WORDS OF BUSINESS WISDOM FROM THE TOP!

Today I want to give you several pearls of wisdom from some of the top business people in the world. As you read them you will start to realize why these people are SUPER SUCCESSFUL in business. Enjoy!

·         “There’s no genius behind it. Its persistence and listening to people”

           Craig Newmark – founder of Craigslist

·         “Failures in business are caused by treating business as a short sighted profit making endeavor, and clinging to outmoded practices."

                                                                        Konosuke Matsushita – founder of Panasonic

·         “Sales are vanity; Profits are sanity”

                     Silas Chou - Textile Industrialist

·         “Risk comes from not knowing what you are doing”

              Warren Buffet – 3^rd Richest Man in the World (2010)

·         “There is only one boss, THE CUSTOMER. And he can fire everyone in the company from the chairman on down simply by spending his money someplace else”

                                                                                                          Sam Walton – founder of Walmart

·         “Just because your ratings are bigger, doesn’t mean you’re better”

                      Ted Turner – founder TBS, CNN, Turner Broadcasting

·         “It doesn’t make any difference if the product is a car or cosmetics, a company is only as good as the people they keep."

                                                                      Mary Kay Ash – founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics

·         “Business opportunities are like buses, there is always another one coming”

       Richard Branson – founder of The Virgin Group

·         “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we have done something wonderful – that’s what matters”

                                                                                                          Steve Jobs – co-founder of Apple

What did you notice about these quotes? I noticed that all these people focus on things other then just making the sale. Maybe if you pick and choose some of the hot buttons here, it will help you in the field.

Lorin

THE WORD OF THE DAY “PASSION”

I was recently on a phone call and the person I was talking with stopped me in mid sentence and told me that I used the word of the day. As you can imagine, after about 90 minutes of talking I had used a lot of words and was a little confused which one was the word of the day. She said PASSION.

I asked her what I won! She simply said most likely the sale. She continued, the owner of the company she worked for used the word passion as his word of the day every day. He was passionate about passion. She said that everyone who worked for the company got one week a year “PASSION” pay, a week’s pay to go and be a part of some volunteer work without having to use your vacation time. Passion was one of the company’s pillars and it is one of the main differentiators they use for all aspects of running the business.

All I could think of was that here is a business owner who really puts their money where their heart is. Then I thought about the company I was dealing with. Everyone I know there is extremely happy with their job. The company is an industry leader. I personally know several people who have climbed up the ladder with the company and are now executives. The most amazing thing is that as I thought about the people working for the company, everyone was passionate about their job, and doing the right thing for the customer, and the company.

As usual, I am asking you to evaluate yourself and ask yourself, “Am I passionate about what I do every day?”

Did you know you can see and hear passion? Sure you did. We have all talked to someone who was passionate about something. Maybe it was their job, or their product, maybe it was their faith or their family. It doesn’t matter what it was, when we were finished talking to them we knew this person had passion.

Passion is what separates wealthy people from happy people. I know a few people who have tons of money, but because they are not passionate about what they do or what they have they are not happy. I also know people who struggle every month to make ends meet, but are so passionate about what they have or what they do that the struggle is easily ignored.

As sales reps if we have passion for selling the customer will see and hear it. Everything we do will be impacted by that passion and we will have more credibility then we have ever had. No one will miss the commitment that passion brings with it, and so many of the things that would be blockers to success become nothing more than small detours to our goal of success.

We all need to be more like the owner of the company and make PASSION our word of the day, every day.

Lorin

WHAT’S YOUR SCHTICK?

Today, one of the best ways to get a customer and keep a customer is to differentiate yourself from everyone else.

For years I have had the pleasure to work with reps at all stages of their professional career in sales. I am always impressed and amazed at how some reps separate themselves from the pack.

I have seen reps do everything from tell a joke, to show pictures of their kids as soon as they are in front of the buyer. I was once with a rep that as soon as the customer saw him, the customer pulled a deck of cards from his desk drawer. I stood there watching as the customer cut the cards and then the rep cut. They put their cards in their pockets and the rep started his sales presentation. I watched as perfect a sales call as I have ever seen take place over the next 30 minutes. I had forgotten all about the playing cards by this point. As we were walking out the door with a very nice order, the two guys pulled their cards out. The customer started screaming at the rep (all in a good friendly way) he said this was the third time in a row, and after a few more minutes of friendly exchange we left. The rep was laughing and I asked him what that was all about. He said he just sold everything for an additional 3%. He went on to tell me that the customer went to Vegas a few years ago. The next time the rep called on him he was bragging about how much money he won. The rep asked if he would gamble on the order. I think you can fill in the blanks from there. The point being, how do you think this customer views the rep?

This relationship is a lot more than a “just sell me something” and leave relationship.

What do you do to separate yourself from everyone else? You need to develop a SCHTICK. For those of you that don’t know what a SCHTICK is allow me to explain. A schtick is a routine or act that becomes your hallmark and you become known for doing.

Make sure that whatever you do you are comfortable with it. It should match your personality. If you are a very conservative type person and you start telling jokes, it will clash with your personality and will seem awkward.

You may already have a schtick, but you don’t realize it. Start to take notice of the things you do with customers. Do you have something that makes you different? It doesn’t need to be BIG, it may be very small but it makes you different.

If you have nothing, there are a few things I can suggest. Get a big bag of hard candy and give one piece to the customer when you see them. You can do the same thing with a business card. They may end up with a bunch of your cards, but they will remember you. Go to the internet every morning and find a great saying that you pass along to every customer. WHATEVER! It really doesn’t matter what it is you do, the prize will be won when you decide to do something.

Lorin

1,075,000 SCOVILLE UNITS

I LOVE Mexican Food! (along with almost every other type of food). Last week my family and I went out to one of our favorite Mexican Restaurants for dinner. We ordered some of our usual appetizers and as at almost every Mexican Restaurant, the chips and salsa came to the table. I grabbed a chip and loaded it with what I expected to be the “usual” salsa and popped it into my mouth. As you have more than likely guessed, it wasn’t the “usual” salsa. This salsa was like putting a red hot branding iron in my mouth. It took me a glass of water and about 3 minutes before I could even talk.

