Book Review: Ice Breakers! How To Get Any Prospect To Beg You For A Presentation

Often I learn about new business opportunities from Facebook, Google, and industry blogs. For some reason, when I hear about new business opportunities directly from a friend or relative, it seems more awkward. I wondered why and I came across the answer in Tom Schreiter’s book, Ice Breakers! How To Get Any Prospect To Beg You For A Presentation.

The book is a business book and a self-help book combined into one. Mr Schreiter shares with us the readers his turning point when he recalls, “Unless I changed my opening words . . . nothing would change in my career” (Schreiter, n.d.).

I expected a long list of cheesy one liners and indeed this book began with a few. Mr. Schreiter assumes that the failure of most new distributors is attributable to lack of effort in prospecting. He suggests that well-chosen words can create more success for distributors and then explains more effective examples of word selection to develop a meaningful conversation between you (as a distributor) and your prospect.

The author also addresses what I, as a marketer, would define as “audience segmentation”. He gives examples for speaking to a 50-year-old person versus an 18-year-old college student. This audience segmentation is identified as a big challenge in marketing and advertising, but I applaud Mr. Schreiter for giving examples of how to communicate with various prospects of different demographics.

The author addresses connecting with prospects in several types of direct selling opportunities. He gives examples for those in travel, cleaning, pets, weight loss, skincare, and more. When someone has a life changing experience with a product, I believe that is also powerful. I think it is key to identify benefits of both products and business opportunities to grow a successful team in direct selling.

Among the author’s diagnoses is the idea that many people who say they cannot close a sale, in fact, have a much simpler problem. They are not asking enough people for appointments, not making enough presentations, not creating opportunities to close a product sale or business opportunity sign up. He relates it to dating. How are we supposed to find the right “one” if we never ask anyone out on a date?

In conclusion, my opinion is that if anyone in direct selling would utilize a few well-chosen words as shown in this book, it would definitely have an impact in the volume of business transactions distributors could achieve each year and each month.

Schreiter, T. Ice breakers.

Amazon.com,. (2015). Ice Breakers! How To Get Any Prospect To Beg You For A Presentation: Tom “Big Al” Schreiter: 9781892366160: Amazon.com: Books. Retrieved 5 October 2015, from http://www.amazon.com/Ice-Breakers-How-Prospect-Presentation/dp/1892366169/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1444071166&sr=8-1&keywords=Ice+Breakers!+How+To+Get+Any+Prospect+To+Beg+You+For+A+Presentation