Sales Gladiator

The Principle of Exposure. Or Go Fishing for Sales.

As a young man, I first consciously thought about the principle of exposure while camping out with a group of friends and running trot-lines. Trot-lines are a mostly Southern fishing phenomenon. It involves the use of a large span of stout line from which individual drop-hooks are weighted, baited and suspended at about two feet intervals along the main line.

While we youngsters would pile wood onto a overnight bonfire and stay up and swap lies and what not, a couple of of would take our turns about every hour or so and maneuver the boat along the line, re-baiting hooks where the bait had failed, and taking off the caught catfish--as big as sixty pounds or more. During the course of the night we could land a substantial haul, which we would sell or take home to our families to use in a family fish-fry.

Early did I this way learn a powerful truth. The more often you ran your lines, within reason, the more often you baited fresh hooks and plunged them back down into the murky night waters of the river, the more fish you would catch. Simply put, "If you want to catch a lot of fish, you must bait a of of hooks."

This simple universal knowledge, is a rule that any good salesman must eventually come to terms with. You can fool yourself into thinking you are working your butt off, by filling your time with busywork. But, until you concentrate that same time, or even less, upon "baiting hooks", your creel will remain mostly empty.

Although my examples will  now deal primarily with selling copiers, I can tell you that it works while selling any product, whether tangible or intangible. While selling copiers, you must cut to the chase, get past the water-cooler and coffee-machine chat, and focus on key benchmarks, which vicariously become your baited hooks. Telephone surveys, personal calls--cold or warm, mailers, thank you cards, asks for referrals, drop-offs, product shows and product demonstrations are the baited hooks.Unless you do them methodically and sensibly on a routine basis--no sales will occur. The more of these benchmarks you can meet, the more sales you'll make, and the more money you'll take home to your wife and kids.

When I sold copiers and later managed and as I taught other salesperson how to sell copiers and printing equipment, I used several benchmarks. Although the numbers must be adapted to any given territory, I worked a System of Tens or the ten-ten-ten plan. I have taught and implemented variants of this plan to numerous salesmen. The results were always simple and predictable. Those who followed my System, made sales and money. those who, for whatever reason, did not do as I suggested or in some cases insisted--fell behind, made few sales, and eventually were terminated or quit.

Here's the breakdown that I use, but it can surely be adapted in numbers for any territory. Make a minimum of ten new contacts over the telephone each day. You don't try to sell over the phone. You simply gather information and make appointments to those who care to here about our products. You don't count your follow-up calls or callbacks on regular customers. You only count the new contacts, which you make. You see, you want more fresh exposure, or freshly-baited hooks.

Next, you average ten, or whatever number fits your requirements, personal calls--that's face-to-face--to interview, if you will and have an opportunity to present your problem-solving products to a new decision-maker. Sometimes you can work in forty calls, sometimes you only get three more substantiative personal call in. It should average your benchmark number over a week or month or quarter.

Then you want to use the US Post Office to provide more baited hooks by placing a compelling number of proven direct mail pieces in front of, you got it, new prospective buyers. Now let me say at this point that you can use wisdom in the placement of your bait. for example, if you are selling copiers, you can call on every Gas Service Station in your territory without many bites. but if, instead, you call on attorneys, or your previously identified list of largest businesses in your territory, you will get a lot more bites, which properly played, will net tangible sales and money in the bank.

Many sales managers focus their teams on dollars sole. This creates a quandary. The sales force individually cannot, at least it so seems to them at first, reasonably predict the future sales they are gong to make. However, they cam, and must predict the number of calls they can make. If they don't meet these minimum requirements, I recommend a zero-tolerance policy for those who consistently can't seem to do these very doable benchmark activities. I believe they should be fired in the most expedient fashion possible. You are doing these non-producers no favors when they don't, having been told of your minimum requirements, meet the minimum benchmark expectations. they belong in another industry. Not sales.

With copiers, I determined an even more powerful, doable, benchmark activity. Equipment Demonstrations. Now while this benchmark has something to do with the nature of the marketing bell-curve regarding the life-cycle of your product, it is more or less applicable in every case. by this, I mean that if you have a relatively new product, which has not yet reached a flat, replacement-only market, product demonstrations provide the salesman opportunities to show their prospects something new. New solutions, by the creative use of your effectively rehearsed product demonstrations and presentations. This makes for more exciting sales in some cases. However this is not to say that a flat or replacement market is a bad thing--it merely means that your consumers may actually know as much or more about your products than you do. Therefore demonstrations become less important. Still, most buyers want to see, touch, feel what they are getting before they hand over the check.

Therefore, in the case of new technological products such as the never-ending evolution of office-automation products, "the demonstration is a crucial, mind-altering event". It is what turns casual interest into a perception of need or even, and quite acceptably, desire to acquire or want. Read this paragraph again.

If you sell cars, it is the test-drive. If you sell shoes, it is the trying them on, walking around and admiring them in the mirror. If you sell insurance it is the moment that you realize that you are a jerk if you haven't adequately secured your family's future. If you sell industrial chemicals, it is seeing and understanding that the bathroom cleanser not only kills dangerous bacteria and smells good, but it also contains enzymes that break down the uric acid contained in little boy's pee that gets splattered all around, thereby neutralizing the odor. How would you have ever known such things unless this very informed and useful salesperson not only tells you, but shows you the product in use and provides convincing data as proof that you are not lying.

In any city in the USA, if not the world, an average person can get a job selling copiers. The mark-up of these products and the methods of distribution necessitates moving X numbers of boxes per month. This leads to an important truth. The compensation plans for those people who will follow the above-outline method only, and I have lots more to tell you how to make it easier--the comp plans are not only achievable, they are nearly obscene. I actually recall telling another successful copier salesman  about two years into the business, "This should be illegal. It's too easy. It's almost like stealing." And although it's not really much like stealing, the amount of money that an average Jo can make rivals any professional in any field. And that is not only my experience, but it is my firm belief.

It's late at night. I am tired. this is enough information for you to go make a fortune. But never fear, I will soon, tell you much, much more to help you be a Sales Gladiator. Doug Wright

Mission Statement

I have been a salesman pretty much all my life. All of us have been. Sometimes I was even called a salesman; at other times I was merely selling myself, my services, or other aspects of a primary business. I have sold down-the-street in tough markets at times of depressed sales. Later, as a an area manager calling on dealers and branches to help them recruit and train, I taught others what I had learned. I have sold in many different geographies. I have never been the most flashy, nor even the most organized. I have seldom been the safest bet.

I have never matched the theoretical ideal sales profile. But I have often been the stand-out among my group of sales peers. My approach was necessarily different. I was not born gregarious, nor particularly social. I not good-looking. I did have a gift for words once it was found. I learned that words are often all we have. They can be powerful. I have also been blessed with a quiet tenacity. I feel that this quality more than anything else, is the quality that makes for extraordinary salesmen. 

For a time, after retiring from the mainstream business world, I consulted with businesses of many types, to help them implement programs of the types that I had used. I found a great deal of my knowledge is adaptable to virtually any type of sales. The information that I have to offer can also be used for those involved in marketing and presenting, to positive ends. Indeed, many of the techniques that helped me succeed in sales, are really acts of marketing. Sometimes it takes a lot of marketing to lead up to those few moments we cal sales.

Although much of my experience is with tangible such as computerized office equipment, many other products have been intangibles, such as software, concepts, ideas, and methods. Early-on in my career, I held a life insurance and securities license. I excelled in that job too. But since I have always tended to be a kind of gadget-guy, I found the rapidly changing technology offered in office imaging--from calculators and computers, to cameras and printing equipment, to color copiers and connected printer--were more to my liking. Even though I will often pose precise examples using copier and other tangibles within this blog, you will find that most are adaptable to any type of sales. I favorprinciples over lists or unyielding formats. Principles are universally true.

Although lacking prestige, copier sales success has become the benchmark for today's selling methods. If you can make it selling copiers savvy recruiters feel that you can sell anything. Many sales managers consider successful copier sales as a suitable background, if not a prerequisite, for employment. One such industry is the medical and pharmaceutical industry. In a sense, copier sales is really not very hard to do, once you get past the initial obstafcles. And you can make a fortune if you do it well. Ask Ross Perrot.

People have paid mightily for just this sort of information, which I now post here for free. I simply felt that recounting some of these things could help other salesmen get a jump on their careers. I wish I had had such a tool to help me when I was beginning. This is the mission of my Sales Gladiator weblog. As I produce several other blogs, I will necessarily get to this one as I can. I will also try to answer any serious questions, which are submitted via the comments feature. I will also moderate and post any comments that I feel will help you. You may wish to subscribe to this blogs feed.

Best Regards, PapaD

How to Increase Your Sales Quickly

Determine the fifty largest accounts appropriate to your products within your territory. Bone up ton the extent that you can give A FLAWLESS PRESENTATION ON YOUR MOST EXPENSIVE PRODUCT OR MULTIPLES OF PRODUCTS TO ONE ACCOUNT. cONCENTRATE YOUR ATTENTION ON THESE ACCOUNTS. IF YOU DO THIS DILIGENTLY, YOU WILL RISAE TO THE TOP OF YOUR SALES TEAM IN LESS THAN NINETY DAYS. DO IT! IF YOU FIND THAT YOU CAN’T DO THIS, GET ANOTHER JOB.

Demonstratons Sell

Learn to flawlessly demonstrate your products. This is the step that converts a suspect or prospect into a buyer. Stress the things that concern your client;s applications only. Invent ways in which they can use your product that they may never have thought of.

Rather than focusing on numbers of calls, focus on increasing your numbers of demonstrations. I will explore many ways to do this in the future.

I have proven time and again to skeptics of this process and showed them how to increase their sales by increasing their demos.

Here is a mental/notebook exercise to help you increase you demos. Suppose, just for grins, that you if you do not do 100 demos this month, that you will be be-headed. Also suppose that if you DO accomplish 100 demos this month, that you will be rewarded with a million dollars.

Now consider how you would work differently to accomplish this. Brainstorm all ideas, throw out the unrealistic ones and implement the doable ones. This is called the push/pull method of motivation, which will also engage your creative thoughts. I promise that it works. doug wright

How to Beat a Slump

A slump can happen to anyone. A period of few or no sales looms larger that life and saps the confidence out of the best of the best. As a sales manager, I used an accountability system that served many purposes not the least of which was early warning of an impending trouble area. I learned to tell when a salesman was having marital difficulties, money problems, illness, or depression. I could tell when they were job-shopping, losing interest, needing motivation, etc., all from the pattern of reporting on a daily form.

A slump can be caused by unrealistic quotas, the reasons above, or it might merely be a run of bad luck. The cure is always more productive activity, which may be more easily said than done. It is counter-intuitive to do unpleasant things when things are going badly. Lets face it, not all sales activity is fun. A bad time usually becomes a downward spiral.

So what can you do to wrest yourself out of the jaws of fearsome jaws of a sales slump. It depends somewhat on the experience humanity of your boss, but I suggest that you try to identify the distractions that are causing your dry spell. Your manager is more apt to cut you some slack and offer help if he knows that your life has taken a turn through something difficult, such as divorce, money problems, or other identifiable causes.

But for the most part, you are usually on your own to correct your performance problems. One thing that may help regain lost confidence is to spend one or more days per week calling on successful past clients as a courtesy call and perhaps to seek referrals. Familiarity and the positive feedback can't help but bolster your mood and confidence.

Another activity which can be useful is to "window-pane". This means to drive around your territory if it is a driving territory, and research or scout new places to call on, making notes about the type of business and the type of products that they might need. If it happens as it often does, that your interest is piqued further, you can play a game of incrementally luring yourself into investigating further. The ideal result of this activity is to make one call, then, with your blood flowing as a working salesman, may find yourself gaining a head of steam and making a gull contingent of calls. Making calls leads to sales. It is a given. So your slump may be over as quickly as it started. Ten good calls will generally uncover palpable leads which when followed up on will lead to sales. If not, you should probably seek another job.

Another helpful activity is to go to the library reference section and begin to build lists of places you'd do well to call on. Or you might use the computer available there to research probable prospects. The more you know about an account the better prepared you are to call on them. This type of preparation often excites your sales instincts to action. I don't recommend that you use your home computer for the above activity as managers generally frown on a salesman going home during work hours.

There is safety in numbers. Therefore it can often help to team up with another salesman making half the calls in each territory or alternating days. If you can do this with a seasoned or currently hot salesman, it may be that much more effective. Resist pairing up with other salesmen who may drag you down or who may be prone to gossip about the negatives of your jobs.

Make calls with the boss or with a trainer or with visiting higher managers.

Ride with service personnel or systems engineers if your organization uses them.

It sometimes  helps to know that you are not alone in feeling reluctance to do the things that make salesmen successful, day in and day out. The truth is that a lot of the activities are not much fun. There are ways to make them more fun by playing games with yourself and competing with other salesmen. It is a good example of delayed gratification activities. There is even a name for the dread of getting down to work and making calls. Call reluctance. The best way to overcome call reluctance is jumping in with both feet and making a few calls. Once momentum is in your favor, things work much better.

You can reward yourself with a special indulgence of something enjoyable after making a self-agreed upon number of calls. Then there are times when you must just give yourself a break. It is not conducive to making your manager happy, but an occasional afternoon matinee is sometimes in order, or a round of gold if that's your thing. Watch out when going in to work the following day with sunburn that's inconvenient to explain.

Sales seminars, audio tapes for motivation and motivational trips and sales meetings are also helpful. You should know how to give yourself a pep-talk and pull out all stops and go to work. Work and reaching productivity benchmarks such as calls and demos are the best cure for most types of the sales blues.

Take your vacation when it is given. There is a reason workers are allotted vacations. Relaxation and rejuvenating oneself is crucial. But pick your time wisely. \

If a slump creeps on into months, your manager will be talking to you. It might be time for a new job, or a new career. It happens.

How to Get in to See Almost Anyone

Try this if you find that you are not getting in to see the decision makers. Go to the bookstore, gift store, or wherever you can find the best scenic postcards in your area. Pick out quite a selection of the nicest ones. Color picture postcards that are pleasing to look at. It is not inconceivable to even make your own if you have such skills.

Each evening after work for a week, send ten hand-addressed and hand-stamped color postcards to your list of hard-to-sees. Say something like, I will be in your neighborhood this week and hope you can make time in your busy schedule to see me. And sign your name--no business name. Plan your calls to follow up in person within three days. Just so that they have had time to get the post card and not forget about it.

When you make your calls, don't use a business card or say who you are with. If the receptionists presses you regarding what company you are with or what this is about, merely say, I have some personal business I'd like to discuss directly with So and So. I'm pretty sure he will see me. Stick to your guns.

Now you better have something worthwhile in mind to tell this contact, a special that is limited to just a few people or something that you are positive will be of interest to him/her. You may even further the mystique a little further by telling him that you have several things to tell him, and set a lunch date with him.

"I know you are busy, but there are mutual areas that our businesses have in common, I don't expect to take a lot of your time now, but could you perhaps go to lunch one day next week?" Might be one approach.

One thing is for sure. No other salesman has sent this person a hand-addressed, hand-stamped color picture postcard this week. He will more than likely want to see the face behind the act.

Produce a Customer Newsletter or E-zine

If you are selling any product, keeping pertinent information in front of them will accrue to your advantage. I have used newsletters for over 30 years within virtually every organization I have worked for or belonged to. When using a print format, a simple template designed to fit on a quad-fold 11x17 sheet will give you 8.5x11 surfaces. The outside surface after folding will be the back page. The bottom half of the surface also doubles as the mailing surface, with a Motif and return address, a place for a stamp or postage, and a place for the address. Let me say here that your readership will increase dramatically if you hand address, and hand stamp your newsletters. If your list is small enough to make this manageable, it may be worth the trouble.

Depending on what you sell, the top half of this same page can be used for a featured product or other point of emphasis, as this will be the first part that the receiver reads. Selling printing and office equipment, I often used this part of the page for a customer-usable Buy and Sell Classifieds for used equipment of the type of equipment that you sell, and of course of the type that your newsletter is dealing with. The advantage of this idea is that you will be made aware of both sales opportunities when a member of your base places an ad for a product you sell. They may feel that all they can afford is a used item, but with your knowledge of their need, you may direct another customer who has such an item for sale, thereby creating goodwill from both parties and possibly placing the seller in a position to buy a new product from you.

