Whiteboard Selling: Empowering Sales Through Visuals Paperback – April 15, 2013

I had the privilege of working closely with author Corey Sommers as a consultant for two years until Whiteboard Selling was sold to Corporate Visions in late 2012. This review of the book Whiteboard Selling - Empowering Sales through Visuals, by Corey Sommers and David Jenkins is an insider's perspective.I wish I had this book when I started working with WhiteboardSelling in December 2010, as it would have accelerated my learning curve.whiteboardselling cover.I learned the craft and art of whiteboarding by observation, sitting with Corey Sommers as he went through each aspect of the Whiteboard Selling process, including:* Kicking off the session with the client,* Conducting the brainstorming message workshop,* Coming up with the initial visual concepts,* Scripting out the whiteboard story,* Getting the whiteboard approved, and* Training the sales teams to do the whiteboard.Thanks to Corey and Dave, this process is now in the public domain and open to anyone to use.The book is well-written and well worth the meager investment for anyone interested in whiteboarding.Here's why you should buy it.Get Clear About Your Value PropositionIn the two years with Whiteboard Selling, the typical client-messaging baseline for developing the whiteboard was 5/10 for clarity.Messaging existed in the form of PowerPoint, .pdf's and ideas in various contributor's heads. The process of defining the whiteboard story is clearly outlined in the book and helps the whiteboard author to clarify the buyer's issues and to focus conversation on relevant product or service capabilities using the right whiteboard structure for the buyers maturity in their buying process.... this is important!There is a difference between a "Why Change" whiteboard story for a first call on a prospective customer and a "Why Me" whiteboard story at a closing meeting on a prospective new customer.The differences are spelled out in the book and will help salespeople go from a 5/10 for clarity to a 9 or a 10 by the time they complete the whiteboard development process. Whiteboard styles and design templates are included for each stage in the buying process.... these are invaluable for rookie whiteboarders.Get Salespeople to do Product Training with a WhiteboardDespite best efforts of product managers in sales kick-off training sessions, very little is retained from a typical PowerPoint based product training session. The only thing memorable most salespeople bring home from a typical sales kickoff event is hangover.Magic happens when you engage salespeople to do the product training using a whiteboard. The process of iterative role-playing - of presenting and watching and listening to the whiteboard development repeatedly, engages the whole brain and all of the senses.I observed thousands of salespeople walk into training rooms having never seen the whiteboard story and doubting their ability to whiteboard. The same salespeople left four hours later capable of delivering the whiteboard the next day - they owned the message in just four hours.Summary1. This book outlines the path to creating a sound whiteboard story that can be used to get everyone in your sales and channels team on message and to make it stick.2. Unless you happen to be a visual and cognitive genius capable of inventing images and story on the fly, don't expect some magical force to guide your pen.3, You'll never get up to the whiteboard and create somthing meaningful if it does not already exist in your mind.4. WhiteboardSelling methodology and process IP are now owned by Corporate Visions after they acquired the company in August 2012.5. David Jenkins and Corey Sommers have both moved on, however they have left an indelible entry in the canon of selling literature and their book Whiteboard Selling is highly recommended. Whiteboard Selling: Empowering Sales Through Visuals

I have seen some sales professionals using this technique and I had a very good impression of it.This is a book by professionals that also sell consulting and training on the technique proposed.I think they deliver most of the important concepts and information regarding how to develop and apply the techniques proposed. The book is very nice to read and you can develop the technique by using it.I have an observation, it is my opinion, that this type of technique has a pre-requisite: deep knowledge about the product or service that you want to present (if you are going to prepare the whiteboard from scratch).It is a honest book, it delivers the main concepts, and the major reason for one to go through their training is to speed the process of learning and be proficient in the techniques presented. I think it is possible for one person to learn doing whiteboard presentations by just reading the book, but it will require lots of perspiration to get it right.My conclusion is: the book is a good preparation for one to go through their training!Why I gave 4 stars? I believe that they should have made it in 4 colours so that the examples would shine as they should! Otherwise I think it is a five star book.

The best book on how to engage with your clients & prospects to get your ideas across that I have seen in a long time, and in the quest to stay ahead I’ve read, listened to and watched a ton of the best “how to sell” content over my 20+ years in Sales.Others here have provided a great synopsis of the key concepts of Whiteboard Selling, how relevant, easy to understand and well laid out it is, so I won’t cover that aspect again.I’m a sales guy not a book reviewer so what I’ll say here about Whiteboard Selling is exactly what I’ve been telling my friends and clients since I got my hands on it – buy it, read it and you’ll be glad you did.Actually don’t just read it, consume it. Engage with the ideas, work through the varied examples and activities, get your 4-colored pen and draw all over it, mark it up and create & practice your own whiteboards in the pages thoughtfully allocated for the purpose.Do this and it could prove to be one of the best investments you’ll make this year. Highly Recommended.

For a book on communicating stories with whiteboard illustrations, "Whiteboard Selling" was long on words and short on the illustrations that should define a great visual sales pitch. The book makes a great case for disrupting the dominant meme in selling, the dreaded PowerPoint slide deck. However, instead of providing a disruptive example by channeling its inner "whiteboard" storytelling method, the book turns out to be a very traditional format.All of the content is on point, valuable, and thoughtfully described. Telling stories visually gets your point across in a more engaging, interactive, potentially collaborative way. These facets of a whiteboarding session convey information more efficiently to an audience than a deck or a speech. I just would have liked to see that "sales pitch" actually be delivered in visuals. At 238 page, I reached page 83 before getting an actual visual example of one of the several types of sales whiteboards critical to this new visual selling paradigm.I will try putting this information to use, but I would have benefited from more examples to speed along my visual thinking.Good content, wrong format.