Visionary Sales Leadership

Book Review: Visionary Sales Leadership by Don McNamara

Dave Kinnear 1-On Leadership, Book Reviews

A colleague afforded me the honor of reviewing his new book prior to publication. Don McNamara and I have gotten to known each other over the past four years through several professional organizations – The Association of Professional Consultants, the Institute of Management Consultants, The Professional Speakers Association, and our own Mastermind Group. My own background includes extensive periods of time in sales leadership positions in some of the world’s largest semiconductor companies. Based on my experiences in sales as well as other functions within these organizations, I can heartily endorse the work McNamara has done in this new book.

The subtitle for this book is “How Senior Executives Erase Status Quo Myths and Build Superior Sales Organizations.” McNamara then goes on to present ten typical myths surrounding the sales functions in many (if not all) organizations. These myths, if you buy into them, will indeed manage to hold back your organization’s growth and evolution. McNamara explains in a clear, straight-from-the-shoulder style exactly how each Myth manifests itself in an organization, what business processes aid and abet the Myth, and how to break out of the destructive pattern.

This book is not a “how to sell” book. Bookstore shelves are filled to overflowing with many such books. Instead, McNamara points to the critical issue of how the sales function is viewed by and integrated into a healthy company. Properly aligning the sales function (or Demand Generation as some companies refer to the sales function) is critical to our success in the new global economy, and this book will provide a good starting point for a comprehensive program of change initiation and management.

It is likely that your company, as a whole, does not suffer from ALL ten of these Myths; yet I am willing to wager that all ten are represented by individual leaders within your company. And some of these Myths are known to many sales leaders who have simply not figured out how to change the status quo. Reading and understanding the ten sales Myths and implementing remedial actions found in Visionary Sales Leadership will better position your company for the hyper-competitive ever changing global market of the new world. Watch for its release in the very near future.

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