Selling Today: Partnering to Create Value, Canadian Edition, 9th edition

Published by Pearson Canada (April 30, 2026) © 2027
  • Gerald Manning
  • Michael Ahearne
  • Barry L Reece
  • HF Herb MacKenzie
  • Margaret Burnes Strawbridge

Title overview

For courses in Selling.

Much of the western world has experienced a rapid shift from a production-focused to a sales and service focused economy. There are well over a million people employed in sales positions across Canada: more than 10 percent of the workforce. Randstad, a global leader in HR services, identified sales associates and sales representatives as the most in-demand jobs in Canada in 2020.

Selling continues to evolve rapidly. Since the last Canadian edition, buyers have moved more of their journey online, hybrid sales and business development models have expanded, and AI has transformed from a novelty into an everyday tool. Today's Canadian sellers must combine technology-enabled execution with empathy, ethics, cultural awareness, and a laser focus on results. This edition preserves the process-driven clarity that defines Selling Today while modernizing the language, examples, and tools for Sales 4.0. It emphasizes data-informed, customer-centric, omnichannel selling that meets buyers where they are.

Sales skills extend far beyond traditional sales roles, and research by Daniel Pink shows that professionals spend roughly 40% percent of their time in "non-sales selling" by persuading, influencing, and moving others forward without any purchase involved.[1] Whether you're pitching a project, negotiating resources, or building consensus, selling has become a fundamental skill for twenty-first-century success.

Selling Today, Ninth Canadian Edition, is built for this reality: a clear process, Canadian context, and practical tools that help readers create value ethically and consistently across all channels. What follows shows exactly how, from strategic planning and discovery through objections and negotiation to building lasting partnerships.

Hallmark features of this title

  • The partnering era is described in detail. Partnership selling principles, so important to today's successful selling and marketing strategies, are presented and clearly illustrated throughout the text. Strategic alliances—the highest form of partnering— are also discussed in detail.
  • Value-added selling strategies are presented throughout the text. Salespeople today are guided by a new principle of personal selling: Partnerships are established and maintained only when the salesperson creates customer value. Customers have fundamentally changed their expectations. They want to partner with salespeople who can create value, not just communicate it. Value creation involves a series of improvements in the sales process that enhance the customer's experience.
  • Ethics as the Foundation of Selling Today. Ethical selling is highlighted in Chapter 3, “Ethics: The Foundation for Relationships that Create Value,” as well as throughout the book. Chapter 3 addresses the many ethical lapses existing in the business world and emphasizes the need for a highly ethical interaction with customers as the starting point of all relationship development, if one is to build long term, partnering-style selling relationships. Moreover, the ethics assessment at the end of the chapter and new text models are used to highlight an emphasis on ethical selling.

New to this Edition

  • What sets this edition apart is its commitment to Sales 4.0, a modern, practical approach to selling in an age of omnichannel outreach, AI-assisted workflows, and empowered buyers. Emotional intelligence is not simply a chapter add-on but is embedded throughout call planning, discovery, objections, negotiation, and long-term follow-up.
  • The updated content reflects Indigenous perspectives, intercultural communication, and accessible design as essential elements of ethical selling. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are not treated as separate topics; they are naturally integrated into examples, personas, cases, and role plays so that all students feel seen and prepared for modern Canadian workplaces.
  • Introduction to Sales Simulation. The Introduction to Sales simulation is a powerful, state-of-the-art learning tool that easily complements and integrates with your existing curriculum. Providing learners with a risk-free experiential setting to practise and apply theory while developing the skills they need to be successful in the professional world, it is a co-op experience in a classroom setting. Students using the simulation will experience starting a sales position at Leif Carbon Offset Solutions, where they will work with their mentor to qualify sales targets, communicate with customers, overcome customer objections, and navigate the dynamics of committee selling while engaging with rich AI characters.
  • Latest Research and Trends from Academic Journals and Trade References. Extensive referencing of academic articles found in the Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, Journal of Marketing, Harvard Business Review, and others has been brought up to date. Topics and trends in selling garnered from numerous trade publications such as Selling Power, ThinkSales, Value-Sales EQ, and Sales and Marketing Management have been integrated throughout the ninth Canadian edition.
  • Selling Today is the only personal selling text to bring sales training support to the classroom. With two new videos, there are now a total of 12 Reality Selling Today videos. These unique learning tools feature successful recent graduates making sales calls as they do daily in their professional personal selling careers.

