How to Become a Rainmaker: The Rules for Getting and Keeping Customers and Clients [Hardcover]

Jeffrey J. Fox (Author)

Book Description

Release date: May 17, 2000

Filled with smart tips given in the Fox signature style, counter- intuitive, controversial, and practiced, this hard-hitting collection of sales advice shows readers how to woo, pursue, and finally win any customer. In witty, succinct chapters, Fox offers surprising, daring, and totally practical wisdom that will help readers rise above the competition in any company in any field. A terrific resource for CEOs, as well as anyone looking to distinguish themselves in salesbe it books, cars, or real estateHow to Become a Rainmaker offers the opportunity to rise above the competition in any company, in any field.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

This is an afternoon read, pure and simple. And chances are good that once readers accept Fox's hard-hitting yet commonsense approaches, they'll accept his sales process, which applies, by the way, to selling widgets, promoting intangible services, or selling yourself. Every one of the author's 50 two-page to four-page chapters contains just one nugget of information more than the preceding section, enough to keep the momentum and the attention. A sad story about the hazards of drinking coffee (it spilled--and the prospect was then distracted by a second crisis) is followed by a notice not to eat a major meal during a sales lunch, which is promptly followed by "no pen in the shirt pocket" advice. Fox's seemingly disparate hints and tips, in short, comprise a very logical and memorable way of rainmaking, and a short tome that will show anyone the how-tos. Barbara Jacobs
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"the best book on selling I've seen. Period." -- Gerald Sindell, President, Publishing Consulting Services --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion; 1St Edition edition (May 17, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786865954
• ISBN-13: 978-0786865956
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (91 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #36,217 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #55 in Books > Business & Investing > Industries & Professions > Customer Service

More About the Author

Grew up in a small town. Saw Mickey Mantle hit several home runs at Yankee Stadium. State high school baseball champions. Full scholarship to Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. Featured in the book, How to Succeed in Business Before Graduating From College. Played rugby at Harvard Business School. Married to the same girl since 1968. Bought an old house and moved it three miles next to a brook. Broke leg playing rugby for the Hartford Wanderers. Retired from rugby. Lived in San Francisco and worked in the wine business. Three children and their families. Own some small businesses. Oodles of dogs and birds. Favorite cities outside the US are Paris, Florence, Istanbul, Montreal. Favorite small towns are Bellagio, Siena, Zihuatenejo, Mufugano Island, Bodrhum. Started Fox&Co. in 1982. Wrote eight books.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

87 of 95 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A Fairly Good Book on Selling, Not About Rainmaking At All May 6, 2000

By Donald Mitchell HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

I would give this book 4 stars except the title is so misleading. Perhaps I am jaundiced on this point, knowing many of the top rainmakers in the world in investment banking, advertising, law, and consulting as I do. NONE of them would have become rainmakers if they had followed the advice of this book. They might have become fairly effective salespeople instead.

Rainmakers find ways to connect with people well beyond anything considered in this book. In fact, since no research is cited by the author, I wonder if any research was done to write this book. It has the feeling of being a memoir of what the author has found works for him.

The only part of the advice that I thought was wrong was the insistence on using canned questions to move the prospect along. Sophisticated customers spot these a mile away, and run in the opposite direction. You will simply be manipulating people, and that's NOT the way to be a rainmaker.

Having had my expectations falsely raised by the title, I still yearn for a good book on being a top rainmaker based on the best practices of what they actually do. Perhaps someone else will write that book.

If you want a short book on selling that covers many of selling's important principles, this is a perfectly okay book. If you have been selling for more than 5 years, there's probably not much here to help you unless you totally lack emotional intelligence (in that case, read Daniel Goleman's excellent book, Emotional Intelligence).

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A Decent Basic Refresher Course on Sales June 24, 2003

By RV

Format:Hardcover

As a lawyer and as an MBA that is currently running his own consulting business, I picked up this book as a way of giving myself a refresher course on sales. I was not disappointed by the book, nor was I amazed by the advice given. The book is easy to read and contains 160 odd pages of large font, widely spaced text. I read this entire book during the course of a brief flight from Los Angeles to San Jose(about an hour).

Others have commented that the book contains a lot of simple, obvious and straight forward advice and I tend to agree with this assessment. However, advice does not always need to be complex or particularly insightful in order to be useful. For example, it is always good to remember the value of embracing your client's objections and to develop a client-centric view of the sales process. While this is obvious to most sales people, many of us tend to overlook this principle from time to time.

The book has other fundamental weaknesses. For one thing, most of the examples contained in the book are non-specific and often feel like made up clichés. For example, the truly predictable tale of the sales person who was able to land a huge account by being nice to a secretary that later became an executive VP...

From my perspective the book also has another serious deficiency - most of the examples given in the book deal with tangible products. The author almost completely ignores the often much more challenging and complex process of selling services.

The bottom line is this: this is a decent book if you need a quick refresher or if you are completely unfamiliar with the world of sales. If that is not the case, look for a different book.

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book on the principles of sales October 14, 2001

By Dan E. Ross

Format:Hardcover

I bought the book two days ago and I read it really quickly (2-3 hours). Like other books on improving sales you need to APPLY these techniques and principles in order to get maximum value out of the book. If anything, you will at least learn to recognize good sales people from bad ones.

This book is, for some, common sense. For others, this book is a quick refresher course of the basic principals of selling and finally, it might be a completely new experience for many and it may have you thinking about the art of selling. The reality is that the value of this book, to you, probably depends on how much training and common sense you already have. In general, I really enjoyed the book and thought there were many interesting sales concepts, which I am looking forward to employing to see how effective they are in real life. Fox continually emphasized the concept of dollarization throughout the book and gave examples of different sales techniques throughout the book

39 of 44 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Sales Advice for Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder March 14, 2001

By Dan Moreland

Format:Hardcover

by Dan Moreland

Jeffrey Fox has brilliantly cashed in on America's Quick-Fix-to-Get-Rich Culture, authoring the short and to the point "How to Become CEO". This follow-up is another guaranteed moneymaker. Unlike the endless array of Byzantine and boring sales manuals on the market, "Rainmaker" is short and to the point. No charts, no high fallutin' theories, and it can be read in about 90 minutes or so. Or, if you suffer from A.D.D., you'll be pleased to find that most chapters can be ripped through in 5 minutes or less!

But on to the $64,000 question- will the book turn you into a "Rainmaker", the mystical term for superstar sales professional? The answer is, well, just like every other sales book promising the keys to the kingdom of money and success, not really. As usual, in sales, there is no substitute for prospecting, listening and getting the customer what they need.

Not that the book is not a useful guide, and not that I would not recommend it to any new salesman or slumping sales pro. Again, in Fox's easy to read prose, the chapter title basically gives you the piece of advice. Examples include "Customers Don't Care about You", or "Never Wear a Pen in Your Shirt Pocket".

While the book can be criticized as a bit simplistic, Fox does offer some refreshing common sense. Fox stands out amongst all the "gurus" out there trying to rewrite the laws of selling. They torture us with their 300 page borefests. And 90% of them are either Ivy League MBAs or con artists who never even sold lemonade at a corner stand.

If you are like me and have an attention span of 30 seconds or less, but still want to pick up some sales advice, I'd recommend this book. Also check out titles by Joe Girard, Frank Bettger and Byrd Baggett.