While I was going through this feast of fire, my daughter casually took a chip, loaded it with as much if not a little more of the inferno mixture, and popped it into her mouth. I sat there watching her (unable to even scream out a warning) as she chewed the chip and with no sign of spontaneous combustion grabbed another chip and dipped it into the salsa again.

I thought to myself.. Well never mind what I thought to myself, I just watched in amazement. Here I was having a salsa meltdown and my daughter was enjoying the salsa as if it were nothing more than a veggie dip. How could this be?

Don’t you just love my lead in’s?

Out in the sales field, when I worked with rep calling on customers, I would see some reps hear an objection and totally melt down. Another rep would hear the exact same objection and in a snap get by it and onto another subject. How can this be?

It is simple, each of us has our own level of tolerance towards what is said to us. Some reps can take the heat and some can’t. How you work under pressure will many times make the difference between success and failure with a customer.

Unlike the salsa, which is a physical pain, a rep that gets flustered by an objection can help themselves by doing a few basic exercises.

One thing you can do is to write down every objection you have ever heard. This may take awhile for some more seasoned reps but it is a great exercise to eliminate the unexpected. The reason a rep gets flustered is because they are put in a situation they have never been in before. The surprise of hearing something that is new and unfriendly can cause you to freeze up and not have an answer. By writing down every objection you have heard and every objection you can think of, you should not hear anything new again and be able to better handle the situation next time.

Another good exercise is to record the objections so you can hear them. Record them as if you were the customer. Use the same voice inflection, tone, and emotion as you think a customer would use. By hearing them as a customer would say them you will not be sensitive to all the circumstances attached to the objection.

My last suggestion is to record your response to the objections. To do this properly I suggest that you dress as if you were in the field. If you wear a suit put it on, if you are in jeans and a tee shirt put it on. Stand in front of a full length mirror and tape all the objections to the mirror so you can read them. One by one say the objection out loud as you did in the last exercise so you sound like the customer, turn your voice recorder on and answer the objection like you would in front of the customer. When you are done play the recording back and listen to what you sound like. Be looking in the mirror as you listen to your reply and go through all the motions you did as you were saying it making sure that your body and face were telling the same story as your words. A step up from this is to video record yourself and watch yourself as you actually responded looking for all the same things, body language, facial expressions, and voice modulation.

After doing these 3 things a few times (the more the better) you will get a comfort zone established around objections and no longer freeze up, or melt down, when objections are thrown at you.

To finish the salsa story, I asked the waiter if this was the usual salsa we have there. He told us that they had hired a new cook and this was the salsa that he made. He told us they had gotten a lot of comments about it, some liking the heat and some not liking it. Gee, doesn’t that sound like reps? Some love the challenge of the sale and handling the objections and some don’t. The waiter said he uses Ghost Chili’s in the salsa along with the usual Jalapeno’s. I did a Google search for Scoville Units, I found that a Jalapeno Pepper has a rating of between 2,500 and 8,000 Scoville Units, a Ghost Chili has a rating of between 855,000 to 1,075,000 Scoville Units.

I now know my tolerances, what are yours?

Lorin

IT’S NOT ONLY WHAT YOU SAY, IT’S HOW YOU SAY IT.

The following story was sent to me by my wife. One of the administrators in her school places little tidbits like this in the BATHROOMS periodically calling it “Bathroom Psychology”. When my wife read this she thought it would be a good message for a sales rep and sent it along to me.

The Blind Boy

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said:  "I am blind, please help."  There were only a few coins in the hat.

A man was walking by.  He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat.  He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words.  He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.

Soon the hat began to fill up.  A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy.  That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were.  The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, "Were you the one who changed my sign this morning?  What did you write?"

The man said, "I only wrote the truth.  I said what you said but in a different way."  I wrote: "Today is a beautiful day but I cannot see it."

Both signs told people that the boy was blind.  But the first sign simply said the boy was blind.  The second sign told people that they were so lucky that they were not blind.  Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?

Moral of the Story:  Be creative, think differently and positively.

Handle yourself with confidence.

When you make a presentation, are you simply spewing features and benefits or are you using words that create pictures for the customer?

Is it just a car or “THE ULTIMATE DRIVING MACHINE”? Is it just a new iced tea or “THE BEST ICED TEA JUST GOT BETTER”?

There is a famous line from the show Dragnet, “ONLY THE FACTS”. As a rep you can give the customer “ONLY THE FACTS” and you will never get in trouble with the customer because you are giving truthful, accurate information. However you may get a little beat up by your sales manager when they look at your sales figures and see that they are not where they should be. Giving the facts in a creative, positive, and compelling way is what will create a desire for your product.

Use descriptive words that really drive home the quality and usefulness of your product. I used to sell a parts washer that had 3 filters. I would work with reps and they would tell a customer all about the 3 filters. They would talk about what they were made of, how they fit into the machine, how often they would need to be changed and an entire menu of other features about the filters. When they were done talking the customer was either asleep or wishes they were asleep. I would ask to talk about the filters for the next presentation. I would tell the customer that our parts washer has 3 filters which make up our exclusive multi-tiered, multi-media, inline passive filtration system which will keep their machines solvent clean and save them hundreds of dollars over the next year. Which description created pictures in your mind? The bigger question is which product would you want to buy after hearing the description?

Pick your words carefully and practice what you are going to say. If you use descriptive words that tell a story, and say them with conviction, your business will grow.

Lorin

DESPERATE TIMES CALL FOR DESPERATE MEASURES! - BOLOGNA! (The Oscar Meyer spelling)

Let me start by saying I don’t think we are in DESPERATE TIMES as a whole. However I do believe that there are certain segments of our economy that are in desperate times.

What does this mean to a sales rep? The obvious thing is to avoid the places that are having bad times. Does this just sound too easy? It probably sounds easy, because it is easy.

