I’VE TRIED EVERYTHING

These are the first 3 words that usually lead to failure! I’ve Tried Everything! Most people should add a fourth word, ONCE!

Every sales rep I know (including myself) have tried tens, maybe hundreds of different approaches to sales. We have also tried an equal number of closes, probing questions, trial closes, and demonstrations. We have found that no one method works all the time. If this is a surprise to you, you haven’t been selling long enough yet to have discovered it, keep going and you will!

Trying new ideas and methods is awesome, it allows us to experiment. However, like any other experiment, you need to allow it time to either prove or disprove itself. Trying something one time and declaring it a success or a failure isn’t enough.

I once worked with a rep who had been selling for about 3 years. As we started out in the morning I asked him what the plan was for the day. He looked at me and said, I very rarely have a plan, I usually wait and see what happens during the day and play it by ear. This disturbed me, but I went along with him to see how his method worked. After about an hour of driving aimlessly around I asked him where we were going first. He said it didn’t matter because no one had called him yet so he didn’t have any place special to go.

Now I was really concerned. I asked him to pull over at the next Starbucks and I pulled up his sales for the past year. I saw a steady decline, month after month for the last 8 months. Looking back further I saw that he was steadily growing his business. I pointed to my computer screen and asked him what he saw. He said, I haven’t been doing too good lately have I? I then asked him why he thought he had been spiraling downhill for the past 8 months. I asked him to think back and try and determine what he did different 8 months ago as compared to what he was doing for the last 8 months.

He really wanted to help himself out of this rut and we sat there for a good while as he thought about his answer. He finally said he thinks he knew what happened. He said that it was about the time he started to decline that he had a busy spurt in his business. For a few weeks he was getting phone calls just about every day from customers wanting to either place orders or to see him about selecting products. He told me that is when he STOPPED making plans for the day and started to “play it by ear” waiting for the customers to call.

This is the normal way people get off track. They try something that gives them success but fail to realize that it is short term success. Unfortunately, what they try is usually the “EASY” way to do the task. Being easy and seeming to be successful, the rep makes it a permanent part of their daily routine. Not wanting to go back to doing what took more time, and seemed “HARDER” the reps allow enough time to creep past to make the easy way a habit. By the time they realize how much damage they have done to their careers many of them don’t know what to do to change.

The facts are that simply getting “BACK TO THE BASICS” will turn things around for them. When you think you have tried everything and there is nothing new for you to try, then go back to what you have done before and give some of the ideas a chance to work.

Isn’t it amazing that the same people that give things long enough to fail will not give things long enough to succeed?

Very rarely does the easy path lead to success. If it did there would be a lot more successes. We all need to get back to doing what we know is best! As hard as it may be to take that step backwards. As hard as it may seem to do what we used to do, as hard as it will be to admit to yourself that what you have morphed into isn’t what is the best for your future, you need to make the shift NOW!

Don’t wait! Every day you wait takes you a day further from success.

By the way, I always ask friends of mine to review these posts before I publish them onto this blog. I ask them to read the information and make sure it is factual and relevant. One of the people I ask brought this back to me and said that it didn’t relate to everyone. He was 100% confident that many of the reps that read my blog did the right things and this wasn’t going to hit home with them. I asked him if he put himself into this category. He in fact did. We sat down and it took me about 5 minutes to find something he stopped doing that he said he should be doing. If you have gotten this far into reading this post and are saying to yourself that this doesn’t apply to you, I ask that you sit down with someone and get a second opinion.

There is an insurance company that uses the catch phrase, “15 minutes can save you 15%”, I will tell you that, “15 minutes can make you 15% more income”

GO BACK TO YOUR BASICS FOR SUCCESS!

Lorin