Maltz is credited with authoring this book,but several other people copped his voice andideas to flesh it out.Sometimes the point-of-view shifts and it's notMaltz writing about his experiences in the 50s,it's Dan Kennedy writing about the 80s.... and it'sa little confusing.Actually the tone of the writing is very consistentso it's like,"how did this guy accumulate so many storiesin such diverse fields?" - and then you realize thatit's written by several writers sharing their ownperspectives on Maltz's timeless insights.Experienced salespeople can learn a lot from this - butif you've been selling for a while you have probablyfigured a lot of this stuff out. Beginners and thethin-skinned let rejection get to them, pros don't -or at least not enough to make them give up and quit.People who are "selling machines" are uncommon - mostpeople don't have the natural personality traits to dosales effortlessly, but they can learn to build asuit of armor within themselves to protect themselvesfrom the hard knocks of sales.That's what this book is all about. If you are a hardenedsalesperson or an ex-marine you probably will thinkall this "sensitive" stuff is a lot of bunk - but havingemployed a lot of salespeople I can tell you - a lot ofthem are fragile people in some way or other and salesreally is not friendly to the fragile.David Sandler's sales training is a great complement tothis book - because he's warm and compassionate towardssalespeople. You might not like to think that insideyourself is a little child craving validation and love,but if you put your self-worth on the line selling tostrangers (or not selling, which is far worse) that innerchild needs some nourishment to keep you going throughthe tough times.All salespeople have slumps... and when you are in oneit's tempting to give up and do something less well-paidthat puts a whole lot less of you on the line. The truthis that selling requires "Bullocks" and few people havethat quality in natural abundance. They need to learnit. Anything you do that gives you the Grit to perseverecan help - because that's what success is mostly, havingthe courage to keep showing up and working towards gettingthe results you want.This is the book I tell beginners to read. If you trainor hire salespeople it's worth reading too - because evenif you are a good sales performer a lot of the people youare working with will have big self-esteem issues thataren't obvious to YOU, but show up when they go out andtry to sell - often in the form of reluctance to generateleads or make phone calls, perverse as that is.