In 'Action Research for Professional Selling', Peter McDonnell and Jean McNiff make a significant contribution to professionalising the business of selling. The authors commend an action research approach to selling, linked with a professional model of training. In so doing, they answer calls for the introduction of evidence-based practice in sales education. This places special emphasis on the strength of a values-based approach over the outmoded manipulative models of the past that are still in evidence.In a tough economic environment, the world needs to move on from the hard sell and from persuading customers to purchase goods in the way the dominant literatures still tend to suggest. This book commends a collaborative approach, where the seller and customer negotiate what they both want to achieve from any encounter. It is premised on the idea that client-centred values are at the heart of the conversation: the customer knows what they want from the seller (trust, reliability, authenticity), and the seller needs to develop a practice that sees the customer as an equal partner in the dialogue, whose needs are paramount. From a research perspective, those needs become the criteria and standards by which the salesperson judges the validity of their research and practice.

For the salesperson, therefore, every encounter - even those that do not end in a sale - needs to be seen as a piece of research and a learning opportunity.Action research is an iterative process already used across the professions as a powerful methodology for improving performance and outcomes. In this ground-breaking book the authors argue that it should be applied to the learning process that needs to be part of everyday sales practice. This is far from being a book of sales techniques. Indeed, it provides a theoretical basis for professional selling. It links the sales process to different philosophical models for understanding human interactions and supports the approach that sees professional sales development as being rightly within the field of higher education. It will interest a student audience, especially amongst those on higher degree courses in sales or related fields, such as publishing, work-based learning, and entrepreneurship, as well as practitioners involved in action research programmes across other professions.Notwithstanding the erudite approach, the book still contains much practical advice for those involved with in-house professional education programmes in sales.