WHO IS YOUR FRIEND

1)      A customer you have been selling for 8 years. He has good coffee, a great family that you have been following since you first sold him, and the best jokes and stories you have ever heard. When you show up it is like old home week and you have a great time talking to him.

2)      A fellow rep who was your mentor when you first started and has become your friend. She is the person you call when you have a problem and is there for you when everything bad. You call her several times a day and talk about everything from customers to traffic. It is not unusual for her to tell you she is in a sales call and she will call you back. You have waited in the parking lot of a prospect as much as 30 minutes for her to call.

3)      Your Sales Manager who calls you every day and drills you about what you did that day. He has a hard crust and doesn’t cut you any slack. He is always pushing you and never accepts mediocrity. He gives you his advice even when you don’t want it. It seems he holds you to a higher standard than any other rep in his group.

4)      Your family who understands why you didn’t have a great day and knows that all your reasons are valid. They give you all the sympathy you want and never give you a hard time.

OK, so what is your answer? Is it the customer, the rep, the sales manager, or the family? The correct answer is…. 3 …. The manager. Although it sounds like this manager is unfair, the truth is the manager is the only one who is doing everything they can to help you. Maybe their method may not be one that you appreciate, he is working with your best interest in mind.

Realizing who your friends are is sometimes not as easy as it seems it would be. The people who we THINK are friends can be the ones who are robbing you of your opportunity. The customer above seems to be a good friend but this customer can be a time waster. You make call after call and you leave feeling good but without an order. If you think about it in many cases this type of customer hasn’t bought anything new in a long time, in some cases their orders have shrank over time. The rep was a great asset to you when you started but has her own business to conduct. The biggest difference between you and her is she knows her business comes first. She wants to help you all she can but on her schedule not yours and this causes you to spend time waiting instead of selling. Finally your family, they love you so much that they don’t want to hurt you by telling you the truth about what they feel. If they don’t see the truth it is just as bad because either way they accept your failure.

Picking your friends out of a group isn’t easy but once you look at how each person you interact with during the day affects your business you will at least know who is working on your behalf and has your best interest in mind. These people are your BEST friends.

Lorin