Shortly after I launched my consulting practice featuring SST: Successful Selling to Type, I began writing a newsletter. This would be 1997. The first version was a hard copy that we mailed to clients and prospects and was titled, SST Newsletter. The articles principally dealt with applying personality type principles to selling.
The template we used called for a feature article and two smaller ones. Thus, there are more articles during this period. Granted, some are rather brief, not unlike their titles as in “Bob!” and “Duh”.
By 2001, electronic newsletters won favor with both readers and those who prepared them. Digital versions conserved paper, saved postage and were easy to read online. Further, it was simple to refer clients or prospects to the TildenSST web site and a particular newsletter article.
Ten years after our first electronic newsletter, 2011, we made the conversion to a blog. While SST is still a core offering, our practice has become quite diverse with executive coaching, leadership development and selling skills courses that range from prospecting to negotiations. Accordingly, the title of the blog is Dr. Tilden’s Sales Prescription.
As the TildenSST web site undergoes its sixth update, we were confronted with the question of what to do with fourteen years of archived newsletters? Our answer is to assemble all of the newsletters in a file with titles and dates itemized in a table of contents that follows.
Unless noted, the articles are authored by me. PfP partner Harry Koolen has contributed several as has Matthijs van der Want, an executive coach in Belgium, and Kestutis Cvetkovas, managing partner of Versse, a firm certified in SST.
Early articles, like the World Isn’t Flat (1997) introduced SST as alternative to old school manipulative selling tactics. You will also find some of what NPR’s Car Talk brothers call “shameless self-promotion” represented by Speaking of Return on Investment and Sighted Squirrels Find More Nuts (1998).
One long time reader has referred to me as a “myth buster”. After all, I am the author of the book Rainmakers, Closers & Other Sales Myths (2007). This attitude is reflected in Silver Bullets (1998); Dangling Carrots (1998); Introversion & Selling (2000); Unmasking the Multi -tasking Myth (2007); and Popular Sales Method Gets it Half Right (2008).
You will find several attempts at humor. They succeeded, at least with me, upon re-reading them. You may find a laugh or two in Preparing Holiday Turkeys (1998); What if Willie Loman, Blake & Lou Gehrig Had Power Point (1999); Selling to Santa Claus (2002); New Rules (2005); and Jack Nicholson Speaks up for Salespeople (2009).
Several articles apply SST and personality principles to national issues like Presidential Politics (2001, 2004 & 2008); Spy Plane Standoff (2001); BATNAs & US Iraq Negotiations (2004); Z Problem Solving and the US Financial Crisis (2008); and No Drama Obama & SST Balance (2010).
The remainder of the articles cover topics like stress, the importance of listening, leadership and negotiations. And, there seven book reviews: Rethinking the Sales Force (1999); Lombardi (2000); First Break All the Rules (2004); Blink (2005); Whole New Mind (2006); Buy-ology (2009); and Outliers (2009).
The capable Kimbra Shoop provided copy editing for many of the articles as she did for Rainmakers, Closers & Other Sales Myths.
As I prepare this overview, I have been assuming my audience is comprised of long time clients, friends and readers. But, with the internet, you never know who will stumble upon what you write. After all, the internet is how I got introduced to European colleagues, Rolf Dackheden in Sweden and Kestutis Cvetkovas in Lithuania. For those of you who don’t know me, there is a profile on the very last page.
I am reluctant to call this a body of work. For one, I am still working and, two I’d like to think I have done a bit more than write newsletter articles. But, they would fit nicely in a “portfolio”, the case for which I make in the concluding white paper titled Solving the Mystery: A Two Step solution to Improving sales Performance.
Finally, I doubt many of you will have the time or appetite to read all of the articles. But, I hope this summary and the table of contents that follows will provide you with tools to pick and choose topics that may be of interest. As always, I’d be delighted to hear from you.
Thank you.
Arnie Summer 2015