On the other-hand, if a reader requests to list a used item, which they have for sale, odds are that this customer is in the market for a new replacement for the item they are listing for sale. Either way, it offers you opportunities and helps you keep your pulse on what is going on in your market. The front page, which winds up being inside the second fold, can be used for articles about your organization, special promos, or institutional information about your general Industry. I suggest that the inside Left surface, which receives very high readership for a closely cropped, professionally made photo of yourself. This should be accompanied by a personal bio and attempt to sell your readers on you. If this is a joint-effort, you may want to feature one person in alternate issues, picturing all participants equally.

On the bottom half of the inside left surface, I would picture a product. The inside right page may be best used to showcase a particular end-user of your product, who may be of high profile in your community or whom may have a special application which you feel others may see and catch onto. This third-party reference is not only a strong published reference suitable for convincing others to use your product, it has the tendency of locking in the featured user with special loyalty to your company. My own experience has proven this to be the case one-hundred percent of the time. Of course you will want to make doubly sure that the featured customer is catered to.

It is important to use a proper corporate heading or motif throughout the newsletter. Display it prominently as part of your template for the first page. Also display it as a footer for the inside two pages, and finally, display it at the top of the mailing surface and in the place where your return address goes. Provide all your access information, including your web-site if applicable, your email addresses, telephone numbers, and weblogs if apropos.

I mentioned the print format first, for three reasons:

1. We cyber-minds tend to think that everyone is computer savvy by now. But it is not true. Many people, especially older key-influencer, buyers, and owners, may still be completely put off by computers. Odd, but true.
2. Once your newsletter is prepared for print format, it is a simple process to convert it to a PDF or other format, which can be used as an email attachment or emailed as an E-zine by itself.
3. Since my experience is primarily with office and printing equipment, I also suggest that you use it to print in color while demonstrating your industrial grade color printer/copiers. The customer who comes in for a demonstration gets to see firsthand, the streamlined  production and printing process on the equipment that you are proposing to them. It makes for a very strong presentation.

If you or your staff don't have ample skills to produce a very high-quality and professional newsletter, get a professional to do it, or at least seek professional advise. Nothing can kill the benefits of this killer idea easier than sending out a piece of junk. On this point, don't ask your Mom if it looks good. This is a time to seek objectivity. Get a pro's advice.

How Does Your Sales Month Look?

Do you have a Prospect List? Of course you do. Dut do you really have any prospects? Maybe not. Salespersons have an odd habit of collecting suposed prospect onto pieces of paper--who are not really prospects. These salespersons may have reaons to believe they are really prospects. But they are afraid to take the final steps of closing the sales. Why? Because if thye try to close and the sale is not made, they slaseperson has to cross the supposed prospect off of the prospect list--thereby eliminating their false sense, false hope of having real prospects. Can you see that this is a self-defeating behavior? Can you see thatit is silly.

I once knew a succesful older gentleman who did well selling esoteric advertising. He equated the sales cycle to heating a pot of water to a boil. His sales were usuallly a one-call sale. the idea was to present all the information, stats, and convince the potential customer that he really needed the product. This gentleman sales man believed highly in the effectiveness of his process. He had a system of third-party referals, stats, samples, and everything thta he might need to overcome any of the finite objections that arose. If he could get the propect excited enough to sign up for the ad sevice, he considered tht the pot was boiling hot.

If for whatever reason my friend did not make the sale in one call, he said that he seldom bothered to go back. He said the chances for selling were almost infitisimile if he had missed the sale the first time. He felt that it was easier to go find anoth cold or lukewarm pot and from scratch, bring it to a boil--and thereby close the sale.

On rare occasions, my friend would return to try to close a sale the second time. He said by then, the pot of water had cooled down, so he had to start the process all over again, using all his resources to bring it to a boil. If he could do this, he could make the sale. But as noted, it was much harder on subsequent attempts. This man was a wise and successful slaesman from whom we can learn some things about our own prospects.

If you got their interest high enough to place them on your prospect list, there was also a reason that you didn't sell them. The reason may have been real and stated, or it may have been a mere smokecreen, and was unstated or you were even misled about the real reason. Such reasons could be a lack of buying authority, a brother-in-law in the business, the ofensive color of the machine, a percieved deficiency in any of the basic buying criteria, or maybe they didn't like the way you fixed your hair.

The way to find the real reason is to ask questions. Most marginally successful salepersons spend way too much time talking and not enogh time listening, caluclating, strategizing, supposing, and asking questions to uncover objections. The famous "trial close" is designed to get to the real reason for not buying NOW! You ask for the order with little real expectation for closing right then. But if you do this repeatedly, you smoke out the real hesitations, which then can be answered (or in some cases, Not.)

There are tow ways you can handle your prospect list this month. One: chunk it and start with a blank form. Two: make some calls or phone calls, muster your bravery, become obnoxious if required--but get an answer to this question, "Are you now ready to buy? If not, why? If not When?"

If these people get pissed for you doing your job, they are not really prospects ans are wasting your time. You should move on and realize that you don't have any or many real prospects ans reasonably start prospecting activities.

Assuming that you have a viable product, a given number of sales potentials exist for similar products in your area. Prospecting is merely a series of activities designed to find and convince these potential sales opportunities to buy NOW!

We have mention a number of to find propects in previous posts. We will disdcuss more. Novice slaespersons find it difficult to simultaneously prospect and close. Nut this you must learn to do if you are going to be a successful salesman. One way is to segredate either morning or afternoons or seperate days into exclusively pursuing each activity. This often works pretty well.

If somnehw you could know the places who have a propensiuty to buy, ahead of time, you could just go around closing sales. Some salespersons actually approach this state, especially after a long time in a territory. For those who have yet to attain this desirable and elusive state, all time spent "not closing" the slae, should be spent finding prospects, or implementing activities to find prospects.

When you find an activity that works, replicate it, until it quits working. Vertical markets and vertical applications are one way to do this. You call on anattorney with a particular problem that you are able to solve by selling your a product to solve his problem. So you then approach all similar attorneys and propose the same solution. Why so many salespersons are not able to see this obvious method, eludes me, but I know that they seldom use this method of prospecting effectively.

The priciple of exposure, which we have discussed previously, is building an extensive net to catch all the fish you possibly can. Get your name out there. Get yur mailings out there. Get your birddogs working for you. Work logical vertical markets. Work businesses with the greatest likelihood of using and buying your product. Invent new applications. Demonstrate your products often. If people don't know about your product, they certainly can't buy it, or even consider it. How hard is this. Harder than you kno, appaently, because only a very few, but highly successful salemen are doing these things.

I want to relate one other story. One summer I accompanied a salesman who sold inductrial chemicals like cleaning supplies to schools, mechanics, municipalities, and buisinesses. I observed him selling. It wasa totally different kind of tangible sales than I was familiar with. The savvy older salesman was very successful. Here's how he made sales:

1. He would gain an audience with the buyer, usually via a cold call.
2. He would show a new product that solved a basic problem the business or school janetor had.
3. He would demonstrate how effective it was.
4. He would creat urgency by saying that if they bought this new procut today, and bought an entire case, he would also throw in such and such, but only if they bought today.
5. In virtually every case the potential buyer would simply say no.
6. My guy would ask why? and then try to answer the objection. He would then ask them to buy the product again. the anwere was usually no.
7. My guy would explain more about the product and ask again. NO.
8. He would then move onto a different product. Same process. Same anser.
9. At some point after ten or twenty attempts to sell each product, magic would happen. The buyer, wihtout changing demeanor would finally say, "Okay." My guy would calmly write tht order up.
10. Then he would go to the last procut presnted and say, "come on now, just ry half a box." again magic. "Well okay."
11. Then he would go backward down the lsit and say, "Wanna go ahead and get a doxen of these." It was unncomfortable for me. Hadn't the same prospect only minutes ago said ten or twenty times , "NO."?
12. Well, this time he said yes. My friend, not flamboyant, not bright, not articulate, buy merely a god describer and very persistent, would walk out of the place with a order worth three or four grand, HALF OF WHICH HE KEPT. This man made more money than the officeof US President pays. He worked hard, about three days a week.

I never did understand why this works, but the fact is that it does, more or less, in every type of sales.

Chew on that for a shile. I have a bunch of new posts coming.

www.wrightplae.com by Doug Wright

Wanted: Competent Salespersons

Any sales manager can tell you that 1) Being a great salesman is not that hard. 2) It is very hard to find great salesman. So what conclusion can we draw from this? Perhaps that most people are not willing to do what it takes to be a good salesman, or that maybe they are simply unteachable. I believe that it is a little of both.

I believe that there has been a steady erosion of key values of work ethic in our country. the abundance and prosperity is taking a toll on our population. socialistic attitudes of sheltering our children from anything difficult or painful to endure is creating a weak work attitude. The me now generation has arrived. In an attempt to shelter their children from character building enterprise and an emphasis on synthetic learning environments such as our public education institutions, people are not learning basic survival skills required to succeed as a salesman.

Someone once said that successful people are those who will do the things that failures will not do. This is a gem of wisdom. It has to do with the power of delayed gratification as opposed to immediate gratification. If a young couple would fore-go living in the types of houses that it took their parents or grandparents a lifetime to earn, they could, on a modest income, use investment strategies that would enable them to retire as independently wealthy and comfortable by the time they reach forty years old.

Children are also taught to be so arrogant that they feel that they are always right and that no one can possibly teach them anything. This is a big problem. Experience is one thing which can't be taught. However, accepting the advice of a knowledgeable mentor, without questioning their veracity, can greatly facilitate the learning or experience curve of young would-be salesmen.

I can personally relate my own experience in sales as being mostly learned and not natural. Faced with little formal preparation for the real world, I found myself with a wife and children at a young age. Sales appeared to be a field that offered a high income. Problem was that I was very shy. But the work ethic and ability to seek out the knowledgeables in the field enabled me to become a huge success within a year. It was hard work. It required faith in what I was being told and a lot of slammed doors and long hours. I read, studied my products, emulated successful role models, and did what I was told. I used creative and independent thinking as well, to come up with my own ways of working that suited my own personality.

I am not boasting. I am merely telling what made me successful. It has also made my children successful. One doctor, one sales manager of a major company. Two stay-home moms, with their own admirable occupation skill-sets when required. I had my small part in their rearing but I mostly credit their Mom,who is an inspiration to all of us, with staying home while they were growing up and instilling proper attributes within them , which are required for success.

I have and I will enumerate many techniques,ideas, tricks and even secrets to becoming successful as a salesman, or to help make you a sales and marketing superstar. But I can promise nothing unless you apply thees principles.

Let me ask you--have you implemented any of the things I have previously written about? Do you make personal calls, phone calls, and direct mail pieces at a ration of 10/10/10. Have you made your list of the top 50largest potential buyers in your territory? Do you daily record your calls either on computer or a manual call sheet noting specific information? Do you keep a prospect list and a "next week" work plan/ Have you sent a postcard to anyone? Have you placed a classified ad or offered any building managers a spiff for leads.

If you cannot answer yes to at least to a few of these questions, then you either need to get another job or have a revival meeting with yourself. because if you can't follow thees sound instructions, you are not going to make it as a salesman.

How to work a Corporation

Treat a corporation as a cluster of related but separate businesses. Bypass purchasing at all costs until late in the process. Purchasing Agents are usually yes men who do the paperwork necessary to obtain the items requested by various departments.
Whether by phone or by a physical cold call (I prefer the latter), get an appointment with any department, such as IT, engineering, marketing, sales, the art department, etc. You will usually find these people willing to hear about your products and ideas. I like to ask them to tell me about or show me around their operation. Usually they are delighted. This is what they do, and they are proud of it. Given a little sincere inquiry, they will spill their guts, providing all sorts of keys to selling them. Notice their offices for clues to their family and outside interests.

Tell them what you have and see how it may mesh up with what they need. Often they will suggest possibilities. Then when they are done ask for referrals to other departments asking if you can use their name in your approach. sometimes they will give you heads up as to how to approach the other departments and fill you in on the political climate of the office. Often as not they will personally take you and introduce you to the right people.

Don't be afraid to start with the CEO, manager, of President. You will find them open-minded and respectful of a well-prepared professional.this is a top-down approach.  When the top dog refers you down it carries a lot of weight.

Zig while others Zag

I once was regional manager over an office equipment dealer who ws a very sharp marketer. Rick has a saying to "zig hwile others zag". Of coure his point was to creatively assess what the competition is doing and actively do something different. I feel that this process describes a lot of my own slant toward marketing and sales.

For one hting I always left the office no later than 9:00 AM. I really tried hard to resist the coffee machine and water cooler banter that consumes so much valuble time.

I also generally made calles on Friday afternoons, while most other salesman were letting up or playing golf or doing meaningless office work.

I often worked weekends when the office was quiet and silent, polishing my demonstrations and presentation skills, making them as flawless as possible.

I made my own mailers and sent out newletters featuring featured products.

I made efforts not only to gain access to buildings, which were off-limits to other salesman. Often  I would make deals with security guards and building managers who would alow me to do mini-shows within empty office space. Iwould provide a bounty for any information leading to a sale, with the details written on a card to make it official.

I would run ads in newpaper classified trying different approaches one after another until I found some that got meleads. One I could count of was to offer a used copier for sale. I had plenty of trade-ins, and it was pure profit, but often the resulting leads brought me customers for new copiers as well.

I made a practice of holding my important demos near lunchtime, and rather than takingthem to lunch, I would use the conference room as a dining room with fine china, silverware, and embroidered napkins and had fine meals catered. I would attempt to get everyone involved in the buying decision at the lunch. Near the end of thelunch I would provide a PowerPoint presntation, directly followed by a near-perfect demo.

I hald technology shows atleast quarterly and refined a mailing list with all potential buyers on it. In each finely-printed invitation, I placed ten tickets, also finely-printed, bearikng a $50 face value, and encouraged them to be passed along. One of my managers labeled this my cluster-bomb invitation. the hand-alongs always got people there who I would not have reached otherwise. This was one of my best ideas, and I will tell more aobut it in detail in another post.

I made my own contests and lobbied for money for prizes and used them to leverage friendly competition among my peers. It promoted a positive and fun office environment. There is nothing more unpleasnt than working around a bunch of negative, unmoitivated, and complaining peers. If my manager was unalbe to control this mood, I would do all I could to keep the office environment fun and light and positively competitive.

Rather than focusing on an abundance of sales or even sales calls, I focused on activities that I felt would directly lead ot success. Demos were one of the main activities that I could count on to produce sales.

I would encourage the building of a library of books and tapes about sales and designed to motivate.

There are activities that can help you think of new appraoches. I have mentions several within these posts and will describe more in the future. But one of the best is to pretend that the stakes are very high for you to produce ten times your current quota during the next quarter. Then brainstorm as to what you might do differently. It is surprising how many great new ideas you come up with.

Another fun activity, especially if you sens you are getting bored or beginning a slumop. Go all out on a blitz to visit each of your current customers, and your potential customers in a record time. Post the results ndaily and get some office accountability building excitement in your behalf. Skip lunch in preference to a brownbag sandwich. Work from early to late. work a saturday. You'd be surprised at how many people do work Saturdays and who will wee you then.

Rent a prime sports box or join a premier hunting or fishing club. Invite your best potential customers to participat with hyou. If you play gold, spend time on the weekend or during tournaments with prospects.

Take notes of your customer's interests and pick up little hobby items such as buttons or shot glasses or or matchbooks or stamps or music CD's. Be aware of theatre and cultural events and either invite your prospects to go with you or give them tickets to go by themselves.

If you are doing these kinds of things, your prospects will listen when it comes time to tell them about new products, which you genuinely feel will improve their buisness processes.

Prove Your Product is the Best

After enjoying the relatively high prestige of a photographer for a good while, I was not prepared for the customer reaction of mistrust and failure to believe me when I began selling graphics equipment. It was a wake-up call that I people didn't believe me when I stated facts leading to a logical conclusion that my products were the best. Snootily, I thought, "I can sell any products I want to sell, so I choose to sell the best ones. It is THERE loss." And mine. They just didn't believe me. Quickly, I learned to swallow my pride and to provide the proof they needed. It made a big different in my closing ratio.

