Gunn Sights

Book excerpt: In 1975, Tom Gunn had a life-altering career change 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. Gunn knew a lot about military appropriations and classified developments; he knew almost nothing about marketing, which may have been the most important attribute he brought to the job. Over the next 22 years, Gunn and the team he assembled and organized, 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 cut-throat domestic and international competition.Gunn Sights is both the story of that success and a handbook for anyone---experienced or neophyte---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.Gunn details that process step-by-step, outlines cultural traps overseas and political realities at home, and makes his points in selected case studies---including what a Congressional opponent of a pending sale once called “the most sophisticated and far-reaching campaign to promote a sophisticated arms transfer that I’ve ever seen . . .” This is a business book about strategic selling and marketing, drawn from the experiences of Gunn and his associates, that takes one behind the scenes to see how deals are made in the aerospace industry.