Forward-sale Books

I am not in the marketing or sales business at all. However, as a researcher who has to sell project ideas internally to management and externally to collaborators (mostly at management levels), I find this book surprisingly relevant, practical and to the point. Before this, I have attempted to read a few books on "selling" but was disappointed by the quality and cliche.

This book is full of practical knowledge for selling today. Many books are using yesterdays methodology and it doesn't work.
After reading Paul's book I have recently hired him to come in and train our sales team

I must say, when I noticed that one of the five star reviews for this book was written by the PR firm that represents the author, I was a little put off. However, since the books in this category are slim pickings (selling IT products and services, and selling to management) I thought I'd give it a try. The book is good, but not great. I actually got more out of Bag the Elephant by Kaplan, but there may have been an unerlying bias from my knowledge of the misleading reviews here at the site.

It is a good book and, if you haven't read anything in this vein, it will definitely give you some goo dinsights.

This book gives you a high level overview of how to sound like a vendor and get hung up on. There are a few worthy pages but that's all.

If you want a serious sales book or training, check out Mahan Khalsa's "Let's Get Real or Let's Not Play".

This book belongs in your library if you call on or would like to call on "C" level and SVP level contacts.

It is far better than "Getting to VITO" or "Secrets of VITO" which I found to be almost without value. (I do like "Selling to VITO.")

The book lacks some professionalism in it's writing style but it's not bad enough to make the book unreadable.

This book contains both sample languaging you can build from and the basics of formulas from which you can create your own messaging.

It is well worth the money.

Very good instructional manual. Starts out with easy to play licks then moving on to intermediate and more difficult licks. I refer to this book regularly.

This is a good course for the beginner. It starts easy and builds well. The idea of rhythm tracks after each individual lesson is great! The material stays away from intensive theory. Just enough to understand what the lesson is about. This is a good approach for the beginner as it gets the player playing! It's an easy to understand, uncluttered course and I would recommend it to the beginner/intermediate without hesitation.

This book opened up new licks for me. It broadened my approach and execution. It's fun and I really like the cd. Hearing it is great. Playing along is better.

I'm a typical 35 year old guy who decided to take up guitar. I bought a Fender Strat and found a guy who gives lessons. When I started out, I thought I wanted to learn to play rock. I soon discovered I sucked at chords.

My instructor started showing me lead blues guitar stuff and I thought, "This is cool...". He suggested we get this book and base our lessons on it. It turned out to be an excellent idea. The book is well organized and takes you through the basic lead guitar blues. It starts off real slow and builds to about a low intermidiate level. I acutally have all the 12 bar pieces in the book memorized. I usually play them to warm up.

The book comes with a CD that plays the exercises once with the lead guitar and again without it. When you look at the book, it seems kinda cheesy but it's actually a good book. There are a few typos in the TAB / notes but no big deal. It you stick to it, you'll be playing the blues in no time!

Shows great blues licks that are not hard to play. If you keep listening to the cd and playing along you will master the book in no time.

Overall I think this book offers a good introduction to "non-traditional" styles of guitar playing. It offers a nice, but perhaps too brief, historical background of alternative guitar playing along with some nice black and white photos. The book is nicely arranged in chronological order, giving a nice perspective on the evolution of approaches to guitar playing. However, the book does not follow a progression in difficulty of playing, and I have had to scramble around the book to find exercises that math my skill level. My only complaints is that the CD examples are too short and the examples have too much of a "key-board sound" for my taste.

