I mean “loved” in a platonic “really love your ideas” way, of course…
Anyway, last week, in the post “How Technology Killed Marketing,” a reader accused me of lying in my bio. He originally emailed the accusation to me, evidently under the misapprehension that I’d be afraid his revelation would embarrass me.
In the immortal words of Tweety-Bird: “He don’t know me very well, do he?”
I told him to go ahead and post it. So he did. After some standard “you’re all wrong about marketing” yada yada, he referenced some material from my bio:
“When writing about Sales, he draws on…the fact that every month he’s personally being coached, one-on-one, by the world’s top sales trainers.”
Then he added:
“I don’t want to contradict, but I just phoned each and every one of “the world’s top sales trainers ” but none of them seemed to know who Geoffrey James was .”
While it’s unlikely that the writer knows many (much less “each and every one”) of the world’s top sales trainers, the accusation requires a response, since it implies that I’m guilty of the same kind of BS that I accuse marketeers of spouting.
Here’s the truth. For the past four years or so, I’ve been the sales training writer for the SellingPower magazine/website. I write a regular feature called “Train Your Team” where I get coached by a top sales trainer and write about what I’ve learned in a “train the trainer” format. Here’s the list so far:
- Tom Hopkins (Handling Objections)
- Brian Tracy (Effective Presentations)
- Linda Richardson (Closing Sales)
- Ron Willingham (Psychology of Sales)
- Mike Bosworth (Consultative Selling)
- Randall Murphy (Sales Negotiations)
- Sam Reese (Strategic Accounts)
- Tom Sant (Effective Proposals)
- Jeff Gitomer (Customer Referrals)
- Jeff Seeley (Sales Process)
- Neil Rackham (Access to Decision-makers)
- Earl Taylor (Building Rapport)
- Rob Scher (Emotional Intelligence)
- Tom Roth (Pinpointing Good Prospects)
- Robert Cialdini (Influencing Customers)
- Art Mortel (Handling Rejection)
- Jeff Keller (Positive Attitude)
- Omar Periu (Getting Motivated)
- Wayne Turmel (Effective Questioning)
- Joanne Black (Referral Selling)
- Jerry Acuff (Building Customer Relationships)
- Mark Shonka/Dan Kosch (Selling at the C-Level)
- Linda Richardson (Management Coaching)
- David Berman (Webcasting)
- Sharon Daniels (Setting Sales Priorities)
- Wendy Weiss (Cold Calling)
- Jim Holden (International Sales)
- Waldo “Wingman” (Sales Missions)
- Michael St. Lawrence (Seeing For Results)
- Bill Stinnett (Customer Results)
- Andrea Sittig Rolf (Cold Calling)
- Jeff Thull (High Stakes Selling)
- Howard Stevens (World Class Selling)
- Steve Martin (Heavy Hitter Selling)
- Phil Geldart (Building Teamwork)
- Greg Winograd (Following Through)
- Terri Sjodin (Persuasive Presentations)
- Julie Thomas (Adapting to Customers)
- John Asher (Correcting Sales Mistakes)
- Duane Sparks (Breaking Sales Records)
- Donal Daly (Reducing Sales Costs)
- Tom Black (Simplifying Sales Processes)
- Thomas Ray Crowel (Power Prospecting)
- Barry Rhein (Elevator Pitches)
- Ed Rigsbee (Sales Partnering)
- Dean Schantz (Power of Story)
- Dean Brenner (Effective Communications)
- Shell and Moussa (Strategic Persuasion)
Needless to say, these are some of the biggest names in sales training. And while it’s possible that one or more of these folks don’t remember my name, I’m sure they remember their SellingPower article, because it’s a HUGE DEAL to get covered in “Train Your Team.”
What’s more, I’m fairly certain that a lot of these folk DO know my name, because I get emails from them pretty regularly. Linda Richardson, for example, asked me to blurb her most recent book.
So, yes, I do get coached by top sales trainers, and I frequently draw on that experience, and additional conversations with these trainers, for material to post on this blog.
READERS: As long as we’re on the subject, are there some sales trainers (either on the above list or not) that you’d like to see me feature in the blog?