I have said on other posts that every day we make our own decisions. As outside sales reps we usually decide where we go and who we are going to see each day. (If your company decides this for you keep reading I have advice for you also) You need to do your homework. READ the business section of your local newspaper. You need to know what companies are growing and which ones are in desperate times. READ trade journals and magazines. These will give you good insight as to how the overall industry is doing. SURF the internet and keep up with what is being done by government agencies that may affect your customers. LISTEN to your customers, but read between the lines. Don’t listen and only hear gloom and doom from them, in many cases today they are using this as their method of blowing you off and telling you no. Try and listen to what they may be leaving out, or what they say in a round about way. These can either lead you to their biggest pain or give you insight as to what is really happening in their business.

Once you have read, surfed, and listened you are then capable of deciding if and when you need to come back to a customer. It may be that the customer is saying no now, but hints that they are about to get a big contract and that business is about to get better. Reading the newspaper you confirm it to be true.  It may be that the customer leads you to believe that they may be closing their doors, and while surfing the web you see that the entire industry is falling rapidly which adds credibility to what you thought was happening. Possibly your customer is saying they are in dread but everything you read and research tells you their industry is doing better, this can give you an opportunity to help the customer with your solutions to get back on track and catch up with their industry. Either way, you now have information that will help you to avoid the depressed markets and focus on the stronger and growing markets.

If you are a rep that doesn’t get to decide who you are going to see each day you need to use a different approach. Maybe you are in route sales, or you are given a list of customers or prospects you need to call on. Your boss will be checking up on you at some point so you need to make the calls. Your choice is not who to call on, but how long to spend with the customer or prospect. The homework you do is the same as for reps who make their own call list, Read, Surf and Listen. Once you know the market you can decide how long each sale call will be. If you are in a depressed industry and the customer is telling you that they are in trouble (and you believe it) don’t invest a lot of time with the customer, move on to a prospect or customer that has better potential.

Yesterday I went to a Time Management seminar. It was good to hear someone else reinforce what I have been teaching my entire career. We all have the same amount of time, 24 hours a day, and 168 hours a week. That is all the time in the world. The Forbes Richest People in the World list was just published for 2010; Carlos Slim Helu of Mexico leads the pack with Bill Gates close behind. I just missed the list this year but I still have a lot in common with Carlos and Bill, we all only have 24 hours a day and 168 hours a week.

I will write a post about time management soon, but for now realize that time is the differentiator. It differentiates hot prospects from cold, good customers form poor, successful sales reps from failures.

As sales reps we need to learn to be at least as smart as our customers when it comes to running our business. Focus on the things that will advance us and help us make sales. Sometimes it is focusing on what NOT to do as much as what to do.

Lorin

IT’S AS EASY AS PIE!

I am not a baker! I have been known to eat baked goods, but I am not a baker, except for PECAN PIES. I make one of the best darn pecan pies you have ever tasted. I have a friend, Paul Allard, who I worked with for many years. Paul is an excellent baker. I will only blame a few of my MANY extra pounds on his baking abilities.

Paul asked me for my pecan pie recipe and I was glad to give it to him. Paul came in the day after trying to make a pie and told me about almost starting a fire in his house because of MY pies. The next time he tried he told me about the hardest pie he has ever seen. To this day, Paul has not been able to make a pecan pie.

I thought, how hard can it be, I can do it. Paul is a GREAT baker, why can’t he seem to get it right?

You would think following a recipe should be pretty easy right? Well it isn’t. Anyone who has ever tried to cook or bake can tell you, sometimes following a recipe works out and sometimes it doesn’t.

Following a recipe for success can be just as hard. Once again, you would think that all you need to do is follow the footsteps of someone who is already successful and presto, you will be successful. No such luck.

If you analyze the two, baking and becoming a success by following a recipe, you will find a lot of similarities and a lot of vast differences.

#1 – Ingredient – When you bake the quality of the ingredients can make a difference. When working towards success what you put in makes all the difference.

#2 – Instructions – When baking it is important to follow the instructions as closely as possible. When working towards success you need to adjust the instructions to fit your personality and work habits.

#3 – Location – When baking your location can affect the finished products, altitude, humidity, water quality all can play a part. When working towards success your location can play a big part in your outcome. The state you are working in, the city, the location within the city can all have a drastic impact on the final outcome.

#4 – Techniques – When baking the technique you use to mix the ingredients, work the dough, roll and cut the pastry will all play a part in the quality of the finished product. When working towards success your sales, demonstration, probing, and closing techniques will all play a part of the quality of the sales call.

#5 – Equipment – When baking the type of bowl, pans, baking sheets, utensils, and ovens will affect the appearance and flavor of the final product. When working towards success how you use the tools you have like your sales catalogs, sell sheets, demonstrations, computer and sales support center will either help a customer decide to buy or kill your chances of making a sale.

Unlike baking, becoming a success doesn’t really have a set recipe. We can look back at things that other successful reps have done and try to avoid the mistakes. We can try to imitate their techniques and do what they do as closely as we can. We can try and mimic their personality and act like they act in front of the customer. We can even try to copy what they say and how they say it. But the truth is, until we make up our own recipe we will usually fall short of our goal of becoming successful.

So it is easy to see that although you may have a recipe for a pie or a recipe for success, there are a lot of factors that can work for you or against you on your quest for a great desert or a GREAT LIFE as a successful sales rep.

BON APPETIT

Lorin

I CHASE THE BRIGHT ELUSIVE BUTTERFLY OF LOVE – Bob Lind

In 1966 Bob Lind wrote the words and lyrics to the song, Elusive Butterfly. (I feel so old; I was a freshman in high school) One of the lines in the song is, “I chase the bright elusive butterfly of love”. You know right away that Bob Lind wasn’t a sales person. If he had been the line would be, “I chase the bright elusive sale!”

Chasing a sale, how many of us have done that? Let’s break it down.

When do we find ourselves chasing a sale? I will bet that everyone reading this is saying they chase sales when they have no sales for the day. We start to chase the elusive sale on the days when “our plan” doesn’t work. I know that usually I would start to chase a sale very late in the morning. On the days when I went to all my planned morning stops and had no sales. Around 11AM or so, I would start thinking to myself, Bill told me he would buy next time I came by, and Sam said he would need my product sometime next week, and Joe and Jean, and Sally.. The list was always a long one. Customers who told me they would buy the very next time.

