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Some Training Resources
The discussion of each area below presents a possible starting point for training. To attempt anything more would require a
separate book. However, listed are a few quality resources that can help you begin a more in-depth study of each area.
The resources cited will for the most part be resources that may not be as well known as some others. Trainers such as Tom
Hopkins, Anthony Parinello, Brian Tracy, and Jeffrey Gitomer are names most salespeople are familiar with them. Suggesting
you visit Parinello’s site for prospecting training is not particularly helpful as most are already aware that he has his VITO
website, a large part of which is his Getting to VITO training. Likewise, few need to be directed to Seth Godin for marketing
training since most are familiar with him also.
Simply because a resource is listed doesn’t mean it is necessarily the best resource in existence. I have tried to give a starting
point with a good, basic, easily accessible resource. As you get more in-depth in any area you will find other resources and in
many cases, books that are more advanced than those presented.
Prospecting: Prospecting and lead generation are two of the most difficult areas for most salespeople. More salespeople fail
in sales because they cannot generate enough quality leads than for all other reasons combined.
Because prospecting covers such a broad spectrum of activities, I’ll concentrate of giving some resources for specific areas.
Cold calling is a time honored prospecting method that although not appropriate for all industries, is the backbone of many
a salesperson’s prospecting efforts. Often considered nothing but a numbers game, cold calling skills can be learned.
Wendy Weiss, The Queen of Cold Calling, offers a number of resources to help you improve you cold calling skills. Her
book, Cold Calling for Women: Opening Doors and Closing Sales (DFD Publications, 2000), is not just for women.
Although aimed at women, men can benefit just as well. You can find a number of free resources on her website at
www.wendyweiss.com.
For those engaged in complex selling environments, Brian Carroll’s, Lead Generation for the Complex Sale: Boost the
Quality and Quantity of Leads to Increase Your ROI (McGraw-Hill, 2006), is helpful. Written from a marketing
perspective and geared to corporate marketing, not the individual salesperson, some of his reasoning may irate, but many of
his observations are excellent and much can be used as presented or reformulated to work for an individual salesperson.
Also aimed at the complex sale is Jill Konrath’s Selling to Big Companies (Kaplan Business, 2005). Konrath takes on
more than just prospecting and lead generation in her book, but the chapter on prospecting is excellent. She has more free
resources on her website at www.sellingtobigcompanies.com.
A general, all around book that sets out several strategies is Frank Rumbauskas’ Never Cold Call Again: Achieve
Sales Greatness Without Cold Calling (Wiley and Sons, 2006). Rumbauskas discusses a number of prospecting methods,
including cold calling, in short, to the point chapters. He also covers a number of newer methodologies such as blogs,
podcasting, websites, and much more.
One of the most misunderstood and misused prospecting methods and one of the most powerful is generating referrals if
you learn how to do it correctly and well. Referral generation is the most cost effective lead generator you can find. My
book, Creating a Million Dollar a Year Sales Income: Sales Success through Client Referrals, details the techniques
and strategies the true million dollars a year income sales superstars use to generate their huge volume of high quality
referrals. You can also find a number of free referral selling, prospecting, and personal marketing articles and resources at
www.powerreferralselling.com.
Communication: Crucial to any salesperson is the ability to communicate. Communication is a huge area covering everything
from learning how to listen, make presentations, ask various types of questions, and even making small talk. Even salespeople
who have strong natural communications skills will find communication training to be helpful.
Linda Richardson’s book Stop Telling, Start Selling: How to Use Customer-Focused Dialogue to Close Sales
(McGraw-Hill, 1998) isn’t really a communication book as much as it is a sales technique book, however she deals with
several traditional communication issues in an easy to digest format.
A fine general discussion of communication, from listening, to body language is Kevin Hogan’s Talk Your Way to the Top:
Communication Secrets to Change Your Life (Pelican, 1999). Hogan, known for his communication and persuasion
training, has a number of free resources at www.kevinhogan.com.
Salespeople talk too much; listen too little. Salespeople are anxious to get their story told, to influence the prospect, to
establish credibility, and, too often, to share all the great knowledge they have acquired that the prospect couldn’t care less
about. Many of the best salespeople are the quiet ones who speak little, but say a lot. They not only hear what the
prospect says, but they have learned to listen to what the prospect is really saying. Listening is a cherished but all too
infrequently encountered characteristic in sales.
