Life Is Sales
A Holistic Approach to Sales, Self-Discovery, and Living a Life of Purpose
Life Is Sales is a compelling leadership guide about understanding, service, and finding a sense of purpose in both professional and personal realms.
Rich Lyons’s holistic memoir–cum–leadership guide Life Is Sales is about integrating successful sales tactics with a purposeful life.
Lyons built, grew, and sold an internet commerce consulting business that worked with major brands including GoPro, Herman Miller, and Patagonia. Stories as of how his company adapted when one of its biggest clients was bought out and of how it won a pitch despite not having any experience with one company’s industry proffer insights about ineffective tactics and the pitfalls of scarcity mindsets and narrow foci. The prioritization of developing long-term relationships with one’s customers is clear throughout.
Across the book, Lyons shares lessons he learned about sales and personal growth in the course of his career, writing about defying expectations, earning an engineering degree, and working for General Motors before striking out on his own in sales. The challenges he faced are integrated into his sales philosophy, which entails empathizing with customers and doing what is best for them. That same philosophy is also made to apply to other facets of life.
Indeed, the book models a service mindset, asserting that such a perspective leads to strong relationships and fosters a personal sense of purpose. Actionable advice on subjects like being tactical about expressing emotions to get one’s needs met, how failures pave the way for success, why magical thinking should be avoided, why it’s important to have more than one contact at a company, and why one should not be limited by quotas is proffered throughout.
The prose flows due to its anecdotal nature. At points, it reads too much like marketing copy, though, featuring instances of braggadocio and undersupported claims about being the best in the industry. Further, the book goes too far afield of the personal and the practical with its integration of outside perspectives. For example, the perspective of the Wright Foundation’s leadership coaching, which Lyons received despite his aversion to “touchy-feely stuff,” is relayed on topics like understanding oneself, performing, and facilitating growth. Indeed, its seven stages are explored throughout the book as a supplemental intellectual framework, touted alongside personal observations.
Further, frequent interjections from Lyons’s executive coach, Bob Wright, related to Lyons’s work and sales tactics undercut the book’s focus somewhat, layering in additional perspective on topics like Lyons’s negotiating tactics and business strategies in a nonobjective, quite complimentary tone. Still, the book’s thoughts about how sales tactics can apply elsewhere in life are convincing, as are its ideas about understanding, service, and finding a sense of purpose in both professional and personal realms.
A revealing memoir–cum–leadership guide, Life Is Sales merges sales and self-discovery philosophies.
Reviewed by
Joseph S. Pete
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