Make it a habit to state a fact about your product, and then to provides one or several proof sources for your fact. then move on to another truth with similar proof sources. This provides the often unstated believability that may be lacking--and makes your close more reasonable. When you get right down to it, all we have are words, graphics, and our products, to make our case. Graphics will help your potential buyer to remember the words and facts that you prove to them. Therefore, a flip-chart, overhead projector with presentation slides, or an electronically prepared and presented sales story will go a long way toward convincing your customer of your believability, your products superiority, and your companies track record.

I have even made it a point to secure a boardroom with audio visual equipment while making important job interviews. Nobody does that you might say. that's the point. I did, and it never failed. You just sort of blow everyone else away. You can do that with the bulk of your sales presentations as well.

Third-party letters in abundance, singing your praise are great to present as proof sources, third-party reviews and write-ups about your products are equally strong and appropriate to present. If you will link them to the age-old five buying criterion you will do even better. These criterion are as follows: Reliability, versatility, economy, quality, simplicity (or ease of operation). All other criterion can be derived from these five concerns. Address them, and you will likely have a sale.

Be a Presenter at Pertinent Cliubs

I had great success making new contacts which translated into great exposure and more sales. PP  and Mac Clubs. Local attorney and CPA Associations, IT Associations, Ad Agency Associations,  Associations for buyers, and other associations are game for this strategy, with the local PC club, I made presentations on general technology trends with specific product displays, usually a smaller network workgroup color laser printer. I would give a 30 minute overhead PowerPoint Presentation and then a show and tell of the product or products that I had the service department deliver.

I also offered to print the clubs Newsletter at least once.It can be a pain in the butt or you can hire it done by one of your customers. It usually makes their own budget newsletter look like heck. Make sure you get your own feature in the newsletter and a footer across each page. I sold countless copiers just from the presentations made at PC and Mac Clubs. But presentations to any group is worthwhile. Even civic clubs are filled with businessmen and women.

This is a simple way to bait more hooks. If you bait more hooks you catch more fish, remember (from previous post).

Add Value to Your Product that Sets them apart

So you can't drop your price any more. Or you don't want to because it affects your commissions. There are times when you must drop your drawers on price. Make it the exception and not the rule. One way to combat a lower price for a fairly equivalent product is to add something to the package that your competition cannot or will not.

When I was selling some of the first connected color copiers, I made an arrangement to offer a special class with New Horizons on How to Choose a Color Copier or Printer. It was taught for free on new Horizons premises, using their computers and software. I taught the class. It provide draw for New Horizon, who gained additional awareness of their training facilities and sold more software training classes. In turn, New Horizon gave me special package pricing on applicable classes. For a Grand, I could provide my color copier/printer customers ten grand worth of training. win win win.

The competition never new what hit them. Rather than discount three or five grand, I discounted by the one thousand dollars paid for the New Horizons training package, and gave the end-users a nine thousand dollar increase in value for the customer.

There are many ways to do this. You are limited only by your imagination. Probe to find what turns your customers on. Find something that they need or want for their office, to make life easier. Go buy it and let a small discount pay for it. Your customer is happy and they have to spend nothing. As a rule, real stuff is far sexier to the buyer than is a mere price discount. In less politically charged times, and before all the rd-tape associated with the purchase of firearms, I would include the latest greatest deer-hunting rifle with any offset press I sold. another time I gave away 100,000 Green Stamps. You think Mom and Pop in the Mom and Pop shops didn't make hay with those. I also once offered a car with a large printing press. Although I had no takers, it got plenty of attention and scared off my competition.

Figure out ways that you can personally add value to your products. If articulated well, you'll sell more deals.

The Lost Art of Cold Calls

The term cold calls has come to mean different things, I suspect in an attempt to dodge doing real cold calls. So let me explain what a cold call is. A cold call is not done by telephone. It is done in person. It means that the call is virtually if not totally unannounced. You have no reason to believe that the firm upon which you are calling has any remote notion that you are going to show up. Nor do they think they want you to.

A cold call is a blatant infringement upon the time of someone who didn't plan on seeing you at its best. At its worst it results in a curt invitation to leave the premises. Sometimes, often in fact, it can be a hostile environment. So, it is no wonder that the mention of this method of contacting generally causes fear and trepidation among many sales-persons.

Why would you want to do something that sounds so unappealing. Because it is still among the most effective ways of getting new business. You are there on premises and can size up a business as a prospect and see enough around the building and office to developer a strategy if only of developing a strategy. And since it is such an unpleasant method of working, the competitive players drop out. I have always advocated that if you make ten good cold calls, you'll have more business to follow up on that you can take care of in two weeks, if you continue to make ten call per day. And if you do, you will have so much business that you will always make your quota and a good bonus too.

I have always recommended an average of ten cold call per day for a copier salesperson. This number can be adjusted according to the compactness or lack of in ones territory. I have made cold calls all over the USA. Having been a regional sales manager for a couple of copier companies, I would often schedule time to fly and/or drive hundreds if not thousands of miles to a dealership or branch with the express advance instructions to a couple of named sales-persons, to set up calls so that we could maximize time. Not that I am Billy the Kid or any other particularly fast gun, but end-users like to see support from the manufacturer. It was also a good way for me to get a peek at what is going on in a given territory with a given salesman, so that I could make proper management recommendations to the owners.

The rules, rather than the exception has always to arrive with the salesman saying that they were unable to set up any calls for me to go on with them, usually with some lame excuse that they had to take some toner to the far reaches of their territory and would not be back for the remainder of the day.

Not to be put off so easily, I would insist that the toner wait, or if en-route, I might ride along and make a few cold calls. This prospect seemed to bring incredulous fear, even tears, from the offending salesman. I reasoned that I had not spent thousands of dollars to travel to their city just to be buffaloed into wasting my time. Making cold calls with these salesman was always entertaining, and usually productive.

I would usually insist that the salesperson break out the yellow pages and turn to a given vertical market that had some propensity to buy whatever of the products we or I were wanting to feature during my visit. I'd instruct the salesman to pick out any fifteen of these businesses to call on. then away we would go, without the usual water-cooler banter and coffee to which they were =usually accustomed.

There are a million ways to approach a cold call. there is a power struggle that begins the minute the receptionist and/or office manager spots you. Often we would park around the corner if it were a place where we might be seen getting out of the car. I would usually let the salesman make the first approach, and then we would critique what happened and why. then I would make the next call and we'd do the same. Thusly, we got equal time in making approaches.

I must say, that I must have somewhere developed a knack for getting in to see somebody while making cold calls, because I almost always did so, while the fail-rate of the salesperson with me was very high. My methods are not magic. What they are are somewhat thought out. And they are usually not what the screeners are getting from the other guys calling on them.

The power struggle starts the minute you are caught sight of by the office people whose job in part is often to keep you from seeing their boss. some really take this part of their job to heart. Others just do it without much fanfare, but effectively none-the-less. These front office screeners is not to exclude everyone, just those whom they estimate to be probable time-wasters.

Many calls makes perfect. You have to develop your own style. It will come with time. But I can tell you a few things that have worked for me. First, you must not show fear or weakness. If they smell blood, you are toast. This has to be balanced with not coming across as arrogant or obnoxious. I have witnessed those few charismatic guys who just "had it." That special something that opened any door they wanted by their mere good looks. That's not me. I am not chopped liver, but neither am I one of those blessed few. To make things worse, I am, or at least was in the beginning, very shy and making calls on strange people was very much against my nature.

But if you do something long enough, trying different approaches, you find ways that work. One of the things I learned fairly early was to appeal to the innate need most people have to want to help someone. Quite often I have entered an office, looking very confused and vulnerable, not holding out a business card as I have seen so many salesmen do, but slowly approaching the reception desk or counter, and simply saying softly, "Can you help me . . .?" With a look of appeal, not rushing until some answer comes. It is usually something like, "Well I will sure try." Already you have won a minor battle. This person, with whom you are at cross-purposes with by very job definition, has agreed to at least try to help you. Now she doesn't know what you want. You better make it good.

You might say, "I can't seem to figure out who I am suppose to see. I need to get some information. Who normally makes the real buying decisions in your office regarding xyz, and how can I get in to see them."

It is good most of the time. Not magic, but a lot of psychology goes into that approach.

Another approach might be to hurry in ten minutes after the hour, wiping your brow and saying. I am late to see Mr. So and So. Will you tell him Mr. XYZ is here now." It sounds hokey and it is somewhat, but it works sometimes.

Another way is to win approval with the front office with a little semi-flirtatious banter. You can throw out the bait, and know real soon if they are playing today. " Ladies! What's new today?" With enthusiasm. You have to be in the mood and a little giddy and upbeat. The mood is often contagious. But if they are not playing, you have to fall back on something straight.

If you are the observant type, you can also make hay by looking around and picking up cues from the front office. Pictures of children are often a good ice-breaker. "Are those your children?" If they pick up the bait, you talk about children and drag out your wallet and show them your children or nephew and exchange kid stories for ten minutes before you even try to broach your purpose. then you are slowly casual about it. "I was in the office next door, and have always intended to come in here and see what you guys do." Shoot the breeze and get general information. Then if so inclined, try to see someone. If you don't make it this time, you are then equipped to try again, and can set the stage for another unannounced call by saying. "I'll try again the next time I have to come over here."

Using the above approach works well if you employ a technique that I have often used. If you have a solid customer call or appoint you've set over the phone or what have you, always, given time constraints, ask information about the businesses on wither side of the solid call. Then it is natural to do as mentioned above. It improves your chances of getting in a great deal.

Occasionally you will find a real mean screener. They all but throw you out. I make it a point, a game, to see if I can eventually get by them. Call on them anytime you are feeling spunky or every three months or so. Bring flowers, wild ones picked from right outside their door. Tell a joke. Let her/him know that it is a game. Eventually she or he may play. One of my early large sales was made to just such a business. She had straight up told  me that they bought all their copiers from so and so and would never change and not to waste my time. Each time I came by, I brought a brochure on a different specialized and interesting piece of equipment. The old lady ate crow when I showed her a huge paper collator. Whee knew her boss was looking for just such a collator. Business stopped in two office buildings as a crane lifted the huge device through two removed panes of window. I made a fortune on that sale.

Those are just a few things I have tried. I have even dressed down, into bluejeans and bomber jacket and no business card and made calls, never leaving a card or place of employment, but asking to see the owner, CEO, President, whomever refusing to provide anything but my name, and if pressed, to discuss a business issue with them. They don't know if you are a customer, salesman, entrepreneur, personal friend, or what. The benefit of this way of calling is that, having left no evidence of whom you are or work for, you can get insolent right back. Sometimes it helps you keep your dignity.

I must relate this to those of you who have a problem becoming motivated making cold calls. In my first sales job, I was given a list and told to go make calls. I was a very reserved, and at least wannabe person of dignity. Making calls of unfriendly strangers sounded terribly scary and undignified. I admit that I drove around the block where th first place on the list was located half dozen times, before working up the nerve to do the deed. but I was determined to master this skill. I made the call, and  I don't remember what happened. In the ensuing week I worked my territory by grids, calling on every single place in a section, block or building at a time.

I recall my sales manager looking at my call sheets and saying, "How could you possibly have called on sixty-two places in one day."

I replied, "It doesn't take very long for them to say NO."

I continued making the calls. My manager sent other salesmen to work with me. They would be done by noon, and tried never to work with me again. It was brutal. I didn't no what to look for or what to ask or say or anything. But I made the calls. The suddenly one day, I ran into someone who wanted to buy a huge copier. then another a few days later. I wrote an order up on a paper sack and had to get my manager to show me how to do the real paperwork. Before long I was posting numbers of sales unheard in that dealership. And as long as I was in that territory, I had a firm knowledge of the business located there. As I learned more what I was looking for, I could go back and make sales at places I had called on much earlier.

Now, I don't necessarily recommend starting a salesman out that way, but by golly it worked for me. and I must say that I have been the cold-call king ever since. It was only later that I learned that I had an anxiety disorder and the occasional embarrassing freeze-ups that I would experience were panic attacks. Occasionally a customer would ask me to wit down and if I needed them to call an ambulance, thinking I was having a heart attack. some felt sorry for me and admired me for continuing to do my job, in spite of whatever the obvious thing was that I was experiencing. I had always experienced periodic anxiety, and had learned to push through them. I thought everyone had them.

Son when it comes to cold call sympathy, I have none.

The Best Demo Wins

Never-mind that your competitors copier may have the same feature that yours does--assuming that it this feature can be shown to fit the application--if you properly demonstrate this feature in a way that shows the feature to meet the needs of the prospect, whether they were looking for it or not--your demo wins. That usually translates into a sale.

I always set myself apart in the industry by coming in early and staying late, to rehearse and practice my demos, so that they were butter smooth, and letter perfect. I also used a flip-chart or an overhead to affirm the customer's needs ahead of time, and them checked them off in summary, always asking for a sale in the end.

When  I began imaging technology, the most viable technology for many applications was offset printing. I had been schooled as an offset technician and had worked as a printer, so I knew more that the average bear to begin with. It was unheard of to crank the offset press up to maximum speeds, to run color inks effectively, or to run onion-skin paper or four-part NCR paper. I learned to do it all. I would bring a prospect  into the demo room, and while I was wearing an IBM-blue suit and a starched while shirt, I would run colored ink on four part NCR at maximum speeds. The prospect's eyes would bug out and a sales was secured.

The trick lay, not in any inherent superiority of the off-set duplicator, but in my skills as an operator. Only it wasn't really a trick at all, it was skill and practice, and when the prospect got the equipment in their own shop, I could come show them how to make it do the same thing. I boast. Yes, I am proud and was then, of my professionalism and ability to smoke the competition on a demo. It meant that I was better, and consequently, that my equipment was better. It always was, no matter what I sold. They were buying me and my expertise.

As an example of how this same concept can be used with intangibles, my wife produces an International children's chorus festival. On the surface, when prices are compared to other venue destinations for children's choirs, hers is more expensive. However, the festival was actually conceived to address all of the shortfalls my wife had found in other trips abroad, and other festivals. It is by far the least-stressful on children and directors, it is held within the safety of the USA, at an historic destination, Music City, USA (Nashville). Although appealing to classically trained choirs, it explores cross-genre vocal music and the commonality thereof. In addition to famous clinicians and conductors who will instruct and conduct the mass children's choirs, approximately $150,000 has been budgeted for top-notch celebrity singers to be hired to perform with the children.

It will take place in the Grand Old Opry House, with rehearsals in the Acuff theater. Line dancing will be taught at the Wild Horse Saloon ( a kid-friendly place). The package will include a celebrity cruise aboard the General Jackson, the largest showboat in the world, along a scenic portion of the Tennessee River.  The accommodations will be in the posh, Opryland Hotel--a world-class resort, the largest non-gaming resort of its kind. There is nothing else like it! And technology can also help. check out her web site: www.crossroadschildrenschorusfestival.com  which also must be cool.

Here, the Festival must be differentiated from the competition by words, and pictures, and word-pictures. So what if it costs $300 more than the typical festival. Look at the VALUE. How many times will these children get to share the stage with top name entertainers? Numbers must be used. The celebrity budget of $150,000 divide by the 300 total participants represents a $500 per child increase in value, to say nothing of all the other venue features that can be costed out. This is the equivalent to the demo of a tangible. Words and pictures and numbers are the all-important differentiators.

I have managed many sales-persons. Some seemed ashamed of their occupation, hesitant to say that they sold copiers. But those who had passion, who said it with pride and conviction, that they were the best of the best, not because of some inherent gift of God, but because they made themselves that way--those were the ones who sold copiers and lived in houses between three surgeons, and drove sports-cars if they wanted to.

Demos sell!Demo sell!Demos sell! If you want to sell. Learn to do the best demo in the world!

TypePad Featured Blogs: B2B Lead Generation Blog

Good stuff! DW

Link: TypePad Featured Blogs: B2B Lead Generation Blog.

Short and Sweet Lead Getters

Call it bait and Switch. It's not really. Place an ad in the classifieds for say a color copier for sale, stating it is as new, business grade. Move the price decimal point to the left on place. When calls come in explain what mistake it was, or have another used one to sell, or find needs and quality, quote a monthly payment of stated amount.

Manager Interviews Service Technicians for all competition. Pick their brains , which are wired less-sinisterly, and find out big account, problem accounts, and deals going down soon.

Elaborate Jewish Lead Getter

For a small price you can have a small classified ad placed in a gang of newpapers. Use a PO box or NP Box, don't provide a name, but say, "Regions Largest Leader in our Field Seeking Creative Managers . Send resume and detailed business plan."

