In Jeffrey Gitomer’s The Little Red Book of Selling, there are a few decently helpful themes in the books for web entrepreneurs. For the most part, it’s a motivational self-help book that’s big on obvious answers and an underlying “never say die” approach to selling. At most times of day, this is exactly what most salespeople need to hear.
In the end, it’s a great book for web entrepreneurs for two reasons:
- Sales is all about engaging the prospect. Similarly, in most websites, you have to engage the user to immediately engage and use your site. Most sites have some sort of registration or participation process, and you have to be creative in engaging them. There are different styles to doing so, but you have to have a strategy from that start and/or splash page to engage the user as a returning customer of your site. The point is that you cannot hope that some bit of “technological sweetness” will push users towards your site alone.
- Learn to be creative. Read about it. There are several lists on Amazon that can point you in the right direction. My first book on creativity and product development was IDEO’s The Art of Innovation. If you can understand how the human creates novel ideas, then you’ll be more prone to create it. In sales, it’s being creative in asking insightful questions to create opportunities.
In any case, the Little Red Book of Selling is a great first book to read to get some exposure on how to sell yourself, your site, and your services.
