Selling The Wheel: Choosing The Best Way To Sell For You Your Company Your Customers

This is not a book chock full of sales insight, rather, it's a dated look (the research started in the mid 70's) at how to position your business for success. Because it touches on hiring the right person for the right job, it's useful to define or refine how your business process is positioned for sales, customer service and support, especially if you're a new company launching a brand new never before seen product, but this is not a "how to" for the salesperson, nor for hiring sales professionals.In fact, they mistakenly label a product manager as a sales rep (the wizard). The person who overseas delivery of the product, repairs and schedules maintenance (examples in the book) is not a sales rep, yet in this book they refer to it as such. The book goes so far as to express that a sales rep (the wizard) would sit down with a PR person and write an article to promote the wheel. In this era, even though it's possible if you're an independent rep selling coaching services or things of that nature, that doesn't happen, and not if you work for a tech business, the sales person doesn't handle the PR.Lastly, I don't often see a sales rep speaking at events for a business with the intent to promote the product, that's usually the CEO (think Apple, Tesla etc). The sales rep might go in for a pitch but again, not for "free" promotion of the product or service, closers close, period.It's well written (expect for the few typos the editor missed) and an easy read, and the bold points highlighted on some of the pages contain the meat if you want to breeze through it, but again, this is NOT a way for a sales individual (referred to as "you" in the subtitle) to "choose" the best way to sell and frankly, being written in 2000 with data stretching back to the 70's, I'd pass on this.

If you have salespeople, you need to read this book. It is invaluable to understand the different types of salespeople and the roles they play in the sale process. Not all salespeople are good at all parts of the sales process and you need to understand this if you want to avoid problems with customers, orders, vendors, and even internal conflicts.

I listened to the abridged audiocassette version of the book. I agree with many of the other reviews - the topic isn't the most riveting, but the author does a phenomenal job in creating and illustrating a real business problem in an effective and entertaining manner. Studying the product lifecycle, as well as the personalities and methodologies needed to sell into those cycles, the author does a fine job in laying out the reasons when and why the sales technique and the market maturity mesh. Using arcetypical sales people, and a product we can all relate to - the wheel - the author takes us through initial invention through to commoditization and maturity of the market and the product. There is a lot to learn here, much to heed, and the tapes are reasonable entertaining as well. Worth a listen!

While I originally read this book over 20 years ago as part of a sales team, the principles and stories are timeless. The humor is used throughout the book to emphasize key selling activities and what can happen in the market even today. This is by far my favorite sales book ever. I continue to give this is a gift to people that I work with each and every day.

This book is wise.I should have read it 20 years ago.It would have saved me time, money and lots of sleepless nights.Thank you very much.God bless you!!!

I really liked this book. It's written very easy and gives nice intro into sales for absolute newbie. I doubt that professional salesman can get a lot from it (though, you never know! :-) -- but I really liked the book.Actually, it was a 1-day-book for me. Very nice and smooth reading, like a movie. One my friend said -- "business is selling", and one can hardly argue that. Being a newbie in sales I found this book very nice and easy (but I told you that already ;-).

I don't think I've enjoyed reading a business book as much as his one; it's hilarious. That said, I'm not sure how it applies to my infrastructure tech biz. Our market seems to require relationship-building wizards. So, we have sales/field engineer commissioned teams as do many others. Still...read this! It may prevent some bad hires...so it's really valuable. I will have my management team read it too.

Good book

I first found this book several years ago and have since bought dozens of copies to give to other people.As a professional salesman for the last 35 years I have read far too many books on selling, most of which are of dubious value. Selling the Wheel however is insightful and very easy to read. It is especially helpful to people who have sold one sort of product/service and now find themselves needing to sell a different product or service OR that there existing product/service has entered a new cycle of life.Most people I have given it to have then gone on to buy copies for others. Shame it appears to have gone out of print though

If you are new to sales, and get lost when reading the more advanced sales books, then this is a great read. It's a fun story about the man who invented the wheel and how it tried to sell it (it's fictional of course). However, the story is written in such a way that it teaches you an awful lot about sales, different selling types and how they work for a product at different times in its life cycle, from brand new invention to commodity item. It also covers many of the problems that sales people face, what it means for their business and how to get around it.So not an advanced tome for the expert, but a great introduction for the novice.

Using the wheel as a convenient token, this engaging book explains how to sell an item from initial conception through to mature markets. What this means for evolving business strategy, pricing, customer base and the type of salesman needed for each phase.

Founders stories are always good, most business process related books are, to be frank dull. This was actually entertaining in a way. I kind of enjoyed reading it, which helped me take in more.

Great book. Fun to read whilst conveying the key messages. Recommended.