I found this book while browsing through the music section at my local bookstore. Since the CD pocket was open (no, I didn't open it!) I plugged it into my CD player to see if it was worth the money.
I had wanted to check out books in the Fast Forward series, but was not sure; the books seemed well-written but wasn't sure about the music -what did it sound like? What's more, finding that most guitar books in the series -ranging from Metal to Alternative to Jazz- had been written by the same person (Rikki Rooksby) didn't close the sale for me. So being able to listen to the CD made my purchasing decision easier... I was hooked, seriously hooked, and that is no small thing since I was not particularly fond of Alternative rock. In fact, I listened to the whole thing in that first sitting.
The book approaches Alternative Rock from a historical and chronological perspective; from the '60s through today focusing on the main bands and providing music tracks (solos and short music pieces) inspired by those bands, and the examples do sound like a typical something they'd play. If you are not familiar with the format in these books, here's how they work: The examples are played, then the following track has everything minus the guitar so you can play along. While I don't like every single track, most of them are beautifully composed and some I found very evocative. The book ends with an entire song (the only whole song in the book); 'Athens by Day' which is, I think, a great sounding song.
The chronological approach would not have been my first choice, but after some thought I had to agree with it; in order to be fair to this music genre (and to appeace the chronically un-satisfied purists) it had to cover its beginnings and evolutions. Interestingly, having grown up listening to The Police and U2, I'd not ever have considered them Alternative, after all they were "mainstream" staples of popular radio then and now. But as I went through the book gave me the right perspective.
I'd recomend this book to both fans and foes of Alternative rock. Think of it as a crash course in something you are perhaps not very familiar with. You may get something useful out of it, I know I did, even if I have yet to forgive Nirvana for wiping Metal off TV in the early 90s! Not only has this book given me a few new chops, but it has opened my eyes to bands like Television, Velvet Underground and others which I'd not have considered listening to otherwise.
One last shout-out to Mr. Rooksby, who has made a fan and customer out of this reviewer. There are a lot of able yet frustrated musicians who put books in the market not worth even a glance, mostly with a you-figure-it-out philosophy. Not so in this case; along with Troy Stetina, Rikky Rooksby can write, keep things interesting and just challenging enough. One can tell this author cares about his work and I will definitely purchase other books by him, no matter how diverse his writings.
So, for the price of two lattes you can add a few interesting colors to your creative pallet... minus the caffeine rush.

I decided to write this review because I was here buying yet another copy of book since I gave my last copy away . . . and that wasn't the first one I've given away.

Moving the sale forward is selling the way it should be done. John clearly demonstrates how to create conversations that sell and to keep them moving.

The thing I like about this book is that the information really works. It isn't the old hackneyed ideas that are pontificated over and over again by so called "sales trainers." This is practical, easy to implement advice from a sales trainer who walks his talk. He understands what it takes to be a successful salesperson because he is.

I'm confident anyone who sells for a living and whose compesnation is based all or in part on commission will at least double their income in a year if they read and apply these principles.

The reason I keep giving the book away is that I tell clients about it and then end up giving it to them.

The other person this book is for without a question are people who don't like to sell and who don't categorize themselves as salespeople. This book will show you how to leverage your natural talents to naturally close business . . . without selling.

I highly recommend this book for anyone involved in selling, it has definately impacted the way I sell and improved my ability to get more of the kind of business I want.

You'll love it, but most importantly, the busy executives you sell to will love your new approach and reward you with more business.

John Klymshyn's "Move The Sale Forward" does an outstanding job of demonstrating that, while success in sales does require calculation, pre-planning, and extensive strategizing, there is also a great need for genuine human characteristics, such as emotion, understanding, and honesty. While many books have been written about the latest 'answers' to the question of how to be a better salesperson, John Klymshyn's book is unique in its focus on fundamentals as the keys to success. John talks about the importance of understanding one's customer, of 'making the human connection' with a client, and of how to carry on client conversations so that they are comfortable and productive, rather than forced and inefficient. Above all, Klymshyn's narrative is practical; that is, it provides legitimate recommendations on what to say to a client, when to say it, when NOT to say it, and, most importantly, how to "Move the Sale Forward." While I have been in sales and associated with salespeople for more than twenty years, I've not previously seen such emphasis placed on establishing relationships with clients, and then using those relationships to keep making progress towards the salesperson's ultimate goal, which is measurable success. In my experience and in my opinion, John Klymshyn's sales style of focusing on relationships is absolutely the right way to go, and his book, "Move The Sales Forward: Position Yourself and Your Business To Make Things Happen" provides invaluable direction and tools to make this happen for even the most experienced salesperson. Because this book professes a sincere philosophy rather than a caluclated style, its value to rookie salespeople and experienced veterans alike is tremendous. Salespeople's success comes from understanding their customer, recognizing their customer's needs, and knowing how to deliver those needs to that customer at the proper price. John Klymshyn's book takes these principles and lays them out in a fashion that makes them not only understandable and logical, but also easy to embrace.

This is a well put together course. From easy lesson solos to fairly difficult solos. As with the "Blues Licks" course the theory is kept to a minimum. Just enough to understand what you are doing. Also the rhythm tracks after each lesson (as with "Blues Lick") is a great idea! The course is well layed out, well thought out, and uncluttered. The beginner/ intermediate player can't go wrong. I would recommend the beginner begin with the Fast Forward "Blues licks" course before tackling this one or take it with your instructor. I think you will find this course, money well spent! A good value! Five stars!

