CONFIDENT SELLING – AS IT APPEARS IN DR. FISHER’S “OPEN LIBRARY”
James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© DECEMBER 20, 2009
REFERENCE:
People write and ask me how I got started writing. The short answer is that I’ve always been writing ever since a boy. The long answer is more complicated.
My first book was written while on assignment in South Africa for Nalco Chemical Company. It was called, "Sales Training & Technical Development" (1968), and was written for field engineers and salesmen in South Africa who lacked such a guide. I still hold the copyright.
When I returned to the states in 1969, a retired person in his thirties, I thought nothing would be easier than to become a writer. I acquired a national agent on the strength of some short fiction I wrote, but he was unable to place my work.
I then contacted the William Morris Literary Agency in New York City, explained my interest, and got a blistering reply from Mr. Morris. He claimed never before to have come across such a cockamamie request from somebody doing so well in the full flush of life, and wanting to give it all up for the uncertainty of being a writer. He said the writing samples I sent were promising but lacked commercial value.
Was I discouraged? No. Disappointed? Yes. If writing had been a job, I suppose I would have been discouraged, but writing was a vocation. A vocation is a journey and not an end. A vocation understands disappointments are part of the process.
So, I sat down in 1970 and turned out a manuscript in six weeks, called it "Let's Take the Worry Out of Selling," which was based in part on what I had written for the men in South Africa.
The manuscript was sent off to Prentice-Hall, Inc. without protocol. Within a month, it was accepted for publication without editing, and published as CONFIDENT SELLING in September 1970 with a 1971 copyright. Over the next twenty years, it sold roughly 100,000 copies with more than 20 printings.
CONFIDENT SELLING's incredible history is explained and what the book is about on "OPEN LIBRARY" (www.google.com) by typing in James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
CONFIDENT SELLING was printed in a monthly series in a national magazine, offered in shorter form in airline magazines, and was considered for an audiocassette and video version.
I mention the latter because the 11 o’clock television news anchor for Tampa’s ABC affiliate wanted to form a consortium around CONFIDENT SELLING to reach a wider audience. I told him Prentice-Hall held the copyright. P-H's demands proved excessive, so the project was dropped. I have never surrendered my copyright since. Trust me, an author has no rights of his own material once he gives up his copyright.
(Incidentally, I do have the copyright to this book and have had it since April 30, 1990 -- copyright registration number A 240727 -- as Prentice-Hall allowed it to lapse.)
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Some of you wonder why I call the corporation “corpocracy,” or why I am so hard on the corporation. It is visceral as all my writings are based on my own experience. For example, I would not have received royalties for the serialized version of the CONFIDENT SELLING had I not seen my book on the cover at a magazine in a kiosk.
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CONFIDENT SELLING'S CHALLENGE
If you're a sales person who's got what it takes to be the BEST, but you haven't proved yourself yet, or you have proved yourself, but you're finding it rough maintaining the tempo, here's a dynamic new confidence builder that helps you LEAP over the final hurdle TO SUCCESS TO CONTINUED SUCCESS! This book, your own private counselor, shows you HOW TO DEVELOP CONFIDENCE in your ability to sell. By the same token, it demonstrates WHY YOU SHOULD BE CONFIDENT. Here's the DOOR TO OPPORTUNITY -- self-reliance, self-esteem, not to mention self-discipline -- with YOU holding THE ONLY KEY to the biggest sale you will ever make, BELIEF IN YOURSELF!
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FIRST SENTENCE OF CONFIDENT SELLING:
:
“This book is written for the person who has reached an impasse with him or herself.”
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DESCRIPTION OF CONFIDENT SELLING
CONFIDENT SELLING is a breakthrough book in that it looks at the selling situation from the perspective of the seller, which it claims is the main obstacle in the selling situation. The assumptions the seller makes about the buyer, the buyer's interest in and ability to buy, are predicated too often on faulty information, information derived from the failure of the seller to sell him or herself on the cost benefit to the buyer to purchase the product or service.
CONFIDENT SELLING insists that selling is not a matter of intimidation or a matter of finessing the buyer into a mood to purchase the product or service being offered. On the contrary, CONFIDENT SELLING is about gauging the buyer's mood, readiness, need and ability to form a partnership with the seller. This requires the seller to think not as a seller but as a buyer, as the one that is to purchase the product or service and the consequences of such a transaction.
CONFIDENT SELLING argues that absolutely every endeavor in life is one between a seller and a buyer whether the seller is far removed from an actual selling situation of a product but is a doctor, lawyer, accountant, consultant, organizational administrator, priest, minister or rabbi, nun or teacher, factory worker, independent contractor or an employee of a public or private agency providing a service.
Selling, CONFIDENT SELLING, is saying is the noblest profession of all because it involves everyone in every pursuit every day.
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The theme of CONFIDENT SELLING was elaborated with a new toolbox in the Pulitzer Prize nominated book, CONFIDENT SELLING FOR THE 90s (1992), which is available on-line or at your favorite bookstore.
OF SPECIAL NOTE
Of Dr. Fisher's nine published books, two have been considered "breakthrough" books because they have defied conventional wisdom.
WORK WITHOUT MANAGERS: A View from the Trenches (1990) signaled the moving away from the manager-employee algorithm to an emphasis on the emergence of the new workforce of professional workers. Dr. Fisher argued that workers were managed, motivzated, manipulated and mobilized as if predominantly blue-collar when they were predominantly white-collar or professional. Now, twenty years later, and more relevant than ever, tradition still treats workers as if knowledge is the domain of managers when it is now primarily the domain of professionals. Knowledge is power, and workers have the power, but still behave as it they don't. Read about WORK WITHOUT MANAGERS in the "Open Library."
CONFIDENT SELLING FOR THE 90s (1992) is a breaktrhough book in that it sees the selling problem the reverse of how it is traditionally viewed. The claim here is that the obstacle to success in selling of anything by anyone in any profession is not that of the buyer, but the seller. Check CSFT90s in the "Open Library."
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