I fell for this once, spilling my guts to a far-a-way competitor. I got him back in my on way and time. But it works. You can even suggest that they name accounts that they can bring with them. Dirty pool. But it is done. Plus you'll have a ready resource for good managers and sales people. It workd for sales people too, BTW.

Follow the Salesman

I've caught competitors going through my company trash. They got some leads that way. I started shredding.

I had an idiot salesman who decided to follow his Xerox counterpart one day. He gave up after about thirteen calls. i think he did get a lead but didn't close it.

Point being is that the Xerox saleman was working his butt off.

I have been followed before. I usually just went somewhere and shot pool for a while, slipped out the back and once I put my card on the windshield wiper of the salesman who was hiding behind his paper. It was hot out too.

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Repeat, Repeat, Repeat, Repeat, Repeat, Repeat

Maybe you get the idea from this post title. Marketing, and sales, depend on an understandable basic message about your product or services being repeated many times with a mix of media and methods until it is heard and acted upon by the target market of your product.

I have written of the importance of exposure. Miracles seldom happen in sales. I am religious, maybe even superstitious, I pray that I will be successful, God willing, and in sales that means selling things, at least in part. So I do as a great American West Religionists once instructed his following, "Pray as if everything depended on God, but work as if everything depends on you."

Sager counsel on selling and marketing will not be found. You can't just around waiting for miracle sales to come to you, although sometimes you WILL get a bluebird out of nowhere. You MUST constantly be using the principle of exposure, "To catch a lot of fish, bait a lot of hooks." Define your mission, your product, service and message, and hammer away at it with as many ways as you can come up with. Therein, you provide many opportunities for God to grant your prayers without shuffling the whole universe just to help you out, so to speak. "Build it, they will come." Costner's first baseball movie.

Bait those hooks, put them in logical fishy places, and some illogical ones. The fish will come, see your bait, and they will bite. and they will be very happy to fulfill their destinies. Everyone is happy.

One way of baiting more hooks and providing more exposure is to say it again! Tell it to the same crowd, over and over and over and over again. Eventually, they will have need for your product and they will say, "Ah now where did I here a solution to my problem, Oh, yes, so and so . ." Wa-la, a sale is made.

Using copier sales as an example as I often do, just reason with me for a moment. At any given moment their are X number of copiers being sold, or going unsold due to lack of knowledge in the consumer that there is a solution. As salesperons of the products that we are selling, of course we KNOW all the solution our product provides (Or do we? We should.) 

But we tend to think that everyone has our own frames of reference. They don't. Not even close. some people, don't know what a copier is, or what it can do--or only vaguely. Or what the newer better greater,More highly feature copier can do to make their lives easier. If they can be told or shown or learn via the media or your baited hooks--then they will come looking of you.

So learn your desired message. Articulate it succinctly, and say it to everyone and every way you can. Hopefully the people who need it will hear you.

I will spend another post on how more readily to reach those buyers who are ready to buy. Ideally, you could spend all your time just going around or staying in the office, filling out orders and getting rich. It can be done. But it takes a method and concentrated effort.

Discouragement

Are you discouraged? Does you month suck. Do this. Go home and take a nap, or to a park or wherever. Only 15 minutes. Visualize getting a big sale, the accolades, the commission, Presidents Club, Congratulations from you boss.

Put any form of excuse of negative thinking out of your mind. Pysche yourself up. Listen to motivational music or a tape or read a chapter of motivational literature. Don't allow yourself to discount or pooh-pooh it.

Forget your stale prospect list. Get a phonebook or vertical market list. Pick five acccounts. Commit to visit two of them.

When you visit one, call on both businesses on either side of that one. Do the next one. Try to work the entire list of five. I promise you that you will uncover at least one prospect. You'll certainly feel better. You won't get fired. Do this ever day for a week and you'll have a stellar month. Try it. I have done in a gazzillion times and I swear it won't fail you.

Sales Management

Don't kid yourself. Most, if not all salespersons, will do better if they have some acountability. You don't have to upset the apple-cart if A Salesman is properly producing. Go easy on them, but get a list of calls or something.

Starting your new salespersons out with micro-management will pay dividends. They don't dislike it, because that's all they'll know.

Read these accountability lists and use them to help your salesmen produce. Make the reports mandantory for employment--in lieu of sales perhaps. If your people don't comply. talk to them, send requisite letters, and fire them. They are not meant for sales. Sales is all about accountability--to oneself or to others.

Something Old, Something New

Why is it that most salesmen, once they find an effective sales technique or method, almost always get bored with it and stop doing it? It's true. I have done it myself, and I have observed it in almost all other salesmen. The point should be obvious. Keep doing the age-old and/or the unique things that you know have produced for you and others in the past.

Flip side: Every day, or at least every week, examine how you are spending your time. Make lists, brainstorm lists ruling nothing out initially, of new ways to try and get business. Pare your list down to realistic actions, and implement one or two new ideas daily, weekly, monthly. Not only will it keep your career interesting, but it will often result in business you wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

There are X numbers of people who are making decisions to buy your products, AS YOU READ THIS. Or as you drink coffee and shoot the breeze, or knock off Friday afternoons, or while you daydream, and even as you sleep. Your task is to find out who these people are and by your words and actions, convince them to buy your product. That's your goal. Your goal is not to make 10 calls per day. Although you often have to do that. Your job is not to put 500 miles on your vehicle daily. Your job is to know who is buying and get in front of them beating the other guys with your superior presentation.

What are you going to do today that has worked for you before? What are you going to try differently?

A Serious Reminder from an Unlikely source

Jay Leno wrote this; it's the Jay Leno we don't often see....
>>>
>>> "The other day I was reading Newsweek magazine and came across some poll
>>> data I found rather hard to believe. It must be true given the source,
>>> right?
>>>
>>> The Newsweek poll alleges that 67 percent of Americans are unhappy with
>>> the
>>> direction the country is headed and 69 percent of the country is unhappy
>>> with the performance of the president. In essence 2/3s of the citizenry
>>> just ain't happy and they want a change.
>>>
>>> So being the knuckle dragger I am, I started thinking, ''What we are so
>>> unhappy about?''
>>>
>>> Is it that we have electricity and running water 24 hours a day, 7 days
>>> a
>>> week? Is our unhappiness the result of having air conditioning in the
>>> summer and heating in the winter? Could it be that 95.4 percent of these
>>> unhappy folks have a job? Maybe it is the ability to walk into a grocery
>>> store at any time and see more food in moments than Darfur has seen in
>>> the
>>> last year?
>>> Maybe it is the ability to drive from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic
>>> Ocean without having to present identification papers as we move through
>>> each state? Or possibly the hundreds of clean and safe motels we would
>>> find along the way that can provide temporary shelter?
>>>
>>> I guess having thousands of restaurants with varying cuisine from around
>>> the world is just not good enough. Or could it be that when we wreck our
>>> car, emergency workers show up and provide services to help all and even
>>> send a helicopter to take you to the hospital.
>>>
>>> Perhaps you are one of the 70 percent of Americans who own a home. You
>>> may
>>> be upset with knowing that in the unfortunate case of a fire, a group of
>>> trained firefighters will appear in moments and use top notch equipment
>>> to
>>> extinguish the flames, thus saving you, your family and your belongings.
>>> Or if, while at home watching one of your many flat screen TVs, a
>>> burglar
>>> or prowler intrudes , an officer equipped with a gun and a bullet-proof
>>> vest will come to defend you and your family against attack or loss.
>>> This
>>> all in the backdrop of a neighborhood free of bombs or militias raping
>>> and
>>> pillaging the residents. Neighborhoods where 90 percent of teenagers own
>>> cell phones and computers.
>>>
>>> How about the complete religious, social and political freedoms we enjoy
>>> that are the envy of everyone in the world? Maybe that is what has 67
>>> percent of you folks unhappy. Fact is, we are the largest group of
>>> ungrateful, spoiled brats the world has ever seen. No wonder the world
>>> loves the U.S. yet has a great disdain for its citizens. They see us for
>>> what we are. The most blessed people in the world who do nothing but
>>> complain about what we don't have and what we hate about the country
>>> instead of thanking the good Lord we live here.
>>>
>>> I know, I know. What about the president who took us into war and has no
>>> plan to get us out? The president who has a measly 31 percent approval
>>> rating? Is this the same president who guided the nation in the dark
>>> days
>>> after 9/11? The president that cut taxes to bring an economy out of
>>> recession? Could this be the same guy who has been called every name in
>>> the
>>> book for succeeding in keeping all the spoiled, ungrateful brats safe
>>> from
>>> terrorist attacks?
>>>
>>> The commander in chief of an all-volunteer army that is out there
>>> defending you and me? Did you hear how bad the President is on the news
>>> or
>>> talk show? Did this news affect you so much, make you so unhappy you
>>> couldn't take a look around for yourself and see all the good things and
>>> be
>>> glad?
>>> Think about it....are you upset at the President because he actually
>>> caused you personal pain OR is it because the "Media" told you he was
>>> failing to kiss your sorry, ungrateful behind every day.
>>>
>>> Make no mistake about it. The troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have
>>> volunteered to serve, and in many cases may have died for your freedom.
>>> There is currently no draft in this country. They didn't have to go.
>>> They are able to refuse to go and end up with either a ''general''
>>> discharge, an ''other than honorable'' discharge or, worst case
>>> scenario, a
>>> ''dishonorable'' discharge after a few days in the brig.
>>>
>>> So why then the flat-out discontentment in the minds of 69 percent of
>>> Americans? Say what you want but I blame it on the media. If it bleeds
>>> it
>>> leads and they specialize in bad news. Everybody will watch a car crash
>>> with blood and guts. How many will watch kids selling lemonade at the
>>> corner? The media knows this and media outlets are for-profit
>>> corporations. They offer what sells and when criticized, try to defend
>>> their actions by "justifying" them in one way or another. Just ask why
>>> they tried to allow a murderer like O.J. Simpson to write a book about
>>> how
>>> he didn't kill his wife, but if he did he would have done it this
>>> way......Insane!
>>>
>>> Stop buying the negativism you are fed everyday by the media. Shut off
>>> the
>>> TV, burn Newsweek and use the New York Times for the bottom of your bird
>>> cage. Then start being grateful for all we have as a country. There is
>>> exponentially more good than bad.
>>>
>>> We are among the most blessed people on Earth and should thank God
>>> several
>>> times a day, or at least be thankful and appreciative."
>>>
>>> "With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding,
>>> severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and
>>> with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, "Are we sure this is
>>> a
>>> good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?"
>>>
>>> Jay Leno
>>>
>>> Please keep this in circulation. There are so many people that need to
>>> read this and grasp the truth of it all. I'm trying to work on it
>>> myself....let's all try harder.....we have so much to be grateful
>>> for...let's focus more on our blessings !!!!!.
>>>

Pen & Pad Give-Away

Where do all the pens go. I seem to buy bundles of them and they just disappear. Odds are, that someone accidentally picked them up one at a time or we left them places. Might as well ride this phenomenon by having nice, but inexpensive pens printed with your business info and your name.

A good compliment to this is one that print shops use to great success. It is inexpensive and can pay dividends for a long time to come. Go to a quick copy shop and ask them to design, print, and pad in pads of 50 or 100 sheets, note pads with your business information on them. If you can think of a related helpful footer to ad, like a local ballgame schedule, metric to inch conversions, a printed ruler, or such useful additions, without taking up too much space, you add further utility. Half page is big enough. Third page-vertical is often nice for making lists, but the most handy is probably a quarter page. The print shop will design and print them accordingly. Get a bunch of them and be generous in handing them out to everyone. Pretty soon they will be distributed in the form of notes, far and wide.

Another related thought is to make your business card more useful by printing the back with useful info or even a lunch at a popular restaurant $25 bounty for a referral who buys from you. Be sure to track these and make good on these promises or they will backfire on you and create ill-will. You may even want to give two or four cards to each contact, telling them it is good for whomever redeems it--the referred person gets a lunch and so does the referring contact.

By making your cards worth more, it makes sense then to hand them out by the handful. They are inexpensive, and will produce results--as hand-alongs.

Split the Commision

Make sure you get office approval and written ground rules beforeyou try this. Are you a good strategist and closer? Are you a better prospector with a somewhat lower than the office average closing ratio. Many things can account for this, including personality and experience. Whichever you are, acknowldge that it is hard to wear both hats. Make a deal with others in your office who are a comliment to you.
Get the most experienced office hotshot closer to agree to help you strategize and close deals you find and split the commisions. You both make ou.

On the other hand, make the recipricol agreement with the less-seasoned salespersons, to help them groom and close their propects. Not only wil both of you ear more commisions, but you can learn from one anothger.

Sometimes it strikes less experienced salespersons as selfish that you would require a portion of their commision for helping them. But face it, and it is easy enough to explain. Time you take away from your territory and sales is worth a lot. You can't afford to do this for free, nor should a less experienced salesperson expect this kind of seasoned help to come for free. Worked properly and mediated by the sales manager, this can roughly double the sales for each pair selling arrangement made.

"Courtesy Calls" Are Worth Big Bucks

Especially if you rely on repeat sales,  you should follow-up with past sales, just to see how things are going. In doing so, you help yourself in several ways.

1) You get a heads-up on nay problems that may lead to a charge-back if not handles. Servicemen are not known for their announcing a failure in a particular account.

2) By getting to know the customer and office help better, you increase your opportunities and likelihood to get referrals.

3) If you are a familiar face, customers won't feel used if you ask them for referral letters and/or pictures to put in your referral book. Third-party referrals are the strongest endorsement that you can get.

5) As you monitor the changing needs of each account, you will find opportunities for more sales.

6) When you are a bit dull, or down, or in a slump--it helps your psyche to visit past successes, if for know other reason than to remind yourself that you had it then and that you still have it--plus the benefits listed above.

Market Yourself

Selling involes a particular set of activities. Marketing is essentially of supporting those activities. Every salesman would do well to do a lot of their own marketing. I'll provide just a few examples.

1) MAKE HANDOUTS THAT HNIGHLIGHT YOU FIRST, YOUR COMPANY SECOND, AND FINALLY YOUR SPECIFIC PRODUCTS. GIVE THEM TO EVERYONE YOU MEET OR VISIT. POST THEM EVERYWHERE YOU CAN.

2) OFFER TO SPEAK AT LOCAL CIVIC AND OTHER CLUBS ON YOUR FIELD OF EXPERTISE.

3) START YOUR OWN BLOG, AND GET YOUR PROSPECTS AND CUSTOMERS TO SUSCRIBE TO IT.

4) DO A PERSONAL/COMPANY NEWSLETTER.

5) MAKE UP YOPUR OWN STRATEGIC "COMPANY PROMOTIONS". JUST BUILD THE COST INTO THE SALE AS A DISCOUNT.

6) PETITION THE COMPANY POWERS THAT BE FOR SEPECIAL COOPERATIVE AD DOLLARS FO FUND A PROMO THAT FAVORS YOU AND YOUR PRODUCTS AND TERRITORY. SUPPLIERS ROUTINELY GIOVE AD DOLLARS TO DISTRIBUTORS AND DEALE5RS BASED ON HOW MUCH THE SELL. GET YOUR SHARE AND SPEND IT WISELY.

7) HOLD YOUR ON PRIVATE INHOUSE VIP SHOWS.

IT AIN'T OVER 'TILL ITS OVER!

Think you've lost a sale to a competitor? Get a courtesy meeting to get back in to visit with the decission make. Find out why you lost. Be preparred to make concessions based on new promotional material or pricing that just arrived, a free bonus, and whatnot. Remind the decision maker that you too worked very hard for the sale, and that they have no alligence to the other salesman over you, if you can provide a better deal.

Also remind them that a sale is not a sale until the money is paid and the product is delivered and properly installed and trained, and that there are consumer laws that generally allow for minds to be changed for several days after the sale. Remind them that if you have a better offer, it would only be smart business and organizational stewardship to take your offer.

I couldn't count how many dealos I have stolen away from the competition after the deal appeared to be lost. It takes guts and creativity. But this is where you start to know you are good at what you do. 

Limit the Competition

I've heard the whines of so many salesmen (mostly copier salesmen), that there is way too much competiion on each deal. Often the competition is with equally good, the same brand, or the same brand sold as an OEM. They are allowed to discount only so far, and when they do, they don't make any money.

