Gunn Sights: Taking Aim on Selling in the High-Stakes Industry of International Aerospace (Blue Jacket Bks) |  | Author: Thomas Gunn
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
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Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 1109721
Media: Hardcover
Edition: illustrated edition
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.4 x 0.9
ISBN: 1591143462
Dewey Decimal Number: 629.10688
EAN: 9781591143468
ASIN: 1591143462
Publication Date: November 14, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Tom Gunn had a life-altering career change in 1975 when he went from an eight-year stint as staff lawyer with the U.S. Senate to a job in aerospace sales and marketing at McDonnell Douglas. He knew a lot about military appropriations and classified developments, but almost nothing about marketing. Over the next twenty-two years, however, Gunn and the team he assembled developed a process for strategic selling and marketing that delivered $250 billion in sales of military and commercial aircraft, missiles, space systems, and logistic support against strong and at times cutthroat domestic and international competition. His book is both the story of that success and a handbook for anyone who wants to learn about high-powered selling, about assessing the competition and understanding the customer, and about using a defined process to shape strategic planning.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 6
How-to book on leadership, team-building, salesmanship, and Business Process Reengineering November 21, 2008
J. Rudy (Fairfax, VA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Tom Gunn provides the insider's perspective of the business of international aerospace industry. It's part memoir and part how-to-guide, but it's an overall great book.
McDonnell Douglas learned a hard lesson when the YF-23 lost out to the YF-22. Rather than lick their wounds, the company looked at the reason "why" they lost the competition. The result was a "New Business Activity", which Gunn superbly summarizes into a 12 step process that forces companies to focus on selling the customer what they need, not what products you have available.
Gunn writes a chapter on motivating people, providing insights into leadership and team building, again providing his perspectives. Separating Gunn's work with other "team building" books, his perspective doesn't stop at the front door. He provides real life case studies of partnering both with the Department of Defense, and international partners. Ever think you'd eat goat or camel, Gunn speaks to the importance of the old adage "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." The most important lesson of this chapter is that the sale isn't complete after the award has been announced.
Gunn constantly reinforces simple concepts such as knowing the customer's most-important requirements, and identifying who the real decision maker is. He also reviews the Request for Proposal (RFP) process within the Department of Defense (DOD). Gunn again supports his opinions with case studies, by discussing the benefits of communications between corporations and the DOD with the release of the draft RFP.
For readers looking for the international business dealings, Gunn discusses the topic of offsets. "Offsets" are economic incentives such as using local industries to produce parts for the weapon systems your company sells them. He also discusses the most important concept of salesmanship - connecting with the customer. Using the fly-off of the F-14 vs. the F-15, he discusses how a technologically superior product lost the sale because of a failure to connect with the customer.
This is a great book offering a little bit of something for multiple audiences. Readers looking for case studies in Business Process Re-engineering, it's in there. Foreign sales, it's in there. Leadership & team building, it's in there. How corporate America views the DOD as a customer, it's in there. This book needs to be in the library of DOD acquisition professionals, so that we can better understand how to better partner with business to get the best value in our acquisition programs.
Of note, the Naval Institute Press offers another book Testing Death: Hughes Aircraft Test Pilots and Cold War Weaponry (Ausa) by George Marrett that looks at some of the same case studies from the Hughes Aviation perspective.
This book is on target. December 15, 2008
David Goldstick (St. Louis, MO USA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
As an individual on the career track and a Boeing employee, I find the candid views of Mr. Tom Gunn to be quite insightful and entertaining. I'm appreciative of the opportunity to go along for a first-person flight spanning the career of this very intriguing gentleman. No, this isn't a book strictly focused on business theory -- if you want that, look elsewhere. This book is a collection of stories that bridges theory with real-world sales experience in a highly competitive, international marketplace. Think of Tom as your mentor that guides you through critical business situations, providing sound advice along the way.
An early passage describes a strategy meeting in which Tom had everyone get up and head over to the windows overlooking the employee parking lot. He stated, "Do you see those cars? That's what you're working for. You put food on the tables and cars in the parking lot by selling airplanes." Given the state of the economy, this isn't a bad reminder of just how crucial the performance of today and tomorrow's sales leaders really is.
In an ever-changing business environment, one may question the value in reading historical stories from the business trenches. I say you'd be sorely missing out. You see, the game never stopped changing for Mr. Gunn either. This book puts you in the bird's-eye seat of a sales powerhouse and demonstrates how he faced uncertainty and guided his team to win far more in balance than not. When the time comes for you to prove your mettle, you will be all the more prepared.
