As you might have noticed, I’ve begun shamelessly plugging my new book, "Smart Calling-Eliminate the Fear, Failure, and Rejection from Cold Calling."  In short, it shows you, step-by-step, how to acquire intelligence about prospects, and then how to USE that information in opening statements, voice mails, and questioning to generate interest, build rapport, engage the prospect in a conversation, and then move them to the next step in the sales process.

There is no excuse for anyone to ever place a "cold" call, or to use any of the tired old tactics that actually cause resistance (I go through example after example of these in the book).

Like most others who write books, we want to make a big splash on the release date and get it to the top of the best seller lists on 3/31, so you’ll likely receive an email about it that week from me, or one of the many other sales experts partnering with us. Actually, don’t wait…amazon.com is offering a pre-release discounted price for the book of only $14.93. (When I first saw that I was miffed, thinking they are pretty much giving it away, then I realized, LET them give it away…I want as many people as possible to have this information and following me.)

Ok, enough blatant self-promotion. I came across a great blog post by Garth Moulton, co-founder of Jigsaw.com about why cold calling is not dead, despite a lot of drivel written about that to the contrary. (Actually, as I point out in the book, "cold" calling is dead, being replaced by Smart Calling™, but we’re on the same page here.)

Check out the post…especially Garth’s hilarious quote at the end.