In trying to help them find solutions to this very real problem, I usualy first ask, "Where did the lead come from?" I also usually learn that the lead came from a call-in over the telephone, pretty much out of the blue. There are immediate problems with this kind of lead. The customer doesn't know them from anyone else, because they juswt opened the phonebook yellow pages to Copiers and called.

Why do you suppose they called? Well, maybe the ad was the biggest, or the smallest, or had color, or not, or had a catchy slogan or a copier picture that compelled them to call your dealership.

Maybe. But probably not. They probably called every copier place in the phonebook. They want a deal. Dualing dealers. The bottom price. I suggest counting these call-ins as bluebirds (unexpected and not worked for), and cut the price to the bone and spend very little time on them.

You want to be in the driver's seat, with little or no competition, so you can earn a fair margin and be treated fairly for the superior service that you will personally provide. Okay, then earn it. Makie your prospecting phone calls, drop-offs, cold calls and demonstrations. Meet with decision makers of large, and quality companies with good financials ande suggest (because you've become an expert) ways to cut their expenses, save time, provide quality, and make their lives and the lives of their employees easier and more productive.

Think of it first, by asking a lot of questions about them and their buisiness needs and how they do things now. Think of it, research the feasibility of it, spend the time putting together the cost-justifications, and financing and the numbers to make it work. Then meet with all the proper decision makers and do a PowerPoint presentation to visually and audiably demonstrate how this proposal can be painlessly implemented. Don't let them rely on YOUR numbers or words or estimates, use thberi numbers and prove each point with one or more proof souces, just like a well-foot-noted scientific paper. Give each person attending a well designed color copy of your presentation complete with copies of referral letter recommending you--properly bound and looking as professional as possible.

Include your prices and your order forms. Know ahead of time by first gaining supervisory permission and then meeting with the appropriate people from accountants to users, and build your presentation to meet all of their concerns.

Sometimes one of the buyers will half-heartedly call another of your competitors, but they will look so week, that they will have no creadence because you have taken the time to find, sugest, groom, and gain the confidence of the buyers. They trust you because you are the pro. They view you as a resource gladly pay your price; and they know they get what they pay for. You earned their business.

And since you initiated the calls, you have targeted the biggest places in terms of purchasing capability in your territory first. Your sales will be much larges, as will your margins. You are a professional salesman as opposed to an order-taker sniveling over a lack of leads. YOU make it happen.

For this--you get the big six or seven figure income. The sky's the limit.

Referrals Plus--Good as Gold

They are arguably the best source for valid leads. Your job is half done. I used a method that was sure to generate an abundance of referrals. Upon completing the sales order and paperwork and after a signature and PO or a check was provided. I would smile and thank the clients earnestly. I would ask them if they were satisfied with the product. Then I would ask them if I had done my job to their satisfaction. They can't very well say no, having just bought your product.

I would then whip out a sheet with a pre-written referral letter on it. Technology would now easily allow you to have a jump drive with the bones of the letter on already on it. Ask them to plug it into their computer, change it however they desire, and print it on their letterhead. This is great, but it is not the most important step.

Have a preprinted sheet with various office (or other) products with check-boxes next to them. You can easily prepare this yourself in Word if your secretary won't. While the letter is being prepared (be fairly insistent on getting this don and getting your jump drive back right then or it may never happen), ask another office assistant who you've come to know as being in the know to fill out this form. On it will be the title, Anticipated Future Purchases (What do you need). Explain that you have a vast network of trustworthy professionals just as yourself, who you can refer them to. Then to top it all off, ask the office staff to gather around your product and take their picture with a little automatic digital point and shoot camera. If you know how to easily use your self-timer functiopn or have an odd man out, get in the picture with them. You got 'em.
Later you'll bring them back a framed 8x10 to display in their office.

Most importantly, have a lower section with places where your just-sold clients can write the names poof places you may call on using their names as having referred you--for other opportunities to sell your products. Coach them with: Their Church, Spouses Business, Associations, Tenant Neighbors. Get the whole office involved it it if you can.

Armed with a referral letter and the sheet of future purchases, You are set to approach you friends at the C-of-C or lead club or whatever and casually mention that you have a potential lead for them, but to wait about a month (unless you know that the purchase is imminent). Follow up on these. At this point the other salesman is indebted to you for future leads. Follow up with them both on the lead you gave them and to get other leads for your products. Combined with a spiff to these salespersons for good leads--you will entice them to look for opportunities in your behalf. It is a great way to learn what's going on in your buying community and to leverage this knowledge to your own advantage.

Million Dollar Donuts

This if amazing. I have been in the graphics/sales business most of my working life. As has everything else, the technology used back when, have given way to totally different methods. In my lifetime I have sold virtually all types of graphics technology. I have also owned an Print Shop that utilized offset presses and duplicators. I have had a side career of passion in photography and photojournalism to keep things fun. Against this backdrop, I tell you that I was once given the job of selling only ink!

It was different than pumping iron, although it involved a lot of specialized knowledge and the same basic sales skills. Ink is ink, more or less, although a good salesman will try to make the minutest differences of each subtlety to gain the advantage. For the most part, ink sales is like selling an intangible. It certainly is relationship selling and involves a lot of entertaining and getting to know the right people and solidifying the relationship with what I call here in the south as "good-ole-boyisms", and that doesn't imply anything dishonest. The one year that I served this function was a real eye-opener. Methods of customer endearment that I learned then, served we greatly as I later moved into a position of Dealer Sales Manager for Canon, USA.

About three times a week, I would go to the best donut shop around, early, and bought however many dozens of donuts required to service the press-room at the major newspapers, and other high-visibility accounts. Then I would walk around like I owned the place and slap backs and listen to and tell jokes to everyone from shop foreman to production manager to the press operators and mechanics. I got to know everything about them. I sent birthday, greeting, and special occasion, and no reason cards. When I uncovered problems or special needs required by any of this group (on or off the job), I would study my ass off and research, and try, often successfully, to find solutions for these challenges. Even if no solution was found, the effort and interest did not go unnoticed.

The mediocre business base that I had inherited was skeptical at first, but things changed quickly. It has been so long ago that I don't recall how much total dollar volume that I sold, but I do remember selling just over One Million Dollars to ONE Newspaper that year--mostly in the second half. That number is something like a gazillion dollars today. It was award winning, which was NICE, BUT MORE THAN THAT, MY PAYCHECKS AND BONUSES WERE VERY FAT. I might just add that my company would never reimburse my donut bills--which were substantial.

Extrapolate what you will from my Magic Donut Story. It shouldn't be hard to incorporate the ideas in some fashion into your own style of selling, well, anything! Think BIG, TRY NEW THINGS, EARN THE BUSINESS. This combo is so rare in the work-a-day world that IF YOU USE this method--you can become wealthy. I did.

High Tech, Low Tech Lead Generators

Next post: How to use things like NEWSPAPERS TO GENERATE LEADS, as well as how to use things like computers to do the same.

Cognitive Sales Motivation

When you get down to it, self management to the extent of enabling yourself to consistently make calls and do other activities, which most people don't regard as pleasant. Others have expressed this as "being able to do what unsuccessful salesmen don't do". Andthat's pretty much it.

In my lifetime I have endured a dozen or more sales methods that are. They were valiant attempts to explain how to become a good salesman. The did some good. A gazzilion positive motivation selfhelp bood have been written to the same end. They are not all hogwash, but mostly.

For thousands of years it was uspposed that pain was related to the amount of tissue damage a person suffered. Recently, via a study of cancer patients disclosed that those suffering similar tissue damage experienced widely differing levels of pain, Thereby shooting these ageold suppositions.

This astonishing revealation has revolutionized everything from the treatment of pain, mental depression, and yes, self-management such as that required by excellent self sales management.

I call it Cognitive Salemanship. Although it can take elaborate forms with charts and descriptions and analasis of emotions and rational thoug --the basic drift is that when you have a negative thought regarding a customer, your territory, your sales manager, your abilities, your prospects for a stellar month, you capture your thoughts and emotions on a form, and analize them, and turn them into a rational response.

This mehtod has eliminated pain in chronic terminal patients, it has cured the mentally ill, the physcically ill, and it can certainly cure any case of low motivation doubt or call reluctance. Here are a few simple examples.

Situation          Emotion                 Auto-Thoughts       Cognitive Distortion     Rational Correction

No Prospects     Discouragement       Lousy Territory        Fortune-Telling      Business is there/calls

Don't Feel like work   Hopelessness   No one will buy     Mind-reading      Almost everyone needs my stuff

I'll just go shopping    Boredom         I don't feel like it   Procrastination     I'll shop after ten calls

Sales Manager is heartless  Offended  Not pleasing him  Self-Defeatism  Listen/He teaches me how

It scares me to amke calls   Fear/anxiety  I don't want rejection   Personalizing    They don't even know me

The key is to talk back to your excuses until you have none. Charting them helps you to realize that you are indeed distorting. There are many books written on cognitve therapy and Cognitive Distortions. One I like is called feeling good. I suffer severe chronic pain. I has helped me to change my perception of this pain to a very high pain tolerance without noticing it. I realize that i intuitively used these techniques to great advantage as a ery suffesful salesman and Sales Manager and ever as a Marketer. DW

Good Ideas from MSN

I copied these ten career killing habits from MSN.I feel that some are more apropos to sales than others. #S 3,4,5. 8, and 9 are particularly poignant, but all of them are worthy of considerable consideration. #3 is probably most peculiar to sales than to other professions. This is due to ready noticeably of results or the lack thereof. So many jobs allow one to coast along without any productivity standards measuring their success. But in sales, the results are their for all to see, posted on the board in black and white--or worse, in living color.

It really doesn't matter what kind of degree you have, how many miles you drove, how many calls you made on businesses, which have no propensity to buy your products. How many hours you put in making shiny proposals during "call-time" hours, or how much you suck up to the boss. If the sales are not there, you haven't done the job. There are no entitlements in sales. Production is what entitles you. If you make the sales, you can pretty much do whatever you want to without being criticized.

There is a mind-set that causes a person to feel that they have paid their dues (or not) somewhere in the past or by virtue of birthright or whatever convoluted notion possess such people, and therefore they are entitled to a job. Not in sales. Sometimes people are just biding their time, because their goals are so low that their salary is enough for them. It is okay if they don't make extra commissions or bonuses. What this mind-set fails to compensate for is the fact that a salary, draw, baser, or whatever you want to call it, is in all but the rarest cases, merely advance commission to allow you a little while to ramp up and start hitting quota. It WILL SELDOM if EVER, be paid for more than a few unproductive months. Why? Because someone, everyone is watching the bottom line. Businesses are not in there to lose money.

When the powers that be are looking for ways to cut expenses, to keep their own jobs (even CEO's are accountable to a board of directors, stockholders, or themselves), they see the prominently displayed lack of sales in a given facet or geography or product of their business, and some heads are going to roll. That's all. Period. end of discussion. When you begin a sales job, you need to know what is expected of you and how long you have. You need to communicate, and if you haven't delivered the goods, you'd better have a genius level plan of action to present, or preferably, find another job--probably not in sales.

There is a trend in the copier sales industry for a young marketing graduate to try to gain one or two years of copier sales experience so that they can go get a higher salaried pharmaceuticals or medical sales job. It should say something that a person who has survived the copier sales industry for two years is a desirable candidate for such a job). Thees people , however fail to realize, that anyone who has that kind of successful experience selling copiers will be making so much money that they'd be crazy to go sell pharmaceuticals. So it is really the failures that they are looking for. Why? Because they feel someone who survived for a couple of years has at least the minimums necessary to be an order-taker from mean, rude, arrogant  pricks--their client base. That they can at least handle rejection.

The awful truth that these recruits to other jobs find out is they are going to make ten to twenty calls every day scheduled by another person, get stood up, reamed out, and kicked around like a door jam. My experience with talking to these people a few months later is that they are working retail behind a parts counter taking orders and calling it sales, and getting paid nothing for it. Thank God for those masses, but is that what YOU want to be?  Reading the following may help you.

avoiding these 10 habits:

1. Not having a life plan.
All very successful people have a clear life plan, whether memorized or actually written down. They create it, massage it and refer to it often. Nearly 85 percent of people who are satisfied with their life overall have a personal action plan, McKee says.

“Without a plan, we leave our success in the hands of others who may or may not have time to look after other people’s successes,” he says.

2. Not keeping your skill set current.
The business landscape is ever-changing and there is more demand for jobs than supply. Not staying on par with colleagues and those vying for your job will be a deathtrap.

Companies are looking for ways to reduce expenses or get the maximum return on their investments, McKee says, including personnel. “If someone else is capable of producing a greater return, you are at risk of being replaced.”

3. Failing to deliver results.
Winners in business know that it’s all about accountability. Those who harbor a sense of entitlement for simply having put forth effort, irrespective of the results of those efforts, are guaranteed to fall by the wayside.

“Many individuals simply don’t understand that business and professional fields … are becoming more like the radio business,” he says. “If one’s ‘ratings’ are going down, they get replaced.”

4. Confusing efficiency with effectiveness.
Those who think that communicating via e-mail replaces the need to actually talk with people around them fail to recognize the importance of personally connecting with others in today’s highly automated and technological environment. Communicating in person is imperative for success-seekers.

5. Believing you are irreplaceable.
There is no room for “divas” in the workplace. As soon as you convince yourself that you and only you can do the job “right,” your star will surely start to fall.

6. Knowing all the answers.
The old adage remains true: Knowledge is power. Professing to know it all can readily stagnate a career. Winners remain unceasingly interested in learning ideas and approaches.

“The best leaders love to ask questions,” McKee says. “They stay current, get new ideas to follow up on and earn the respect of their teams. With that respect, the team members are more likely to work harder for the boss.”

7. Surrounding yourself with “brown-nosers.”
Serial “labor losers” like having people tell them how smart they are, whether or not it’s true. Successful managers and other professionals accept and encourage intelligence and creativity in others.

8. Forgetting to give credit to others.
Labor losers inappropriately take full credit for positive events despite the help or input received by others. Winners give credit where credit is due.

“People are becoming less likely to sit back quietly while their boss steals ideas or takes credit for great ideas which weren’t their own,” McKee says.

9. Failing to self-promote.
Bragging is one thing, but letting colleagues in your industry know of your success through case studies, promotion bulletins or other such tools is another. Labor losers often fail to recognize the importance of letting others know about their successes, or they go about it in the entirely wrong way.

10. Losing perspective.
Intuitive business people recognize that, despite their best attempts to do everything right, sometimes they approach roadblocks and seek the advice and perspective of a respected friend, colleague or even a business coach. Those who fail to recognize their shortcomings are destined for the unemployment line.

How to Close Sales

The first step is to have a lot of prospects going at all times. You cultivate them until, to use the vernacular, "you earn the right", to ask for the order. My advise is to work hard to do a good job of qualifying and providing information and ask for the order early and often.

Closing sales is simply asking for the order. You are a salesperson. You are expected, by you boss, your peers, and by your potential customers, to ask for the order! How hard is that. You are not paid to be their friends, although it may help a little, a very little. You are not paid to repeatedly take them to lunch, although that may, in certain rare cases be a good idea. You are not paid to drive from here to Kingdom Come, and back in a twelve hour day to see one or two customers. You are paid to ask customers to buy your products, which given the right framework, and proper training, experience, God-given ability, luck, and persistence, a a huge volume of those that don't ever buy, will lead to an ample number of real live ink on paper and a check or PO number in hand.

There are volumes written about various techniques of closing the sales. Tricks and such. You are not ever going to trick someone into buying your product and have it stick. I know all the names and all the methods of these closing techniques. I'm not sure I've ever consciously used any of them, but i have used them in one form or another. The real deal behind the magic of those so-called closing techniques is to get you off of dead center and to do SOMETHING to move you to ask for the order.

So the answer is no. You find out why, answer the objection, and ask for the order again. Sometimes you can't figure out why, they won't say yes. But they probably have been playing you. Maybe they like you and the attention you've given them and don't want you to stop. Often, they have misrepresented themselves and really don't have the authority. That's why it is up to you to find that out early in the process. I once had a lady who flat out lied and said that she had the authority to buy a very large and expensive copier that was selling. She demanded a week-long trial, saying that she would not order y copier if I didn't comply. In that week she ran up hundreds of thousands of copiers at my expense. then she said she wouldn't buy the copier. No reason. Clever girl. She just got a bunch of free copies.

