Successful Cold Call Selling: Over 100 New Ideas, Scripts, and Examples From the Nation's Foremost Sales Trainer

outdate material that wouldn't be used in today's call calling environment. would not recommend for beginners but would add to the sales book collection to pick up few tricks of trade

This is an incredible book, both for learning about sales and for brushing up on old techniques. It is much more than the title suggests. It gives suggestions on how to find sales opportunities and gives techniques for capitalizing on those opportunities. This book was recommended to my by my boss, and it has helped me to become the top salesman in my region. My boss, who has been in sales for 20 years, still reads through it every now and then to keep his skills sharp. I highly recommend this book to anyone is sales, newbie or vet!

There are classics (e.g. Think and Grow Rich) and there is out of date. Unfortunately, this book's no classic. One book example suggest referencing your company's WATS support lines; as in AT&T's ground breaking 1965 long distance Wide Area Telephone Service. Other examples reference PT Barnum and other turn of the century icons; not the Gates and Jobs century but the Aster and Rockefeller Century.

Using techniques in this book will sound familiar to the proverbial used car salesmen. "Hello Mr. Smith the special reason I'm calling today is..." Does anyone believe a call is special when a salesmen says so? This book pre-dates the dialogue method of talking with clients and relies on old saws like---can you meet at 3:00 today or 8:00AM tomorrow. That is, assume you got the meeting and give the caller two acceptance choices versus a yes or no. If that seem useful, then you'll find plenty to love here.

Successful Cold Call Selling: Over 100 New Ideas, Scripts, and Examples From the Nation's Foremost Sales Trainer

We used this book as a learning tool for an organized book club at work. Each week we discussed two chapters in-depth. While it was not perfectly attuned to our business and/or process, it had quite a few tips for better selling.

This book is a `sales' classic and its advice may have worked 10 years ago. However, in today's world of voice mail, email, and savvy gatekeepers cold calling is pretty much a worn out and useless activity (I know: heresy, heresy, everyone screams). As Jill Konrath says in her book "Selling to Big Companies" we are now in the `perfect storm' of sales and cold call resistance. No-one has time for cold callers and the same tired approaches. Better book selections for lead generation are "Selling to Big Companies" and "Selling Against the Goal."

That said, we all must do cold calling at some level. While I really needed help in this area and hoped to find it here, I didn't. There was nothing `new' in the book. I know about creating scripts and the other advice the book offers: benefits selling, value propositions, etc. The book didn't help my cold calling confidence or help me overcome my reluctance and actual aversion to cold calling.