may not be as comprehensive as an instructor prefers.
Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty
Rating:
Strengths:
The materials in incredibly easy for students to access. With it being an OER text, it is available to students at all time online or in a pdf. Instructors can link specific chapters in their LMS making it easy for students to know what material they need to access for each module in the course. It is written in a conversational style that keeps the reader’s attention and the content moving along, and graphics help to break up the wordiness. There are navigation aids in several spots, along with features to address vision/accessibility issues.
Concerns:
None noted.
Creative Commons:
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