As we drive all around town chasing the elusive sale, what happens? If your experiences are anything like mine, and I am sure they are, NO SALES ARE USUALLY MADE AT THESE CUSTOMERS EITHER! We drive miles out of our way and we end up with the same results as we had in our planned territory.

PLANNED territory. Why do we call it our plan? Come on that’s an easy question; it is called planned because that is where we PLANNED to go. If we were there a month ago, or a few days ago it was where we planned to go today. Why are we so fast to throw away our plan?

The funny part is (well it isn’t really funny, more sad than anything else) if we look at it logically it makes no sense at all. Let’s say we were at the customer 2 weeks ago. The customer didn’t buy, but says next time you stop by I will place an order. If that were true, we could go by the next day and get an order, or to make it more absurd, we could get in our car, drive down the block turn around and come right back and they should give us the order right? WAKE UP! As anyone who has been in the sales field knows, your chances of getting a sale just because the customer said they will buy next time you stop in are no better than if you made a normal sales call.

As a matter of fact, I have seen new reps with a lot of great potential, wash out of sales for one reason. The first time they chased the elusive sale, the customer actually bought. When this happens to a new rep, no matter how many times you tell them that is was nothing but chance they will not believe you. The next time they are falling behind, they will start the chase, this time it doesn’t work but they continue to chase the elusive sale because it worked the first time and that made an impression on the rep. They will keep chasing until they finally fail so badly that they loose confidence and sometimes wash out of the sales field completely.

This is always sad to see. As a trainer I could never tell you who was going to be the next super star, but when I found a rep with a lot of potential and that rep washed out because of a bad habit they formed early in their sales career, it always hurt.

So what is the antidote to chasing the elusive sale? STICK WITH YOUR PLAN! Don’t be driving all around the area trying to catch a sale. Anyone who knows me knows I am NOT a runner. However I know a few things about running. One of the first things that a runner has to develop is their stride. This is the pace and the length of their steps. If a runner breaks their stride it can cause them to stumble, fall and loose the race. The same thing goes for a sales rep in their territory. You develop a stride each day you are in the field, if you leave your planned territory you have broken your stride and may not get it back that day.

There are a lot of sayings about working a territory:

1)      Every NO gets you closer to a yes

2)      If you jump territory you put all the no’s you have gotten for the day back in front of you instead of behind you

3)      There are no bad territories, just some reps with bad habits in a territory

The list could go on but I think you get the point. I can remember back to my first outside sales job, my sales manager had a great saying that he used for multiple infractions, “STICK AND STAY UNTIL YOU GET YOUR PAY”. Jumping territories was one of his favorite times to use it, and I am glad he did because every time I did it, or even thought about doing it, I would hear his voice saying it to me.

So allow me to climb on your shoulder, and the next time you try and leave your territory to CHASE THE BRIGHT ELUSIVE SALE you can hear me in your ear saying, “STICK AND STAY UNTIL YOU GET YOUR PAY”.

Lorin

THE CHARLES SCHULTZ PHILOSOPHY

Today I want to give you a reality check. Sometimes we forget what we work for and even more important who we are. Success is important, however success is measured differently for each one of us. I hope that this will help put things in perspective for you.

The Charlie Schulz Philosophy  
 

The following is the philosophy of Charles Schulz, the creator of the 'Peanuts' comic strip.

You don't have to actually answer the questions.   Just ponder on them.

1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.
2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.
3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America pageant.
4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.
5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.
6. Name the last decade's baseball's World Series winners.

How did you do?   Not too well I suspect.................................
The point is, very few of us remember the headliners of yesterday.
These are no second-rate achievers.
They are the best in their fields.
But the applause dies..
Awards tarnish..
Achievements are forgotten.
Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.

Here's another quiz. See how you do on this one:  

1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.
2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.
3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.
4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special!!
5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.

Easier? Of course!  

The lesson:
The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials.. the most money...or the most awards.
They simply are the ones who care the most about you!

Lorin

IS IT REALLY THAT IMPORTANT?

This summer my family and I went on 2 vacations. The first one was just my wife and I. We took an Alaskan Cruise. On the second vacation the whole family went to Florida. These were both GREAT vacations. It took a lot of planning for both.

The cruise took weeks to plan. Finding the right ports of call, finding the right price, finding the week that we could be gone, making the reservations, booking the flights the hotels the transportation to and from the boat. Then there were the excursions at each port of call.

The Florida trip was just as complicated, where we want to go, when, booking the condo, finding what was in the area to see and do.

A lot of preparation went into both vacations. I am sure that each of you reading this has had to make the same decisions and make the same preparations for your vacations however big or small they may have been.

Think for a minute, what would have happened if you left one part of the preparation out? Maybe you forgot to book the hotel rooms. This could make for a very bad vacation if you are sleeping in the car each night because there are no rooms to be found because everyone else is on vacation in the same area.

Each part of the preparation is equally important. Forget one item and it could ruin the entire experience.

Isn’t making a sales call the same way? Think of all the preparation you should make before walking into a customer. Do you know where you are going, what you are going to show, how that service or product can be used by the customer, what value does it have to the customer, what problem is it solving for the customer? You need to be ready for all these and many more facts when you make every call. If you forget one of these it can make for a very bad sales call.

The biggest difference is that if you screw up a vacation, you can take another one next year, if you screw up a sales call you may never get another chance to sell that customer. Screw up enough sales calls and you may never get another vacation!

As a trainer, the rule of thumb is that you should practice for at least 4 hours for every hour you are going to present. When I put on an all day training session, I usually practice a week for it. The same equation can be used for a sales call. You need to prepare at least an hour for a 15 minute sales presentation.

Now let me tell you a little trade secret, once I have put on the all day session I spend another week critiquing it. I continue to do this until I have it perfected. Once I have it perfected I only spend about 2 days critiquing it. The process never stops. Guess what, neither does you process. After every 15 minute sales call you should spend an hour going over what you could have done better until you have it down so good that you only need to spend 30 minutes going over the call.

