Sales Tips & Resources

The objective of this section is to provide you with sales tips (selling tips), links to websites, documents that can be downloaded as well as lists and other information we think would be worth your time to peruse.  Please let us know about any sales resources you know about that you think other sales professionals would find interesting and/or helpful.

Check back to this page often as we are adding more resources to make you more effective in the pursuit of your financial goals each month.

Newsletter Archives:

We publish a monthly email sales newsletter that is sent through a service called Constant Contact.  Our objective is to help you increase your sales and selling skills through tips and ideas for both sales management and direct selling that you can apply to your selling environment. 

Please click here to find an archive of newsletters beginning with the January 2007 issue.  We’ll be adding the earlier issues as time permits.  If you’d like copies of any of those newsletters published prior to that (2004, 2005, and 2006), let us know and we’ll send them directly to you.

If you’re not a current subscriber, click below on the sign-up box on the left hand side of this panel below and you’ll be directed to a form to sign up.

CPG Sales Whitepapers:  

Available for download (click on the name of the White Paper):

Is Cold Calling Really Dead?  Searching for the elusive ‘Silver Bullet’

If you (or your team) are responsible for creating new business with new customers, even finding new business within existing accounts by picking up the phone and making a call, this paper is for you.  It is targeted at senior management and will provide insight into the challenge and the potential solutions including art (skills), science (mechanics and tools) and best practices.  It will also help you understand why Barry Caponi and the Caponi Performance Group are recognized as one of the leading experts on the topic.

Available by request:

The Appointment Making Formula™ Four Steps to More Effective Appointment Making

This White Paper is the companion piece targeted at first line management and those who must make the calls.  And although we can’t provide you the exact wording to use when trying to set appointments, we can provide a proven template, or what we call a formula to follow which will improve your results for the entire process.  If after reading the first White Paper, you’d like to see how we suggest you actually go about the process of setting appointments, we’ll send you this paper that outlines the solution, The Appointment Making Formula™.

If you would like to request a copy of The Appointment Making Formula™ Four Steps to More Effective Appointment Making, please click here and you will be taken to a sign-up page to order a copy.   

Downloadable CPG Documents:

Workshop Details

Workshop Descriptions – The following documents contain detailed workshop descriptions including a syllabus for each of the three main workshops we currently offer. 

Tools for Prospecting and Appointment Setting:

We currently have a number of resources available regarding the prospecting, or appointment setting process.  These tools are designed to complement and leverage the ‘Art’ we supply to help you become more efficient at the most  critical stage of the buying cycle – the beginning.

Activity Calculator – (Updated Jan. 2009 - New, Improved Features) This pre-formatted spreadsheet was designed in conjunction with Contact Science, one of our selling partners.  Its main purpose is to help sales management (or individual sales professionals) set prospecting goals, play ‘what-if’ games with those numbers and the related ratios between them.  It is also capable of quantitatively determining the number of actual leads a sales professional can handle in a given year.  It comes complete with instructions on how to use it.

Maximizing ROI on Appointment Making Training – This is a short White Paper describing specialized automation available for the appointment setting process.  It discusses how using ‘Science’ (Klpz) can help manage the ongoing appointment setting challenge, how tools can help in that process and how to figure an ROI on appointment setting ‘Art’.

Other Helpful Sales Website Links:

Recommended Books and CDs on Sales:

(All books may be ordered below at the bottom of this page.)

We use strategies, techniques and methods from all of these different books in our workshops, so although we don’t necessarily agree with everything in these books and CDs, there is very good information in them all.

We do not agree with how Keith handles the call itself, but his discussion of the topic, preparation, tools, etc., are worth the read.

Along with Stephan Schiffman’s book, we use a lot of Paul’s techniques in our workshops.

Boylan discusses strategies to apply to the prospecting discipline.  His theories apply particularly to the same territory descriptions as Parinello’s book.  However, they also would apply to larger suspect universes if the average sized sale was worth the upfront research necessary. 

Along with Paul Goldner’s book, we use a lot of Stephan’s techniques.  This book is in its fifth printing with over a million copies sold.

{This is a tough read on how and why people comply with requests (made by anyone, including sales professionals) – order the CD instead from www.influenceatwork.com }

This is the best book on questioning skills we’ve ever read.  We use a lot of Dorothy’s philosophy, stories and techniques.

Spin Selling is a classic selling model that has been around a long time, and for good reason.  We use a lot of Neil’s techniques and approach.

Should be your bible for networking.

A great work on how to build a great service culture.

Chester’s name is synonymous with negotiating.

This book is one of the best 'how to' general management books we've read. He provides great insight, but also practical advice that can be easily implemented. It also has a great chapter on sales effectiveness from an executive's perspective.

 

Order any book below from Amazon Now

Contrary to Popular Belief Cold Calling DOES Work!, Volume I: Effectiveness, The Art of Appointment Making

Contrary to Popular Belief Cold Calling DOES Work!, Volume II: Efficiency, The Science of Appointment Making