GIVE THANKS TO OUR SERVICE MEN AND WOMEN

It seems that every Memorial Day I read several posts and get multiple emails reminding me that Memorial Day isn’t about hot dogs and beer, it is a day to remember the men and women that have given their all for our country.

It is almost sad that a holiday of remembrance has become a weekend party.

BUT! Those of us that want to remember will. The people that have lost or know someone who has lost a son or daughter serving our nation will remember. The BRAVE men and women who have stood shoulder to shoulder with the fallen will remember.

Is this good enough? YES. These men and women didn’t do it to stop Americans from having their fun. They did it to allow Americans to have their fun.

If I see a service man or woman this weekend (or any other time) I will thank them for their service. If I see a veteran this weekend, I will thank them for their service. I will do this not just for me, but for all the other Americans having fun this weekend as well.

GOD BLESS AMERICA, and GOD BLESS EVERY AMERICAN.

Lorin

EASY PEAZY

I don’t know why, but over the past few weeks I have heard numerous stories from friends about how difficult it has been to do business with some companies.

I have listened and shook my head at some of the absurd things that I heard, but that was about as involved as I got…. UNTIL YESTERDAY!

I have written an e mail to the company I had trouble with, and until I hear back and see how they handle the problem, I won’t mention them by name.

I live in a 40 year old house. It is in GREAT shape and I do my best to either fix things myself or I have someone come out and fix whatever I need in a timely manner. Bottom line, I am not going to let my house “run down”.

Of all things to go wrong, the door knob from my garage to my kitchen (the door that is used the most) has worn out. This seems like a very simple problem with a 15 minute fix. Go out buy a new knob and replace it, RIGHT?

WRONG! All my locking doors work off the same key, so I need a knob that can be rekeys to all the rest of the locks. Remember I said my house is 40 years old? Well the door knobs are also 40 years old and the new locks sold everywhere, can’t be rekeyed to work with the same key as all the rest.

I did my homework, and found the manufacturer of the knob. They are still in business, but have been bought by a giant company. Thank goodness for the internet, I was able to find the company and they had a phone number to call. I called the customer service number and that is when the fun began!

First Problem – Electronic Answering, I was connected to an electronic answering system that asked my question after question. The problem was after the third question, my situation wasn’t one of the reply options.

Second Problem – No Operator. I pushed the “0” key on my phone trying to get to a “real person”. The “0” key simply started the recording over from the beginning.

Third Problem – “I Can’t Transfer Calls”. Being the smart resourceful person I am, I hit several option selections trying to get to a “real Person”. Option 4 did the trick! I was connected to the accounting department. A very nice lady picked up the phone and when I told her my LONG story, she said, “You need Customer Service”. She then gave me the customer service phone number, as she said it I followed along on my screen seeing that the number she was giving me was the same number I have been calling. I asked her to PLEASE transfer me to CS. That is when she dropped the bomb, “I’m sorry, I can’t transfer calls”

To keep this post to a manageable length, I will shorten the rest of the story.

After several more attempts, I finally got through to someone who said they can help me. I sent pictures of the knob, I sent pictures of the key, I sent pictures of the door, I sent everything they asked for. It took about a week and I got a return call from the company. GOOD NEWS, they told me. Because of the age of the lock, it has a LIFETIME WARRANTY and they will send out a replacement…BUT… they are out of stock and it will be 4 to 6 weeks until they get them back in stock. Seeing no other choice, I said I will wait.

Fast forward 3 weeks.. I got an e mail that the knob is in and they are shipping it to me. 2 days later a package shows up at my home with my NEW KNOB! I open the box and there is a note in the box telling me that I need to take it to a locksmith to have it keyed to my old locks, NO PROBLEM, I expected as much and had already found a place close to my house that will do it.

YESTERDAY…remember I said that this hit home yesterday?

Yesterday I went to the locksmith, he took one look at the lock, a look at the key, and then said, “THEY SENT YOU THE WRONG LOCK”! The lock was for a different key. I was in shock!

I went home and made the call, yep to the only number I had, and it all started again. I then sent the e mail that I am waiting to get a reply to. STOP LAUGHING AT ME!

Please, LEARN from this story. Make doing business with your company and with you as simple as possible. Remove any obstacles a customer may encounter when trying to spend their money with you. Help the customer get what they need the first time they contact you. Finally, be accessible to solve any problems and answer any questions the customer may have.

SPENDING MONEY NEEDS TO BE EASY PEAZY!

I’M SORRY

It has been almost 5 ½ years since I last posted to The Training Buffet, Help Yourself. 5 ½ years… I wish I had a great reason, I don’t. I wish I had a great excuse, I don’t. I wish I had a clue, I don’t. The truth is, I just didn’t.

As the saying goes, LIFE GOT IN THE WAY!

I am back now, I am motivated to start posting, I am also done saying I because "The Training Buffet, Help Yourself" is about you. I write it about experiences I have, but the message is always about YOU.

YOU CAN LEAD A HORSE TO WATER, BUT SOMETIMES YOU NEED TO HOLD THEIR HEADS UNDERWATER UNTIL THE BUBBLES STOP BEFORE THEY DRINK!

I went into the field with a rep a few weeks ago, who was struggling, to say the least. He had not been selling much. He had no real plan and was more or less just driving around looking for a place to try and sell.

After the first 3 sales calls we made on day 1, I asked him to stop at a diner that we passed so we could set things up. We pulled out his active account list and his past 4 weeks of sales calls. WHAT A MESS!

He had customers that he had called on 3 times in the past 4 weeks that bought nothing and customers he hadn’t called on at all that had purchased hundreds of dollars from him on the last sales call and everything in between.

The rep then said words I have been hearing for years as the top excuse for not calling on a customer… I DIDN’T WANT TO SEEM PUSHY. I told him I didn’t even know what that means.

I asked, did he think calling on a customer on a regular basis was pushy? Did he think being in a business on a set schedule was pushy? Did he think SERVICING a customer was pushy? He said no. So I asked him what he considered pushy. NO ANSWER.

We put a quick plan together for the rest of the day and I asked him to work on the next 3 days that evening and come pick me up from the hotel ready to go to work the next morning.

YUP, you guessed it, the next morning, NO PLAN. He gave me 5 bad reasons he hadn’t done what I asked him to do. I wouldn’t let him leave the hotel parking lot. We went into the lobby and I had him make a plan for the day. At the end of the day I gave him the same assignment as the night before, make a plan for the next 2 days we would be working together.