Does this sound a little crazy? It isn’t. I look at sales as an art. Just like any art form the more you practice the better you will get at it. Music, painting, sculpting, dance, it doesn’t matter what art form you look at, the more you practice, the better you get.

The best news of all, the better you get the more you will want to practice. In simple terms, IT FEELS GOOD TO WIN! Making the sale is a win and you will work harder and harder to keep making the sales once you start. You get on a roll and you don’t want it to end.

Keep in mind the opening thoughts of this post. Every detail is important. There are no shortcuts. You need to practice each step to the sale over and over again.

If you will work as hard on making sales as you do on booking vacations, you will soon be able to hire someone make your vacation plans and just enjoy yourself and your family time.

Lorin

HAVE YOU EVER TRIED TO READ YOUR PHONE BILL?

As you have probably guessed, I got my cell phone bill in yesterday’s mail. To me it is very simple and pretty cut and dry. I have a family plan (which includes our minutes allowed each month), 4 lines (first line comes with the package the other 3 each costs me a monthly fee), 3 media packages, unlimited family texting. That’s it! What could be simpler? Fee #1 + Fee #2 + Fee #3 + Fee #4 + whatever taxes and junk fees AT&T adds = my monthly bill. This can all fit on a few lines on one page.

MY BILL is 18 PAGES! WHY?

I know how much the bill should be within a few dollars (the tax and fee process seem to change) and the amount due is correct. I tried to see how many minutes each line used, that took almost 30 minutes to dig up, I tried to find how many MB each line used on the media packages, another 30 minutes to decipher. It seemed no matter what information I wanted, it was going to take about 30 minutes to find. AND once you find it, it is written in a language that I don’t seem to speak, read or understand!

It really looks like they make the bill complicated so you CAN’T understand it. They just hope you get the bill, see how complicated it is to read, and send a check! It makes you wonder how many errors there are every month that people don’t catch. I don’t know this for a fact, but if I had to guess, most of the errors are in AT&T’s favor. If they weren’t you can rest assured they would find the cause and fix the errors!

I am making an exaggerated point here so you can get a mental image of what this looks like. My question to you is; DO YOUR CUSTOMERS FEEL THE SAME WAY ABOUT DOING BUSINESS WITH YOU? How difficult do you make purchasing your products or services for your customers?

Studies show that business look at the “ease of doing business” when they consider the value of a product or service. If a customer needs to spend a lot of time figuring out how to order, tracking the order, or trying to read a statement, the value of what you bring to the table goes down.

As a sales rep, what can you do? First, be proactive. Know your companies weaknesses and work with the customer to minimize the impact. If reading the bill is a problem (like my AT&T bill is) go through with a highlighter and highlight the items that your customer needs to know. If ordering is a problem, work as the intermediary to help get the orders placed. Every problem has a solution, sometimes you need to think out of the box, sometimes you need to throw the box away and really get creative.

You need to know the customers pain, and do whatever you can to stop the pain. I have always found the best way to do this is to ASK the customer about it. Ask the question, “Are there any problems that you have to deal with in order to do business with me?” After you ask, LISTEN and write down what they say. Then start to develop solutions. Bring the problems to your company, sometimes they don’t realize what the customers are going through and can make changes to solve the problems. DON’T POINT YOUR FINGER AT YOUR COMPANY, OR BLAME YOUR COMPANY! This will do nothing but leave doubt in the minds of your customers about if they made the right decision to do business with you in the first place.

Make it your business to make doing business with you as simple as you can.

WOW, I can hear some of you yelling at me already! I hear you saying, “Lorin, I am a sales rep. Why should I have to take my time and fix problems that the company made? I need to be selling to make a living not playing office worker and doing administrative stuff!”

I can’t argue with you on these points. You are 100% right, selling is what you do best and that is what you should be focused on every working minute of every working day. HOWEVER, let’s look at real life. Who is getting hurt the most here? Sure the company is losing, but overall it is losing a small amount here and a small amount there and they might not even feel the pain...YET. Like I said, bring the problems to them, they might be able to fix them and make things better for everyone. If not, the person being hurt the most, the person with the greatest amount of pain is YOU. You are the one loosing direct income, you are the one loosing sales, you are the one taking your time to listen to your clients and customers complain, you are the one putting out the fires. YOU, YOU, YOU, are YOU starting to see the big picture?

If you overcome a problem for one customer, you will then know how to solve the same problem for all your customers. The time investment gets smaller and smaller as you grow your business.

The late great comedian Freddy Prince had a line that made him famous, “It ain’t my job man” (said with a thick Spanish accent). If Freddy was alive today, and was in sales he wouldn’t be so quick to say that. Everything that is involved in making the sale, making the customer happy, and getting repeat sales, IS your job.

Lorin

DON’T QUIT

Today I am going to share a poem that has helped me more than once.

You can copy and paste it to a word document and print it out of you like. I have it printed on a laminated card I keep in my wallet so I can pull it out and read it when I need to.

READ, LEARN, ENJOY

Don’t Quit!

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
when the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must, but don’t you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than,
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up,
When he might have captured the victors cup,
And he learned too late when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far,
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit
Its when things seem worst that you must not quit.

Anonymous

Now that you have read this, think of how you were once (maybe more than once) in the exact spot the poem is talking about.

Whenever I share this poem, most people immediately jump right to the job they have and think about the times they wanted to QUIT their job. There are so many more times that this poem can help you. Think about the prospect that you may have QUIT calling on after the 4^th no, think about the customer you QUIT showing new products to because they didn’t look interested, think about the company you wanted to work for who you QUIT checking back with because they had no openings. Now take it to the next level, your personal life. How many times have you QUIT on a family member, a friend, a neighbor? Have you QUIT a relationship?

DON’T QUIT, PERSIST, MOVE FORWARD, FIGHT FOR IT, AND MAKE IT HAPPEN!

