Red-Hot Cold Call Selling: Prospecting Techniques That Really Pay Off, Second Edition

Working with Administrative Assistants

Administrative assistants also seem to be a great source of frustration for many sales professionals. The key to working with administrative assistants is to understand their role in the sales process.

When you reach an administrative assistant instead of a decision maker, you must understand that what has changed is the level of the sale. You must still make a sale, however. Please consider Figure 10-6.

Figure 10-6. Different levels of a sale for working with administrative assistants.

Sale Level	Sale Type
Product or Service	Tangible
Appointment	Conceptual
Pre-Appointment	Conceptual

For purposes of this discussion, I am defining product and service sales as tangible transactions because they result in a physical ...