Stop shaking your head, you know darn well he had NO PLAN the next morning. We went through the same exercise and that afternoon when he dropped me off at the hotel, instead of asking him to make the plan at home I made him (almost kicking and screaming) come into the lobby and make the plan for the next day.

15 minutes, that is how long it took, 15 minutes for him to have a plan that I was happy with. You could look at his face and see how mad he was that I made him do this, but the next day we sold more than the 3 previous days combined.

This was an extreme example of holding his head under water until the bubbles stopped to make him drink, but, he drank. The next week, he had his best week in the business and when he called to tell me about it he said it was because he had a plan every day and it worked.

It took me being PUSHY and forcing him to do something he didn’t feel was worthwhile to see what he needed to do to succeed. Look at your daily habits and identifying what you can do better, and then holding your own head underwater (remember, don’t actually hold your head underwater, or anyone else’s for that matter) until you make the adjustments to help yourself succeed.

Lorin

MAN VS. MACHINE

It is said that everything you could want to know is somewhere on the internet, and quite possibly it is, but that doesn’t mean you can find it.

A friend of mine came to me today asking about a product that my company sells. He wanted to know things like how to use it, where and when to use it, and how my product compared to other products similar to it that are on the market.

Now this may sound like he is asking normal questions that any customer would ask, and in fact he was. The one thing that you don’t know about him is he is an internet junkie. I have never seen him buy anything without first looking it up on the internet and researching it beyond what any sane person would call absurd.

To give you an idea of how he looks things up, he spent hours looking up the best brand of gas to put in his lawn mower. True story, and to make it even better he found the best gas was a brand that isn’t even sold in Georgia. Enough said?

Anyway, for him to ask me about my products was a little out of character so I decided to go on the offence and find out what was going on. He started out by telling me about the research he did, and gave me a quick overview of what he found out. He then pulled out his folder and showed me what he had printed off about the products and what he thought was important.

To be honest, it was an impressive amount of information that he had gathered.

I asked him why then did he need more information from me if he already had all of this information. This is where the conversation got very interesting. He told me that he could find all sorts of information about each product, but what he couldn’t find anywhere was the differences between the products. He wanted to know why he should buy one over the other.

This made me think, how many of our customers run into the same problem? How many of your customers get tons of facts about products but have no idea of which product to buy based on the information they just looked up?

I started thinking about my customers and how many times one of them told me they looked my product up online or in my catalog. I thought about how many sales I lost because a customer looked up my product and someone else’s and the other product looked better on paper.

I told my friend about the two products he was considering and why one was better for him than the other. I explained that both products are excellent but my product was much better suited for what he intended to use it for.

What I am saying is I did what a sales rep is supposed to do, I didn’t just give my friend a bunch of features and benefits about the products and leave it up to him to make up his mind. I helped him to understand what the features and benefits meant to him and which ones were important to him based on his needs.

I thought to myself how easy buying would be if every product had a review of how it worked in every possible situation and a comparison chart to illustrate the pros and cons. That is when the concept of “everything is on the internet” became a little fuzzy to me.

The internet is here to stay. It is today, and always will be from now on, a major source of information for buyers. But I can say with complete confidence, THE INTERNET WILL NEVER TAKE THE PLACE OF A SALEMAN when comparing products for specific applications.

So the next time a customer says they looked up your product on the internet don’t assume they know how the product will work, they may only know what a marketing person decided was important about the product.

Lorin

BELOW COST

Today I did something that I absolutely hate doing, I went with my daughter to buy a car! If I go to buy a car for myself, it isn’t the most pleasurable experiences, but doing it for someone else (even my daughter who I love dearly) makes it one of the most unpleasant things in the world. Couple that with needing to deal with awful sales people and you have found my hell!

We drove to our first dealer and parked. An extremely friendly gentleman came right over to meet us almost before we had gotten out of the car. He had a great smile and a good solid hand shake. I introduced myself, my wife and daughter and told him upfront that my daughter was his customer and I was just there for support. The salesman did exactly want he should have done and focused on my daughter and made her feel like a queen. He asked her about herself and what she was looking for. He probed for answers to questions like what model are you looking for and what options she wanted, what color she wanted, what were her driving habits and a list of questions that helped him guide her to a vehicle.

He did a great demo (a test drive) and let my daughter take the car over a variety of different roads to see how the car handled. He went over the options (features) and what each did (benefits) and explained how each one worked.

I was sure he was about to make a sale when he looked at my daughter and said so how long until you are ready to buy? I was in shock, he was about to let us walk out of the dealership without the car and without a sale.

My daughter looked at me and asked me what I wanted to do. OK, I need to be honest, I could have said I wanted her to buy the car and that would have been the end, my torcher would have been over. But being the good dad I am (and a sales trainer) I said well lets go think about it over lunch and we will let him know. And away we went to the next dealership.

We drove about 15 miles to the closest dealer that sold the same car and here is where I almost lost it. Because we knew what model and options she wanted from the last stop it was easy to pick a car on the lot. This salesman was smart enough to close my daughter on buying the car right then and there. I said lets go talk price.

We went through the normal routine of filling out some forms and off the salesman ran to get his “BEST” price. 5…10…15 minutes passed and no sign of our salesman. Finally he came in all excited and exclaimed how happy he was with the “DEAL” he just got for us.

He pulled out a piece of paper (not one of the forms my daughter filled out) and there were a few figures scribbled on it. He looked my daughter in the eye and said just sign here and I will get the car ready. My beautiful daughter looked and me and I just smiled and made a counter offer and sent him on his way back to his sale manager to go to work for us.

This time it only took about 5 minutes and he came back not quite as enthused as the first time. He said his manager was set on the price he gave us and wouldn’t do anything more. My daughter once again looked at me and I stood up and put out my hand and thanked him and said goodbye. He asked where I was going. I simply said to another dealer that wanted my daughters business. He asked for one more chance and I smiled and told him one more and it can only take 2 minutes.

He didn’t need both minutes I gave him, within 30 seconds he came back with his manager in tow. His manager looked at the paper as if he hadn’t seen it before (I thought he was the one who gave us the price, oh well) and he said, Mr. Greenstein to which I said, don’t talk to me, she (pointing to my daughter) is your customer. He looked at my daughter and said, do you realize that at this price I am losing $400.00?

