“It’s a terrific book. Writing it changed my life,” the Sandy Hook resident said.

The former editor of two business magazines and an international marketing newsletter, Mr Wood wrote his latest book with Jerry Acuff, president of Delta Point – The Sales Agency, a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based firm that helps companies find new and innovative ways to market products.

Mr Acuff travels the country giving seminars on how to build positive personal relationships and repair damaged ones with a straightforward, three-step process that anyone can learn to apply in the workplace. But when he decided that he wanted to develop his concept into a book, he realized he needed help. He mentioned it when he had lunch with another Scottsdale sales consultant, Jerry Colletti.

“I had worked with Jerry Colletti on a book [Compensating New Sales Roles: How to Design Rewards That Work in Today’s Environment] five years ago, and he recommended me to Jerry Acuff,” Mr Wood explained in a recent interview. “Most of my work comes from word of mouth and through networking.”

Jerry Colletti had been so impressed with the work that Wally Wood did, that when the book was published, he put Mr Wood’s name on the cover. Similarly, Jerry Acuff’s book, The Relationship Edge in Business: Connecting With Customers and Colleagues When It Counts, also credits Wally Wood as co-author.

As The Relationship Edge In Business explains, most people know instinctively how to build positive, long-lasting relationships with spouses, friends, and even co-workers, but few know how to consciously and systematically build and maintain positive business relationships. Jerry Acuff, who had a long career in pharmaceutical sales, defines the three keys to “relationship edge,” as having the right mindset, asking the right questions, and doing the right things.

The book develops these principles and uses real-life examples to show readers what types of behavior and conversations lead to success. One chapter, for example, lays out the 20 questions that reveal what people care about, and suggests dozens of practical, unexpected, and effective ways to apply that information in building stronger professional bonds.

To write the book, Wally Wood had to do a lot of groundwork.

“I spent about eight hours in two sessions with Jerry Acuff, just asking questions,” Mr Wood said. “I also had the seminar book, plus a tape recording of the seminar, my interview notes, and a list of people that he referred me to. More than half of the people he told me about are included in the book. The rest are people I had interviewed for other books over the years.”

The use of vignettes, plus Wally Wood’s readable, low-key writing style, makes the book an easy, interesting read. It also covers a lot more information than the original seminar.

“The book contains about 50 times as much material as the seminar,” Mr Wood said.

It has drawn praise from such executives as John M. Woychick, senior vice president of sales at Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, who describes it as “a great coaching tool for every sales manager” and George Gemayel, executive vice president at Genzyme Corporation, who calls it a “must-read for those who believe that successful selling is part of their everyday life.”

Wally Wood’s first book, published in 1991 by HarperBusiness, was for Dr Kevin Clancy and Robert Shulman on The Marketing Revolution: A Radical Manifesto for Dominating the Marketplace. At the time, Mr Wood was the editor of Publishing Trends & Trendsetters, a monthly newsletter for the magazine industry.

“I wrote a column in a trade magazine on market research about Kevin Clancy and he liked it,” Mr Wood said. “He had just gotten a contract for a book from HarperBusiness. I’ve now written five of his books.”

Wally Wood and his wife Marion, who writes business textbooks, moved to Newtown in 1993. A graduate of Columbia University, with a master’s from the City University of New York, Mr Wood is active in the community, having served most recently as a board member of the Newtown Friends of Music and president of the Winterset Ski Club.

He is a volunteer writing instructor at Garner Correctional Institution in Newtown and at the Fishkill Correctional Facility in Beacon, N.Y. For the men in the state prison at Fishkill, Mr Wood developed a course that has a series of classes that teach practical skills such as how to write a letter of thanks, how to write a resume, a job application, a persuasive letter, a report, and a speech. Since Garner now is becoming the state’s prison for mentally ill prisoners, he is teaching in a writing therapy program.

A professional tour guide who has led trips to Japan, he also is a Japanese language instructor in the Wilton continuing education program.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc, The Relationship Edge in Business, is scheduled to be released May 1 and will be available at Amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble and other bookstores.

“I’m collaborating now more than I ever had as a result of this book,” he said. “I feel like I get paid to learn, and I get to meet really interesting people and ask them good questions. I get better with each book that I write.”

For those who are interested in learning more about the principles explained in the book, Wally Wood will be presenting a free program, “Move Over, Dale Carnegie: Gain the Relationship Edge in Business,” in the community room at the C.H. Booth Library on Thursday, May 13, at 7 pm.