Lorin

MOVE FROM IMPORTANT TO SIGNIFICANT

im·por·tant

            1. Especially relevant or of great concern; valued highly

2. Having or suggesting a consciousness of high position or authority

sig·nif·i·cant

1.     Having or expressing a meaning, meaningful

2.       Having or likely to have a major effect

Yesterday I was at a meeting and the speaker made the statement, “Make the move from IMPORTANT to SIGNIFICANT”. As soon as I heard it, I knew that it was going to be the topic of today’s blog. The problem was I didn’t know how or why.

I thought, aren’t important and significant the same? In my head they were. Then I started to think, if they are the same then why did this statement, “Make the move from IMPORTANT to SIGNIFICANT”, hit me the way it did?

I did a cut and paste of the definitions of the two words at the top of this blog. I immediately saw that the definitions were different, but were the meanings different? I read the definitions over and over again, and then they started to move apart and the differences in the two words became clear. What was even more meaningful is that the meaning of the speaker’s statement became very clear.

Most sales reps (as well as most people) work very hard to become IMPORTANT. Reps want to be important to their customers. They want the customer to see them as relevant and to be highly valued. Reps want to be in a position of authority and to be viewed as the expert.

However the TOP SALES REPS (as well as the top people in the society) have taken it to the next step and that is to become SIGNIFICANT to their customers. This select group of reps (and people) have become meaningful to their customers and have a major effect on the customer and the customers business.

Let me explain this in an overly simple way that I think everyone will understand. If I supply a product or service to the customer that does a good job for them, I am IMPORTANT to the customer. If I supply a product or service that allows the customer to run their business better and help them grow their business, I become SIGNIFICANT.

Important is being a part of the business and can usually be replaced without too much trouble, significant is driving the business and becomes integral to the business.

OK, so where is this going?

Very often, a sales rep will feel good about being important to a customer. They work so hard to reach this place of distinction and then they start to coast and enjoy title of important. The reps that keep building the relationship, the reps that continue past important and become significant to their customers, then become significant to their employers. This doesn’t mean that anyone is indispensable; it means that the company views this rep as meaningful and that the rep has a major effect on the company.

To all the important people reading this blog, start moving past where you are and looking for the opportunities to build your relationships through your products, services, or expertise.

To all the significant people reading this blog (and everyone who reads this blog are significant to me) continue to bring value to your customers and never get complacent about your relationships. Don’t allow an important competitor to become a significant supplier because of you got lazy!

Lorin

YOU CANNOT PERFORM AT A LEVEL ABOVE HOW YOU SEE YOURSELF

There is an old story about a janitor in an office building. Every day he woke up and dressed as a janitor, he walked like a janitor, talked like a janitor, acted like a janitor and most of all did the work of a janitor. He believed that he was meant to be a janitor and fulfilled this thought to the best of his ability, which by the way was in his mind was the ability of a janitor.


One day he was working in one of the offices in the building, it just so happened it was the office of a psychologist. The psychologist was watching the janitor work and noticed something about the janitor that made him curious. He asked the janitor to sit at a table and answer some questions. After the janitor answered the questions the psychologist gave the janitor an IQ Test.

The next day the psychologist called the janitor into his office and told him that he had an IQ of 157. The janitor really didn’t understand what he was just told; after all he was just a janitor. The psychologist told him the average person had an IQ between 100 and 114, any IQ above 144 was considered to be a GENIUS.

Over the next few days there was a great change in the janitor. Instead of dressing a janitor every day he was now dressing a genius. He started to gain confidence and started to walk with his head held high and shoulders back. People saw the change and started to react to him differently as well. The genius was starting to talk like a genius, act like a genius and believing in himself more so he started to feel like a genius. He quit his job as a janitor and with the help of the psychologist got a job with a mechanical engineering company where he rapidly became the head of product development.

The question is, wasn’t he the same person before the IQ test than he was after the IQ test? Sure he was, but what changed is the way he viewed himself.

It took someone showing him that he was intelligent for him to believe he was intelligent.

Once he started to view himself as more than a janitor, he became more than a janitor.

You are the same way. Until you see yourself as the TOP PRODUCER in the company, until you see yourself in the position that you want within a company, you will be locked into the position you have and the sales you are accustomed to.

Your customers also feel the same way. If they view you as just a rep delivering the same products or services every day, week, month, and year you will only be a rep. But if the customer views you as an integral part of their business and starts to depend on your products or services to make their business run better then you will become the GENIUS.

The mind has tremendous power over us. It can either be a power that holds us back or propels us forward. How we view ourselves will be reflected in how we are viewed by our customers, prospects, and our company.

Lorin

WHERE DO THE CHILDREN PLAY? (Cat Stevens)

My wife and youngest daughter are both teachers. My wife teaches Kindergarten and my daughter first grade. I make it a point to go to their classes several times a year to volunteer and help out in any way I can. Every time I go to one of the classes and work with the children, I learn something.


What I learned the other day when I went to my daughters’ class is, children will always find someplace to play and something fun to do no matter where they are.

Watching kids get creative and seeing them make up games and things to do that are fun for them was amazing.

Then I started to think, when do the kids lose this ability to create a fun time for themselves and start letting their environment dictate what is happening?

Having had 2 daughters who went through the public school system, along with my wife being a teacher for the past 16 years in our local schools. Added to the fact that my wife and I were both very active Band Parents (stop laughing) for not just the 8 years my daughters were in the band but the two years in between also (I didn’t want to lose my edge) I have gotten to know just about every administrator in our school cluster. I left my daughters elementary school and went to the middle school. After checking in, I went to a classroom of one of my daughters’ teachers and watched her kids. I was watching 7th graders, kids almost twice the age of my daughters’ kids, and I started to see that they were having fun but it was not as obvious. My next stop was the High School, I decided to go to the room I was the most comfortable in (I said stop laughing) the Band Room. I saw the kids interacting, and having fun, but it was so different to what I saw in my daughters’ class.

My conclusion, as we get older, as we take on more and more responsibility, we start to lose our willingness to have the amount of fun we had as kids. Not as much of a mind blowing conclusion as I was hoping for.

