Call Centers Made Easy: How to Build, Operate and Profit from your Small Business Call Center by Stephen Medcroft

Call centers need not spawned by huge companies on monstrous budgets. It is possible to start your own call center on a shoestring budget and Stephen Medcroft shows you how, in plain English.

"Every business has a call center of some kind," says Stephen Medcroft. "Because your call center is where your company interacts with its customers and other outsiders, it serves a critically important function in any business.

"There are no excuses anymore for not presenting the most professional image possible for your company," says Medcroft, who sells and installs call center systems for small- and medium-sized companies. "The days of putting people on hold indefinitely or otherwise making it difficult for them to do business with you are over. If you don't treat your customers at least as well as your competitors do, you probably won't be in business much longer." - The Digest Editors

Amazon: $17.46
Barnes & Noble: $24.95
Powell's: $19.96

The DialAmerica Teleservices Handbook : A Guide to Successful Inbound and Outbound Telemarketing by Robert Doscher and Richard Simms

One of the nation's largest telephone-marketing organizations helps companies achieve incredible success through both outbound and inbound telemarketing, and shows you their processes and tips in this easily digestible book. - The Digest Editors

Amazon: $31.47
Barnes & Noble: $44.95
Powell's: $44.95 (new), $31.95 (used)

The Boiler Room and Other Telephone Sales Scams by Robert Joseph Stevenson

This is a highly interesting book written by a non-salesman who has a Ph.D. in sociology and has published work on deviance and criminology. Stevenson worked undercover as a researcher in roughly two dozen underground offices that are called "boiler rooms" to insiders. From here, workers who are scammed, cheated out of wages, intimidated, insulted and overworked, use various master sales plans to con others into believing grandiose dreams - and into dipping deeply into their pockets. A topic not usually visited with first-hand information. - The Digest Editors

Amazon: $11.96
Barnes & Noble: $14.95
Powell's: $14.95

Smart Telemarketing by Stan Rosenzweig

Many savvy techniques to add zest and power and success to your telemarketing sales, packed into a tiny book. - The Digest Editors

Barnes & Noble: $9.00

Cold Calling Techniques that Really Work! by Stephan Schiffman

Cold calling is one of the most difficult things to do, yet Stephan Schiffman navigates readers successfully. - The Digest Editors

Amazon: $8.95
Barnes & Noble: $8.95
Powell's: $8.95

Successful Sales Managers Guide to Telephone Sales by Lee R. Van Vechten

A complete, easy-to-read, how-to guide for managers to successfully run a telesales department. - The Digest Editors

Amazon: $79.00
Barnes & Noble: $83.95

Guerrilla Teleselling : New Unconventional Weapons and Tactics to Sell When You Can't Be There in Person by Jay Conrad Levinson, Orvel Ray Wilson, Mark S. A. Smith

The ins and outs of teleselling explained by the author of the Guerilla Marketing Series. This book is chock-full of insider secrets, such as how certain traits that usually make for a great salesperson will destroy him or her over the phone. Learn how to avoid the ten most common mistakes of telesellers, how to select lists that will put you in touch with the most desirable markets for your products and services, and how to navigate through the voicemail system to a real person. - The Digest Editors

Amazon: $13.96
Barnes & Noble: $17.95
Powell's: $19.95

Telephone Sales Management and Motivation Made Easy by Valerie Sloane, Theresa A. Jackson

Telemarketing pros Valerie Sloane and Theresa Jackson teach you how to motivate your sales team and get the most out of your technology. - The Digest Editors

Amazon: $19.95
Barnes & Noble: $17.95

Teleselling: A Self-Teaching Guide, 2nd Edition by James D. Porterfield

Teleselling covers the ABC's of selling via the phone, with examples, tips and techniques which will help you design your own successful selling plan, based on your unique strengths and abilities, establish a call strategy, capture and retain a customer's undivided attention, techniques to improve your listening skills, decide when and how to ask for the order, and how to close the deal successfully. - The Digest Editors

Amazon: $17.46
Barnes & Noble: $19.96
Powell's: $14.95

Stephan Schiffman's Telemarketing by Stephan Schiffman

Telemarketing pro Stephan Schiffman encourages you to sit down and cold call more effectively and easily. - The Digest Editors

Amazon: $9.95
Barnes & Noble: $9.95
Powell's: $7.95 (used)

Successful Telephone Selling in the '90s by Martin D. Shafiroff, Robert L. Shook

Increase your telephone sales dramatically with this wealth of knowledge written by a very successful stockbroker. It divulges the secrets of the top telephone sales people in the country. - The Digest Editors

Barnes & Noble: $12.60
Powell's: $4.95 (used)

You Can Sell Anything by Telephone! by Gary S. Goodman

This book helps demystify the myths over what can and can't be sold over the telephone and why. Goodman compiles true-life accounts of success stories of big ticket items that were sold over the telephone (one salesman sold 20 percent of his Rolls-Royces by telephone), and the techniques needed to create successful telephone selling for anything. - The Digest Editors.

Amazon: $8.00
Barnes & Noble: $10.00
Powell's: $10.00 (new), $5.95 (used)