Sales Gladiator

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

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

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.

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.