No matter what you sell, don't lose sight on all that you work for. I'm confident you won't go wrong by picking up a copy of "Gunn Sights." Give it a shot!
Great Marketing Tool For Any Career November 13, 2008
STLbooks (St. Louis, MO, USA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
When I picked up Gunn Sights, I did so in good faith that I wouldn't have to know the ins and outs of the aerospace sales industry to enjoy it, and I was right. I didn't expect that I would become engrossed in the high-stakes world of international aerospace--but I did. Although the products Gunn works with are worth millions--and sometimes billions--of dollars, his simplified eight tenants of selling would be able to encourage and revitalize any salesperson or marketer. Gunn exemplifies his steps through various case studies, making his lessons realistic and applicable to any business, not just aerospace sales. Furthermore, his writing style is frank and to-the-point without being dry; many personal anecdotes make him seem more human and less of the selling machine he actually was.
Needless to say, this is still a great book for anyone in the aerospace industry. Whether you buy, sell, manufacture, design, or simply enjoy planes, helicopters, missiles, etc., Gunn Sights provides in-depth information on the inner workings of McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) and exemplifies the struggles the company faced and overcame.
And, in addition to being a book about the business of selling, Gunn Sights provides very interesting information about international sales: proper etiquette, handling competition, and (my personal favorite) espionage. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in sales, marketing how-tos, the aerospace industry, or St. Louis' local business. You won't be disappointed.
Great people, great products, great sales! November 19, 2008
H. Douglas
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
GUNNSIGHTS: Taking Aim on Selling in the High-Stakes Industry of International Aerospace. Tom Gunn. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2008. 198 pp.
Patience, process, and production. These are the sentiments that I believe best capture the work and the genius of Tom Gunn. You have to have patience in order to get through the process, and you have to have process in order to responsibly create and supply the product. Gunn is a retired aerospace super executive, who, over the course of his twenty-two year career, harnessed the energy, ingenuity, and know-how of his employers and employees to market and deliver $250 billion in sales of an assortment of military arms.
In his memoir, GUNNSIGHTS, Tom Gunn shares his setbacks and failures, his vision and his successes. And, he does so with the kind of impassioned humility and focus that not only provides a detailed panoramic of his life's work, but also captures the sound ethical approach he used to guide his life's work. While predictable in form with "a beginning, a middle, and an epilogue," Gunn's memoir yields an informative and insightful storyline about what it means to be a professional (at whatever it is you do) in a succinct yet wonderfully rhapsodic way.
GUNNSIGHTS covers a large range of pertinent "real world" topics and situations. On a pretty broad level it takes on everyday issues from personnel management, to professional sales etiquette, to the necessity of understanding the cultural differences of your customers. On a more specific and material level the memoir hits on the "Ill Wind" pentagon corruption investigation in 1987 as it discusses the importance of sound ethics and good judgment in maintaining healthy public-private sector partnerships; it tells us of the kind of patience it took to successfully sale C-17 planes (a type of cargo plane) after more than a decade of development, politicking and paper-pushing; and, it recalls a wily deal made with U.K. contractor Westland Apache in 1992 that yielded McDonnell Douglas the dual benefit of saving money on the front end and making money on the back end. In addition to anecdotes, GUNNSIGHTS employs an assortment of casual case scenarios, strategies, and fleeting observations in a way that summarily shows the importance of meeting your customer's needs as opposed to simply selling your company's product; calls attention to knowing when it's time to give up and, conversely, when it's time to "get creative"; and, perhaps most importantly, provides a modern education to the disciplined business degree seeker or rising business professional trying to better understand the complex and integrated nature of business in today's world.
Not what you might expect! November 20, 2008
Frank Harris (Kansas City)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Having worked in the aerospace industry 1984-1998, I had heard of the legendary Tom Gunn . . . tough, hard-nosed, demanding. Probably true, but the Gunn who comes across in this book was tough and demanding for a reason: to get the best from his team and get the contracts from his customers. The book is not a "tell-all" uncovering family skeletons, but is a "tell you how to sell," revealing the stories behind many of the larger and more controversial aerospace programs and competitions of the past thirty years. The book could have been sub-sub-titled "The Things They Don't Teach You in Business School." Have you looked at the price tags of marketing textbooks these days? GunnSights beats them all . . . and not just in price.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 6
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