Book Description

Sales legend Bill Cates uses his experience and expert knowledge to show sales professionals how to work smarter (not harder) by employing "The Four Cornerstones of Referrals" --relationship building and customer service, creating referral alliances and networks, prospecting, and targeting niche markets. Using Cates's easy-to-master referral-based selling techniques, readers:

• Work less and earn more by getting existing customers to work for them generating high-quality referrals
• Turn every business contact into a relationship and every relationship into a sales success story

Reviews (8)

Thumbs up!
"Get More Referrals Now" offers practical techniques on how to meet qualified prospects. It has had a measurable impact helping us identify new business relationships and increase revenue. I highly recommend this book.

Buy this book now!
This straightforward and down-to-earth book provided me with the strategic advice I needed on how to change the way I do business, and it's made all the difference in generating quality leads that produce faster and easier sales. There's no mumbo-jumbo; just great ideas you can put to use right away.

Every chapter has real-life examples of Bill's concepts in action, and there's absolutely no doubt in my mind anyone looking to grow their business should read this book. With the results I've gotten I consider Bill a silent partner in my business, and I constantly refer back to this book when I have a problem to solve or need a new idea.

Buy this book now!

Your #1 Marketing Strategy
Almost everyone in business will acknowledge that the best way to gain new business is through referrals. Bill explains in easy-to-understand terms exactly how to transform your existing customers and clients into your business advocates. Most importantly, Bill shows us how to accomplish this without fear and in a manner that actually strengthens your customer relationships. This book is not just for sales people either, anyone in the organization that interacts with your customers should read this book.

Great book with many applications
This is a great book, and a wonderful sales tool. I personally believe that relationships are the key to success; especially job-hunting success, which this book is fully applicable. The reason is simple, when you are job hunting you are selling yourself, and you need referrals since most jobs are filled because someone knew someone. This book will help you get you the referrals necessary to land a great job. If you need job ideas you may want to invest in "How to find your dream job and make it a reality: solutions for a rewarding and meaningful career" by Jason McClure.

If you are job seeker Jason's book makes a wonderful companion to this book. If you are not job seeker, than this book stands on its own merit. Invest in this book today and you will not regret it.

The Perfect Sales Guide
This book is considered one of the best books in business, for many reasons. The subject itself (sales & marketing field) suggests a smart choice from the author working on the right track, that all businesses need this book and this subject either to fix their sales practices (if they aren't achieving targets) or to improve them (if they are achieving them).
Authors (W. R. Cates, Bill Cates) could successfully deliver and represent their practical experience in a simple, straight forward, to the point, attractive language to the audience to make the best use of the scientific material in the book.
As the title suggests, the book emphasizes on The Four Cornerstones That Turn Business Relationships Into Gold. The subject sounds redundant at first sight, but actually the treatement is new and different. The idea concentrates on the quality, not the quantity (how to work smarter, not harder and how to work less and earn more). The book is really good and going to help you alot no doubt. ... Read more

Reviews (14)

Diagnose Before You Prescribe
The concepts contained in this book are not new. Their presentation, however, is.

The authors outline why people buy -- and when and from whom. It should be required reading prior to the creation of any business plan. Although the word "selling" in the title, but this book more of a business manual is a really a business book more than it is a sales manual.

There are no clever opening lines, or guaranteed PowerPoint templates. If you spend time with the book you will gain much more-an understanding of what you sell, to whom you should be selling it and where to go to find them.If your managers read it, they will develop a new a concept of how to message and manage their sales process.

Bosworth and Holland believe customer centric selling contains seven basic concepts:
1. Sales are based on conversations, not presentations.
2. Asking relevant questions versus rendering opinions.
3. Solutions rather than relationships earn buyers' respect.
4. Target businesspeople versus users.
5. Sell usage, not reliance.
6. Salespeople manage managers rather than needing to be managed.
7. Enable buyers rather than selling them.

Managers and Salespeople who spent time with this book will add value to their organizations. If you are responsible for moving product, this book is a must read.