I immediately went to the receptionist and demanded to see the branch manager. I told him the pickle that I was in, equating it to taking a new car for a test drive to Alaska. Being and honorable man, and and honorable company, he said, "Son, if what you have told me is correct, I have no choice but to buy your copier. I will look into it." I got a phone call to pick up a check paid in full that afternoon. The clever young lady was fired. Abuse of her authority (or lack of). Stupid girl. Not only did I sell that copier, but thereafter being on a first name basis with the manager, who respected me for the balls I displayed, bought three other machines from me. If I recall correctly he also asked me to go duck hunting with he and the Governor of the state, now a presidential candidate.

To close a sale, earn the right to ask for the order then do it--early and often. It ain't magic, it is the natural outcome of the process we call the sales cycle. Do it.

Have Dreams, Not Nightmares

I have not worked for another entity other than my own, selling, since my early (and untimely) retirement in 1990. Health concerns caused me to pursue other, more-controllable part-time endeavors. I am grateful for my years in sales. For the most part I loved it. It helped me raise four successful children, live the American Dream, and hopefully prepared me for my old age needs.

Not infrequently I have pleasant dreams about my days of selling. Night before last I had a nightmare. I dreamed that I was a sales manager with a bunch of uncooperative and unproductive sale-persons working for me. It was horrible. In my dream, I was able to analyze the reasons for their lack of success (and consequently mine), and put together a plan I was confident would turn this sales force around.

After many horrible portions of my nightmare, the tide turned as I put a plan into action. I awoke at that point, a happy camper, invigorated and ready to go to work. Problem is, I don't do that anymore. Maybe I should. Still the health problems plague me. So instead I made a few notes and determined to write many entries in this weblog. You see, my job was for years to go into ailing branches or dealerships and either shut them down or turn them around. So I have actually experienced this nightmare turned pleasant dream over and again in real life.

There are many things that I don't know how to do, but I am about as big an expert in this tinsy skill as I am aware of. It is late now and i have already attended to some rather long entries in other blogs so far tonight, but I promise that during the next few entries, I will outline my solution that my subconscious dreamed up and relate the most important points to you. It is intended for sales managers--which really includes all aspiring and successful salesmen too--as the main task of each is to manage others or their own sales.

The job comes down to:

1. Identifying obstacles.
2. Locate prospects.
3. Learn your markets.
4. Learn your products.
5. Motivate (yourself or others)
6. Market (activities designed to get you in front of prospects)
7. Present to as many prospects as possible within the shortest amount of time.
8. Convince the prospects to buy your products.
9. Leverage your customer base.
10. Service your customers so that they want to buy more products.
11. Duplicate your efforts by teaching others how to do the same thing.

The next few posts will explain the basics of how to do this--in any market. You may find some of it very basic. You may find that I have previously written about these techniques. A reader typically retains about 7% of what they read, under the best of circumstances. I couldn't tell you, without looking, what I have actually written myself. I could read some of my own material written a while back, and although it would resonate with me as true, I might not even recognize it as my own writing, unless I knew that it was.

I have written all my life, more or less. Frequently I run across a piece that I shoved in a drawer somewhere or filed electronically, and say, "Gee whiz, did I write this?" So I KNOW that you merely being the reader, don't remember everything that I have written. On top of that, I have only scratched the surface of relating the sum-total of my years of sales experience.

If you are not selling like you and or your boss would like for you to. I can teach you how to do it. It's up to you to act on it. I don't write BS. Much of my sales philosophy is unique. some of it I have relearned over and again.

The key here is to learn what to do, do it, and relearn it and do it again and again. We all have the foolish habit of stopping doing the proven techniques that work. I don't know why. Maybe we get distracted or bored or something else? But we all do it. Why not do the things that work, that have proven time and again that they do work. And use gold or restoring cars, or sky-diving as your fun thing. But I also can assure you that sales is real fun, when you are selling and making lots of money!

See you soon. doug wright

What Kind of Sales for YOU?

I have sold both tangibles and intangibles. I did well at both. I actually got a two year degree in Insurance Sales when I was right out of a Viet Nam Era hitch in the Navy. I was lisnced to sell Life and Health Insurance--later securities. The health insurance sales I was with provided leads from abundant mailings. about one out of five leads were good. I covered mostly rural areas, so it was a lot of driving. Still I made a lot of money., until I began to question the ethics of the company I worked for. You must realize that insurance companies are not in the business of paying claims. They are very much about a good bottom line. The more revenues you generate and the less monies you pay out equals profits. All insurance companies operate more of less that way.

Reputable Names in Life Insurance are less inclined that way. But it is tough sales to get started. It largely depends upon making a huge list of everyone you know and sending them an announcement that you are now selling Life Insurance. Then you methodically start calling on them, and beating them up regularly about buying insurance. That was never my style.

You should also join the biggest church, all the civic organizations and develope "Centers of Influence", who will be ytour primary birddogs for finding prospects. These might be non-competing insurance salesmmen, Chanber of Commerce personell, Car Dealers, Real Estate Agents, etc. You essentially share leads. I never liked the feeling that your former best friends would cross hte street to avoid you when they saw you coming. I did alright, but I didn't like spunging off my friends and relatives (as it felt to me). Many people have no such compunctions and make a fortune in life insurance. I never sold Fire and Casualty Insurance, but it is my belief that it takes a few years to ramp up, but if you like sitting in an office for the most part, it can be very lucrative. Still not MY cup of tea, but maybeyours.

Securities is a different animal. It is largely phone sales and personal contacts. Whether bonds or stocks or other financial intruments, the commisions are usually front-loaded and you get a lot of money up front. It is one of the ways in sales of becoming filthy rich. Still many others are starving stockbrokers. 

One big benefit to mnost types of sales is that each year that your original sale is renewed, you receive a small renewal commison. After a lifetime of building up such renewals you can conceivably retire on just your renewals without ever selling another policy.

For one inclined to legal matters, I recommend security sales or a reputable life insurance company. Like anything else, it requires a lot of effort to get through the first year or two, but then becomes much easier. You needs financially therefore must be offset initially by a wife's income or other windfall., or tolerating starving for a while.

I recently soke to an old copier sales refugee who just statted selling annuities. He had just made over eleven grand from one annuity sale.

There are many other types of sales. As a general rule, the harder/less enjoyable it is, the more it pays.Successful people learn to do the things that failures fail to do. An old saying, but worth repeating.

Copier and office equipment slaes is becoming more and more technical. If you are not so inclined, there are solutions. Most companies have Systems engineers, if you dare to allow theseright brained propellor heads lose on your customers. If you hire your own private comapany to handle such affairs you will not have to worry so much and will have more sales time. I USED TO USE A TRICK OF GETTING TO KNOW NATIONAL TECH PEOPLE WELL AND INVITING THEM IN TO HELP CONDUCT  SHOWS OR MAKE CALLS OR WHAT HAVE YOU. YOU MAY BE SURPRISED THAT THIS IS WHAT THESE GUYS DO AND ARE OFTEN SCRAMBLING FOR PLQACES TO GO TO JUSTIFY THEIR HIGH-DOLLAR SALARIES.

Another consideration is to picki a fe product that are high-dollar sales and popular, and become a specialist on these items only. Make sure you ge the help doing you demos until you can do the best demo know to man--on that particular product. Then sell these big/popular items to big companies. I have mentioned it before. This is the way I got off to a quick start in the business. I would barter a lead for a lessor product for whatever to another salesman while I pursued the big fish. Consequently I made big commision as I maximized my time vs. payoff.

Some sales jobs are nothing more than order takers. This is not bad. Pharmacuetical salespersons fall into this category. It is a boring type of sales for me however, and doesn't pay that well. Medical equipment sales on the other hand is probably the ultimate both in knowledge/skill, and pay-back. Itis not uncommon for these folks to knock down a million a year.

In the end, hard sales work sucks. It just does. No one would choose to do it over having sex. So, if you need to make big bucks, choose your poison, do it well, and make sure it funds your fun hobbies, whether it be rebuilding old Mustangs (*as my son does), or travel, or treasure-diving. If you make enough money, you can stand almost anything until you can move up the food chain into management or get one of those National jobs, which are nice jobs in every way. The bottom line is, that if you are a sales superstar in anything, Emersons Lqw of compensation will hunt you down and reard you with your dream job, given time. So young slaespersons--just hang in there.

Converting Cold Calls to Sales

Those who have followed my columns or blogs or listened to my sales seminars or resulting tapes and videos, realize that I am old school in some ways. For example, I believe that effective cold-calling results in more tangible leads than do the now-standard morning gazillion phone calls routine. Your sales manager won't want to hear that, but if the sales are blowing everyone out, I guaranteed that you won't get fired (unless you may be threatening his job by then--so be humble and respectful--no matter what. I never was, but I changed jobs a few times.)

First let me review why I think that cold calls are more effective than are phone calls, and in the same breath admit that good phone skills are also an integral part of your prospecting mix. I have always subscribed to a "System of Tens". This may become a "System of Six's, or "System of Thirties", all depending upon the geography of your territory, products, ability, knowledge and other variables. The point is that you should make equal numbers of different sales activities: phone, personal calls, hand-addressed mail pieces, and what have you. In many products a balanced number of demonstrations (or the equivalent presentation in the case of intangibles--are the most important part of the mix. Often the goal of the latter is to schedule the former--but in fewer numbers necessarily.)

Okay, I guess it is actually second; cold calls cannot be replaced with any other technique because during a physical call:

1. You can use all of your senses and powers of deduction in sizing up needs and likelihood of buying upon which you learn to develop an approach strategy on the spot. My specialty was primarily office automation, and particularly high-end copiers and other print technologies back int the day. BTW, did you know that the first copiers that I sold came with a mandatory resident fire-extinguisher, others used electro-statically charged special paper which had to be imaged and then bathed in a mixture of kerosene, iron filings, and carbon--which leaked on the carpet and could not be removed. But the alternative was wither mimeograph, spirit duplicators (spelled great, like fine liquor--well liquor anyway) , stencil duplicators, or offset presses.) Count your blessings.
2. You gain both a lot more information (usually), and you make a greater impact in terms of memorability. Hopefully rapport can begin to be made with at least the receptionist, office manager, and often the primary decision maker, and sometimes the entire buying team.
3. In departmentalized businesses, you can treat each department as a separate entity with separate, and often internally competing needs, using names and referrals from each entity and using this information to strengthen your approach for the next department. Your reconnoitering is infinitely more effective than a mere phone-call, which most often which gains you very little for your effort.
4. You often get to snoop around and see needs (you see the antiquated monster Xerox in the back mail-room that no one thinks to tell you about), competitive equipment, leasing agreements and expirations dates, unsupposed applications, which you can possibly convert into a sale of a myriad of related products, pretty girls (or guys), and all of this before you ever even approach the purchasing agents--who most often are merely acquirers of requested products.
5. I have actually spent entire days roaming around large firms, going from department to department without ever being called on who I was and what I was doing there. I guess they all just assumed that I was a quality control consultant (or some kind of consultant), or visiting from the home office to determine whether there location should be shut down. Then I met everyone a the local watering hole while they got wasted and spilled their guts about everything (I only drink seltzer water.)
6. You are able to ask questions to learn how their paperwork flows (copiers, office equipment), so that you can better understand how you, the consummate professional paper-flow expert, can provide solutions to bottle necks and other complaint areas, as well as how much is being spent to help you justify why they should buy your "stuff", to solve their problems. Good salesmen look for problems and ways to solve the problems. If you can save money in the process, it becomes a no-brainer (sometimes they actually have no brains and don't buy your products, but mostly they do.)
7. You are able to learn personal commonalities that you can file back literally, or mentally if you are good at that, and have grounds for breaking the ice during this and follow-up visits with the movers who can make decisions to buy..
8. Cold calls having fallen out of favor and being supplanted largely by phone-calls, become more effective and you gain a leg up compared to your phone-calling fool competitors (never assume this, however.)
9. Even if you get thrown out upon entry, which happens less often as you develop a style. It never happens to me, and hasn't in a long time; this partly just comes with the innate respectability of age, appearance, presence,confidence and persona of wisdom of authority, but not entirely. Style and method is the main thing. But if you do, you still have a better sense of the relative prosperity of the business, the age and progressiveness or lack of, the business. Usually you can get a name. If they require an appointment, ask if you can make one right then, for later.  If they still blow you off, and say make an appointment, ask whom to do this with, and go outside and call on your cell phone and try to get through to this person and make an appoint ment saying, "I happen to be right outside of your business at the moment and just wanted to stick my head in and introduce myself and share ways that we might mutually benefit one another's business."
10. As you develop your style you will learn how to play the game and charm the gate-keepers into softening up. On a true cold cold call, there is a power struggle that begins the moment the gate-keepers catch sight of you whether outside the building are upon entering the door. You are being sized up from the git-go. You eventually learn techniques to win this power struggle in a non-offensive way, so that your body language, how you handle yourself, how you approach, speak, and the content of what you say, and even a curiosity factor into increase your chances of "winning". Innocent banter akin to flirting (but not flirting), is often part of the game. It is called charm, I think, if a label must be applied. sometimes you nail it, sometimes you fail. But you get better with each call, especially if you have an objective and review what went right or wrong, at least mentally, after the attempt or success.

There are other reasons but a good list of ten is usually compelling enough. You get the idea. Now, How do you actually implement this phenomenon? As a young (and terrified) beginning salesman. I would provide my huge list of forty or fifty or more cold calls and my sales manager would say, as if dubious of my report, "How could you have made this many calls?" It was not an office building environment, and this number was unheard of.

I simply said, "It doesn't take long to hear NO! and get kicked out." I wasn't joking. We were not trained then. We were given a price-list and maybe a few brochures and said go sell . As I learned more about what I was doing, My call volume went down and my closing ratios went up. I found myself getting in front of decision-makers and having meaningful conversations about their needs, problems, and my potential solutions. I started scheduling more demos.

Back then, it was not uncommon to leave at 8:15 in the morning with a Sales Maker gurney-type cart with a copier on it, and go around trying to show it to as many people as would look. Having a station wagon was mandatory to go to work. If the prospect/suspect liked it, you tried to close the deal. If you failed, you tried to leave it on a day long or more trial. This was called "puppy-dogging", and it was pretty effective. It was hard work too. This was especially done with mechanical and then the first electronic calculators and "computers", if you could really call them computers by today's standards. "Funny" stories about this process abound, but I will leave those for another less urgent post.

My point is that the demo/test drive,/presentation-making-the -intangible-tangible, or whatever equivalent action, is the bridge that may turn the suspect into a prospect and then a buyer.

Please read that again. Wake up and read. This is crucial. But let me qualify a bit. This process becomes less important in a replacement market, that is a "flat" market, not indicating anything negative, but the flattening of the bell curve on a graph of the acceptance of a product or technology, as the buyers become more educated, sophisticated, and familiar with the available technologies.

A new salesperson will find that many of his customers are actually better-informed than the salesperson. In this case, although you seldom get away without at least a quick look-see the product, it is not unheard of. It becomes a matter or other factors such as service, response time, and proofs of such, and cost-justification--also known as pencil selling. Not selling pencils, but using numbers and a feature here and there, presumably "penciled -out", to justify the purchase.

This happens only in a flattened part of the bell-curve representing the life-cycle of a product or technology. Still, the agreement to see a demo, or accept a trial, or attend a "seminar, or what-not--will still indicate a level of interest and generally will expedite the sales cycle. This is often also a matter of "churning" the current install base for upgrades and piggy-back product sales to existing customers.

The equivalent BRIDGE such as a demonstration, will virtually always be necessary in the beginning or steep upward incline in the graphed bell-curve of the beginning stages of marketing new product new technology acceptance.  This may involve new customers or old customers being introduced to new technologies and products.

This is where you must be a salesman in the sense of convincing a targeted suspect that they need something that they may never have even considered.  Or better yet, uncovering through your understanding and adeptness of your product and applications thereof, new uses which may solve problems and thereby enlighten the customer that she/he truly needs this product. In this case you become a true consultant bearing good tidings and you are regarded as the hero to the customer. Great customer loyalty comes from this type of evolution.

