Success. The best of Napoleon Hill, Patricia G Horan

Published by Vermillion

Buy it now from Blackwell Books

Updated guide from the master

Napoleon Hill was the granddaddy of the personal success movement. An international best-selling author, his books have never been out of print and many, if not most, of today’s personal development gurus owe their incomes to his ideas.

Patricia Horan has combined several of Napoleon’s winning formulae to produce seventeen ‘key laws of success’. Oh well, it makes a change from the more usual seven laws/habits/strategies of this and that.

There is nothing new in this book, but the old ideas are somewhat refreshed by the attentions of a 21st century eye. A useful addition for a collector of such ‘wisdom’ and a very good introduction for someone new to the field, it contains such hardy perennials as
• The Master Mind – group effort outpulls solo slogging
• Having a goal – if you don’t know where you are going …
• Imagination – the starting point for everything
• Overdelivering – surprise and delight your customers
• Learning from your mistakes – failure is the best teacher
• And a lot more.

I must say I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and I think it makes a worthy companion to the Master’s ‘Think and Grow Rich’.

Cold Calling for Chickens. Bob Etherington

Published by Cyan Books (Marshall Cavendish)

Buy it now from Blackwell Books

Something for the coward in all of us!

Have you ever had to make a business call absolutely cold? It sends shivers down the spines of otherwise fearless salespeople and causes fainting fits among sales trainees.

Well, Bob Etherington has been doing it for years and he knows all about the fear and how to handle it. Notice ‘handle’ not ‘eliminate’. The great strength of this book is that it allows you to remain a chicken and still succeed.

According to Bob, 85% of business goes to the 5% of people who know the secret of successful cold calling. Which makes this a very important book indeed.

Having established that we are to remain ‘chicken’ the author begins the process of showing us how to use our fears to make us ‘one of the best’ in the cold calling field. He does this by first ‘marking out the chicken run’; showing how to figure out what works best for your product or service and how to be convincing on the telephone.

The next section of the book is called ‘The big secret of successful chickens’ and here he reveals how we can get everything we desire in life. Mr E is deadly serious about the ‘everything’ bit and I have to say he makes a very convincing argument for his system.

The final two sections are concerned with persuasion and how to hang on to your customers – and keep them buying.

Part sales training, part personal development, all fascinating and could change your life (in a positive way!). I think you should probably buy it – especially if you are in sales or run your own business.