SALES IMPOSSIBLE

I traveled from PA to FL today and I am sitting in my hotel room watching Restaurant Impossible. If you haven’t seen the show before Chef Robert Irvine travels to failing restaurants and in only 2 days and spending $10,000.00 Chef Irvine does a complete makeover and turns the restaurant around.

I am a regular watcher of the show and have seen dozens of dives turned into fantastic looking places with awesome food. (I can’t taste the food but everyone on the show says it is great). As I was watching tonight I started thinking about the reps I have worked with over the years and how many of them were the sales equivalent of dives and with a few dollars and a little time have turned into super stars.

On the show Chef Irvine checks back with the restaurants a few months after he works his magic, most of the restaurants are still doing better, but in some cases the restaurants are skyrocketing and being super successful.

I had to wonder what made the difference. The more I thought the more obvious the answer became, one word, COMMITMENT! The more committed the restaurant owner was the more successful the restaurant became. The more committed a sales rep is the more successful they become.

It doesn’t take years to see significant change, it simply takes a focused few days and the commitment to not change for a day or two, but to change forever!

The number one thing that causes one of Chef Irvine’s restaurants to fail is the owner’s willingness to backslide and go back to doing things “LIKE THEY USED TO DO IT”. The same goes for sales reps, the main cause of a rep backsliding after they have changed is they go back to doing things “LIKE THEY USED TO DO IT”.

Now I am not saying that if you are having trouble you need to go out and spend $10,000.00 on sales training and change everything you do. I am saying if you want to improve you need to do a few things, first; seek help. It doesn’t need to cost you a penny, the internet has millions of pages of training and help that are FREE! I am sure that you have friends, mentors, managers, and trainers that will also help you for FREE! It doesn’t take years, the biggest bump will happen in the first week. It will be the degree of commitment that will carry the progress forward.

Lorin