At that, I stood up again and stepped in front of my daughter and said, “Baby, I don’t want you to be the person who makes this dealer go out of business, I can’t allow you to buy this car and have them loose money.”

With my speech over both my wife and daughter burst into insane laughter as we walked out the door.

Well we still needed a car for my daughter so back to the first dealer we went, this time I asked for the salesman we talked to AND his manager.

I am so glad I came back. The manager was an excellent salesman and for the first time I was feeling that my daughter was in good hands. He went back over the car with her and talked about the price. He explained how the pricing worked and why the car was priced as it was. He was never shy about asking his price, but built value around the price.

Then he said the magic words that pushed me over the top to where I told my daughter to buy, he said to my daughter, “ERIN, ANYONE CAN SELL YOU A CAR. IT IS THE SERVICE AFTER THE SALE THAT SEPARATES ME FROM THE REST.” He then told her all the little extras that he and the dealership provide.

He then did what his salesman forgot to do the first time we were there, he asked for the sale. This time my daughter didn’t need to look at me for an answer, she has been around me long enough and knew a good sales presentation when she heard one. She looked at him, put out her hand and said yes sir, let’s write this up.

The sales manager took care of all the paperwork went into the finance office with her and then did the best delivery of a car I have ever seen, taking time to show my daughter ever feature and how it worked on her new Honda Civic.

Today I have seen some good, bad and definitely ugly sales skills. I also saw a true professional that was not only good but PROUD of how good he was. Thank you Rick Johnson of Curry Honda in Chamblee GA for being the pro you are. My faith in car salesmen is restored.

Lorin

A GREAT SAYING

A GREAT SAYING

I found this saying on Facebook and it immediately hit me as one of the best sayings I have ever seen.

I hope you like it as much as I do.

I CHOOSE…

TO LIVE BY CHOICE, NOT BY CHANCE;

TO MAKE CHANGES, NOT EXCUESE;

TO BE MOTIVATED, NOT MANIPULATED;

TO BE USEFUL, NOT USED;

TO EXCEL, NOT COMPETE.

I CHOOSE SELF-ESTEEM, NOT SELF PITY.

I CHOOSE TO LISTEN TO MY INNER VOICE,

NOT THE RANDOM OPINIONS OF OTHERS.

Read this once, read it again, and then THINK about each line and how much better off we would all be if everyone acted on it.

CHOOSE!

Lorin

I WANNA GO HOME

I have always been amazed at what I hear come out of a reps mouth when they are having a challenging day. Today I received a call from a rep to tell me they wanted to go home to gather their thoughts.

Now I am not someone who gets shocked very often. I have been in sales and sales training long enough that very few things I see or hear anymore shock me, THIS SHOCKED ME.

I sat at my desk with the phone in my hand just staring at top of my desk, I was speechless for a moment. Finally I asked the rep what thoughts she was going to gather at home that she couldn’t gather just by pulling over in her car and grabbing something to drink for a short time.

I could just imagine her on the other end of the phone thinking about what to say next, and then it struck me. She was already home, this was a call to cover her rear end.

Not wanting to simply call her a liar, I asked her where she was that moment and offered to meet her and ride with her the rest of the day. She started to stutter a little and then said she didn’t want company she just wanted to be alone. I offered to buy her lunch so we could talk for an hour or so, once again she opted for being alone.

It wasn’t until I asked her if she wanted to quit that I got the truth. I was right, she told me that she had given up by 9:30AM. She had stopped by a customer that told her he would definitely buy the next time she stopped in. She stopped in and he didn’t buy. She said she made 2 more stops and both told her no. (Can you imagine 3 stops and 3 no’s… what is the world coming to) She said by then it was 9:30, she knew her husband was out of the house at work and she just gave up and went home.

 I wanted to know why she called me. What was she trying to accomplish by calling me? So I asked her directly what she wanted me to do. We both stayed silent for at least 20 seconds and she said, “I want you to help me make sales”.

This cracked me up, I blurted out, “FROM YOUR HOUSE?” Once again 20 seconds or more of silence. Then she told me I was right and she was just being stupid.

I looked at the clock and it was getting to be noon, so I told her to come meet me at the office and we would see what we could do about helping her. She showed up about 45 minutes later and I could see she had been crying.

I asked what she was crying about, quitting or quitting on herself. She shot daggers at me with her eyes and said she had NOT quit on herself. She told me she could do it.

She started to get up and walk out of my office and I asked her where she was going, she said to work. Why? I asked. She said to prove to me she could do it. I told her that she was going to fail.

Talk about a shocked look, she looked like I had just punched her in the stomach. She said how could I say that, I answered, she didn’t need to prove anything to me. I told her I believed in her a lot more than she believed in herself right now. I said to succeed she needed to go and do it for her. She needed to prove to herself that she was as good as I thought she was.

It doesn’t matter how long a rep has been selling, how successful they are, or how confident they seem to be. Every rep at some point gets an acute case of SELF DOUBT. There is only one cure, WINNING! It may be making a sale or getting an appointment with a buyer that you have not been able to get to before. It might be winning a contract or making a hire. It might just be opening the car door and getting out in a place that has intimidated you for days, months or years.

A win is a win is a win. We all need wins.

It is now 9:30 PM and I just got off the phone with the rep. She told me that her day got better, but not by much. She did make a few small sales but nothing to be excited about.

I told her that she needed to be excited about the entire day. I told her that she pushed herself to do things she really didn’t want to do and that the day might not have been an award winning day, it was still better than it would have been had she stayed home.

Lorin

HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT

Customers come in all sizes and shapes. They come in all levels of intelligence. They come in all socio-economic groups. But the most important group they all come in are the talkers and the silent ones.

I was out in the field with a rep last week and we made a call on business that he told me he has been wanting to call on for a year. I said let’s go.

When we walked in there were a few guys standing around a workbench looking at a motor and talking about what was wrong with it. We asked who was the boss and were told to go to an office in the back of the shop. Before we walked away we watched the guys and listened to what they were saying. The rep and I looked at each other because we knew we had several items with us that these guys could have used. We decided to go see the boss and tell him.

