Customer Reviews

Selling to Anyone Over the Phone

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The biggest block for most salespeople is picking up the phone. With a wealth of useful information Walkup helps eliminate that fear and actually makes you look forward to it. Every person who sells - or talks - on the phone needs to read this book!

... when it comes to selling over the telephone!! Renee Walkup & Sandra McKee have created a superb guide to selling over the telephone. This isn't your standard "smile when you talk" stuff. These two "get it" that selling over the phone is a totally different beast than selling in person, and that's what makes this book stand out from the many like it.

Another thing that makes this book stand out from a lot of books on the same subject is that it covers the entire sales cycle, not just prospecting. It covers it from a phone perspective. You CAN'T see your customers when you are talking to them (or more importantly, listening to them) over the telephone, so the book gives you a game plan to size up the attitudes of the different people you come into contact with.

The book also gives you an action framework that covers the entire sales cycle, pointing out all along the way the nuances and challenges inherent in telephone selling. All I can say, having completely read the book and having put many of its principles into practice, is that it would be a bargain at ten times the price. Check out their web site (SALESPEAK) as well. There's useful content along the same lines there.

Good selling is always a combination of art and science and Renee Walkup has done a great job in covering both bases. This is a book that supplies the explanation, the understanding and the nitty gritty needed to get the job done. For anyone who wants to succeed on the phone, this is the book to help them do it.

I have been involved in selling technology products for over 25 years. With shrinking margins, changing business models and fierce competition, it is important to make every second of your day count. Renee is full of great advice on managing your time and - most importantly - managing the selling process. Follow her advice and your bottom line will improve!

It would be a disservice to Renee and Sandra to describe this book as simply a book that helps you sell better over the phone. While it certainly does that, it does so much more. The advice offered applies as much to providing great customer service as anything. There is a lot of great insight on how to make connections with people, which is, after all, the most essential part of making people want to do business with you. Pay special attention to Chapter 3 - Identifying Personality Types Over the Phone. It's worth the price of the book alone. Cleverly written, using a music metaphor, it never stoops to gimmicks. Instead, it earns the reader's respect the old fashioned way - by providing solid advice you can implement immediately to impact your bottom line.

This book serves as a great sales basics book for newer sales people, however, there are many valuable messages for all sales people regardless of experience.

The most valuable section of the book, in my opinion, is chapter 8; Asking High-Value Questions.

Phone selling can never be a personal as is in-person field sales so it is even more important to ask valuable and insightful question towards understanding the customer's needs, and building a valuable relationship.

The simple recommended question in the book: "Tell me about your situation" is a very powerful way to get into the head of the customer. I had never used this phrase before but intend on doing so regularly in the future.

I am UNIMPRESSED by this book. The first fifty pages read like a Junior High School essay - the book seem to be trying to convince the reader that it contains valuable knowlege, which it then fails to deliver. There are some good ideas in there, but you have to mine through trite platitudes and shamefully plain observations to get to them. I don't recommend this one unless you are an absolute beginner in phone sales - or rather, a beginner in talking on the phone.

I am the co-founder of a business that sells to salespeople, and as a consequence come in contact with many sales people each day. I have also been in big ticket technology sales for 13 years. Salespeople quickly see through a sales training philosophy or book that has been constructed by a consultant or academic. Renee backs up her airtight philosophy with practical advice and excellent tactics, because she has been there! This is a quick read with multiple pages to be marked for later review before an important phone call.

My first contact with my clients is over the phone and I've found that mastering that first contact sets the tone for our entire relationship. Selling to Everyone Over the Phone has given me great techniques to use with my clients and win business!

As an educational sales rep, my company, Pearson, purchased a copy of this book for the inside sales team, and we worked through each chapter, week by week. Each week, a new team would present the concepts to the rest of the group, and we enjoyed this interactive way of learning. We had fun analyzing our personality types, and even guessing other people in the company. Then, we went back to the phones to see if we could implement these new concepts. Each chapter has a practical exercise and activity so we can actually implement the new concepts to experience results. I recommend this book for summer workshops to help sales teams improve their selling skills over the phone. Andrea Samadi, author of The Secret for Teens Revealed: How Parents, Teachers, and Teenagers Can Inspire Leadership and Transform Lives