Two books that deal with listening, not only in your professional life, but all aspects of life, are Listening: The Forgotten
Skill: A Self-Teaching Guide (Wiley and Sons, 1995), by Madelyn Burley-Allen and Are You Really Listening?: Keys to
Successful Communication (Sorin Books, 2005), by Paul J. Donoghue, Ph.D., and Mary E. Siegel. Neither of these are
“business” books, but both deal effectively with one of the most neglected aspects of becoming a top salesperson.
Questions and questioning has come to the forefront of sales training especially in the past decade or so. Since the advent of
consultative and solution selling, questions and questioning have become a crucial focus of the sales process. The question of
questions is dealt with in a number of books, but two recent books are OPEN-Question Selling: Unlock Your Customer’s
Need to Close the Sale . . . by Knowing What to Ask and When to Ask (Wiley and Sons, 2007), by Jeff and Val Gee,
and Questions That Sell: The Powerful Process for Discovering What Your Customer Really Wants (AMACOM,
2006), by Paul Cherry, Both books look at various types of questions and how those questions can help you uncover needs
and solutions.
If you make formal presentations—one-on-one or for a group, Terri L. Sjodin addresses creating persuasive presentations in
New Sales Speak: The 9 Biggest Sales Presentation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them (Wiley and Sons, 2006). Going
beyond simply how to make a solid presentation, Sjodin combines persuasive selling techniques with a quality, entertaining,
and effective presentation. Presented on a level even new salespeople can appreciate and benefit from.
Another book dealing with group presentations but that is useful for one-on-one presentations as well is The Exceptional
Presenter: A Proven Formula to Open Up and Own the Room (Greenleaf Book Group Press, 2007), by Timothy J.
Koegel. Short, crisp, focused chapters hit all the main points of making a presentation for any size group--1 to 1,000.
Persuasion: With the proliferation of question based and needs analysis selling processes, the art of persuasion can be easily
overlooked. Yet, persuasion is still at the center of selling. Dave Lakhani’s Persuasion: The Art of Getting What You Want
(Wiley and Sons, 2005), discusses persuasion in the context of selling and marketing. Lakhani has an excellent discussion of the
difference between manipulation and persuasion.
A key book on persuasion, yet, unlike many “key” books, is quite readable, is Robert B. Cialdini’s, Influence: The
Psychology of Persuasion (Collins, 2006). Cialdini, a psychologist and professor of psychology at Arizona State University,
approaches persuasion as a science rather than a learned art. Despite the scientific nature of the discussion, Cialdini presents
real world examples of the science of persuasion in action.
Public Relations: Public Relations is probably the least used resource by salespeople, professionals, and small business
owners which is unfortunate since PR can be one of the most powerful tools in your marketing toolbox. Although PR isn’t
marketing or advertising, it is a very close cousin.
A good basic introduction to PR is Public Relations for Dummies (For Dummies, 2006), by Eric Yaverbaum and Robert
Bly. Although written for small companies, the information is appropriate for individual salespeople and professionals.
Salespeople and professionals can avail themselves of the power of PR techniques and strategies in the same manner as a
company. After all, a salesperson or a professional is a company of one and has the same needs as any other company,
including exposure.
Another excellent resource although not strictly a PR resource is The Brand Called YOU: The Ultimate Brand-Building
and Business Development Handbook to Transform Anyone into an Indispensable Personal Brand (Peter Montoya
Publishing, 2005), by Peter Montoya and Tim Vandehay. The Brand Called YOU is more about positioning within the
marketplace than PR, but it goes hand-in-hand with PR. Although it tends to push Montoya’s products and services a little
too much, if you ignore the self-promotion angle (he is simply building his brand), the content is excellent and very applicable
for most salespeople.
From the Jay Conrad Levinson “Guerrilla” series is Guerrilla Publicity: Hundreds of Sure-Fire Tactics to Get Maximum
Sales for Minimum Dollars (Adams Media Corp, 2002), by Jay Conrad Levinson, Rick Frishman and Jill Lublin. As with all
Guerrilla books, this work concentrates on showing ways to generate quickly and inexpensively the positive publicity you seek.
