Problem Prospecting?! Book Review

📅  26th June 2021 | 2020/21 Sales Book Reviews

“If you decided to move forward with us, what would be the reasons?”

At only ten quid for the paperback edition, Problem Prospecting is one of the best “how to” books on sales prospecting. The three authors, Stuart Taylor, Richard Smith and Mark Ackers all hold senior positions at Refract a sales technology company based in the North East of England – their CEO gives them all (well you wouldn’t you) glowing testimonials in the book’s preface.  Read on….

What’s New

It was refreshing to read the Introduction. None of the usual ‘me, me, me’ stuff one associates with some authors. Instead there was a solid explanation of  how and why Problem Prospecting?! was self published in November 2020 – right in the middle of the pandemic. Interestingly, the reader is told that sales training, or how to make a cold call was never taught to the authors, such a difference from when I first entered the world of B2B sales!

The very first chapter outlines in simple language how to find your Ideal Customer Profile or ICP – and how to get to them! There’s no lengthy explanations about decades old sales methodologies just straight forward advice from the sales coalface.

The fourth chapter, in my opinion, is the books finest. Over thirty pages of what to say, to whom and when. The key point here is that a cold call is a massive pattern interrupter – so when one finally gets through to the right person, what you say has got to be on the money.

With Linked-In nowadays being many sales professionals ‘go to’ resource to find new prospects, it was good to see not one but two chapters on getting the very best out of that platform – although one needs to pay for ‘Sales Navigator’ to access many of the features shown.

What’s Old

It’s right there slap bang in the middle of Page 50. The phrase “Why cold calling isn’t dead” stands out like a sore thumb. How many times have we seen or heard this over the years? Bucket-loads. There’s no criticism here at all – I totally agree with the authors viewpoint. Picking up the phone and saying something of note to an ICP can be the quickest way of doing business.

The old chestnut of getting past the gatekeeper gets a worthy mention. I really liked the authors retort to “It’s our company policy not to give out names” (usually in an officious and pompous tone).

What’s Better

If you’ve ever struggled to leave a compelling voice-message with a prospect, then you’ll appreciate what highlighted in Chapter Six – but you must , first of all, learn the dynamics of prospecting. Calling too soon, too often or with information overload can turn off prospects. PP shows you how to balance your approach but understanding your prospecting cadence. The passage on sequencing explains everything.

I would have liked to have seen the section on video prospecting to have been more detailed. The skill of selling yourself by video (whether by video e-mail or via platforms such as Zoom) takes much practice and a great deal of skill and preparation. This new-ish route to market will be a part of the professional salespersons armoury for some considerable time to come. And although it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, we owe it to ourselves to be as good as we can be!

What’s Worse

At first glance, this book looks like a typical ‘cheapish’ looking self-published sales book – but it clearly isn’t. The content of PP is superb and one for those in their twenties and early thirties endeavouring to make it up the greasy sales pole.

The reverse cover on my copy of PP has blurry text – not at all a good look. There’s also no bibliography or notes section. There’s a ton of publications on cold calling and prospecting and these could have provided a foundation for a couple of pages of titles for ‘recommended reading’.

Maybe a second edition could be published with the improvements mentioned above.

 

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Tags: cold calling, sales training

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