We walked to the back of the shop and met the boss. He was a man of few words, VERY FEW. The rep introduced us and started to tell the boss about whom we were and what it was we were there for. The boss didn’t say a word. The rep told him about our company, the boss didn’t say a word. The rep told him about what we had, the boss didn’t say a word. The rep pulled out one of our most popular products and did a great demo for the boss, he still didn’t say a word, he just looked at us.

The rep tried a few things to engage the boss but the boss just kept looking without saying a word.

The rep finally said that he would be back in 2 weeks and we left.

When we got into the car the rep asked me what else he could have done, I told him nothing. I explained that there is no harder customer to sell than the one who tells you nothing. I said to the rep that he would appreciate objections from now on.

I told him that an objection is the second best thing a customer can give you. A sale is the best, but an objection gives you something to work with. It doesn’t matter what the objection is, any objection gives you information. Silence gives you NOTHING!

Over the years I have found one thing that a rep can do when they are with a silent customer. ASSUME THE SALE! When I am doing demos and trying to close I simply assume the customer wants what I have. I say, “I’ll go ahead and send in xxxx”, it doesn’t matter how silent the customer is, if they don’t want it they will talk! Drastic situations call for drastic measures.

Just because the customer is silent doesn’t mean you need to be.

Lorin

THAT’S RIGHT, I SAID IT

The great Yogi Berra once said, “I never said most of the things I said”. At least I think that is what Yogi once said, but maybe he never said it…

Anyway, have you ever noticed how some customers always think you said stuff you never said?

I don’t leave samples behind, I do demo’s. Over my years of sales I have found that leaving a sample doesn’t pay off. You can’t control how the customer uses the sample, if in fact they use it at all. If the customer does use the sample, and happens to use it wrong, my products from then on are never as good in the customer’s eyes. Also, in most cases, the person I am talking to is not the person who actually uses the product. So I hope the person who actually uses my sample will report back to the person I left the sample with how it worked.

All in all, there are way too many chances for things to go wrong. That is why I do demo’s. I can control the demo and point out all the features and benefits to the buyer so he or she can really see the value in owning my product.

This is why I was so shocked today when a customer told me I had promised to bring them a sample of one of my products.

The customer said that he was expecting me 2 weeks ago with the sample so he could try it out on one of the jobs he was working on. I asked him if he may have me mistaken with another good looking sales rep that calls on him and he said no he was sure it was me.

We talked some more and I asked him if over the last 20+ years I have been selling him at any of the companies I have been selling for if I have ever left him a sample of anything before? He thought for a minute and said he didn’t think so. I asked him how many demo’s he thought I had done for him and his employees over the past 20+ years and he laughed and said a million. (Actually it was more like a million and a half, but I never argue with a customer) Finally I asked him if he really thought I was the one who promised him a sample. It didn’t take him long to agree that it probably wasn’t me.

I could have handled this in several different ways. I could have told the customer I was sorry and tell him I forgot the sample. I could have went out to my car and gotten my sample and given it to him. I could have made up a story about the warehouse not getting the sample to me or being out of stock of the product. But I always try to be honest as I can be with a customer. I know what I say and I usually say what I say!

After talking with the customer I did go to my car and get my sample of the product he wanted and did a great demo for him. I showed him how my product did what he needed better than he expected and that I could deliver my product at a price which was a better value than anyone else he has asked. After I was done I asked for the sale. My customer could have told me that he wanted to wait to see who he had asked for the sample and see how their product worked. He could have said no or not yet or one of a thousand things. He didn’t, he said yes.

I believe that not leaving him a sample and doing a demo which I controlled made the difference. My demo made the difference between put off and a sale.

I understand that it goes against most of our sales rep instincts to say “NO” to a customer. But if you know what you say, and say it ALL the time, no customer can ever trip you up.

Yogi also said, “The future ain’t what it used to be.” You are right Yogi, it can be better!

Lorin

WHAT WE HAVE HERE IS A FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE

I am trilingual; I speak fluent English, SOUTHERN and sales.

I’m sure that it won’t shock any of you to learn that over all my years in business I have always found a way to communicate with a customer using one of my languages. That is until a few weeks ago!

I was in the field working with a rep and we stopped to make a cold call at a business that he had targeted as a prospect. The call started like most with the rep doing some basic introductions and probing. He then did a great job telling the customer about what we do and how we do it.

As the rep and customer started to chat about how we could help the customer, the rep asked me if I wouldn’t mind telling the customer about one of our products.

I opened our demo case and got out a sample of the product and started to set up the demo when the customer got a very funny look on his face. I asked if something was wrong and he just looked at me as if he were lost. I apologized for talking too fast and asked where it was that I lost him. (I couldn’t imagine where it happened since I was just starting and hadn’t even gotten into to demo yet)

The customer said that he didn’t understand why we were there. With that I went back to the introduction the rep had just finished and tried to help the customer understand what we were there for. When I got back to the same spot, about to start the demo, the customer put the same look back on his face.

Now I was starting to think the customer was just messing with me. I laughed and said very funny trying to make him admit he was just playing around. But as I watched his face I could plainly see he was not joking.

I tried a third time to explain what we do and as I was talking I could tell the customer just didn’t understand what we were all about.

Not wanting to show my amazement or frustration, I decided to just continue on with the demo and see if he caught on at some point.

The demo was almost over when the lights came on in the customers mind. He got a big smile on his face and said (actually almost yelled) “Are you selling this?”

While the three of us stood there looking at each other we all started laughing. The customer told us he thought we were the guys that were coming to work on his front end loader and really thought we were kidding when we started talking about selling things.

Going back over the first few minutes of the call I have been trying to pinpoint where the miscommunications broke down. Then it hit me, it didn’t break down, it was never started. Right from the start the customer was looking for one thing and we were looking for something else. Because we were both looking for something that wasn’t there, we were not communicating.

I could have spoken 100 languages and the customer could have spoken all 100 of them, we still would not have been communicating.

When you are making a sales call, and you start the sales process, always make sure that the prospect knows who you are and why your there. NEVER assume that your words alone will tell your story.

Lorin

WEST SIDE STORY

If you were looking for the Jets and Sharks, I’m sorry.

This West Side Story has to do with a rep I worked with that had more than just a little trouble finding his way around his territory.

I was out on the West Coast and was asked to work with a rep for a day. With all my traveling around, there are not many cities I haven’t been to, however in all but a few cases I don’t know my way around the city at all. I usually see the airport, a taxi, and a hotel in each city I go to. Not exactly an in depth knowledge of the area. The city I was working in with this rep was no different.

