|
Business books are a dime a dozen, and to be frank, most of them of are crap. Methodologies, processes, best-practice - most of it’s frequently stating the obvious at best, condescending at worst. Of course, the irony is that it’s impossible to get an education in practical business outside of actually working in the field or reading said same books. The Leaky Funnel is a factually presented (yet fictional) novelisation of the experiences of Sue, the newly appointed CEO of HardBits, a fictional company with various issues. The book steps through Sue’s journey to business improvement, along with all the personalities she’s forced to work with, persuade, and navigate. It breaks down some fairly obvious concepts - it flags that the buyer’s journey is different to traditional sales positioning. It reminds the reader that the well-known sales funnel is actually leaky, and that just because people drop out of the funnel doesn’t mean they’re not worth keeping. And, it emphasises the importance of results-driven planning, identifying the desired outcomes and calculating backwards to determine the number of leads required to achieve a given outcome. What is doesn’t do is present a good story. It may be fine for the Dan Browne crowd, but it’s very clearly written at a sixth grade level. In other words, for people who don’t normally read books. There’s nothing wrong with that per se, but when you get quotes like, “It was clear that these Directors read their briefing notes fully as they spent only a few minutes discussing the key indicators that Sue has imagined would consume the entire meeting,” you know you’re deep in moving-your-lips-when-you-read land. Still, the content’s useful, and while it doesn’t present any groundbreaking ideas (a reality acknowledged by authors themselves), it does present a useful framework for sales management. As long as you can deal with the at time facile writing, that is. It isnt’ the worst I’ve read, but it isn’t quite a field-defining book either. Buy it if you want a decent methodology for sales management, otherwise feel free to skip it. |
Recommended? "no"