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.

Lend Me Your ears, Professor Max Atkinson

Published by Vermillion (Random House)

Buy it now from Blackwell Books


The best introduction to public speaking

Professor Atkinson is the academic who famously coached a novice speaker to a standing ovation at the 1984 SDP Conference in Britain. Over twenty years later, with this book, he confirms his pre-eminence in the field.

Though the good Professor’s book concentrates on speaking skills, he does examine the differences between writing to speak and writing to read. He breaks down the rhetorical aspects of speaking and explains several clever ways of getting the reaction you want. He also covers body language and his book is sprinkled with exercises to help you comprehend and practice the principles he advocates. A persuasive and very useful work.

But here’s the interesting bit, and one of the reasons I admire this book so much. Like me, Professor Max eschews PowerPoint – at least when used as it seems to have been designed, for a bunch of bullet points. The professor loathes bullet points and wants graphics to be the main use (if use there must be) of PowerPoint. The matter is not as clear cut as one would like, of course; it must be a case of assessing each presentation’s type of support on the merits of the case. In the main though, the less one relies on PowerPoint, the better - say the Professor and me!.

Entertainingly written by a man who clearly understands his topic.