PICKUP the PHONE and SELL Book Review

📅  31st October 2021 | 2020/21 Sales Book Reviews

       Calls to people you don’t know create more people that you DO know

An obvious statement by author, Alex Goldfayn . Yet after many decades of cajoling, training and general encouragement from sales mangers to their minions, there are those who still just don’t call enough – bizarre!

A colleague from my early sales days, at the basement in Gray’s Inn Road (in London’s Holborn district for those of you who reside outside the UK) a Mr Dave Bartlett, famously said at a regular Monday morning sales meeting…. “if you throw enough mud at the wall, some of it will stick”. He was, of course at that time, totally correct. The more one made telephone calls, the more one got business. You’ll find out exactly how in this post-pandemic world by buying a copy of Pickup the Phone and Sell.

Read on….

 

What’s New

In my review of Alex’s last book, this section was bereft of content – and with good reason.

There are many sales publications which are a rehash of old ideas and methods. But telephone cold calling (not that there is such a thing really and Alex explains this) will never leave the list of activities for sales people despite the advancement of more modern methods of communication. Being a 2021 publication, PICKUP the PHONE and SELL highlights how Zoom, Teams and the like have altered the landscape of getting in touch with prospective clients. I agree with his sentiments early on in the book. Too many people want the ‘comfort’ of lengthy electronic face-to-face calls rather than just speaking to several prospects on the phone.

And for those of you, like me, who hadn’t considered using a ‘Pomodoro Timer’ – the author explains why you should.

The book has five distinctive sections and encompasses a range of topics including mindset, fear of the phone, and gives the reader some excellent sales scripts to work from.

 

What’s Old

There’s nothing old about using control sheets, either with spreadsheets or with pen or pencil and paper to keep a track of your telephone activity. And there are templates the reader can use and these are set out nicely in section seven of Part One.

Many rookie sales people may be unaware that the sales profession is the rejection profession. Not a wild claim as Alex Goldfayn explains, but a truism. A sales manager of mine once told me that 80% of what I do each day will lead to nothing. Tough words but he was right. On page 107, there is a superb list of collective ‘no’s’ – my favourite is nobody gets told no more than us. “Us” being sales professionals.

The key to success as the author tells us is perseverance which he also describes as a mindset and a behaviour. Learning the right behaviours in sales, as in life is a ‘timeless must’.

What’s Better

I liked the whole structure of the book. It’s bold cover, tips and tactics for using modern technology and way the author defines types of prospects. For example, there are those who you’ve never spoken to before or those who you haven’t spoken to for 6 months and so on. The book explains how you can categorise the various groups, prioritise your calls and shows you what to say and when. Clever stuff.

Perhaps one of the most important things you can do is to call a customer immediately after they’ve bought something from you. This, as I can attest, is a very powerful thing to do. At the very least it proves to the customer that you care – and to a large degree will separate you from many others who just don’t bother. One of my many sales mantras is this one – Sales are never complete until your customer is satisfied.

What’s Worse

Apart from a few Americanisms and a spot of repetition in the early stages of the book, there’s not a lot you can criticise or complain about Alex’s latest publication. If one compares it to more traditional cold calling sales books, then it is certainly up there with all the others.

 

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Tags: cold calling

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