What I’ve Read Lately: Take the Cold Out of Cold Calling

“Take the Cold Out of Cold Calling”TTCOOCC-lr
by: Sam Richter
ISBN 13: 978-1-59298-209-7
ISBN: 1059298-209-3

I stumbled onto this book while reading Harvey Mackay’s recent book, “Use Your Head to Get Your Foot in the Door.”  (Occurs to me, I need to write up my review of that book.)  In Use Your Head… Harvey discusses a number of tools, techniques, and approaches for being more successful in your search for work.

Landing a new role is as much about effectively selling yourself as it is the technical specifics of who or what you are.  No one enjoys making sales ‘cold calls,’ including salespeople.  Well, maybe there’re a few that do…  Harvey discusses how his own company’s sales team became significantly more effective by having Sam Richter spend some time with them.

Forget the title, the key is the subtitle: Web Search Secrets.

“Cold calling,” is described as ‘cold’ because you don’t know anything about the person you’re reaching out to.  You’re forced to ‘wing it,’ per se.  Even a little information can give you a leg up.

Sam’s core message is this: There is a wealth of information on the web: either about the person you want to meet or the company and activities they’re interested in.  Tapping this information lets cold calls become warm, and your chances of success improve dramatically as a result.  The book is essentially a web search reference guide.  Written in narrative form, it exposes you to tools and/or search techniques you’ve likely never heard of before.

The Table of Contents itself is three pages long and full of itemized specifics.  Examples include Types of search engines; what ‘cached’ pages are and why they’re important; how to discover a list of email addresses for a specific domain; lists of purpose-built search engines you’ve never heard of; premium info sources (like Hoovers, D&B, LexisNexis…); and, how to put it all together.

Like many of you, I’ve been doing this for awhile, and have often considered myself among the more sophisticated when it came to uncovering info on the web.  However the wealth of information in this book is well above average for its type.  For instance, after spending plenty of time on search in general, when discussing numerous lesser-known search engines, it’s not just a list, but a paragraph (2, or 3) on each one and what makes it valuable.

If doing effective web searches—sometimes more effectively than at others—is important to you, you need to get a copy of this book.  I own two copies.  It’s one of the very few books I bought as an ebook initially and then decided I needed to have it in paper form.

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The Livingston Post is the only locally owned, all-digital information and opinion site in Livingston County, Mich. It was launched by award-winning journalists who were laid off from the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus by Gannett Co. Inc. in 2009.