Success of others is the ultimate sales metric in How to Master the Art of Being the Worst Salesperson: A review of Brian Panosian’s debut book

Title: How to Master the Art of Being the Worst Salesperson: Funny Failings to Future Success 

Author: Brian Panosian

Narrator: Brian Panosian, Martine Baruch

Publisher: Amplify Audiobooks

4 hrs 25 minutes

Buy here.

In How to Master the Art of Being the Worst Salesperson, Brian Panosian combines vivid storytelling, good-hearted humor, and a huge love for sports with decades of high-level sales experience to bring us this thoughtful, introspection-based guide to doing better in the workplace sphere.

Books about sales have been beloved to me since, as an extremely shy 21-year-old, I unexpectedly became a seller of tours and needed help fast. The best such treatises, like Panosian’s, are about how to connect with people on a deep, meaningful level, beyond the contract or purchase order. The first one I read was the 1936 classic How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, which is still a book I think about and use tips from every day. Like Panosian, Carnegie stressed finding a person’s “hot point,” something beloved to that person that you can get them talking about that will bond them to you. For Panosian, that hot point is decidedly golf, and I gained a new understanding of the golf course as an ideal place to spend quality time with clients, out in the open air, on neutral ground, absorbed in human companionship, reaching for something beyond whatever is being bought or sold.

Panosian surely brings the humor, and I laughed a lot listening to this audiobook. This is a deliberate choice rather than a shallow gimmick. Sidebars relate the benefits of laughter in learning, including increased retention of information exposed to while laughing, hinting at how much care Panosian took in putting this all together. Narrator Martine Baruch has perfect pitch, delivery, and pacing, and is a joy to listen to. The soft-spoken, energetic Panosian himself narrates the bonus chapter that includes tips from his brother and a hilarious bit about an AI-induced 911 call. You can hear more of his voice in an excerpt from an interview by Becky Parker Geist (founder and CEO of Pro Audio Voices Inc.) after Panosian’s bio.

The varied chapter lengths, humor, and becoming-the-worst frame make this book a fast, easily digestible listen that is also intense and thorough. Clear language and smooth organization increase its accessibility. This fun format of How to Master the Art of Being the Worst Salesperson is a field for Panosian’s profundity; what Panosian is really offering is an all-purpose guide to working and playing well with others. Panosian, a sales growth strategist and career coach who worked at Procter and Gamble and Cisco, also offers readers a glimpse into the world of executive sales, where deals really are made or broken on the golf course.

Although focused on the executive sales arena, the principles in How to Master the Art of Being the Worst Salesperson apply to virtually any business situation; the book is a must for people at all levels of sales, customer service, or management who want to have a richer, more meaningful work experience. Panosian is also available for coaching and such, and I imagine a visit from him would energize any workforce.

The first part of the book is a masterwork in reverse psychology, with Panosian using funny stories about himself and other (unnamed) execs as a mirror to our own personal worst salesperson. If we have ever slipped into a micromanagement moment, tried to leave the team behind and go rogue to gain all the glory, or even taken on a position that wasn’t right for us, How to Master the Art of Being the Worst Salesperson will gently and humorously show us a better way.

The second part of the book is devoted to best practices, and unlike some books in this genre that lose steam in the second half, this one gets even deeper and more intricate and intimate. It includes transformative discussions on emotional intelligence, the power of no, preparation for presentations, more sports, executive friendships, how to gauge one’s relevance, and more sports. You do not need to be a sports fan or have sports knowledge to appreciate this book, and I found the sports analogies deeply helpful; Panosian reminds us that a sporting attitude and being a good sport can carry a lot of weight.

Particularly memorable is Chapter 19, on “killer questions” that express true curiosity and win trust. Well-crafted questions can even be used to encourage behavior changes, such as in one story where workers were asked what their tools would tell them if they could talk, resulting in more care for equipment without orders or mandates. Panosian shares questions that he and team members have actually used, and tips on how to craft your own.

At the core of Panosian’s playbook, or “roadmap for redemption,” are twin mottos: never let your team fail and never let your customer fail. These two will go a long way if you are seeking a workplace attitude adjustment, as they open up new layers and levels of motivation and accountability and can bust us out of a self-centered mindset. These mottos are extrapolated on in depth in the book through hilarious and real what-not-to-do scenarios, coupled with do-this-instead tales of managers and salespeople who changed what could have been forgettable exchanges into life-changing, transformative events. More often than not, such events involve sports, especially golf, and Panosian urges the use of sports history in sales training and the golf course as a sales field. This is part of what gives this book its unique flavor and bolsters its focus on diverse human connections.

Finally, what rounds out the approach in How to Master the Art of Being the Worst Salesperson is “WYMN?” (Who Did You Meet New?), a best practice created by Panosian that numerous sales and leadership teams are adopting. WYMN further spotlights Panosian’s relationship-oriented approach, where ignoring certain people or only nurturing one or two relationships at a client’s establishment are death knells. A self-described connector of people, Panosian advises us to view all players, including assistants and cleaning people, as valuable players and to treat them as such, with differences between meaningful and superficial connections also explored. The book is memorable, fresh, and humbling, enhancing and refining my views on work and life, and I hope it finds a wide readership. Review by Lora Parker.