But let’s think about what we do as sales reps every day. How much fun did you have when you first started your career in sales? I know I had a ton of fun. Every day was exciting and filled with adventure. Even the prospects that said no created a fun experience to learn from. Then as I started to become a little more successful in sales (Like the middle school) I was still having fun, but nowhere near the amount I had as a rookie. Finally as a seasoned rep (Like High Schhol Kids) I look back and realize that I forgot to have fun.

As we grow in one area of our lives, we sometimes shrink in another. We get really good at selling and we forget about what it is to have fun while doing it.

Zig Ziglar once said, “Make making money your hobby instead of your job and you will enjoy it a lot more”.

The kids in High School were already starting to look at learning as a job, a task, a project. They have started losing the feeling of excitement while learning something new and the adventure of doing new things. By the time these kids graduate collage and get into the workforce they will forget how to have fun altogether.

As professional sales reps we need to re-teach ourselves to have fun. We need to go back to the days when everything we did, everything that happened to us was an adventure. We need to be able to create a fun atmosphere in our customer’s places of business when we arrive and have the customer look forward to our next sales call to them.

As adults, we have a lot of responsibilities that fall on our shoulders. We have a ton of pressures placed upon us from all aspects of our lives. We get stressed out over all these things and when we are stressed fun usually isn’t the first thing on our minds.

But now let’s look at things through the eyes of my daughters’ kids. It doesn’t matter if you are doing inside sales, phone sales, or outside sales. It doesn’t matter if you are selling a product or if you sell a service. It doesn’t matter if you have been selling for 6 months or 60 years. Look at sales through the eyes of a first grader, and play by their rules;

Rule #1) EVERYTHING IS A GAME.

Rule #2) EVERYPLACE IS A GOOD PLACE TO PLAY AND HAVE FUN.

Rule #3) EVERYONE YOU ARE WITH BECOMES YOUR PLAYMATES.

Rule #4) THERE IS SOMETHING TO LEARN EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY DAY.

If you will follow these simple rules, you will know the answer to Cat Steven’s question, WHERE DO THE CHILDREN PLAY?

The answer is, EVERYWHERE.

Lorin

WHEN IS ENOUGH, ENOUGH?

Today I did something that I absolutely hate doing, I went downstairs to my basement. As I stood there looking over this vast ocean of boxes, bags, shelves, appliances, and furniture I asked myself when is enough, enough?


This started me thinking, enough of what? If all the boxes were filled with money I don’t guess I could have too many full boxes. If they were full of old shirts one box would be too many.

So now I was in the middle of all this “STUFF” and still had no answer to my question.

My next step was to start opening some of the boxes (I moved into the house in 1989, some of these boxes were moved in and never opened) The first one I opened was a box of old trophies that I had won as a competitive hand gunner. Since I haven’t been in a competition in over 30 years (when my oldest daughter was born) I guessed this one box was too many. The next box I opened was filled with some old magazines. I thought to myself I must have kept these for a reason and they had to be worth a lot of money. Unless someone reading this knows something I don’t, old Consumer Reports don’t sell for much on e-bay. Once again, one boxful was more than enough.

My box opening went the same as this for about another 5 or 6 boxes and then I hit the mother lode. I found something that I don’t think I could ever have enough of, BOOKS!

I opened a box filled with some of the first motivational books I read. The box under it was filled with the same, and I actually found my first copy of Biscuits Fleas and Pump Handles (this is what Zig Ziglar first called his book See You At The Top). I was motivated, so motivated in fact that I spent the next 2 hours in the basement opening boxes looking for more books. I found them, 14 boxes in all. As I flipped through some of the books that I haven’t looked at in decades, I realized that the book may be old, but the information was as valid today as it was when I first read the book.

So to answer my question, you can never have enough boxes filled with money or books. Then I started thinking again, if I found a box filled with money but didn’t use the money for anything, is the money doing me any good? (OK you could make a case that having it as savings gives you a cushion for hard times) The easy answer however is no. Money has no value until you use it to purchase something.

Then I thought about the books. All the books in the boxes I have read at least once. Some of these books were in my basement for the past 21 years in these boxes. Were they doing me any good? ABSOLUTELY! Who I am today, has a lot to do with the books that I have read in the past. The accumulated knowledge, the ideas and concepts they taught me are what has enabled me to do the jobs that I have done and help the people I have helped.

Too many books? NO SUCH THING! A friend of mine who passed away a few years ago, Charlie “Tremendous” Jones, had a famous saying. “You will be the same person you are today, 5 years from now, except for the people you meet and the books you read”. I have heard Charlie say this hundreds of time, but sitting there going through the boxes of books in my basement I finally realized exactly what he meant.

How many books do you have? How many have you read? Let me share a funny story, a rep came into my office a few years ago and looked over my bookshelf. He saw a Jeffrey Gitomer book, “The Sales Bible”. He picked it off the shelf and in a proud voice exclaimed to me, I have this book! I got excited with him and asked, “How did you like it”? He looked me right in the eyes…and you guessed it... told me he hasn’t read it yet. I know I shouldn’t have asked, but I had to know, I asked him when he got it. His answer, A LONG TIME AGO. Needless to say I went into my speech about all the tools in the world don’t do anyone any good until they are used. (To tell the truth, I am not sure he was capable of reading that many words…LOL)

If you have boxes of books you haven’t read, you have too many books. If you have read them and they helped to form who you are and have helped you become a better person and sales rep, then like me, you can never have too many books and enough will NEVER be enough.

Lorin

ATTITUDE vs. CONFIDANCE!

I was at a meeting this morning, and one of the members of the group was going on a third interview for a job. He made the statement, “This gives me another chance to screw up!” A few of the other people at the meeting immediately started to correct him and called him negative. I sat there and listened to them and the advice they gave him. One person said to stop thinking negative and replace it with a positive thought. Another told him that having a negative attitude will show to the interviewer and hurt his chances. The advice flowed freely from the people at the meeting.


I sat there and finally after everyone was finished said to him, “You are not negative, you have very low self-confidence.”

What others saw as a negative statement I saw as DOUBT.