Key features

Digital Assets in MyLab Marketing

  • AI Study Tool. Designed for students who want to save time and study efficiently, this eText includes Pearson’s new genAI study tool. When they open their eText, students can click the AI icon (available on any page) and request summaries, explanations, or practice questions. This tool offers consistent guidance when needed and provides quick, personalized support and feedback by referencing content from their Pearson text.
  • Mini-Sims. Mini-Sims are short simulations that put students in business roles and give them the opportunity to apply course concepts as they make decisions. Students begin by making a series of decisions to better understand and apply course concepts. The Mini-Sim then changes, branching and creating various scenario paths based on the answers given. This provides students with a personalized learning experience and the opportunity to build and develop their critical-thinking skills.
  • Dynamic Study Modules. Using a highly personalized, algorithmically driven process, Dynamic Study Modules continuously assess student performance and provide additional practice in the areas where they struggle the most. Each Dynamic Study Module, ac-cessed by computer, smartphone, or tablet, promotes fast learning and long-term retention.
  • Current Event Boxes. Current Event Boxes bring currency into your classroom with author-written content that connects key concepts with real-life current events. Periodically, our authors add new or revised content and data to ensure that your students have relevant examples to help them engage with the course.
  • Learning Catalytics. Learning Catalytics™ allows students to use any web-enabled device to participate in class. Instructors can access a library of prebuilt questions or construct questions on their own to keep students engaged in the lecture. Learning Catalytics can be assigned to students synchronously or asynchronously and used for individual or group work. It can also place students in discussion groups based on their responses and location, regardless of class size.
  • Translation Tool. Pearson's new translation tool in eTextbooks allows students to trans-late words, sentences, or paragraphs up to 10,000 characters on-screen. Supporting over 100 languages, it helps ensure students understand the material, boosting their success.
  • Interactive Reading Assignments. Transform your course with Interactive Reading As-signments. Boost student engagement with all-in-one assignments in MyLab® that com-bine eTextbook readings, multimedia, assessments, and your own content. Help students stay organized and save time by creating a dynamic learning experience that drives aca-demic success.

Table of contents

  1. Relationship Selling Opportunities in the Information Economy
  2. Evolution of Selling Models that Complement the Marketing Concept
  3. Ethics: The Foundation for Relationships that Create Value
  4. Creating Value with a Relationship Strategy
  5. Communication Styles: A Key to Adaptive Selling Today
  6. Creating Product Solutions
  7. Product-Selling Strategies that Add Value
  8. The Buying Process and Buyer Behaviour
  9. Developing and Qualifying Prospects and Accounts
  10. Approaching the Customer with Adaptive Selling
  11. Determining Customer Needs with a Consultative Questioning Strategy
  12. Creating Value with the Consultative Demonstration
  13. Negotiating Buyer Concerns
  14. Adapting the Close and Confirming the Partnership
  15. Servicing the Sale and Building the Partnership
  16. Opportunity Management: The Key to Greater Sales Productivity
  17. Management of the Sales Force

Author bios

Gerald Manning is an international author, consultant, speaker, and successful businessperson. Professor Manning's book Selling Today: Partnering to Create Value, now in its fourteenth edition, is today's international number-one selling textbook on negotiations and partnering. With Chinese, Spanish, International English–Speaking, Canadian, Croatian, and U.S. editions, millions have profited from the strategies and tactics presented. He is the author of four additional books on management and sales, all published by large, international publishing companies. Gerald Manning also serves as a sales and marketing consultant to senior management and owners of more than 500 businesses, including both national and international companies. He appears regularly as a speaker at national sales and management conferences, and is featured regularly in training videos on sales and management.

Michael Ahearne is Professor of Marketing and C. T. Bauer Chair in Marketing at the University of Houston. He is also Executive Director of the Sales Excellence Institute (SEI). The SEI is widely recognized as the leading university-based sales institute in the world, training more than 2000 sales students, placing Ph.D. students at top research universities, and working with more than 200 major corporations annually. He earned his Ph.D. in Marketing from Indiana University. He has also served on the faculty at the University of Connecticut and at Pennsylvania State University. In addition, he has lectured internationally about sales and sales management in such countries as Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, India, Italy, Russia, and Spain.

Barry Reece is Professor Emeritus at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Prior to joining the faculty at Virginia Tech, he held faculty positions at Ellsworth Community College and the University of Northern Iowa. Over the years, he has served as visiting professor at the University of Iowa, University of Missouri, University of Nebraska, University of Colorado, and Wayne State College. He is the author or co-author of six college textbooks that have been through a total of 40 editions since 1980.

Herb MacKenzie is currently an Adjunct Professor of Marketing at the Goodman School of Business, Brock University, in St. Catharines, Ontario. He has taught in the undergraduate, graduate, and executive education programs at universities in Canada, Europe, and the Middle East, and has been consulting to both private- and publicsector businesses since 1985. He has more than 15 years of industrial sales and sales management experience and has published many cases, conference proceedings, and articles in the areas of sales management, buyer-seller relationships, and distribution channel management. He has authored and co-authored more than 20 textbooks on introduction to business, personal selling, sales management, and marketing, and has edited five Canadian marketing casebooks. He has been recognized by his students as Professor of the Year and Marketing Professor of the Year, and was twice the winner of the Faculty of Business Faculty Award of Excellence.

Margaret Strawbridge is a full-time faculty member in the Business Department at Conestoga College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning in Ontario, where she specializes in sales, professional selling, and negotiation in the diploma and degree pro-grams. She brings over three decades of experience in sales, sales management, sales education and training, curriculum development, and industry collaboration. Margaret has coached student teams for marketing and sales competitions and works closely with industry partners to create experiential learning opportunities grounded in real-world selling situations. In addition to her teaching, Margaret is a doctoral candidate in education and a frequent contributor to student and faculty development initiatives focused on emotional intelligence, ethical decision-making, and inclusive teaching practices. Her research and classroom approach emphasize value creation, relationship selling, and the role of empathy and ethical communication in a tech-enabled world. As lead Canadian author of this edition, she has worked to modernize the text with Canadian compliance standards, up-dated perspectives, and Sales 4.0 tools, while preserving the human touch at the heart of professional selling.

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