The rep picked me up at my hotel right on time at 7 AM and we went for a cup of coffee so I could get a feel for what he had planned for the day. He gave me a good briefing on each stop we were going to be making and told me he had a few cold calls that he wanted to make as well. I was all set for a great day.

We left the restaurant and drove directly to our first stop of the day. It was a customer of his that buys several lines from him and he showed me the business and how he works it. After writing an order and chatting with the buyer for a few minutes we were back in the car and on our way to stop number 2.

As we drove to the second stop I noticed that we drove back through an intersection we drove through on our way to the first stop. Not really thinking much of it because sometimes doubling back on a route is the shortest distance to travel, we made it to stop number 2. This was a small shop that the rep told me only buys a few items from him. He wanted me to see if there was anything I saw that I felt would help sell more in the account.

As we walked in I looked around and saw a few things, but agreed with the rep that this was a small business and the opportunity was going to be limited. After 2 demos of new products we left without an order and headed to stop number 3 which the rep said was his number 1 account.

The next stop went very well for the rep, and after selling a new item he took a large order for the customer. We were doing well, 3 stops, 2 orders and several demos and a new item sale.

As we drove to our next stop I once again recognized the same intersection we had driven through twice already.

To make a long story short, over the next several hours we made 4 more stops and drove back through that same intersection 2 more times.

As we were driving to a restaurant for lunch I asked the rep if he had a map in his car. He didn’t so I asked him to stop at an office supply store so I could buy one. When we got to the restaurant I grabbed a table big enough for the map to be laid out on.

Still not knowing the area, I asked the rep to put dots on the map for the 7 stops we made so far that day. He made the dots for me. I then asked him to number the dots in the same order we stopped at them that morning.

When he was done I asked him what he noticed. He looked and sheepishly said that we crossed back and forth in the area all morning. I joked with him saying that I knew several people at that one intersection because we drove through it so many times. Using the scale of miles on the map I estimated that we had driven over 25 miles since we left the hotel that morning. Then I did some quick measurements and figured that if he had planned his route better he could have cut over 15 of the 25 miles off the route.

Living here in Georgia, I am a bit spoiled. Our gas is some of the lowest in the country. On the west coast things are a lot different. The gas was almost 60 cents a gallon higher. To make a point I asked the rep how many miles per gallon his car got, he said about 18. Doing some quick calculations I asked him how he would like to save almost $30 a week.

He knew where I was going with this conversation, but I went there anyway. I said, if we just save 15 miles before lunch and another 15 after lunch every day that would be 150 miles a week. If his car gets 18 miles per gallon that means he would save 8.3 gallons per week. At $3.65 a gallon that equals $30.29.

Next I asked the rep how fast he usually drives. He laughed and said he always speeded wherever he went. (I had to agree just from the morning’s time together) He said 50MPH was a good average. (I didn’t want to argue with him, but around town he probably didn’t average much over 30) Either way I then asked him how many sales calls he thought he could make in 3 hours. He told me 4 or 5. I then asked him if he made 5 calls how many he would close. He said at least 2. My follow-up question was what is your average sale? To which he said about $300.

Once again I did some fast calculations and asked him if an additional $31,000 in sales was something he would be interested in. I am sure you all can guess his answer. I explained that is what an extra 3 hours a week of selling time rather than driving time would get him.

I called this post WEST SIDE STORY because it happened on the west coast. I know that I could have called it EAST SIDE, NORTH SIDE, SOUTH SIDE, INSIDE or OUT SIDE STORY. This same thing happens thousands of times a day all over the country.

My challenge to you is to take a little time and do the same exercise with your days as I did with the rep I was working with. Go step by step and come up with the figure you are missing because you are driving instead of selling.

Lorin

IS IT ME YOU’RE LOOKING FOR?

I didn’t invent the internet, that was Al Gore. I didn’t start Rock and Roll, that was Elvis. I didn’t invent the “GIBBS SLAP”, that was Leroy Jethro Gibbs aka Mark Harmon. I didn’t invent sales, I have just enjoyed it for the past 40 years.

What I did do is start this blog 8/18/10, almost 3 years ago. Over the past 3 years I have made over 400 posts (none for the past 7 months).

Well I am happy to say, I’M BAAAAACK”.

I wish I had a good reason for not posting since last December, but the truth is I have been focusing my attention on settling in to my new position. It has been a wild 7 months but some of the most rewarding I have had in all my years as a sales rep and sales trainer.

I have had to remember things that I hadn’t thought of for years. It was exciting to once again be challenged to learn while I was teaching. I had to be as open to new ideas as I was to helping others accept new ideas. I was in a position of being new, while being the expert.

This entire time I have been making notes and planning this blogging comeback. I have been outlining posts that I felt would be as useful to everyone reading this blog as they were to me while I lived them.

To say I am excited is an understatement. ELECTRIFIED, ENERGIZED, SUPERCHARGED, MOTIVATED, and plain HAPPY are all the feelings I have about where I have been and what I have done over the past 7 months.

I am going to be doing what I have always tried to do here, have fun while telling stories that will help sales reps of all tenure and all industries. At the same time I will be as motivating as I can be, thought provoking as I can be, and entertaining as I can be.

I look forward to your comments, e mails and communications of all types.

Let’s get started.

 

YOU SAY WHAT?

I am sure that everyone reading this has gone into a “big box” store to purchase some sort of electronics. Last night was my latest experience.

One of the TV sets I had went bad and it was time to buy a new one. Off I went in search of an inexpensive set to fill the vacant space where the old TV sat for years. My first stop was a favorite store of mine, Best Buy.

I know that over the years best Buy has had some very bad press about its lack of customer service, and I will be the first to say, they deserved it. However over the past few years, at least for me, they have really turned it around and improved greatly.

So, here I was in front of the GREAT WALL OF TELEVISIONS, trying to make a selection. Was 32” too small? Was 60” too big? LCD, LED, HDTV, 720P, 1080P, PLASMA, the market has truly turned into an alphabet soup and unless you know what all these letters mean, a decision is hard to make.

Up walks my “salesman”! A young man who wore his blue shirt with pride. I told him what I was looking for and in seconds he had me pointed at a set. It didn’t take me long to make up my mind and I bought the one he suggested.