Long awaited & satisfies!
I successfully relied on Mike Bosworth's methodology for decades as I sold "disruptive" technologies. Now a Sales and Marketing EVP, my staff, I and our customers are ready for a change.

The people who make the buy decisions now, the motivations, and every stage of the process has shifted. Buyers are more savvy. This is both a plus (it's no longer disruptive technology, but core) and a negative (because they've been burned).

These changes are met head-on in this book with practical advice that can be implemented immediately from my newbies to my seasoned reps and marketers. I'm making this text required reading for my whole staff. It helps us migrate from traditional marketing and selling to what works in today's more sophisticated environment.

Must-read for all sales & marketing people
When you know you're good and want to learn how to become great, drop what you're doing now and read this book. Co-authors Holland and Boswoth pull you up by the shorthairs to show you how to excel.

Refreshing approach to complex sales
In this book you can find a refreshing approach in order to create new opportunities to sell.
Showing how to detect the capabilities your current prospect needs in order to reach his goals you can advance in the sales process without the pain and stress that all profesional sales people suffer.
The steps that Customer Centric Selling offer can help you to clarify your real chances to close a deal and this way focus your time, efforts and resources in the prospect where you can add more value.

Required reading for execs
As reviewed in our January 6, 2004 issue:

Let's cut to the chase: This is the best book on sales we've read in many, many years.

"CustomerCentric Selling" doesn't break new ground with sales tricks and techniques; rather, its strength is in the fact that it ties sales, marketing, and business imperatives together in a way that has the potential to turn conventional selling approaches on their collective ears.

In fact, there's a bit of a paradox here: If you're a dyed-in-the-wool software sales rep with a quota to meet or beat, you may be disappointed in this book, because you won't find any magic bullets you can employ to meet your month-end number.

If you are that beleaguered sales rep, you may even find yourself annoyed with Bosworth and Holland, because their message is that your obsession with quotas is misguided. That's easy for them to say, right? They don't have a sales VP banging them on the head every Monday morning.

But that's exactly the point: If you're that rep, get your sales VP to read "CustomerCentric Selling" Better yet, get the company's CEO, CFO, COO, CTO, VP marketing, investors, and board of directors to read it.

"CustomerCentric Selling" does such a superb job of outlining why people buy -- and when and from whom -- it should be required reading prior to the creation of any business plan.

Yes, it has the word "selling" in the title, but this book is a really a business book more than it is a sales manual.

Bosworth and Holland won't give you 15 clever opening lines for telesales, or 12 terrific PowerPoint templates. But they will help you understand what it is that you're selling, whom you should be selling it to, where you should find them, and how you can refine and manage the messaging as well as the sales process.

In other words: Read this book when you're ready to stop screwing around. Read this book when you've realized that selling to early adopters isn't really selling, it's order-taking. Read this book if you're tired of acting as referee between marketing and sales.

Although "CustomerCentric Selling" isn't written specifically to software people, the fact that the authors have spent most of their lives with technology companies permeates every page. Because it applies a sales perspective to Geof Moore's chasm concepts, the relevance for software companies is very high indeed. ... Read more

Book Description

A 6 volume audio cassette program based on the popular book Successful Cold Call Selling, published by Amacom, the book publishing division of the American Management Association.Making unsolicited calls to strangers is a frightening thought to many; few do it well. This program will help you to quickly gain confidence and skills when approaching new prospects either by phone or in person. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Phenomenal coaching from a real-life sales superstar !
First of all, my career background touches
many fields, such as computers, internet,
customer service, sales, telemarketing,
insurance, finance, telecommunications
and so on.

In a previous existence or job, I handled
thousands of outbound sales calls, mixed
with inbound, as well.

I've done veyr well well in my field, but also,
I've witnessed some sales superstars with equal
and sometimes, even better sales experience and
results than my own.

Reading the 260 pages of this book, by Mr Lee Boyan,
I have to admit this man is the right man to coach
veteran and newbie sales reps alike.

