Sales Tips >> Browse Articles >> Sales Calls
Sales Tips >> Browse Articles >> Sales Tips
Book Review: Sales Essentials by Stephan Schiffman
Featured Author:
Paul McCord
Author, speaker, trainer, consultant, and one of the country’s leading authorities on prospecting, referral generation, and personal marketing, Paul McCord has had a distinguished career in teaching, sales, sales training, and sales management. A magna cum laude graduate of Texas A&M University, Commerce, with graduate studies at Texas Christian University in Ft. Worth, Paul began his career teaching literature at his alma mater. Though he enjoyed the challenge of teaching, his competitive nature lead him to the business world where he could more fully utilize his selling and training talents.
Paul’s Sales and Sales Management Blog is regularly picked up in syndication by Fox Business News, Nielsen Business Media, Hoovers, Reuters and other major business and industry sites.
More articles from this author:
Paul McCord
If you’re a Stephen Schiffman fan, you’ll love his new book, Sales Essentials (Adams Media, 2008). However, if you’re looking for anything other than the most basic of old school sales information you’ll be very disappointed.
Schiffman’s book is concerned with exactly what the title of the book states—the most basic essentials of selling–as practiced old school 70’s and 80’s style.
The basic premise of the book is stated at the very beginning of the first chapter–cold calling is the heart and soul of successful selling and to be successful in sales you must master the techniques and strategies of effective cold calling.
As a cold calling training expert, Schiffman spends the first third of the book setting the stage and training on how to cold call. The remainder of the book is a collection of short chapters on various aspects of what to do after the appointment has been set, how to make a presentation, overcome objections, close a sale, and effectively use email.
Although over 350 pages long, it is written in short, staccato chapters. It’s an easy read, demands little of the reader, and the short chapters make it ideal for squeezing in some training time during short breaks or at odd moments.
The biggest disappointment in the book is its lack of fleshing out the principles taught. Examples are given throughout the book, however each chapter is so short the content is truncated, forcing the reader to do a considerable amount of reading between the lines—something a new salesperson would be hard pressed to do unless they already knew the information being presented.
For the new salesperson or those who are simply trying to figure out how to generate some immediate business, Sales Essentials is a book that can provide the basis to help get some sales in the door. That being said, it would probably be more helpful to purchase a book—more realistically books—that offer a more detailed analysis of each step of the sales process.
And if your career is past the “what is cold calling” stage, you’ll be better off seeking a more advanced text.
chdeal
10 months ago
14 comments
I am currently reading this book. This is my first year in sales with no prior skills. I looked around the bookstore and found a few reasonably priced books for the amount and range of information that they held. After reading the first chapter I dropped the other books I bought. I would recommend this book to anyone who is in the early stages of sales or who is not getting the results they need with their sales calls. The book does make things sound simple and is not directed at any one type of sale but the guidlines work. I am already setting appointments.