Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The author did a very good job of sticking to his objective of only teaching you cold calling techniques; that is, techniques to get the appointment, not techniques on how to sell once you got that appointment. He had many, many good ideas; some of which I learned, some of which I knew but had to be reminded of. I would recommend his book to anyone wanting to do a better job at cold call prospecting. The one big negative I would say about this book is that he took too many pages to get his points across, much too verbose. I got tierd of reading it, and kept telling myself, OK, when is he going to get to the point. Other than that, I would highly recommend the book.

First of all, my career background touches
many fields, such as computers, internet,
customer service, sales, telemarketing,
insurance, finance, telecommunications
and so on.

In a previous existence or job, I handled
thousands of outbound sales calls, mixed
with inbound, as well.

I've done veyr well well in my field, but also,
I've witnessed some sales superstars with equal
and sometimes, even better sales experience and
results than my own.

Reading the 260 pages of this book, by Mr Lee Boyan,
I have to admit this man is the right man to coach
veteran and newbie sales reps alike.

The door-to-door selling, or in personal sales,
coupled with telemarketing or outbound sales,
advice is obviously, plainly based in reality.

Frequently, the advice he gives, I find I've been
practicing many of those points all along, by
learning through my own mistakes, but also, by
knowing what worked the best, and by natural talent,
and also, by picking up from co-workers.

The bottom line, is that this book will easily FINE-TUNE
your own techniques, approaches. It will inform you
of new skills, perhaps you've never used in a job
situation (either on the phone, or in person, or
setting appointments). It will make you realize of many
small tricks you felt were "your own" but actually, are
techniques all pros should be using, all the time, on
the job.

This book was written 1983, and then revised in 1989,
yet it feels like it was written this year !!!

That's how good it is.

Boyan's book is essentially a book about prospecting and turning those prospects into appointments with potential customers. He teaches readers to present themselves as problem solvers to potential customers' concerns. The emphasis throughout the book is placed on the customers. Boyan devotes a chapter to customer psychology and gives consideration to the reasons why customers make purchasing decisions. Although somewhat simplified, his suggestion for addressing a customer's concern by paraphrasing it so the customer feels like you understand him, and then offering a solution can be used in a number of ways to persuade customers to make an appointment with you. The only problem is he only presents one way to address a customer's concerns and pretty soon the customer catches on to your technique and stops listening to you. But still I recommend it. It's worth [the price], and the techniques presented in this book have lead me to make appointments with customers that eventually lead to $5,000 aluminum siding sales, $8,000 kitchen remodeling sales, and $4,000 windows sales.

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.

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.

Boyan's book really follows through with the idea that it's not about you it's about them(the potential customer). He really focuses on looking for benefits and presenting these benefits to the client. This idea of helping other's to see potential in ideas they hadn't thought of before is really where the heart of this book is at. The only reason it's not five stars for me is that it seems a bit lengthy and repeditive in a couple of spots, but beyond that two thumbs up. :)

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!

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.

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