While the stock people were bringing my new TV up from the stockroom, my SALESMAN started to write up the order and have me pay. As he was ringing up my purchase he said, “I’ll go ahead and add the $160.00 for the extended warranty”. To that I said, “WHAT”?

I believe in the assumptive close, and I guess he made the ultimate assumption.

Does anyone see what I had a problem with? Before you can close you need to SELL. My SALESMAN forgot to do what his job description says he is supposed to do, SELL! He never told me anything about the warranty, NOTHING, not what it covered, how it worked, how long it lasted, NOTHING! He just TOLD me he was going to add it to the invoice.

At this point the Sales Trainer came out in me. I reached over and snatched my credit card away from him and said, “Don’t you think I should know what I am getting for $160 bucks?”

As he started to give me all the features of the warranty I once again stopped him. I said “so what does that mean to me?” I guess he saw the smile on my face because he asked me if this were some sort of test. I replied YES, and you have failed miserably.

As sales reps we all want to assume the sale, but we all need to understand that to assume a sale there needs to be a sales presentation. The customer needs to have at least a minimal idea of what you are offering and how what you have will benefit them before you can assume the sale.

If you sell a service, let the customer know what the service is and how the service will make their business or life better. If you sell a product, either tell them or better yet SHOW them how your product is better than what they have now. If they don’t have one now, let them know how owning yours will make their business or life better. SHOW, TELL and then SELL!

There is an old saying in sales: A PRESENTATION WITHOUT A DEMONSTRATION IS JUST A CONVERSATION!

Do what we do best SELL. If we forget to sell our product or service we are just visitors.

By the way, I did buy the TV and I didn’t buy the warranty. I spent about 30 minutes trying to make my point with MY SALESMAN about selling. I hope that everyone reading this catches on quicker than he did.

Lorin

THE REST OF THE YEAR

It seems funny to say “the rest of the year” when there are only 6 days left in 2012. It seems even funnier to say “the rest of your selling year” when there are only 4 days left if you count Monday which is New Year’s Eve.

Yet, work doesn’t stop because a new calendar begins nor does it stop because an old calendar ends.

So what should we as reps do for what is left of 2012? There are several things that will produce some awesome results. Think about where you are for the current year.

1)      Many of you, hopefully, have already met or exceeded your sales quotas. You need to look at your bonus opportunities. I have seen so many reps hit quotas and then leave money on the table because they stopped pushing themselves and missed bonus opportunities that were so close one good day would have meant thousands of dollars to them. You have 4 selling days left, make them count!

2)      Some of you are within striking distance of your quotas. This is the time to use your relationships with your customers to get you over the finish line. Go to your best and biggest customers and remind them of all the VALUE ADDED things you have done for them the past year. Let them know that you have gone above and beyond what they expected from a sales rep. Share with them the fact that you need X dollars to hit your quota and ask them for a BIG order. (DO NOT JUST LOAD THEM UP! MAKE SURE WHAT THEY ORDER IS PRODUCT THEY NEED) Keep in mind that if you load them up now you won’t be getting orders from them for a while, this may put you in the same position next year as you are right now. Use this opportunity to get new items in and set the stage for bigger sales next year.

3)      I know of a lot of companies that offer bonuses for reps who exceed their quotas. If you are one of the lucky reps that work for a company that will give you bonus dollars for going beyond your quota by certain figures, GO FOR IT! Know what the figure is you need to hit for the bonus and set your goals over the next 4 days to hit that figure.

4)      Unfortunately there are always some reps that are so far behind quota for the year that realistically there is no way that 4 days will make a difference. OK, put 2012 behind and start making your plans to blow it out in 2013. Do your homework, look at you customer lists and see where the opportunities lie for you to grow business next year. Look over your prospect list and make your plans on how you will open these new customers. Look at your pipeline and make sure you have your plan on how to keep it full. Look in the mirror and make sure the person looking back at you is ready willing and able to push forward to a new year.

The year is NOT over! Make the final days the best 4 days of the year no matter which group of reps you fall into.

2012 was an interesting year with the economy, the wars, the elections all having an impact on our business. 2013 is shaping up to be another interesting year filled with challenges and opportunities. It will be up to each and every one of us to use all our creative skills, all our selling skills, and all our business skills to assure that we come out on top.

Lorin

COMMENTS ARE ALWAYS WELCOME!

SAM I WAS

Over a year ago, 10/13/11 to be exact, I wrote about my Brother-In-Laws father SAM who to me was the consummate salesman. At the time Sam was 93 (I thought 94, does a year really matter at this point?) year’s young and going strong. However after his wonderful wife of over 70 years (again, I thought they were married 60+ but found out it was 70) passed away, Sam’s own health started to decline.

On December 15^th we lost Sam.

I say we, including everyone who will read this post, because when a lifelong salesman dies a little of each of dies along with him. I know that sounds so cliché, but in this case it is true. You see, as I said before, Sam was a salesman salesman. He was from the old school, he had the ethics of the old school, he had the persistence of the old school, he had the self-drive of the old school and most of all he had the LOVE for selling of the old school.

It was men and women like Sam that gave sales people a GOOD name. He was the kind of salesman that believed whatever he was selling, from Diamonds to his own artwork, it was not only the best but that everyone needed it and had reasons to back up his beliefs.

Unlike so many of the so called salespeople of today ho are nothing but order takers, Sam knew all the steps that it took to get the sale. He always built VALUE in his product and showed how ownership would benefit the customer and he made sure the product would meet the needs AND the wants of the customer.

Sam was selling right up until the end, he always had a piece of his artwork with him and would do his best, even from a wheelchair being pushed by one of his wonderful and dedicated caretakers, to find a prospect and go into his well-practiced and professionally delivered sales pitch. It may have been another patient, the nurse, or the doctor, but Sam always found a prospect.

As you can imagine at 94 years old he had patience. Along with his patience he also had the persistence of a Pit Bull. He knew that you may not say yes today, but if he could repeatedly show you the value and how his artwork would better your life you would eventually say yes.

WE lost a GREAT salesman. Our jobs just got a little more difficult because there is one less salesman doing it right and each of us needs to work a little harder to make up the difference. In Sam’s case we each need to work A LOT harder because the hole left by his passing is big one.

