Reviewed by Naga Chokkanathan for Readers' Favorite

I love business books. I feel they are the best way to learn any new topic, mainly because the author has already done the most difficult part: converting the concept to an easy to read, easy to explain story, after removing (or sugar coating) all the boring bits. Sort of a healthy fast food! As a result, these books are good partners for any journey; by the time you reach your destination, you have learnt something new. Business books are available for every complex topic you can imagine. I see many executives recommending these books to their subordinates. Reason? 'Otherwise they won't read anything at all,' they say.

With this background, when I read the The Ultimate Sales Professional by Dale Ledbetter, I felt like buying it and gifting it to all the salespeople in our company. This book talks about sales in general, and relationship building in particular. Jeff Smithwell, an average sales professional, gets to meet a top star in the sales domain, but in a different field. Jeff is supposed to learn tricks from her, but he is skeptical if someone from a different field can teach him anything. As he works with her on a regular basis, he learns many things, mainly about maintaining good relationships with customers, and genuinely caring for them which will bring sales automatically. However, he is still not sure if this would work in his field.

Lee Turner, the ultimate sales professional in Dale Ledbetter's story, explains to Jeff why good sales practices and techniques are really the same in any field. She tells him caring for customers, prospects, and maintaining genuine relationships with everyone will get you sales success in every business, across the globe, in any culture. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about selling; in fact it would be useful to service people as well. Dale Ledbetter's impressive storytelling technique, combined with sales expertise, makes it a superb read.