The door-to-door selling, or in personal sales,
coupled with telemarketing or outbound sales,
advice is obviously, plainly based in reality.

Frequently, the advice he gives, I find I've been
practicing many of those points all along, by
learning through my own mistakes, but also, by
knowing what worked the best, and by natural talent,
and also, by picking up from co-workers.

The bottom line, is that this book will easily FINE-TUNE
your own techniques, approaches. It will inform you
of new skills, perhaps you've never used in a job
situation (either on the phone, or in person, or
setting appointments). It will make you realize of many
small tricksyou felt were "your own" but actually, are
techniques all pros should be using, all the time, on
the job.

This book was written 1983, and then revised in 1989,
yet it feels like it was written this year !!!

That's how good it is.

Selling techniques over the phone, etc.
The author did a very good job of sticking to his objective of only teaching you cold calling techniques; that is, techniques to get the appointment, not techniques on how to sell once you got that appointment. He had many, many good ideas; some of which I learned, some of which I knew but had to be reminded of. I would recommend his book to anyone wanting to do a better job at cold call prospecting. The one big negative I would say about this book is that he took too many pages to get his points across, much too verbose.I got tierd of reading it, and kept telling myself, OK, when is he going to get to the point.Other than that, I would highly recommend the book.

Learn how to prospect
Boyan's book is essentially a book about prospecting and turning those prospects into appointments with potential customers.He teaches readers to present themselves as problem solvers to potential customers' concerns.The emphasis throughout the book is placed on the customers.Boyan devotes a chapter to customer psychology and gives consideration to the reasons why customers make purchasing decisions.Although somewhat simplified, his suggestion for addressing a customer's concern by paraphrasing it so the customer feels like you understand him, and then offering a solution can be used in a number of ways to persuade customers to make an appointment with you.The only problem is he only presents one way to address a customer's concerns and pretty soon the customer catches on to your technique and stops listening to you.But still I recommend it.It's worth [the price], and the techniques presented in this book have lead me to make appointments with customers that eventually lead to $5,000 aluminum siding sales, $8,000 kitchen remodeling sales, and $4,000 windows sales. ... Read more

Book Description

Changing mortgage rates and fluctuating home values can create uncertainty when making an important real estate transaction. This completely revised bestseller includes new material on mortgages, searching for a home on the Internet, listing a home on-line, techniques for making your offer attractive, and understanding all the paperwork during the transaction. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Great, great, great. Very insightful, useful and compelling
A little simplistic at times (which is both good and bad), but absolutely right on target. I learned a ton that I have put to good use right away. It's even better on the second playing. A definite winner.

A copy for every employee-- especially SALES people.
Take the three-hundred odd pages of Cialdini's exceptional book "Influence" and distill them onto two cassettes that can be heard in total over two days on the way to work. Make certain that there are compelling stories and dialogue for each of his six principles of influence. And you have a tool that I have seen improve the performance of sales professionals and give them a deeper understanding of why people say "yes" and how to help them say "yes" MORE in an ethical and non-manipulative manner that will enhance their self concept as well as their income. Dean Minuto, Teligent Corporation, Training and Consulting ... Read more

Book Description

Robert Irwin, a name synonymous with reliability to homeowners, has done it again with his completely updated version of a classic. Tips and Traps When Selling a Home provides the latest information of market conditions, toxic materials in the home and what to do about them, tax advantages when selling, surprising alternatives to the traditional broker, and how to ultimately get your price. For anyone in the process of selling their home, this book is the blueprint for a successful transaction! ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Good advice, but outdated on taxes
This book provides well-written and well-presented advice on home selling. You can read chapters in detail, or just skim for the "tips" and "traps" notes. Irwin is agnostic about FSBO vs. real estate agents --- he provides advice for both situations, and guidance on how to decide which way to go.

Be wary, however, of following the tax advice in this book. It was written in 1990, and tax laws have changed considerably since then. Find another source for real estate tax advice. ... Read more