A final story about Sam. At the funeral Jeff, my Brother-in-Law spoke about his father. Sam was an artist and sold his own artwork. He had portraits of sports figures, famous people from all walks of life, and some religious portraits as well. Jeff said, “I can see my father now standing at the gates of heaven looking into G-Ds face and saying, YOU KNOW WHAT YOU NEED? A BEAUTIFUL PORTRAIT OF YOUR SON HANGING ON THE WALL, LET ME SHOW YOU WHAT I HAVE”

Goodbye Sam, Good Selling.

Lorin

THE PARTY’S OVER FOR FOUR MORE YEARS

OK, I have not posted since 10/9/12. Why you may be asking, simple, THE ELECTION. I didn’t want to get political on the blog nor did I want to compete with all the information surrounding the election.

But now it is over, we have our new President. It doesn’t matter which side of the isle you fall on we have our new president.

As sales reps we need to take a look at what is happening with our customers. I know it is early, and I am sure that good or bad a lot more will happen over the next 4 years, but for all the customers that told you they were, “HOLDING OFF UNTIL AFTER THE ELECTIONS”, has anything really changed?

I went into the sales field on 11/7 the Wednesday after the elections and traffic was the same, the parking lots were just as full or in some cases as empty as before the elections. The customers that were busy before the election were still busy and the customers that were slow were still slow.

I went to the grocery store and the shelves were full and prices were the same. Gas prices hadn’t changed much, I know that I hadn’t gotten any price increases from my company and I hadn’t heard from any of my friends that their companies passed along price increases either.

I got my paycheck on Friday and it was the same as the week before, as was my wife’s. Traffic in Atlanta was no better and no worse and the news was still the news.

So what I am saying is after being assaulted with what seemed like a lifetime of political ads, hearing what seemed like a lifetime of political reporting, and what seemed like a lifetime of excuses from customers, nothing has really changed.

I am not silly enough to think that who got elected won’t in some way affect our country, but the truth is most of us will not see any significant change in our business. We will hear a lot of opinions and speculations as to what has happened and what will happen, but for most of our customers, the day to day business will change very little if any.

WE ARE SALES REPS! We find ways to make things that look grim into opportunities that shine as bright as the sun. We take the cards that we are dealt play the hand the best we can. We don’t get caught up in the poor poor pitiful me game.

We have all had a week to either celebrate or curse the election. Let’s spend the rest of the 4 years leading up to the next election working on our success and the success of our customers and country.

GOD BLESS AMERICA for giving us all this awesome opportunity to succeed!

Lorin

IT WAS ONLY A FIB

When it rains it pours, this is a motto of a salt manufacturer and it is also an old saying meaning that when things go wrong they go really wrong! Well it is POURING at the Greenstein house!

I have a leak in my basement which may or may not be being caused by the fact that the cracks in my driveway are getting wider and starting to get uneven.

So not only is it pouring but the water is running through my basement.

OK, so that was the lead up to today’s post. I have had to get estimates from companies to do the work needed to solve my problems. First a company that can stop the leaking basement and then a concrete company to demo and remove the old driveway and re-pour a new one.

I have had several companies out to give me estimates and as I expected, the professionalism of the sales reps has been extremely diverse.

Each sales rep gave me the facts I needed about the work that needed to be done and they each had their own solution that they knew was the absolute best. I have no problems so far, if they didn’t think their solution was best why would I want to do business with them.

For the most part they have all been pretty ethical about measuring and providing me an estimate. However one company was all but dishonest about it. After the rep measured my basement and gave me his explanation of his solution and why I should use it, he got out his calculator and started figuring his price. He wrote out everything on his quote sheet and in BOLD numbers at the bottom he gave me his price to do the needed work.

His price was almost $1000.00 higher than the next nearest estimate I had gotten. I was about to say something about how high he was, but before I could he started talking. He said that he had a crew that really needed the work and that if I was ready to sign he would discount the price $500.00. (Still $500.00 higher than the next estimate) I was looking at the paper when he started talking again, this time he told me about a credit he had with his concrete supplier and if I would say yes RIGHT NOW he would use the credit on my job which would save me another $500.00. (Now he was the same price as the next estimate) As all the infomercials say, WAIT THERES MORE! I hadn’t said a word yet and he started talking again, this time he said he would rewrite the estimate so it would show 60 feet less drain, and he would charge me... you guessed it..$500.00 less.

At this point I was just sitting back waiting to hear his next price drop. I hadn’t said yes or no and I have already saved $1500.00 off the original estimate.

I just sat there looking at him and he must have known I was waiting for something because he said with a big question, “Is that enough to get your business”?

I just sat and waited to see if he would cut his price again. He did, he said he had forgotten the $200.00 discount form Angie’s List and he would honor that also. I thought it was funny he actually used the word honor because he surely didn’t have any.

I was getting tired of the game especially because I had decided I wouldn’t do business with him at any price. If he is that unethical and willing to spew any lie he thought of I didn’t want to know what he had lied about in reference to my work needing to be done.

I thanked him and brought the “sales pitch” to an end. He asked again if I was ready to sign and I said I didn’t think so. He asked why and I just said I am not sure who I want to do business with yet, but I was sure it wasn’t him.

I love bargains, and I love saving money, and I really love saving a lot of money! What I don’t love is being lied to, cheating, and stealing. The rep may have had a crew that needed the work, I will give him that one and I may have done business at that point, but to then to throw in a $500.00 credit was a stretch, but even that could have been true and I still may have done business with him. However, stealing and making me a part of it was too much for me. To be dishonest enough to under estimate a job to get the price down is over the line.

I am having my basement waterproofed Thursday by a company that gave me the next highest estimate. Not because I believe high price means quality, but because the sales rep didn’t tell me what I wanted to hear rather he told me what I needed to hear to solve my water problem.

Lorin

ACT NOW

Today I was severely reprimanded by my wife. I know what some of you are thinking, “SO WHAT ELSE IS NEW”. Well, I am usually the first one to admit when I act like a jerk and deserve to be reprimanded, however this time I really don’t believe I deserved it. You be the judge. Leave me a comment and tell me if you think I deserved it or not.

Here is what happened;

For the first time in several weeks we had a good rain storm come through the Atlanta area. Because we have been in such a drought the famous Georgia Red Clay has hardened and has constricted. This causes it to pull away from the foundation of homes and when the rain comes can cause leaks in the foundation. This is what happened to me.

