SHOW YOUR TEETH

I am not sure how it happened or why it happened but for some reason I noticed something over the past week or so that I haven’t noticed in a long time, PEOPLE ARE NOT SMILING!

Oh sure, I see people with smiles but most of them are fake forced smiles that are there because their boss told them to smile. What I don’t see as much are sincere smiles of people who are happy with their jobs.

It didn’t matter if I was walking in with a sales rep to make a sales call on a customer or walking into a store as a customer, more people than ever before just seem to not be enjoying themselves.

Over the Holiday weekend I attended a few get parties and tried to find out what it was that is going on. At one of the parties I ended up being with several people who were from all walks of life. As they talked I was listening to the overall tone and sure enough just listening to them was getting me upset. They talked about everything from layoffs to businesses closing. I heard about people that have not gotten a raise in 3 years and others that have had their salaries cut. Budget cuts, benefit cuts, furlough days, travel expenses cut, and the list of gripes was longer than the line of people making the gripes. It was like a bad news celebration instead of a Memorial Day celebration. Not one person I was listening to had anything positive to say about anything to do with work.

The other party I went to was mostly my business friends and the majority were sales reps. I would like to tell you that every rep there only had great things to say and that they were all positive. I would like to tell you that but I can’t. What I can tell you is that the group was split about 60/40, 60% positive and 40% complaining.

In this group I was more a participant in the conversation instead of a listener like the first party. I wanted to know what was happening right and what was happening wrong, not with individual companies, but with the market and the economy as a whole.

What it came down to is pretty simple;

The market was getting better in almost everyone’s mind but it was happening much slower than they would like it to.

Most businesses agree that things are getting better but are still reluctant to make any major changes or make any major purchases until they see more positive signs.

The businesses that have made the decision to move forward are doing as much business or even more than before the economy went bad.

Sales reps that have stayed sharp and kept up the same service levels as before the economic downturn are seeing their business grow.

Sales reps that cut back and lowered their level of service are not seeing their business come back as quickly.

So now I have information that will help us smile;

                SMILE! The market isn’t moving as quickly as we would like but IT IS MOVING and it is moving in the RIGHT DIRECTION!

                SMILE! It is only a matter of time before all businesses see the improvement and start buying!

                SMILE! As soon as one of your customers decide to move forward they will be bigger and better than ever!

                SMILE! If you stayed sharp your business is growing!

                SMILE! If you didn’t stay sharp you can start right now and your business will grow!

Reps it has never been more important for us all to wear a GENUINE smile and always be upbeat and enthusiastic. As my information from the parties tells us, there is plenty for people to be upset about. We need to decide that being part of the problem by fueling the negative flames of the economy isn’t going to help us, it will become our failure.

Enjoy what we have, enjoy what we have to look forward to, enjoy that we can make a difference.

Lorin