Proof in the form of demo or what-not is always required in this case and it is absolutely necessary to convert a suspect into a prospect and then nurse them along into becoming a buyer and overcoming the RC factor. Resistance to Change, quite often keeps a person or group from acting on a perfectly plausible solution.

So how do you transition from a cold call to a sales dialog? By gaining information until you have a problem with a solution to solve this problem and then demonstrating that solution effectively and powerfully. This is magic. It is the "thing" that has caused me to declare on many occasions that,

"It is much easier to find potential buyers who don't know that they have a need (read that again carefully), than it is to find people who are sitting on the edge of their chairs just waiting for someone to call them to sell them a copier--in other words, those who call everyone in the yellow pages and have dueling demos and a drop-pants price stand-off.

Salespeople have often complained to me that they were up against forty or so other competitors. You can't make a living that way. But what it means is that they are relying of call-ins and leads generated by other people usually than on their own creativity and hard work. The early sales-bird gets the juicy worm and the respect and allegiance (often reverence) and loyalty of their buying clientele. They are clients ion such cases, not mere customers. And you are a document specialist, not a mere also-ran salesperson.

Next post I will, by request continue this line of thinking about cold calls with actual steps of making the cold call blow by blow and taking it through the steps to becoming a happily served buying client, let me retire for the morning and ponder while I sleep a case history or two to draw on for the next post.

Doug Wright

(Continued ) Cold Calling Steps to a Sale

(continuation)

I was surprised when my second son gave up his graphic arts career and took a gamble by following in his ole man's office automation sales foot-steps. I really shouldn't have been. My kids have been tutored in sales and negotiating since birth. They are all honest, smooth, charming, and charming. My youngest daughter sold vacuum cleaners door to door while in college. She is a petit, drop-dead gorgeous, young lady. She doesn't look the part, but she is a lion-heart. My oldest son and daughter are equally adept in sales and negotiating. As a pharmacist who manages other pharmacists for a national provider, he uses his sales skills daily and it has started him on a meteroritic rise on the fast tract.

But the son who is in the business, is the one I can both advise (whenever he asks) and commiserate with over shared experiences.This is his third full year, and he has blown it out each year. This year he is about 198% of budget and receiving all the accolades available from his company. There is an old adage that says,"If you have the sales, nothing else (much) MATTERS." His sales manager has given up on trying to enforce his morning phone calls. He truely tries, but he is more effective using my methods of prospecting. It obviously still works. He also sells so much and is picky about taking care of his accounts, so he does his own installs, which also takes a lot of time. 

As promised in my last post, I hope to herein detail the actual steps, including a couple of examples--true case histories--to illustrate these steps. My son's Sales Manager made a very quotable quote in order to explain to a new salesperson why my son has "earned the right" to use his own methods. He said that he and my son are experienced enough that they have developed a certain "aura", which customers can sense when they meet them. This easily explains a concept that struggled with last post.

A power struggle deveops the moment the guardians of the office, whether a receptionist or an office manager, or a whole troupe of gurandians conspiring, guessing on your profession, your motive, and how smoth you will be. In some cases this means parking around the corner or in an office building going to spiffy up a bit. In other cases it means parking your ride, whether a junker or a porche in the owners space. You know the one that says,"Don't even THINK of parking here." The latter is rare, but sometimes is called for.

During the trip to your account (or sometime), you need to get your best guess of an approach in your mind. I have always relied on a simple system of memory-pegs to organize my thoughts. You can find numerous books and web sites on memery peg methods that date back thousands of years. Once I sat quietly in a sales training meeting. I think ev eryone had written me off as a looser.
But I was pegging the sequence of proposed presentation steps. When it came up for my turn to use te proposed method to "mock sell", a product. I did it flawlessly and blew everyone away. they thought i was somekind of genius. Where they thought I was doodleing, I was pegging. If helps to use these memory crutches for many things.

The trick is to get past the gate-keepers and/or get information which can be used to further your aims at securing the account being called on. You must be different. I have always made a bit of a scientific game of trying different approaches, and analyzing their effectiveness. Nothing replaces experience.The apporach of a typical non-cold-call savvy saleperson is to burst into the door and rushing to the first person you see with brochures stuck out and spill their guts unintelligibly. Invariably, you get nowhere, or you have to back up and start over if the gate-keeper has time and is compassionate (rare).

I've tried pretty much everything--from begging, to acting lost, to flirting, joking, not identifying myself right away (or ever), to rushing in as if late looking at my watch and demanding to see the owner. I have warn three piece suits and heavily startched shirts, and Ihave slummed in jeans and a bomber-jacket. I have had misleading busniness cards printed. I have been the bearer of good news (won something?) and badnews (your copier is due to crash anytime). Or you are running three times the volume allowable for your current copier.

I have come in setting up demos because i am aleady going tohave several pieces of equipment in th building next Thursday for several other neighboring accounts. Food will be served from 10:00 to 3:00. How mnay tickets will they be needing. I have conducted surveys for a free permium or gift certificate. I have used made up fliers that featured whatever they might most likely need. I have gone in soliciting old, warnout and used office equipment at top dollars. I have posed as a customer or client seeking their service--sometimes I have even bought products or contracted their services--so it was never a lie.

Perhaps hte most effective method for new and seasoned reps alike is to stumble in dazed and confused looking and say something like, "I think I am lost--what do you guys do here--please, I KNOW I am lost--can you HELP ME??"

There seems to be something magic that I can only suppose is the appeal to the softer side of humanity to HELP you. Most people truely wnat to help someone. NOt always, but usually you can follow by explaining something--anything--like,

"I am not sure if I am at the right place, but I have been sent on mission impossible by my boss, to find out three things from every business on this block."

Example of things: 1) Do you have copiers (printers, color, whatever? 2) If so, what brand and how old and are you happy with them? 3) Who makes the buying decisions and how can I get in to see them?" Puppy-dpog face. Innocenbce.

Example two: "I know this sound nuts, but I have been asked to get with someone who knows and graph your paperwork-flow. do you know what I mean? I don't either. But it is my job. Will you help me try?"

"Example three: " Who buys you office equipment????" A please look in you eye."

Ultimately it is up to you to develop your own style. don't waste your good accoutns while learning you style. Just pick a block or building and go door to door. I can trace my success and my style back to those 40 some odd phone calls I made initially.

After each call, write someting down or enter the info into a sales contact database. I firswt used index cards alphabetically arranged in a box, then I used ACT, contact software. i LATER USED A SIMPLE PROGRAM CALLED SIDEkiCK. ANY WILL DO. iT IS IMPORTANT TO BUILD THIS INFORMATION. DON'T EXPEXCT TO GET MUCH MORE THAN A TIDBIT OR TWO INITIALLYU, BUT THIS INFO WILL HELP YOU ON SUBSEQUENT CALLS. iT TAKES A GOOD YEAR TO DEVELOP YOUR TERRITORY THIS WAY.

sOMETIMES YOU GET IN AND HIT THE JACK-POT.  i HAVE TO BAIL OUT FOR NOW BUT i AM JUST GETTING STARTED SO RETURN SOON TO THIS SAME POST.

hOW TO SOFTEN YOUR COLD CALLS

BY DOING RESEARCH BEFOREHAND ABOUT YOUR TARGETS FOR APPROACHING VIA COLD CALLS CAN GREATLY IMPROVE YOU ABILITY TO CONNECT THE FIRST TIME IN. i HAVE SHARED A TECHNIQUE BEFORE THAT i WILL REINTRODUCE .  Thereaearch need not be too elaborate. An indudtrial guide, a company list, the Internet, or even a phonebook, can give you a leg up. my technique is simply to random picture color postcards to individuals who may be decision makers, gatekeepers, or influencers.

Write a brief note, introduce yourself, hand write in ink, and stamp, sign legibly. Tell him/her that you would mile to exchange some ideas of mutual interest. Mail it timed so that when you call on him/her, the card will have been read and hopefully setting on their desk. You weill get in nearly everytime.

Just tell the gatekeeper that you are there to see so and so, give her your name. When she asked what this is concerning. Say, "He's expecting me." Expound no more. Be firm but casual. Follow up your meeting with another Thankyou card--postcard or "PowerCard." A "PowerCard" is a card, perhaps of your own design, but which are available forom commercial sources, nice, expensive, and with a winning, often sports theme. Persistence, positive attitude, philosophy, famous quotes, power, stenthg, you get the idea.

Send a similar card quarterly or every birthday if you have that information. When you see an item of interest in the news--send a card to congratualte, and include a newsclip, CD, what not. I guranatee your competition won't be doing htis. This sets you apart and makes you memorabloe, creative, and professional in your style.

SO YOU GET IN TO SEE THE DECISION MAKER

Fisrt try to discretely determine if indeed she/he really does have purchase power. The immediate novice inclination is to dive in feeling under the gun to be brief. Even if you have pledged to take only ten minutes, forget it. Take your time, but respect hers/his. It is customary to have a few minutes of ice-breaking small talk. Cues about what to talk about will be on the wall land desk and all around you. Photos of family, A jumping Marlin, an award plaque, family indications, knick-nacs, golf clubs, framed photographs and sayings--the list is endless, just be aware of your surroundings to pick a cue that you can converse about. If you don't golf, you better not talk about golf, unless you have a golf story about meeting a gold great or whatever. Or are asking beginner's advice. Try to be conversent in order to build rappart. People form an instant bond with people who share something in common with them.

You target will make a gesture, clear his throat, or ask what is on your mind--providing a cue to get serious. Practice sound bites that you can use to bridge to your real goal. One way is to simply ask, "Exactly what do you guys do here. I know superficially, but I'd like to have a better insight befrore I propose some thoughts as to how we may help one another. " Most people will talk freely and proudly about their life's work.

Another approach or perhaps building on the last sound bite, another good thing to say is, "I find that if I know enough about a businesses processes, that I can save them money. Often lots of money. I can surely show you some new concepts and technologies that you may not be aware of. It is my job to be aware of these things just as it is your job to be an expert in zelwaking."

Try to ask questions that get the subject talking freely--open-ended questions--not ones that can be answered with a mere yes or no. Don't too obviously lead. But do lead, subtly, until you get to the topic of office automation and paperwork flow.

Ask, "from beinning to end, how does paper flow in your office. Like, what starts it, and where does itr end, and what steps does it go through in the coplete order cycle. "

"
Do you use color printing, cardstock, screen printing, ad specialties?"

Do you send out for a lot of offset or other types of printing? Do you order a lot of multi-part forms?

Do you find areas where the paperwork bottlenects? What do you think the problem is?"

Maske this a conversation, not a rapid barrage of questions. Take notes when you need to. Get volumes numbers of printers, copiers, types of computers, networks, satisfaction with various processies and products. Find lease expiration dates. Hve them call Mary in and look it up. Volumes too. Get her/him delving into their business, asking questions that he hasn't entertained before. Get him involving other departments and people under him. His ego may help in htis regard. He will also want to appear on top of his business.

Allthe while, you are building a custome strategy of how to solve one or more of his problems. Funnel it down a logical path and ask her if you can come back and propose an overall strategy beginning with various steps and details regarding the most immediate step you see. Pick an area that is really a problem. One that you can solve through your professional expertise, or the expertise of your support staff and sales managers.

Thank her. Leave and make sure everyone sees you. Send cards to everyone you talked to promptly. Send flowers, sometimes anonomously but with enough of a hint for the ladies to figure out. Send Mr./Ms. Bigshot golf tees, a fishing lure, a magazine or Internet report on a hobby or interest that you noted. Thes are you prospects of tommorrow. The average sales cycle is three months. You must constantly be balanced in closing sales ready to close and grooming sales to get there. Otherwise you'll have a decent month every 90 days. It is hard to mix these activiities but abolutely necessary to be a good or great performer.

Remember--demos sell.Sell demos. Get the office out of the office and to your place to see a bang-up presnetation. Or less-preferably place a three day trial. Make sure you baby sit it. Or better stillo, take them to a special showcase account that loves you.

I once called on a guy who more or less kicked me out due to a bad experience. I called on him faithfully with info pertinent to his business and handled him as above every quarter for two years. Finally, he needed something that I had that no one else had. I cracked the account and it became one of my mainsTAY ACCOUNTS. ALTHOUGH THEY MAY BE HAPPY WITH THE CURRENT VENDOR AT THAT MOMENT--THINGS CHANGE.

A business card on expensive stock and attorney-ish type that simply states your name, cell phone, and reads Business Consultant sometimes helps this process.

Once when I was in my slumming mode, wearing comfortable shoes, nice jeans, and polo shirt, and a brown supple leather bomber jacket, I walked iinto a travel agency. I was actually calling on doctors mostly that day, and have found that the non-business card/no information approach works best forthese guys--but since the travel agency was next door, I called on them as well. The gatekeeper read me, even in "disguise.

" She was semi-hateful to me and immediately said. "We don't want any and the owner is getting ready to go out the door for an important meeting. She won't have time for you." I guess it was the leather harman notebook I was carrying.But I was not going to let her know that she had pegged me. I don't recommend this, but I do always say, maintain your dignity, no matter what!

I looked annoyed and perplexed. I don't know who you think I am. And I sure don't know who you think YOU are--" the owner was indeed gathering up to leave and within earshot--"But I AM sure that you are the rudest person Ihave ever met, and I have no idea why you are in business--and obviously won't be for long. EXCUSE me for thinking I needed you services. I will see that everyone in our firm never uses you and will certainly dis-recommend you ever chance I get!"

The owner was hollering after me as I got in my car. I can only gues the conversation that followed inside afterwards. Mean.

In the same mode, I entered a new business, usualy a good suspect for office equipment. The guy dissd me right off the bat, and said he'd hadit with salesman and to get the heck out of his business. Obviously a new businessman too. He was young, and obviously ego-tripping about the fact that he finally had a business at all--probably at Daddy's expense.

"I said, excuse me sir, I a from the xyz newspaper. We had hoped to do a special page on your buiness in our New Business inseret--but with an attitude like that--you couldn't pay me enough to feature you now--and unfortunately for you, I am the sole editor of this insert."

The guy'sw face was crestfallen. I really do do freelance journalistic work, so it was believable--and I probably could have gotten his picture and q little write-up in the NP, so it wasn't totally off the wall.

As I was leaving, the young fellow had gathered enough composure for me to hear trailing off as the door closed, "What newspaper is tha . . .?"

I was younger then, and I was indulging my pride, as were these two examples. I don't recommend it. Pride procedeth the fall.

I have even done worse, but I better not tell. It could get you arrested. But for all the times you've wished you could just punch someone out for being rude, take heart in knowing that strangerthingsw have happened. But it USUALLY comes at a cost. And generally signifies a time for a long break.LOL.

doug wright

The problem is usually solutions.

Are You Ready to Create Change?

Link: Are You Ready to Create Change?.

Warm Calls

If you have an install-base or similar list of current users, a drop-in call can be done under the auspices of a courtesy call. How many customers get courtesy calls, where you merely want to see how everything is going and what you as their account representative, wants to hear any complaints and what you can do to make life better.  That puts you in front of them as a hero, albeit sometimes a hero who gets blasted by complaints. Most complaints can be turned into sales. For real. Most problems are the result of old, abused, or too-small equipment. Often the solution can be a larger, more technological capable and beefier solution--for the same monthly payment or even less.

If your customer is happy, ask for a reference letter, carry one on a disk or jump drive that they can customize , print on their own letterhead and sign on th espot. Easy, and very strong for your future closes. Also ask for referrals to churches and organizations they belong to or their spouses may belong to or work for. Ask the whole office. A little digging can produce much gold.

And of course look for other opportunities to solve other needs with other products you carry. This is piggy-backing of the most fruitful kind. Make hay while the sun shines. 

This is a Test

Okay. How many of you took my advice and prepared a list of the top 50 businesses or organizations within your territories that have the greatest potential to buy your products? If you made this list, how many of you have been visiting and strategizing and targeting this list? How many of you have determined the vertical markets that buy your products within your territory and started calling on them? How many of you are setting as many demos (or equivalent transitory devices) as possible in order to convert suspects into prospects and buyers?

I have lots more tips and experience for you, but if you haven't done these basic things, you need to. It can be momentarily stimulating to read one of these little blurbs, but in order to change your sales for the better, you have to implement these things.

Successful people are those who are able to do the things that unsuccessful don't do. If you are getting the same results that you were getting yesterday, and you want to change your results--then it follows that you must change your activities. Do it.

