2004
• Packed with useful tips and practical advice that will help salespeople reduce stress and increase satisfaction in their jobs-and make more money too
• Uses an entertaining and unique gardening metaphor that can be applied immediately to any sales situation
• Most books on sales are about a particular technique-this book addresses the "big picture"
Sales has always been a high burnout profession. These days, with the intense focus on quarterly earnings reports, there is more pressure on sales professionals than ever before. The relentless push for immediate results can leave salespeople exhausted, frustrated, and wondering why they ever got themselves into this business. And it can leave sales organizations with a serious turnover problem.
SPROUT! was written by two long-time sales veterans to help their fellow professionals rediscover enthusiasm for their chosen profession and to help sales organizations retain top talent. Vengel and Wright use a page-turning story to outline a new strategy for sales, one that will make salespeople better able to cope with the inevitable ups and downs and take a more effective, long-term approach.
As the book begins, Marsha Molloy has had it. Once a top pharmaceutical sales representative so crackerjack her nickname was Marsha Money, she's been laid low by a tough economy and just plain exhaustion. The once-hungry top producer has seemingly lost her touch and grown indifferent to a sales culture that appears to value faxes, emails, and cell phone chats instead of the relationship building that had been her forte. An avid gardener on a visit to her local nursery, Marsha runs into Bob Rawlings, the store's new owner and an ex-sales professional himself. They begin to chat, and Marsha mentions her career frustrations. Bob replies that he'd had the same problem, but found that the more he began treating his business like his garden, the better his business grew - and a happier, more relaxed salesman appeared. Marsha is intrigued but puzzled - how could sales be like gardening? Bob takes Marsha under his wing and, with the assistance of several other salespeople he's mentored, teaches her the secrets of his sales garden.
By using the authors' sales garden metaphor to change their whole way of thinking about sales, and by adhering to the easy, practical steps outlined in SPROUT! salespeople can beat the career blues, increase their sales, and sustain themselves for the long term.
Offers not just authoritative, accessible information but advice on every step of the whistleblowing process
Copublished with the Government Accountability Project, which has been aiding and protecting whistleblowers since 1977
Illustrated with vivid examples drawn from GAP's thirty-year history
Corporate whistleblowers save lives, prevent fraud, and preserve the environment. Some even become famous. But what the general public sees is the end result of a long, difficult, draining, and often frightening process. Whistleblowers rarely have any idea what they're in for and, daunted by the ferocity of the resistance and their feelings of isolation and helplessness, some give up, and others are broken financially and emotionally.
Blowing the whistle will always require courage and perseverance, but it no longer has to be done alone. The Corporate Whistleblower's Survival Guide will serve as an expert advisor for anyone contemplating bringing corporate wrongdoers to justice. Tom Devine and Tarek F. Maassarani draw on the accumulated experience of the Government Accountability Project, which since 1977 has helped over 5,000 people take on organizations like AIG, the World Bank, Procter & Gamble, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals--and win.
Devine and Maassarani detail every consideration potential whistleblowers should weigh and paint a vivid picture of the tactics corporations use to attack whistleblowers and cover up or deny damaging revelations. If you are considering blowing the whistle, this book offers hands-on, practical advice on every aspect of the process--finding information to support your claims, determining who to blow the whistle to, enlisting allies, and taking advantage of what legal options exist. The Corporate Whistleblower's Survival Guide will enable readers to bring vital information to light while keeping their sanity, relationships, and careers intact.
2011
2013
2009
OUT OF POVERTY: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail
People often ask, "If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we solve global hunger?"
People often ask, "If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we solve global hunger?" That very question demonstrates the fatal flaw in the dominant way of dealing with difficult social challenges: they're treated like straightforward technical problems. Organizations do a few studies, establish some goals, devise a plan, and attempt implementation. As a look around the world sadly shows, this hasn't worked.
Issues like poverty, ethnic conflict, and climate change are incredibly dynamic and complex, involving an ever-shifting array of factors, actors, and circumstances. They demand a more fluid and adaptive approach. The answer, says Zaid Hassan, is social labs.
Social labs bring together a diverse a group of stakeholders not to create yet more five-year plans but to develop a portfolio of prototype solutions, test those solutions in the real world, use the data to further refine them, and test them again. Their orientation is systemic-they are designed to go beyond dealing with symptoms and parts to get at the root cause of why things are not working.
Hassan builds on a decade of experience-as well as drawing from cutting-edge research in complexity science, networking theory, and sociology-to explain the core principles and daily functioning of social labs, using examples of pioneering labs from around the world. He describes a fast-growing global movement around a new generation of ambitious social labs that are tackling big challenges such as dramatically reducing global emissions, preventing the collapse of fragile states, and improving community resilience. The Social Labs Revolution offers a new generation of problem solvers an effective, practical, and exciting new vision and guide.