Easy to read, easy to implement. In addition, Rick Frishman and Jill Lublin have assembled a number of good publicity
resources including articles and links to PR useful directories and lists at www.guerrillapublicity.com.
Handling Objections and Closing: This is an area where much of the best material has been written by household names
like Brian Tracy, Zig Zigler, and Tom Hopkins. There are, however, some works worth considering outside of those written
by the men above.
How to Close Every Sale (Business Plus, 2002) by Joe Girard, Robert L. Shook, and Robert Casemore, takes a very
traditional approach to the problems of overcoming objections and closing sales. The book discusses when to use
high-pressure closing techniques, how to make a customer feel obligated to purchase, as well as other “old school” selling
tactics. This is a good resource for those comfortable with traditional closing methods.
Dr. Tony Alessandra, Phil Wexler and Rick Barrara, in Non-Manipulative Selling (Fireside, 1992), take the opposite
approach from the traditional methods of closing a sale. Closing is not the war, the manipulative power struggle envisioned by
traditional closing techniques; rather it is a mutual coming to agreement, a meeting of the minds. Their methods rely on gaining
rapport and a basis for clear communication and understanding. Closing has more to do with relationships than with selling,
with developing long-term clients than one-time customers.
Also in the vein of the anti-traditional closing advocate is Keith Rosen’s Complete Idiot’s Guide to Closing (Penguin, 2007).
Like Alessandra, et al, Rosen rejects traditional closing and seeks to find a method bringing the sale to a close through a
well-prepared presentation that anticipates and eliminates objections. Rosen does present methods to closing the sale, but
they are mutual agreement methods as opposed to high-pressure tactics.
Not necessarily geared toward overcoming objections in the traditional sense, Dave Anderson’s How to Deal with Difficult
Customers: 10 Simple Strategies for Selling to the Stubborn, Obnoxious and Belligerent (Wiley and Sons, 2006) fits in
this category in the sense you have to be able to overcome the obnoxious customer before you can sell. Of course, this could
have just as easily been included in the interpersonal relationship category below, but since the obnoxious or belligerent
prospect objects to the entire sales process, it’s the ultimate objection to overcome. Anderson gives solid, well thought-out
advice on how to handle the most difficult of customers.
Negotiating: Few salespeople are free of needing to negotiate during the course of their careers. In fact, whether you realize
it or not, you are constantly negotiating--with your prospects and clients, with your spouse, with your kids, with life. In order
to succeed, you must learn at least the basics of negotiating. Here are four excellent introductions:
Roger Dawson addresses negotiating specifically for salespeople in Secrets of Power Negotiating for Salespeople: Inside
Secrets from a Master Negotiator (Career Press, 2001). Dawson has developed a reputation as one of the top negotiation
trainers in the country and has written several books on negotiation and persuasion. His web site www.rdawson.com offers a
number of additional articles and audio resources.
Negotiation Boot Camp: How to Resolve Conflict, Satisfy Customers and Make Better Decisions (Currency, 2006), by
Ed Brodow is a basic introduction to negotiation for all aspects of life, including business and sales.
Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In (Penguin, 1991), written by Robert Fisher, William L Ury and
Bruce Patton is considered a classic in basic negotiation skills, as is Getting Past No (Bantam, 1993), again by William L.
Ury.
Customer Service/Customer Retention: Customer service is no longer just customer service. Today it may go by
customer service, the customer experience, the service experience, or any one of several other names, but it still comes down
to satisfying and retaining customers and clients.
For the individual salesperson, professional, and small business owner, customer service and retention is more crucial than for
the large corporation. Salespeople and professionals feel deeply the loss of each individual customer. The financial
reverberations are far greater losing one of a dozens or hundreds than losing one of tens of thousands or millions. Yet, few
books on customer service cater to the individual salesperson and professional. Authors tend to focus on corporate customer
service because most customer service authors come from corporate marketing and customer service departments.
However, Ron Zemke in Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service (American Management Association, 2002) goes
straight to the heart of customer service for the salesperson. An excellent starting point for taking stock of your personal
customer service practices, this book is easy to read and the strategies easy to apply.
Also written for individual salespeople and professionals is Matt Oechsli’s The Art of Selling to the Affluent: How to
Attract, Service, and Retain Wealthy Customers and Clients for Life (Wiley, 2004). Although concentrating on the
affluent market (Oeschli is a columnist for Registered Rep magazine), the strategies and techniques in the book are applicable
to all salespeople and professionals. A little “heavier” read than Zemke’s book, it is still a fine starting point for anyone seeking
to improve his or her service and customer retention.
