The Power to Get in (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "You've been frozen out, or are being frozen out right now..." (more)
Key Phrases: curious insecurities, turf protector, prospecting situation, Preparation Step, Key Engagers, Phone Fax (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Boylan, who heads his own motivational consulting firm in Minneapolis, points out that such technological advances as the Internet, teleconferencing, fax machines, e-mail and the like have made doing business more difficult for the individual who seeks access to sell a product, a service or him(her)self. Boylan's solution is a system he has developed called the Circle of Leverage (abbreviated to COL). He maintains that the access-seeker should keep in mind the Key Engagers of his prospect: fear of loss, insecurities, competitiveness and the desire to be a serious player. Utilizing this knowledge, the next step is to approach by mail the prospect and his boss and his boss's boss, so that the prospect is, in a sense, backed into a corner and will set up an appointment. Boylan then outlines 10 preparation steps and five executive steps to insure the correct use of the COL system. Boylan, however, is tedious on the page. A good speaker repeats everything at least once to be sure of getting a message across; here, every point is made two and sometimes three or four times, more than a minor irritation.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Boylan (Ethical Issues in Business, Harcourt Brace Coll. Pub., 1995), the founder and CEO of the Boylan Group, Inc., writes about how to get in to see the people in an organization who have the power to decide the issues that affect the caller. (He used this approach himself to sell the idea of this book to the publisher.) It is a brash, exciting approach to marketing and job hunting, though the text is often repetitive. Boylan explains what the reader needs to know about a company and where and how to find it. After doing the research, the applicant writes a letter requesting an interview to the person who seems to have the power to decide; he or she then calls the assistant or secretary to request the appointment. Boylan also explains how to handle turf protectors and use voice mail to the caller's advantage. The premeditation of the effort appears Machiavellian, yet it is an honest, up-front approach. Recommended for general business collections.?Peggy Odom, Texas Lib. Assn., Waco
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 296 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (February 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312151934
• ISBN-13: 978-0312151935
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,340,718 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Sales System Unlike Any Other, May 9, 2000

By	Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Power to Get In: A Step-by-Step System to Get in Anyone's Door So You Have the Chance to... Make the Sale... Get the Job... Present Your Ideas (Paperback)

This book was written for those who have serious problems with gaining access to others of special importance to them. Boylan offers a cohesive and comprehensive system to overcome all manner of barriers. He calls it The Circle of Leverage™ and explains it within six different sections entitled:

What's Been Keeping You Out

The Circle of Leverage™ System: What It Is, What's Behind It, and How It Works

The Circle of of Leverage™ System: The Ten Preparation Steps

Making Your Move: The Five Execution Steps of the Circle of Leverage™ System

Advanced Moves

Mastering the Circle of Leverage™ System

Obviously, this book can be very helpful to those in sales but if we expand our perspective to include other forms of persuasion, this book offers even greater value. For example, consider the potential relevance of the Circle of Leverage™ System to recruiting and hiring, M&A initiatives, competing with others in the same organization for its resources, use of customers as an extended sales force, use of "alumni" to locate talent, etc.

The Circle of Leverage™ System is sound. Boylan's explanation of it is thorough and lucid. I recommend this book highly to anyone who is both willing and able to make a sustained commitment to applying these principles. What else will you need? Tenacity and patience.

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More here than some readers may suspect, June 15, 2003

By	Race Cowgill (Albuquerque, NM USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Power to Get In: A Step-by-Step System to Get in Anyone's Door So You Have the Chance to... Make the Sale... Get the Job... Present Your Ideas (Paperback)

The negative reviews of this book complain that, according to those reviewers:
- The book says nothing new.
- The book says to do things that don't work.
- The book has only a little to say; most of the book is repetition and should have been only a magazine article.

I am a managing partner in a national consulting firm. My assistant receives an average of nine or ten sales solicitations that want to get through to me daily. In my experience, I have never had a salesperson call my office using the techniques described in this book. So does the book give us new methods? If my experience is valid, apparently so. My assistant has received many sales calls from sales people who did some research on our firm, and since I am as high up as you can get, many sales people start high. But to say that this is all the book is talking about is incomplete, I believe.

Three of my personal clients, all of them Fortune 1000 companies, have begun using the methods in this book. Those clients have increased the number of sales presentations by an average of 212%. They have increased the number of purchases by an average of 156%. They have increased their sales dollars by an average of 120%. One client, an advertising agency, has increased billings from clients captured in the last 12 months by 330%. Do the techniques work? Apparently. (By the way, our consulting firm started using these techniques, and by doing so within 12 months landed 7 new clients with an average billing of just under $1 million per client. Yes, it works.)

I am not offended by repetition. I welcome it. It gives me a chance to see the same topic from slightly different viewpoints. I begin to see the nuances. Most of the business books I read are very repetitive. That's fine. There is more here than simply sending out a bunch of form letters. For example, Boylan goes into the topic of "sincerity, honesty, and integrity regarding what you are selling" three times, at least. For a thoughtful salesperson, I feel there is a great deal to be aware of, and to think about in that topic. I'm glad Boylan repeats it.

And consider this: If this were a magazine article, which magazine would carry it? I doubt any of the big business magazines would. Maybe one of the Sales journals would. So how many people would see that article? I, for one, would not have. The costs of publishing and distributing a book require that the book sell for a minimum price, and who is going to pay that price for ten pages -- assuming that it is really a good idea to take out all the repetition? And remember this: the single-issue price of many journals today is $5 minimum, which is not much less than this book costs to buy on Amazon.

Would I feel manipulated by this method were it used on me? If it were really followed, I would not, because the core value of the method is honesty and integrity, which is contradictory of manipulation. But be careful: you have to REALLY follow the method, not just pay it lip service.

Would I meet with someone who used this method, where I ended up at the correct end-point of the process? ABSOLUTELY!

Bottom line: read this book carefully, with an open mind, and practice it carefully and with integrity, and you will likely reap good benefit.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding augmentation for existing sales processes, December 24, 2003

By	"kodenkan_chris" (Omaha, NE United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Power to Get In: A Step-by-Step System to Get in Anyone's Door So You Have the Chance to... Make the Sale... Get the Job... Present Your Ideas (Paperback)

I am a VP Sales for a technology firm and I only recently read this book. I was so impressed with the innovative material I flew to MN to meet the author! Despite what the negative reviewers have said, this book is NOT a sales manual. It IS a manual for obtaining access. It is an excellent precursor to an existing sales process, but the sales process already needs to be in place. The author uses the term "bolt-on" addition which is a very good visual depiction of how this tool should be used.

Any good executive can tell you how difficult it is to be seen at the appropriate levels. More and more, callers and visitors are sloughed off to the next lower level, and if the caller doesn't have a compelling reason to stay at the executive level, they will invariably continue to be pushed down lower and lower until they are speaking with the lowliest of the non-decision makers, a "recommender." Horrors!

Don't sell this book short. "Getting In" is a master treatise on how to develop and keep access at the C-level. I highly recommend it.