Self-doubt comes with lack of knowledge and being unprepared. If you know what you are doing, know your product or service, and know what you can offer to add value to the sale (not just other products but training, support, customer service …) you will be confident, if however you are unprepared the customer will see the doubt every time you make a statement that you are unsure of.

Appearing negative is a terrible thing when making a sale, doubt is the deal breaker.

My advice to the young man was to THINK. I asked him if he knew the company he was going to interview with, did he know their go to market strategy, did he have at least an understanding of the products or service they offer, and did he know the players that he has met with on the first two interviews and the ones that he will be meeting with today? He said he knew it all, and I finished with, then what are you doubting? Your ability to sell? I reminded him that he was a Rainmaker at his last position and has been a top seller his entire career. You could almost see the backbone straighten, he say up tall and had a confidant smile on his face. He said thanks; he had forgotten just how good he really was.

I will offer each of you the same advice. Think of your WINS; remember the highlights of your sales career. You may be a new rep without a lot of great success so far in your career, no problem! Think about your best sale so far or maybe that FIRST sale. Whatever it takes to bring that smile of confidence to your face and make you walk tall.

Don’t give the customer any reason to think that you are not the best in the world.

Especially because YOU ARE!

Lorin

SAY IT LIKE YOU MEAN IT!

Before I get started on today’s blog, I want to ask those of you that follow my blog about how your label looked.


Last Wednesday in my blog (Go to September 1st titled HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW YOUR BEST PRODUCT?) I told you about an exercise that would help you sell YOU as a product to your customers. I had a lot of phone calls and e mails about this and it seems that everyone who wrote out their product label saw new and exciting VALUE ADDED features that they could now express when addressing a customer or prospect. If you haven’t already written your label, please go back and read about the exercise and do yourself a favor and write your label.

TODAY’S BLOG

Did you know that when you talk your face tells the story? Body Language experts say your face is 10% of the picture you are showing to someone, but tells 90% of the story.

What are the keys to good facial expressions? Before I tell you, here is what I want you to do. Switch on the television, turn to a channel where someone is talking (NOT THE NEWS!) and mute the television. Watch the person/people talking and see if you can get the idea of what they are talking about. Look at their faces, (why do you think directors zoom in on face shots so often) look at the expressions they are making. Are they happy, sad, mad excited…?

You customers and prospects are seeing the same thing when you talk. The question is does what you are saying match the expression on your face?

Finish reading this blog and then go to a mirror and look at your face. Now start talking. Talk about anything you want, but try and have a conversation so you can fully understand how this exercise can help you with your facial expressions.

Your EYES are the first thing people look at, what are your eyes saying to the customer? Are you making eye contact? Even more important, are you KEEPING contact? If you keep glancing away as you talk the customer looses interest in what you are saying and your credibility declines in the customer’s eyes.

Now look at your mouth. SMILE! Are you smiling? A sincere smile at the first hand shake will reflect an air of self confidence and make you appear to be non-threatening to the customer. Are you smiling at the correct times? During the presentation there are times when you want to make a point. A smile would be misplaced during this time. Rather your lips should be firmly pressed together and you are neither frowning or smiling. This expression emits a serious tone with facts and information that needs to be listened to closely.

Let’s move back up the face just above your eyes, your eye brows. Are your eye brows moving in the right direction and at the right time? While looking in the mirror make a surprised expression. What did your eye brows do? If they didn’t go UP as high as they could, you weren’t conveying the right message. Now make a disappointed face. Where did your eyebrows go this time? If they didn’t fall your story is not accurate.

Your face is the best place to start when training yourself to be a more affective presenter. Work on what you look like as much as what you say. Together they tell the story and will make a clear picture in the customers mind.

Lorin

NO NEW POST, BUT SOMETHING TO READ

No training post today, instead, take a few minutes to read the history of Labor Day and why we celebrate this holiday.

Click on the following link.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Day

From my family to yours, have a safe and great day.

IT’S UP TO YOU!

Those of you that know me, you know that I am a very positive person. Not that I don’t have my moments.. I just keep them few and far between. On the whole, I am a positive person.


During my career, many people have asked me what I do to keep the smile on my face and a positive attitude. My answer; I DECIDE! That’s it; I make the decision everyday to be positive.

Each morning, before I do anything else, I sit up on the side of the bed, I put both my feet on the floor and at that moment I decide what my attitude is going to be for the day. Now I know that this seems a little crazy to many of you. You are saying, how can you decide before you know what is going to be thrown at you for the day? That’s easy; my attitude doesn’t depend on any outside events. Outside events will test my commitment to keeping a positive attitude, but I make the decision about it.

Have you ever noticed that when you are having a good day, most of the small irritating things that would normally send you into a rage, seem to be a lot less serious? I find I am able to let so much roll off my back just by keeping a smile on my face and reminding myself that I DECIDED to have a good day today.

No one can take my good day away, no one can spoil my great attitude, and no one can darken my bright smile unless I give them permission. That’s right, the decision to have a positive attitude is yours to make, and once it is made, the decision to let your attitude change and have the day turn around and become stressful and miserable is yours also.

Two thoughts always go through my head about my attitude:

1) It doesn’t cost me anything extra to have a good attitude, but it can cost me a career to have a bad attitude.

2) Other then my family, should anyone have enough power over me to be allowed to steal my positive attitude?

You can do the same thing I do. The trick is to make up your mind and stick with it. When you start, set a goal of a few hours. Tell yourself in the morning that nothing can steal your great attitude until after lunch. When you see you can make it to lunch with ease (this shouldn’t take more than a few days) set your next goal to 3PM. The same thing, nothing that happens can steal your attitude. You handle the problems and move on not letting anything, not a customer, a manager, or the boss steal your attitude. Finally you will be able to go the full day. This is when you have mastered your attitude.

One caution, keeping a great attitude doesn’t mean that you stop caring about things that have gone bad, it doesn’t mean that you stop listening to your customers, managers or bosses. It simply means that you handle the day to day dealings with a positive attitude. You will start to see the opportunities in problems and be able to turn situations around to your advantage.

You attitude is just that YOUR’S! Protect it as if it were made of gold, because the truth is, it worth a lot more then gold will ever be worth!

Lorin