Customer Service Training 101: Quick and Easy Techniques That Get Great Results (AMACOM, 2005), by Renee
Evenson is just that—a collection of quick and easy to implement customer service techniques. This is a good, quick “idea”
book.
Geared specifically to the corporate reader but with information relevant to the individual practitioner is Customer Loyalty:
How to Earn It, How to Keep It (Jossey-Bass, 2002), by Jill Griffin. A more difficult read than those above simply because
the focus is on an organization, not an individual’s service. Nevertheless, if you are looking for some advanced service theory
and techniques, Griffin’s book is a good introduction.
Interpersonal Relationships: Improving your interpersonal relationship skills can be a daunting task. We often think that
our ability to relate has been developed and set—no change is possible. We are either good at relating to people or we
aren’t. Not only is this view wrong, it holds many back from taking the necessary steps to improve their relationship skills.
Listed below are a few books that can quickly boost or improve your ability to relate to others—not only at work, but in all of
your relationships.
Don’t be misled by the title of How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships (McGraw-Hill,
2003), by Leil Lawndes. The book is about verbal communication as the title implies, but it goes beyond verbal
communication and offers great techniques for improving your ability to relate on several levels.
In addition, a quick and easy read is How Full is Your Bucket: Positive Strategies for Work and Life (Gallup Press, 2004).
Written by Donald O. Clifton and Tom Rath, a father and son team, the book looks at how your relationships and attitudes can
have a positive or negative impact on both you and your client and gives techniques to help you make your relationships
positive for both parties.
Reading your prospect or client can help you know both where you stand in the sales process and where your relationship is
headed. You Can Read Anyone (Viter Press, 2007), by Dr. David J. Lieberman gives a process to “read” your prospect.
According to Lieberman, the process can accurately read when the prospect is lying and what their level of interest is in what
you are saying, as well as their level of interest in the product or service you are offering. He also discusses the decision
making process in terms of the psychology of the sale. Helpful and something your competitors are not likely to read.
For the past decade, emotional intelligence has steadily grown as an accepted concept in psychology. Daniel Goleman who
first articulated the concept has written a number of books on the concept, but his first book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It
Can Matter More Than IQ (Bantam, 2006), has recently been updated. His thesis that we have two types of intelligence,
rational and emotional, and that emotional intelligence is far more crucial to success is grounded in psychological research,
making the book far more than light reading. Be that as it may, the concepts can have significant impact on your interpersonal
relationships. If you are just beginning to study relationships, don’t jump in with this book—start with one of the works above.
However, once you get a little grounding in the basic interpersonal relationship area, this should be on your list.
The classic of all interpersonal classics is Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People (Pocket, 1998). Some
have passed on reading this because they misinterpret the title. If you are one, don’t let the title fool you. Carnegie goes far
beyond how to meet someone and become friends, his work deals with developing deep, lasting relationships with people on
all levels.
Marketing: Marketing is a big and complex subject. Having a basic understanding of the principles of marketing is
necessary if you really want to tackle sophisticated and effective marketing methodologies. You certainly don’t need to
become a marketing guru, but you do need to understand the basic concepts.
Earlier in Keys 4 and 5, we discussed creating a marketing plan that included identifying your marketing channels and
marketing methods. We have also reviewed a number of those methods. Yet, marketing is more than simply identifying
channels and methods. The works listed below will give an introduction to the concepts of marketing and marketing research,
as well as some very practical applications.
A very basic grounding in marketing can be gained quickly with Alexander Hiam’s Marketing Kit for Dummies (For
Dummies, 2004). From marketing metrics, to marketing research, to implementation, Hiam sets out the basics of marketing in
a logical, easy to understand format. It is a very practical and good introduction to the concepts of marketing.
A more academic treatment of basic marketing is What is Marketing (Harvard Business School Press, 2006). Edited by a
professor of marketing at Harvard, with each chapter written by a Harvard marketing professor, the book follows the syllabus
of the first year Harvard MBA marketing course. Certainly more theory and more weighty than Hiam’s book, What is
Marketing is still a workable introduction to marketing for any salesperson, professional, or business owner.