Worthy of Reflection

I commited this experience to words to share with a friend who was feeling down.

Hi!

1) How do we tell a girl chromosome from a boy chromosome? Uhhh, pull their genes down?

2) I have, just and you no doubt have, had many faith-promoting experiences. For many, if not most people, the sky always seems to be falling. Keeping a journal to record good things, many of which, upon more than casual examination, make us to know that that many coincidences simply is not possible, making us to conclude that Someone is helping us. I call that Someone, God, and I have long believed in him. I have many of these faith promoting experiences, some which came on the cusp of ruin and just in the nick of time to save my hide either literally or figuritively. These are my special reservoir, which helps me to undergo the many life trial that I face.

But one of my favorite experiences has nothing to do with saving my hide, but it came at a time, un-asked for, just as a free gift, which I know was intended to let me know that God was aware of me (and others)  and as such it gives me much peace at times. The incident occurred about twelve or so years ago. I was already sick to the point that I had to stop working. I was receiving a sizable disability income that I had paid for on my own through a private Insurance company, never dreaming I'd ever have to use it. I still thought I would be able to go back to my job at X. I didn't know then how sick I was and how much more sick that I would become, but I was definitely feeling sorry for myself. I had worked hard and had caught a few lucky breaks that had put me in line to become the next NCBP Manager. I was about to move to Rochester, when my physical revealed some errant blood chemistry. I was unable to take the job. Had I been able to do so, I would have spent two years in that capacity, before logically being promoted to an international product marketing position that I had long coveted. I was, in my mind, about to arrive--ahead of schedule. Then the health set-back. I was pretty bummed.

During those days, one of my favorite past-times was riding a bicycle across country. I rode up to fifty miles a day without fail year round. During one of my rides during this tough emotional time, I found myself about seven miles from home. I carried normal bicycle tools with me routinely to fix a tire and tight the frame, etc. But the main bolt that tightens down the handle bars to the fork and frame had come loose--something that hardly ever happens. I didn't have that particular large allen wrench--one of those L-shaped hex wrenches that are sued for such things. It was not the end of the world, just a very minor aggravation. I was on a back-road that parrallelled the railroad tracks and was seldom used by motorists. I had no expectations of anyone passing by and offering help. Like most men, I probably wouldn't have flagged anyone down if they ha. Besides the chances of any motorist having such a tool was very slim. Things like that happen when you ride a lot. So I didn't put much thought into it and started to ready my bicycle to push it the seven miles back home. I figured it would at least be a good workout, although not the one I had intended, and I wasn't very happy about it.

I pray a lot. About a lot of things. But it didn't even occur to me to bother God with such a trivial matter. I saved such pleadings for when I really was in deep trouble. So it came as an astonishing though obviously pleasant surprise when I spied in the grass about two feet from bicycle, a familiar shape. I couldn't believe it at first. And I don't know how I even spotted it so readily in the unmoved road-side grass. It was rusted. I picked it up and wiped it on my sweat-laden Tee Shirt and gave it a closer look. Sure enough, it was an allen wrench of just the size and fit that I needed to fix my bike. It was twisted a little, as if someone had used a cheater-pipe on it to get more leverage and twisted the wrench end without budging the the bolt they were working on.

They had apparently done the same thing that I could see myself doing in disgust in such a situation--threw it to the ground and made other provisions to solve their problem. But here, now, I was the unlikely beneficiary. It took no time for me to adjust the handle bars to the fork and frame and to torque down the required tightening bolt-head. I was happy at my good fortune. But such things don't just happen. There is a purpose, I believe, to everything. God is in control. At a time when I needed a little nod of approval--God provided one. And the meaning was not lost on me. I don't kneel that often when I pray, but no one was there, and I felt particularly reverenced by the token. I quickly dropped to one knee, teared up a bit and said a little muted, but out-loud "Thank-You" prayer to Heavenly Father. I felt invigorated, and I finished my typical ride in a state of preoccupation.

As I've said, I have a backlog of life-experiences that cause me not to doubt that God is in Control and that he will come to my aid--in his own ways and in his own time, and that he knows best for all of us. But this singular experience occupies a profound place in my mind to help me when I am feeling down. I saved the Allen wrench, twisted as it is, I have it in my top up stairs desk drawer. I have related the experience to various people, mostly family from time to time. And I plan to have it electroplated in gold and mounted in a shadow box along with this story. Maybe I'll go ahead and do that this week while I'm on a roll and it is again fresh on my mind. God loves us, and He wants to help us-even in the little things. I know that. dw

Strive High

I Saw Denali

Alaska is my second home. I lived there during the most impressionable years of my youth. Then we moved away and I didn't return until I was an adult. I went back with my wife and took my family back once and part of my family once again.  In another life Alaska would have been my permanent home. It is such a diverse and amazing place. I lived in several of the various climates and terrains of Alaska, each offering something different but equally amazing. I lived in Fairbanks, in the Eastern North; Anchorage, in the Eastern South; Kotzebue, in the Arctic; and Bethel, in the Western South.

There are so many wonderful features to enjoy in Alaska, that you'd think it would be hard to select just one that rises amazing above all others. If you've ever been there, you'll realize immediately that one feature really does. Of course it is The Mountain. That's Mount McKinley, the tallest on the North American Continent. The Indians have always called the mountain, Denali, which roughly means the Great White One. It was been venerred and worshipped and considered divine since prehistoric times. This is easily understood when you witness Denali for yourself. It is difficult to imagine the vastness of Alaska by merely looking at a map or a globe. A map, of necessity, must condense the size of the graphic representation to a much smaller size, relative to the mainland American continent.

Six million acres. No, that's not Alaska, It is a park. Denali the mountain, is contained within Denali, the Park. The park is six million pristine acres of mountains, water, wildlife, bush wildflowers, and tundra. Or it is white. It is a wilderness preserve with controlled access. It is a park worth visiting if you are up for hiking and outdoor adventure. The park, and Alaska in general, can be foreboding, even dangerous, due to the extremes in climate and vastness of geography. But you can enjoy the mountain from the safty of numerous towns from numerous vantage points in virtually every direction.

When the locals speak of Mount Denali, they say, "The mountain is out," when it is visible. "It is 'not out," when clouds obscure its viewing. The mountain actually creates its own climate. The huge white peak towers above all others. On any clear day it can be seen elusively flirting with adoring fans. One moment it is "out", you blink, and it is gone. The first time my wife saw Denali, she experienced what many first-timers experience. She was looking toward the horizon on a par with the other mountains, all of which are huge and magnificent. She couldn't spot it when I'd say, "There!" She would look and not see the great Denali. She was becoming frustrated, when finally I followed her gaze and realized that she was looking far too low.

I pointed, "Up there! See. Look. The big white thing." She thought what she saw above the other mountains was a great white cloud.

Suddenly she saw with new eyes. "Ohhh. Oh my gosh! Oh MY GOSH!" The white mountain often gets such a response. I have never lost my enthusiasm since I saw THE GREAT WhITE ONE from my first-grade class playground in Anchorage, or from Fairbanks, or from anyplace. Denali commands awed respect. It is huge! Viewed more closely, from Denali Park, or better yet, from a small bush-pilot's tiny gnat of a plane, Denali, Mount Mckinley, inspires with a life-changing experience that causes one to look, to strive, higher in all endeavors.

The grandness of The Mountain changes your heart, your mind, and your outlook. Once viewed, you are forever changed. I already said that. Once just isn't enough. Not for The Mountain. I hope you will one day view Denali, from as close as you can, if you haven't yet. Whenever I am feeling low, or lowly or alone, or transparent--I gaze toward the North, close my eyes and recall the majesty and beauty and allow forward the images emblazoned upon my recollection--of Denali. It enlarges my being. And I always feel better.

There are many wonderfully spectacular mountains--but only one Denali.

Clap On to Light Up Your Mind

Link: Clap On to Light Up Your Mind.

15 Style Mistakes You Can Fix Now - MSN Lifestyle: Men

Link: 15 Style Mistakes You Can Fix Now -   MSN Lifestyle: Men.

Change Your Ways of Thinking

Only recently has brain research spiked to the point that greater understganding of how learning and motivation and other control mechanisms occur. One of the primary concepts of learning is to keep learning new things, and avoid routine, and to leave our confort zone more often. This maintains your brain's functionality. If you are not having to struggle a bit to learn new tasks and challenge your brain in concentrated ways, then your brain is decaying.

There is a section of the inner brain called the "worry circuit". It is often responsible for errant  brain behavior such as obbsessions and compulsions and can lead to mental disorders such as depression and anxiety. These conditions are natural and useful conditions that get off track. In sales, we are often required to do "things that unsuccessful people do not do." You've probably heard that common-sense statement if you've been in sales very long.

While it may be true that some people, due to their life skills, personality, and predereliction of their brains, come to the job with the ideal set of skills required for success in sales; but this is truly rare. However, it is true that anyone can learn to do and enjoy virtually any activity. I am living proof of this.

When I came to a point in my life that I determined I was going to have to leave the relative fun, comfort, and prestiege I had long enjoyed in the field of photography, in order to earn the kind of money that I desired and needed to do the things I wanted for myself and my family, I picked sales.

I was a very shy, introverted young man who preferred to be lost in his own thoughts and I enjoyed the exercise of those parts of my brain that I had most often excelled at. I planned to go back to school, but I was impatient to change my earnings quickly. I looked around and it became apparent that some of the highest incomes were earned in sales. Although I was by nature ill-equiped to undertake this profession, I made a conscious decision to do it anyway.

The first time I went out to make sales calls, I was scared to death. I had recieved no training; I was merely given a product book with prices and brochures and told to "go sell". As I recall, I drove around and around the block trying to summon the wherewithall to make the first call. I had more or less memorized the product brochures. Finally I went into the large industrial enterprise that I had been assigned to call on. I stuttered and stammered and felt like I would hyperventilate. I didn't get past the receptionist.

By burte force, I made call after call without much success. I guess I did get some names of people who made decisions and so forth, but I was treated pretty rudely in all. I was acustomed to the prestiege of a community photographer with a good reputation. Rejection at this scale was new to me. I decided after a day or two not to "waste" these calls and went to a section of my territory that appeared to be potentially less-productive. I then went door to door calling on business after business.

As I may have related elsewhere in this blog, I attended a morning sales meeting during this time and my sales manager said in disbelief, "How could you have made this many calls?" I replied sincerely, "It doesn't take long to hear "NO!". What I was doing at this point was building knew brain nueron paths. I didn't know the science behind what I was doing, but I had been exposed to people who had taught me simply that you can do anything you set your mind to. I guess I was one of the few people to be young and dumb enough to believe these things.

As it turned out, my naiviety was unwittingly playing into what has now been found to be good science.
Within a week or two, I was having better success, and I certainly was feeling better about making calls. I found that if I forced myself to leave the office early and make the first few calls, that I became energized and would usually make many more calls. I later learned that this phenomenon has a name--"overcoming call reluctance." It helps to know that although different people feel this phenomenon to a greater or lessor degree, that EVERYONE experiences call reluctance to some extent.

I eventually reached a point where I actually enjoyed these cold calls, and interestingly, I also learned techniques to get in and to make sales. Lots of sales. About three years later I recall a discussion with a fellow successful salesman that included the remark, "This is so easy, it should be illegal." Both of us at this point were making money hand over fist, far beyond any expectation we had ever had, more than most professionals.

My friend had as I recall, a double Masters Degree in Buiness and Finance and in Accounting from Georgetown University. He had left a job as a high-ranking accountant in a national firm, because he had topped out his earning potential, and our mutual boss had convinced him that with his background he could do very well in our business. He wasn't wrong. We both enjoyed long and productive careers in the industry.

Honestly, I was so green at first, that I didn't even know where Georgetown was. But I had changed my brain to do the things necessary to sucede. I was and am a passionate person, although I often don't outwardly reflect this. My feelings are not expresseed very often. Probably as a result of this trait, I became a big worrier. If I was not at quota or above, I felt like I would die. This may have served to spur me to great hieights, but it also turned into a case of abnormal anxiety.

Once I recognized that anxiety was not a healthy thing, I once again decided that I must change the way my brain worked. Reading about the latest brain research and treatments of personality disorders, I learned two basic truths: 1) These feelings of anxiety are not real, meaning falsy based. 2) I can talk back to negative thoughts or self-defeating thoughts. So where was the big WOW in this?

The big WOW is that if I (or you) will do these things YOUR FRIGGIN BRAIN WILL CHANGE! And in a positive way. Let me cite one more personal example of what our brains are capable of. Much earlier in life than I had anticipated, I became chronically ill (probably due to military exposures to toxins, and decreased immunity due to my own anxiety) and began to experience chronic pain.

I think I have always had a fairly high pain threshholod, as part of my culture growing up demanded it. My next oldest brother was tougher than I was, and so I didn't realize that he was just a freak. He is now a retired Navy SEAL, and sicker, but still tougher than I am. But I am gaining. I have learned, from a lot of sources, alternative means for delaing with pain. This next fact that I have learned can be applied in many ways in our own self-management for sales or anything else. I find it facinating.

For hundreds of years authorities have thought that the amount of felt pain was related to the amount of tissure damage that occurs in a being. Only recently have studies been done that find this premise to be untrue. In one case, cancer patients were studied. It was found that multiple patients having similar tissue damage in the very same locals of their bodies, experienced different levels of pain. Some felt virtually no pain, while others felt unbearable pain. Further, it was learned that each patient could reprogram his brain and nervous system to feel pain much less, by changing their perception. This is profound. It aplies to much more than just pain management.

It is beyound the scope of this blog to try to explain how this is done. My own journey took me through a lot of trial and error, bio-feedback exercises, and personal cognitive therapy. By this latter term I mean by using a method to consicously change my (your) brain. I will tell you that it is not goning to just happen. You need to take notes about your thougts, set goals, and consciously talk back to your pain (or other negative perceptions). I am not pain free. But my pain is much less and I do know that if I put my mind to it, I can consciously eliminate my severe pain within a few minutes.

So, if I can erase the discomfort of pain caused from tangible tissue damage, I assure you that I can and have, and more importantly, YOU CAN change the amount of discomfort associated with anything, including the dislike of doing "sales things" that seem to come hard to you or that you don't particularly enjoy. I know you can do this! That should serve as the basis for knowing that you can go out and do your job and realize that you can actually control your attitude and brain to the point that you can enjoy virtually anything you need to do.

There have been cases when I couldn't quite erase certain raw or sharp chonic pains, even though I did greatly reduce it. I would lie quietly and go through various mental exercises to change my perception of pain. I would quite consciously change the feeling of "hurting pain" to feelings of "pleasant cold". Then by visualizing the "ice" at the point of feeling, "melting". It would simply melt away.

I hope that you can use these thoughts to do more research and embark on your own journey of self-control. If you do, you can gain great success as a salesperson--or any other profession. I might now just tell you that my oldest son did just that. While the other son is quite happy in sales, this son tried it for a couple of years and did well, but he decided that he wanted to be a pharmacist instead. He is now a managing pharmacist in a large company that works with both patients and insurance companies. He makes a lot of money. The point is, that you can use these technique to--to get what you want.

You can DO IT! Start now.

Two Thoughts on Gun Control

1) "The right of self-defense is the first law of nature; in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest possible limits... and [when] the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction."-- St. George Tucker

2) Japan has some of the strictest gun-control laws in the world-largely as laws forbidding such ownership were imposed punitively upon Japan by MacArthur's reconstruction after WWII. Japan is also culturally predisposed to not have violent citizen on citizen crime, although they have had a brutal history of crime against other races.

However, this reference to a recent article, shows how guns are not requisite to kill people.

Tokyo's Akihabara district, a popular shopping area for consumer electronics, was still in shock on Monday following a killing spree by a 25-year-old man who plowed a rented truck into an intersection full of pedestrians, then began stabbing bystanders at random. The rampage, which left seven dead and 10 injured, was another reminder of a violent side of Japan that is not often discussed.

Tokyo's Akihabara district, a popular shopping area for consumer electronics, was still in shock on Monday following a killing spree by a 25-year-old man who plowed a rented truck into an intersection full of pedestrians, then began stabbing bystanders at random. The rampage, which left seven dead and 10 injured, was another reminder of a violent side of Japan that is not often discussed.

Motivational Phrases

Link: Motivational Phrases.