On this week’s episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast I caught up with the ever energetic Chet Holmes, author of The Ultimate Sales Machine.

It’s funny but when I read the title to the book I’m thinking, “I’m not ready for another sales book.” But I noticed the my friend Michael Gerber had written the forward so I dug in and had to laugh because Michael’s forward said the same thing – “does the world really need another sales book?”

When you hear Chet talk and read the first couple chapters you come to the conclusion that this book isn’t really about sales in the common way of thinking about it. (On the show Chet says he fought long and hard with his publisher for a different title.)

The book presents 12 strategies that Chet has used in his own business and those of his clients to systematically grow their businesses. There are lots of strategies that small businesses can employ but I think the best advice in this book is that you should develop a handful that work, that are simple, that are proven and stick with them until you master them. The strategy of lifetime learning and mastery flows through as the primary theme of the Ultimate Sales Machine.

Almost any systematic approach, practiced repetitively, will outshine the “marketing idea of the week” approach.