Now charity trek hero Bryn marches up the book charts

Cheshire’s Silk Radio and its website were the first places anybody heard or read about the 500-mile hike in Spain by Bryn “Tin Man” Thompson, which has raised over £5,000 for Brain Tumour Research.

The 65-year Bryn, a keen amateur sportsman from Prestbury, battled through floods and 60mph winds in his final stages to complete the trek on two artificial knees.

Now he is enjoying success as a first time co-author. Along with his business partner Steve Lowndes, he wrote the recently published Transformational Selling which has been receiving five-star reviews on Amazon.

Between them, Bryn, a former UK Sales Leader of the Year, and Steve have assessed and trained over 20,000 members of sales and sales management teams in over 50 countries across every continent.

When this book was passed on to me by a relative, I approached it warily with the hard-nosed attitude of a journalist of mature years, and if anything on occasions a salesman’s antichrist.

It turned out to be a fascinating read and could just as easily have been called Thinking Outside The Box . . . especially when one of the authors found themselves up against two market leaders in trying to sell sunbeds to local authority leisure centres, at a time when there were safety issues connected with over use of sun beds.

How did he finish first on that occasion? Create a Centre of Excellence for Safer Tanning!

Just after the Brexit vote in 2016, the authors were in Paris trying to win a major sales training contract from a French company and beat off French opposition in a country where Brexit was an unpopular decision. How on earth did they manage to emerge victorious?

Why did an inexperienced candidate for a government defence role clinch a job as national sales manager because he had been a world top ten squash player? (He was an outstanding success in the job).

The irresistible theme is that the “transformational seller” needs to be the catalyst for change in the way the customer engages with them, how they make decisions and the way in which they operate.

If sales knowledge forms any part of your job, l recommend this book whole heartedly - and end this book review with one of Bryn’s favourite excerpts.

It answers this question: Why would you go into a store to buy a power drill and come out with a Kindle

A man goes into a store and says: “I’m after a power drill.”

“What sort of drill are you looking for?” asks the storeowner.

“One that’s reasonably powerful – I need to be able to drill through solid brick walls.”

“OK,” responds the storeowner. “So why are you looking to drill through solid brick walls?”

“I need to put up some shelves in my living room,” the man explains.

“So, you’re a bit of a DIY enthusiast, are you?”

“Goodness, no, I hate DIY. I’d much rather be reading a good book.

”Are you an avid reader then?”

“I read whenever I can: at home, on the bus to work, during my lunch hour or on my way home.” 

“What sort of books do you read?”

“Everything: crime, thrillers, comedy, biographies. I love them all. That’s the reason why I need the shelves. My bookcase is already full and I need somewhere to store more books.”

“And you always carry a book around with you?”

“Sometimes more than one – I always want to make sure that if I finish one, I have another ready to start.”

“You don’t ever like to be without a book to read then, wherever you are, and you don’t have enough room to store them. What will happen when these shelves are full?”

“I guess I’ll have to put more up,” the man ponders.

“So, more DIY? It sounds like you don’t really want a drill at all. What you need is a more convenient way of storing books whilst also having a way of accessing any of your books wherever you are.”

 “That would be perfect!” the man exclaimed.

“I have just the thing. . .”

Pictured: Bryn Thompson near the end of his Spanish Steps walkathon.

Article written by TIM TAYLOR, a former Fleet Street staff journalist who has worked on news, business, sport and features in Birmingham, London, Manchester and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where he was executive sports editor of The Journal morning newspaper.