Selling the wheel

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1. tmcdosAug 2025
   The book SELLING THE WHEEL by Jeff Cox and Howard Stevens is quite good in explaining the lifecycle of every product (not sure about services). Must-read for every product owner/seller/developer.
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2. tmcdosMar 2023
   I am not an entrepreneur (yet) but I still want to share a few titles with you:

   - "Maverick or The seven day weekend" by Ricardo Semler

   - "Rework" by Jason Fried and David Hansson

   - "Startup - an insider's guide to launching and running a business" by Kevin Ready

   - "Bookkeeping and Cost Accounting for Factories" by William Kent (1918)

   - "Practice what you preach" by David Maister

   - "Don't oil the squeaky wheel" by Wolf Rinke

   - "Selling The Wheel: Choosing The Best Way To Sell For You Your Company Your Customers" by Jeff Cox

   - "The power of stupidity" by Giancarlo Livraghi

   - "How to write a good advertisement" by Victor Schwab

   - "How to Make Money Out of Thin Air" by Brian Sher

   - "Good manners and business etiquette. Illustrated Guide" by Elena Ber

   - "Don't just roll the dice: A usefully short guide to software pricing" by Neil Davidson

   - "Message to Garcia" by Elbert Hubbard

   - the TopLeaf course of 36 video lectures on management by dr. Izhak Adizes can be purchased on https://vimeo.com/ondemand/topleaf or found on ru tracker (if you have access)

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3. mindcrimeOct 2019
   If you're talking B2B / enterprise, then I recommend:

   Mastering The Complex Sale

   Exceptional Selling

   The Prime Solution

   Customer-centric Selling

   Selling The Wheel

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4. mindcrimeJul 2019
   https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19878274

   My recommendations are the same as they were then:

   ~~~~

   Mastering The Complex Sale -- Jeff Thull

   Exceptional Selling -- Jeff Thull

   The Prime Solution -- Jeff Thull

   The Challenger Sale -- Matthew Dixon, Brent Adamson

   Selling The Wheel: Choosing The Best Way To Sell For You Your Company Your Customers -- Jeff Cox, Howard Stevens

   And while it's not exactly about "sales" alone, I'd recommend The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank as well. It touches on aspects of selling in an enterprise setting, especially for new products.

   The Salesman Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL5m7amy0FXEAe9WxhXTI_A

   ~~~~~

   But I'd now also add:

   The Ultimate Sales Machine - Chet Holmes

   Customercentric Selling, 2nd Edition - Michael T. Bosworth, John R. Hollandd, Frank Visgatis

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5. mindcrimeMay 2019
   My recommendations:

   Mastering The Complex Sale -- Jeff Thull

   Exceptional Selling -- Jeff Thull

   The Prime Solution -- Jeff Thull

   The Challenger Sale -- Matthew Dixon, Brent Adamson

   Selling The Wheel: Choosing The Best Way To Sell For You Your Company Your Customers -- Jeff Cox, Howard Stevens

   And while it's not exactly about "sales" alone, I'd recommend The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Steve Blank as well. It touches on aspects of selling in an enterprise setting, especially for new products.

   The Salesman Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL5m7amy0FXEAe9WxhXTI_A

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6. tptacekJul 2014
   I was a PM for an enterprise product for several years (I took a sabbatical from software development for a little while to do something more business-y).

   The original Ries "Positioning" book was good, and is probably more valuable than Porter's Competitive Strategy for tech PMs.

   "Selling The Wheel" is a very light read and, if you've never watched a sales team get managed, is a good introduction to how products get sold (in B2B situations) at different stages of maturity.

   Most of Joel Spolsky's blog posts are effectively describing the job of a PM; they're more valuable than any book I can think of.

   I like "Four Steps To The Epiphany" as a sort of roadmap to bringing enterprise-type products to market. The book itself is kind of funny; it has the appearance of being typeset entirely in Microsoft Word, which gives it a sort of samizdat charm.

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