Name: The Ultimate Sales Machine
ISBN: 9781591842156

The Ultimate Sales Machine

Chet Holmes has been called "one of the top 20 change experts in the country." He helps his clients blow away both the competition and their own expectations. And his advice starts with one simple concept: focus! Instead of trying to master four thousand strategies to improve your business, zero in on the few essential skill areas that make the big difference.Too many managers jump at every new trend, but don't stick with any of them. Instead, says Holmes, focus on twelve critical areas of improvement—one at a time—and practice them over and over with pigheaded discipline.The Ultimate Sales Machine shows you how to tune up and soup up virtually every part of your business by spending just an hour per week on each impact area you want to improve. Like a tennis player who hits nothing but backhands for a few hours a week to perfect his game, you can systematically improve each key area.Holmes offers proven strategies for:• Management: Teach your people how to work smarter, not harder• Marketing: Get more bang from your Web site, advertising, trade shows, and public relations• Sales: Perfect every sales interaction by working on sales, not just in salesThe Ultimate Sales Machine will put you and your company on a path to success and help you stay there!

What Hacker News says

mkbknOct 2025

Try consuming digital content less, especially videos or audios (non-music).

Reset your brain through digital detox, going for long walks without phone, etc. Brain has to wired again for focus. It will take time.

If you want to read something, print it and then read.

What ultimately shoot up my productivity was to read chapter 1 of the book - The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes.

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rockyperezzOct 2023

I'm a marketer, although there are a lot of "must-haves", I'd say the one I keep coming back to is "The Ultimate Sales Machine" by Chet Holmes

For those interested in other books for marketing, I compiled a list here (most even have book summaries already for convenience): https://share.justbeepit.com/screenshot/647f77b9b37c52001425...

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abhiyerraOct 2022

Sales is three things:

  - Sourcing. Figuring out where your customers' hangout so you can reach them there.
  - Prospecting. Reaching out to your potential customer base.
  - Closing. Going through with a deal including sales collateral, proposals, and contracts.

The entire process should be a system that is tweaked as you execute it. Great books I’ve read are:

  - Ultimate Sales Machine
  - Sales EQ
  - Fanatical prospecting
  - Challenger sale. For the actual closing process
  - The Close.com blog is pretty great.

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MrDunhamSep 2022

I would bet it would have a pretty decent effects. I’m a digital marketer/growth guy and right now I think the least crowded inbox is the mailbox.

But not standard postcards or mass mailers.

An example: I worked for an apparel company selling custom apparel (shirts and hoodies mostly) to army Battalions/Companies/Platoons…

We managed to grab 28% market share of an army base for $150.00 by sending a sales letter with a knock out offer and a Rubik’s cube (there were actually two rounds of mailers but the total of both of them was $150)

Had the company’s supply chain not imploded it should’ve brought as much as $300,000 in gross profits of the course of the year. I’d say a 2000x ROI is not bad for a week of work and a couple hundred dollars in materials.

I think lumpy mailers à la The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes are a phenomenal way to cut through the clutter with CPM‘s skyrocketing and conversion rates plummeting for PPC marketing.

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cannonedhamsterJul 2019

Books on interacting with people.

How to Win Friends and Influence People. - Dale Carnegie

Influence - Robert Cialdini

Books on understanding how to push through adversity

The Obstacle Is The Way - Ryan Holiday

Man's Search For Meaning - Victor Frankly

Books on process improvement

The Phoenix Project

The Four Hour Work Week - Tim Ferriss (ignore the outsourcing bit, listen to his podcast)

Books on breaking out of your thought bubble.

Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell

Ishmael - David Quinn

Books for understanding how sales works

Ultimate Sales Machine - Chet Holmes

Negotiate As If Your Life Depended on It - Chris Voss

Any of these books are great starts. If the leadership big bites you there's way more I can suggest. Most of these are a mix of classics and new stuff. I've read them all and they want have their own style and provide their own insight. The trick is to find out what parts work with how you do and incorporate them into your flow. The learning process never ends.

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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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