Moving from theory back to the very practical is Jay Conrad Levinson and Seth Godin’s The Guerrilla Marketing
Handbook (Houghton Mifflin, 1994). This book is what Levinson is known for—all guerrilla techniques to help you get your
marketing out in as inexpensive, yet as effective a manner as possible. The bonus is you get wisdom not just from Levinson,
the king of guerrilla marketing, but also from Godin, one of the demi-gods of traditional corporate marketing.
Another classic of marketing and important for any salesperson or professional engaged in marketing themselves and their
business is The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk (HarperBusiness, 1994), by Al Ries
and Jack Trout. Targeted at the corporate marketer, the 22 laws discussed by Ries and Trout have as much impact on the
individual practitioner as they do on the major corporation, just on a smaller scale.
Internet marketing: It is not a surprise to anyone that the Internet is increasingly becoming more important to everyone
involved in sales. Each year the number of people who are using the Internet to research products, services, companies, and
even salespeople is increasing dramatically. Almost every company and each individual salesperson needs a presence on the
Internet.
However, the Internet is a very difficult medium to master. Internet marketing is not like traditional off-line marketing. It’s an
animal unlike any other marketing method you may use.
Consequently, you need some basic direction and training in developing your Internet presence. More than any other area of
marketing training, finding good, realistic, workable information on effectively using the Internet is difficult.
The Internet is filled with rip-off artists promising everything from becoming a millionaire virtually overnight to driving tens of
thousands of “hot” buyers to your website. All you have to do to succeed beyond your wildest dreams, they promise, is buy
their grossly overpriced programs.
Fortunately, there are some people who do have legitimate information that will help you get your feet in the Internet door.
You will not get rich. You will not even make much, if anything, from your website. However, you will have the necessary
presence you need to make your statement. A word of warning about the authors of Internet marketing—they are markers,
meaning you will find a great deal of promotion of their products and services.
Matt Bacak’s The Ultimate Lead Generation Plan (Morgan James Publishing, 2005) gives a basic understanding of how t
develop a website, how to generate to a list of potential prospects using subscription based newsletters and giveaways, and
how to manage your site. Directed at on-line marketers, the information is still quite helpful for those simply seeking to create
an on-line presence.
Again, directed at the serious on-line business, not the salesperson seeking an on-line presence, is How to Use the Internet to
Advertise, Promote and Market Your Business or Web Site with Little or No Money (Atlantic Publishing Company, 2006),
by Bruce C. Brown. Like Bacak’s, Brown’s book has some excellent basic material even if you are not seeking to be the next
Internet multi-millionaire.
A book that is targeted to traditional offline businesses is The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases,
Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly (Wiley and Sons, 2007), by David
Meerman Scott. Scott’s focus is how any offline business, including individual salespeople and professionals, can use the tools
offered by the Internet to connect directly with the members of their niche markets, offering not sales hype but real information
to connect with them and capture their business. Not as basic in terms of the “how” of the Internet as the two books above, it
focuses more on the other tools associated with the Internet and the message you communicate to visitors.
Citizen Marketers: When People are the Message (Kaplan Business, 2006), by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba, explores
the impact the Internet and its use by consumers is having on business. From blogs and podcasts promoting or damning
products or companies, to Internet petitions, consumers are shaping the messages and the destinies of companies of all sizes.
McConnell and Huba give example after example of how companies—and you—can profit from or fall victim to the citizen
marketer.
The above list of books and Internet resources is by no means complete (let me also point out that many of the books above
are available in audio format and many of the authors offer seminars, CD’s and other materials at their web sites). It is simply
a starting point to explore the various aspects of selling, marketing, and relating to your prospects and customers.
Nevertheless, to one extent or another, you must have some mastery of each area.
Many of the resources you may already be familiar with; others, since they are not “business” or “sales” resources, may not
have come to your attention yet. All present value, but those that are most valuable to you will be the ones that speak to one
of your strong skill areas where you can hone your skills even more, or that speak to one of the areas where you need to do
serious work.
The question is not whether you are familiar with the resources or even if these particular resources can benefit you. The real
question is where do you need to begin your self-training program right this minute? Which areas do you need to focus on that
will immediately improve you skills and your income? Then, once you have determined that, what are you going to do about
it?
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