I've bought all 3 Fast Forward Blues series. All 3 are good for intermediate players. If you have been playing awhile, this book may still be useful. It will get you back to the basics of what to play and how to effectively phrase it. After all, it's not what you say but how you say it. This book will help make the most of your playing.

This book is worth the low price but I was disappointed to find at least half of this about 60 page book is filler material-- full page black and white graphics of famous blues artists. If you're on a tight buget, this book may be a good choice.

This book has all the great Blues licks I have always wondered how to play. With the tablature and the CD, it is so easy to get the sounds you want. I couldn't believe how easy it was to learn such an aggrate of cool sounding, smooth solos. So much stuff is packed into this little gem of a book. I highly reccomend it.

I have purchase more than a dozen intro blues guitar CD books, and this one is the best on the market. Simple to follow and great samples in the back of the book. I wish Rooksby would come out with a sequel.

It's a nice book for your first drumming excercises.
The CD with examples, one with, the next one without the drums, is an excellent way to practice.

This book gives you a good chance at learning the drums and basic beats. It shows you right from the beginning where to start and builds you up. It's a great way to learn. One problem, If you ave never played the drums in your life, it doesn't really start way in the beginning. Great book overall!

Like the ads on in-flight magazines says, you do not get what you deserve -- you get what you negotiate, whether in business or in life.

This book gives concepts and advice on negotiating. It has good examples and description of the "gotchas".

Having graduated with a BBA in Marketing, yet having forgot some of the raw fundamentals, I purchased this book. It helped to brushup on some topics, and I also learned a couple of new tidbits. Some of the material is for academic purposes only with little real-world use and is perhaps a little out-dated. Having said that, I still find it a useful reference for terms and marketing stratagies and a good reference and starting point for topics such as a product's life cycle. Elementary and short.

Any professional who wants to pick up marketing strategy fast: read this! It contains al the basic rules you need to know for writing a simple marketing plan. It also contains a lot of teasers for expanding your business/marketing activities.

This book might be useful for a player new to the blues. Anyone with any kind of experience in the genre, though, I think will find it's not all that informative.

I was expecting a book more like "100 Ultimate Blues Riffs" by Andrew D. Gordon. That book has plenty of licks to chew on for a long time. By comparison, this book has very few unique riffs (perhaps 10 different ones, depending on what you count as unique). What it does do is to build up the 12-bar frame one piece at a time using the same riffs and variations. So adding the first time going to the IV becomes a separate page and a separate pair of tracks on the accompanying CD. This adds volume to the book without necessarily adding a lot of new material. Anyone who can transpose a lick will find that aspect unnecessary. I found it annoying when I decided to start by giving the CD a once-through. It sounded like the same track was repeating over and over through many tracks.

Towards the end of each riff/variation, the CD throws in some tasty backing organ licks behind the piano leads. Unfortunately those licks are not written out in the book.

Some of the turnaround and octave rundown licks toward the end were more interesting to me. Again, there were not that many to make this book valuable to me.

Purchased this book for my son who is an intermediate level piano student. With the help of the CD, he was able to work his way through the book over the course of about six months, in a very laid-back way, without the help of a teacher. (He spent a total of about 1 or 2 hrs./week on this book.) The material is well presented, fun, and sounds great to play. Each lesson builds on the previous material and is a great introduction to improvisation. Now, my son is putting together blues progressions of his own and having real fun at the piano.

I was dissapointed with this purchase,because the DVD does not work neither on my lap top or the home dvd player.I can hear only the music and words.Is this because it is a foreign dvd? I expected to see a video demonstration.very unhappy will return this product.as it does not work in usa dvd players.

This book provides a painless introduction to playing blues piano in six styles: Basic Shuffle, Boogie Woogie, Walking Bass, Stride, Jazz, and Rock. It presents the left and right hand parts separately, then throws them together. Each example has two tracks on the CD, with and without the piano part. The left hand parts are quite complete, but the right hand parts are a little thin, leaving out slides, crushed notes and tremelos. However, the backing tracks on the CD are outstanding. Once you master the material in the book, you can reuse the CD backing tracks with licks from other books like David Bennet Cohen's Blues Piano or Mark Harrison's Blues Piano. Had the author included more material, this could be a 5 satr book.

Everything that a budding blues pianist needs in the quest for entertainment mastery. A must for anyone who needs to spice up thier playing.