I just read “Selling to Big Companies” by Jill Konrath.

“Ugh.” Written on a third-grade reading level with a tone of voice often focused on a fourth-grade audience this book was beyond painful. The author adumbrates a plan, but (being a decision maker) I find several of her positions paradoxical. The book does have useful information, but it was not reinforced with compelling stories or anecdotes. As I trudged to the end of this book I realized that reading just the “Key Points” sections at the end of each chapter just might have ameliorated the experience.

Basic premise: good decision makers (like those at big companies) buy on business value, not on shininess of product. Don’t sell your offering, sell the value they will realize. Understand the company and personalize the pitch. All of this should be obvious to anyone who is even considering taking a meeting with a large corporation. Unless you are selling commodity services, the shotgun effect never works well in sales. For specialized services, the shotgun effect can be a good marketing approach (if done well) — never a sales approach.

The section on words to leave out of email correspondence due to spam filters was simply uneducated.

It hurt. This blog post is only a method of me expelling my disappointment.

Only buy this book out of morbid curiosity of what one can endure reading.