Sparrow Training

The Telephone Skills Pocketbook covers every aspect of using the telephone to improve business performance. It highlights the importance of good communications skills, the need to build rapport, favourite bad habits and how to avoid them, how to take control of a call, how to keep customers happy, and more. There are separate chapters on receiving and making calls. The former includes 10 easy ways to give your caller a bad experience and 10 easy ways to give your caller a good experience. The latter explains how to get through to people and get the information you need, as well as how to complain and negotiate on the 'phone. In conclusion, the author sets out the rules for becoming a telephone 'super-user' and for fulfilling the super-user's oath: 'I will be in charge and make the 'phone work for me; I will seek out time-eaters and destroy them; I will use super-user control techniques at all times'. For more on using the telephone as a selling tool, see The Telesales Pocketbook.

All the techniques for successful selling are here, from planning a sales campaign and prospecting for business through to making the sales pitch and developing customer relationships. The Salesperson's Pocketbook is a clear concise guide to improving sales results. The book follows an 8-stage model (The Direct Sales Cycle) with each stage being covered in a separate chapter. The author has extensive experience of direct sales - UK and overseas, public and private sector - and of sales training. He combines both to good effect in this lively and highly visual Pocketbook.

Key techniques to help maximise the effectiveness of your next sales meeting. The Sales Excellence Pocketbook explains how to make the right initial impression, how to discover customer needs, how to present the best possible case and, crucially, how to close successfully. Also gives tips and techniques on how to prepare for the sales meeting and how to follow-up effectively. The Journal of International Selling and Sales Management said of the book: 'A very practical guide to adapting the sales approach to specific customer needs. This Pocketbook could be regularly used with advantage by anyone engaged in selling'.

The Presentations Pocketbook is packed full of tips and techniques for planning, structuring and delivering a polished presentation. A good starting point for the inexperienced and a quickly assimilated refresher course for the more experienced. Also covers overcoming nerves, handling audience questions, and making the message memorable with visual, hearing and feeling (VHF) support.

This is the first of several books that Patrick Forsyth has written in the Pocketbooks Series (see also The Sales Excellence Pocketbook next page) and continues to be a firm favourite with our customers. Negotiation is a skill that you need to learn and practise; The Negotiator's Pocketbook will help you do both. A quickly assimilated, comprehensive guide to the negotiation process, it covers the fundamentals of negotiation, preparation, essential techniques, managing the process and interpersonal behaviour. 'It's the sort of thing you should keep in your car and reread in the car park just before going into a meeting', concluded one magazine reviewer.

The Marketing Pocketbook is authoritative, comprehensive and - with its clear, concise, factual wording - easily accessible. Authoritative because it is written by an experienced and highly respected management consultant. Comprehensive because of the sheer volume of facts that this Pocketbook manages to squeeze in. The content is structured into three parts. The first part explains the basic concepts and looks at what marketing is. The second deals with the marketing process, in other words how to go about it. The final part of the Pocketbook looks at putting the theory into practice. All the fundamentals of marketing are covered, from market research and developing a marketing strategy to planning and implementing marketing campaigns. And accessible because we strip away all the unnecessary padding and present nothing but the key facts.

The Key Account Manager's Pocketbook gives practical advice on how to keep and develop important customers, thereby maximising ongoing revenue streams, reducing sales costs, improving investment planning and increasing market knowledge. It opens by describing the key account manager's role and then goes on to describe how to rise up the so-called customer perception ladder, moving from a simple commodity supplier to developing a solid, long-term business partnership with your key customers. The author next explains how to develop the 'key account development plan', how to increase your influence with the decision-maker in your key account (relationship management) and how to win new business. The final chapter runs through the essential steps of key account handling. There are short exercises throughout which, if carried out, will help to reinforce the key learning points.

A comprehensively up-dated new edition of The Export Pocketbook has been published with the new title, The International Trade Pocketbook. The 128-page, extensively illustrated guide covers all of the key issues involved in selling goods and services abroad, beginning with market research and ending with a section on 'getting paid'. In between there are chapters dealing with methods of selling ('agents & distributors'), pricing, marketing, and transport. The International Trade Pocketbook was written by David Horchover, past holder of the Institute of Export's coveted 'President's Award' and sought-after writer and speaker on export issues.

Influencing skills are at the heart of all successful communication. The Influencing Pocketbook examines influencing styles, how to establish rapport, dealing with different personalities, handling resistance and, crucially, getting a decision. It lists five easy steps to influence, eight influencing styles, ten good reasons to build rapport and four different personality types with influencing techniques for each. In an American Management Association survey, in answer to the question 'What is the number one need for success in business today?', the most popular answer was 'To persuade others of my value and the value of my ideas'.

A major update of The Customer Service Pocketbook has taken place, involving extensive re-writing and the inclusion of new graphics throughout, resulting in publication of this, the 2nd edition. A key title in the Pocketbook Series, the book is for everyone who contributes, directly or indirectly, to giving the customer good service. It covers why good service matters, the differences between good and bad service, performance standards, turning complaints into opportunities, listening to customers, assertiveness and good service, effective customer communications and internal customers. Throughout the book there are exercises, quizzes and checklists, and at the end there is a personal action planning section and an opportunity to further test your knowledge. There are also useful notes for managers and supervisors, as well as for trainers who can readily adapt the contents of the Pocketbook to provide a one-day trainer-led workshop. A suggested timetable for such a workshop is provided, together with notes on how to run it.

'For those who do business overseas, this book is a valuable insurance policy', commented The Good Book Guide on The Cross-cultural Business Pocketbook. 'It sets out not only examples of local attitudes and thinking but a whole way of planning and executing international communication and business dealing', continued the Guide. This Pocketbook is for anyone doing business outside his or her country, whether attending or organising a multinational conference, making a presentation to a group of managers from different countries, or being relocated abroad. Starting with a look at culture and its effects on working behaviour, the book then reviews ways of developing communication skills across the culture gap. Finally there is a section of specific material covering, amongst others, Europe, the Arab world and North America. A review of this book on Amazon.co.uk states: 'This little pocketbook is a gem. It is written clearly and has an easy to use section for identifying problem areas'.