Are you one of the 16 million Americans working as a sales professional? Are you a small business owner, consultant, doctor, lawyer, or other business professional who must sell your services and promote your credibility to succeed? If so, you need practical, easy-to-apply information on the art of effective selling and sales communication—whether selling to difficult customers or selling to interested, decisive buyers. In From Contact to Contract, you’ll learn to master specific steps that help you: · Structure your sales conversation to keep it moving toward your sales goal · Use strategic persuasion techniques to turn information into real communication · Engage buyers with interactive sales presentations of your products and services · Negotiate to maintain profit margins · Gain commitments from customers and prospects · Communicate with difficult buyers · Manage your pipeline productively · Generate leads · Stay motivated during a competitive upsurge or economic downturn No time to read in your fast-paced sales job? Maybe you have a high quota and a pressing deadline? Then pick up the book and go straight to the help you need with a specific prospect. You’ll find summary headlines of each key sales tip or communication tip. This easy-to-skim format and brief entries are written with you––a fast-paced sales professional or entrepreneur––in mind. Review the comprehensive collection of 432 tips and best practices without getting bogged down in long explanations of sales theory and models. Whether selling to big companies and senior executives or selling to the individual buyer, you can apply these practical sales techniques and advice immediately. In fact, watch how From Contact to Contract becomes the sales primer you use again and again. Author and sales communication expert Dianna Booher shares the same sales and marketing strategies in this book that she offers in person to her Fortune 500 clients. These strategies and selling techniques come directly from her corporate programs on proposal writing, business writing, technical writing, sales presentations, and interpersonal communication. 291 pages. Also available in Kindle and Paperback format!

Life has become an endless series of contracts—this is the manual. There’s no reason to risk your hard-earned money signing a contract you don’t understand. With Contracts: The Essential Business Desk Reference, you get easy-to-understand explanations for every common contract term. In no time, you’ll grasp mysterious concepts like “force majeur,” “indemnity,” and “time is of the essence." Contracts: The Essential Business Desk Reference is more than just an A–Z explanation of over 300 terms. It also includes: common negotiating strategies examples of contract provisions sample contract clauses and entire contracts examples of illegal and dangerous contract clauses what to expect if you or the other side breaks a contract up-to-date explanations of electronic contracts, and tips on amending and modifying agreements. Whether you’re starting a business, signing a lease, hiring a new employee or independent contractor, licensing a concept, selling a boat, or contracting for a new fireplace, Contracts: The Essential Business Desk Reference can help. A must-have for small business owners, entrepreneurs, lawyers, and law students—and anyone else whose success is built around understanding and negotiating agreements.

More than 16 million Americans work as sales professionals, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Add in the vast number of small business owners, consultants, doctors, lawyers, and other professionals who must sell their services and promote their credibility in order to succeed, and it's clear that there is a huge need for practical, easy-to-apply information on the art of sales.

A step-by-step guide to crafting a compelling scholarly book proposal—and seeing your book through to successful publication The scholarly book proposal may be academia’s most mysterious genre. You have to write one to get published, but most scholars receive no training on how to do so—and you may have never even seen a proposal before you’re expected to produce your own. The Book Proposal Book cuts through the mystery and guides prospective authors step by step through the process of crafting a compelling proposal and pitching it to university presses and other academic publishers. Laura Portwood-Stacer, an experienced developmental editor and publishing consultant for academic authors, shows how to select the right presses to target, identify audiences and competing titles, and write a project description that will grab the attention of editors—breaking the entire process into discrete, manageable tasks. The book features over fifty time-tested tips to make your proposal stand out; sample prospectuses, a letter of inquiry, and a response to reader reports from real authors; optional worksheets and checklists; answers to dozens of the most common questions about the scholarly publishing process; and much, much more. Whether you’re hoping to publish your first book or you’re a seasoned author with an unfinished proposal languishing on your hard drive, The Book Proposal Book provides honest, empathetic, and invaluable advice on how to overcome common sticking points and get your book published. It also shows why, far from being merely a hurdle to clear, a well-conceived proposal can help lead to an outstanding book.