Women Make the Best Salesmen: Isnt it Time You Started Using their Secrets?

By Marion Luna Brem

Book Overview

A thirty-year-old mother of two, Marion Luna Brem had just been given a death sentence: terminal cancer. She had no job. No health insurance. Her marriage would collapse under the stress of her treatment. And her most pressing concern: How do I pay next month's rent? Her first major "sale" was landing a job as a car salesman. Within two months she had become salesperson of the month and by the end of her first year, salesperson of the year. Four and a half years after selling her first car, Brem bought her own dealership, and in the next decade went on to open additional dealerships and businesses. She beat her cancer, too. In Women Make the Best Salesmen , Brem reveals the top sales strategies she discovered, refined, and applied to build hermultimillion dollar enterprise. But, as she points out, we are all "salesmen" - whether we interviewing for a job or operating a register at a department store, trying to get our children into a special program or looking for a lifelong companion. And women, with their natural social skills and acute emotional antennae, have natural advantages both sexes can learn from. Filled with unconventional wisdom and real-life lessons, Women Make the Best Salesmen is the essential guide to the art of selling yourself.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385511639
• ISBN13: 9780385511636
• Release Date: May 2005
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.8" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Street smarts from the Entrepreneur of the Year

Selling not only vaulted Marion Brem from being virtually destitute to Inc Magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year, it also saved her life. Her story is one of the triumph of the human spirit. At the age of thirty-two, with two sons, she was facing divorce and unemployed. Moreover, she was recovering from a mastectomy and chemotherapy treatments. Marion was given two to five years to live. Though she had no sales experience, on her seventeenth try she got a job selling cars. She calls that her first sale, she sold herself. Marion did not consider herself as inexperienced, however. As a homemaker she learned problem solving, time management, budgeting, priority setting, space planning and negotiation. Marion joined the indifferent all-male sales team and applied uncommon moxie to meet the challenge of automobile selling. Within a year she had won Salesman of the Year, a trip to the Super Bowl, and a man's Rolex wristwatch. (Management had never even considered the possibility of a woman winning.) Within five years Marion opened her first dealership. Success followed success after that, all because she learned, first of all, how to acquire an impregnable self-respect and how to sell the most precious commodity of all, herself. Read this book and learn the secrets of selling by means of elevated levels of integrity, excellence and caring. She reveals them all. And, most of all, as Marion counsels: "Once you know how to sell yourself, you can do anything!"

No feminine fluff

This book is not an anti-male diatribe, nor is it sentimental gush. Marion Luna Brem's book provides incredibly practical advice useful to both genders. And yet she does not shy from her own femininity in her writing; she is not afraid to appeal to women's sensibilities or leverage their natural tendencies. Brem provides tips that are helpful in all aspects of life, since she claims that every relationship involves some kind of "sale," if not a literal one. Topics include utilizing the assets of others, first impressions, negotiating (which is all about relationship), and even styles of dress. This is a worthwhile read for women in a position to sell or promote any product, service, or cause. Men would be well advised to pick it up also.

A worthy read by an inspiring author

I am an entrepreneur who picked up this book because I know I am really always selling something..... and naturally I am attracted to a book about how another woman has excelled in selling. Marion Luna Brem writes in a friendly, advice filled manner which covers many bases in sales from the simple to complex. Right from the start she is teaching the reader a different way of thinking. She asks the reader, "What are you selling?" That single response was worth the price of the book. All sales people, all businesses, all entrepreneurs are selling "H-E-L-P." I sat with that for a while and thought... yes, she is right. One favorite chapter was "12 Sure Ways to Increase Sales" which includes 3 of Marion's Principles which are simple, strategic and yes, within the chapter refreshingly expanded upon. In a nutshell, they are ask -always work beyond expectation; Get the Word Out; and Stay With It.) The content is mostly based on selling a physical product, one at a time (like the author sells cars, one at a time to one customer at a time)the lessons could be applicable in other areas as well.

A lesson for women in all careers!

The fact that this book is "paired" for sale with a book on dieting shows a real need for careerwomen to speak out loud and clear about their business and sales skills-rather than bow to society's images! Women show far too much humility about their talents and skills. If we want people to value our skills, we must first show that we value ourselves - by making sure our accomplishments are visible to targeted audiences. If we want people to hire us, buy from us, and invest in our companies, they have to know who we are, what we have accomplished and why they should do business with us! Self-promotion is not bragging. It is a valuable business tool that careerwomen must add to their strategies for success. (Review by: Marion E. Gold, author of the "Personal Publicity Planner: A Guide to Marketing YOU" and "TOP COPS: Profiles of Women in Command."