For the past 2 days I have had a steady stream of water running into my basement. I had to buy some absorbent socks and try to put up a dam so the water wouldn’t ruin everything on the floor. The flow of water has been enough volume to soak all the socks I have put down in about an hour to an hour and a half. This means that for the past 2 nights I have been sleeping for 90 minutes and then getting up, going down 2 flights of stairs to the basement, using my shop vac to pick up as much of the water as I could, putting the soaked socks into a bucket (the bucket weighs about 60 pounds when it is filled with wet socks) carrying the heavy bucket up one flight of steps and to the washer where I spin them to dry them out, carrying the bucked with the damp socks (now only about 25 pounds) back down stairs and putting the socks back down as a dam. WHEW, I am tired just by remembering everything I have done.

Needless to say I have called a company that water proofs basements to give me an estimate to fix the problem before the next rain storm hits my area.

Late this afternoon one of the sales reps from a company I called showed up to give me an estimate to fix the problem the “RIGHT” way (meaning his companies way) He started out strong and asked me questions and gave me his full sales presentation. He then walked all around my home and in the basement taking pictures and measurements. After about an hour we sat at my kitchen table and he started doing the math.

I could almost feel the heat being generated by his calculator as he added up everything he needed to do to fix my problem the “RIGHT WAY”. He was writing and adding for about 10 minutes and then said to me, “This isn’t too bad, it will only be $XXXX.XX for the entire job” he then recapped everything that he had told me he was going to do. I looked over his estimate and he asked if I had any other questions. I told him no and he went for the close.

At this point I was not very happy with his figures, but I was impressed at this sales process and technique. I told him that I needed to think about it overnight (the rain had stopped and I knew I was going to get a good night’s sleep tonight) and I would call him tomorrow and let him know my decision.

He said to me, Mr. Greenstein (he had been calling me Lorin the entire time, now I was Mr. Greenstein) my company knows that many people need an extra incentive so if you say yes now I can offer you an additional 5% discount.

Here is where he lost the sale and my reaction is why I got reprimanded.

I said, “You know, I more than likely would have called you tomorrow morning and given you the go ahead, but now I am not at all interested in doing business with you or your company.” The rep looked at me and asked why, I said, “I don’t like a price that drops 5% for the next 5 minutes and then goes back up. If you can offer me a 5% discount now and you don’t give it to me tomorrow that means you are over charging me 5%” He started back peddling and stammering. I said, “I teach sales reps for a living and in all my years I have never dropped a price and told the customer it was for the next few minutes only, if I give a price I stand by it!”

As I spoke I got madder and madder until I said that I wouldn’t be doing business no matter what.

When he left my wife and youngest daughter told me I was too strong and I was almost rude to the rep. I told them that I was mad and I don’t like cheap sales tricks to get the customer to say yes. They agreed they didn’t like what he said but still said I was a jerk and was rude.

I defended myself by saying that if he was smart he would learn from the experience and not use cheap trick and pressure to close sales. If his price and service was as good as he said it was he shouldn’t need them.

We went back and forth for a while until I just said well he is gone and I am not calling to apologize.

OK you tell me, did I do anything wrong? I still think I helped him in the long run and that if he thinks about what I said and adjusts his story to soften it, he will close more deals and make more money.

Leave a comment and let me know if you are on my wife’s side or mine.

Lorin

THE VICTOR WRITES THE HISTORY

I was having breakfast with a sales rep friend of mine a few days ago and we were exchanging leads with one another as we have been doing for many years now. I handed him a business card from a customer of mine who I have just started selling a few months ago.

As I handed him the card he read the name and said, “That #^($@&!, I will never talk to him again, he is an #^%!&(*” I was shocked, not at his language (I have been known to let loose a string of words similar to his) but at the fact that he didn’t like this guy who I have started to become friends with.

This made me think about something that happened to me when I was in school. I was in a history class and the professor started telling the story of the Civil War, from the aspect of the losers (the South). It was actually pretty funny to hear about battles talked about from this aspect. It changed the way you viewed the entire war.

Getting back to my conversation with the rep, I started to smile as he was getting redder and redder in the face thinking about this guy that he didn’t like at all. Here we had the same person, being viewed by two people who do the same thing, and resulting in totally opposite opinions.

This reminded me of a sales meeting I used to conduct. I would start by making a statement like, “You can’t sell a convenience store, they never buy anything” I would then nod my head and ask who agrees with me, every time I would have a group nodding and readily agreeing with me. Before the meeting I would always look at my reps accounts and find a rep that had a BIG convenience store account. After I got most of the reps to agree that you could not sell a convenience store I would then ask that rep their opinion. They would tell everyone about the success they were having selling a convenience store.

I would do the same thing with 2 or 3 other industries and always have the majority of reps saying you couldn’t sell them, and then the rep that was having great success selling them. The end of the meeting was, depending on how well you are personally doing in an industry dictates your opinion of the industry.

The same goes for people. Depending on how much business a person is giving you often indicates how you feel about the person.

So now you should be asking what is the point of this post, simply this, Don’t listen to someone’s opinion about a prospect. You can take it into consideration but make up your own mind. What you may find out is that the bum to another rep may become your best friend and best customer.

Lorin

BACK TO YOUR ROOTS

As I was driving around yesterday I drove past the building that was the home to the company that I credit with making me a Sales Trainer.

The building looks exactly as it did 35 years ago. I could tell that the maintenance has been top notch. The sign on the building was the same and I saw several cars parked in the parking lot. I decided to stop in.

The first face I saw brought back a flood of memories. It was the warehouse production manager. I know that he has been with the company for over 30 years. He was just a kid when he started and now he had grown to be the VP of Manufacturing for the company. With a head full of white hair and a white beard he resembled Santa, and had every bit as big a smile as Santa would.

We sat in his office and talked for about 45 minutes. The entire time I was thinking about everything I had learned working for the company and how the President of the company always motivated me (and everyone else) to do our very best.

I remembered the first day on the job, I thought I was a seasoned sales rep until I met some of the “HUSTLERS” that worked for this company. For the next 12 years I was able to start my own business using their business model and sharpen my skills as a motivational speaker and trainer.

I walked around the building and met a few more people that I hadn’t seen for over 20 years and it was a great time.

As I was leaving I knew that just remembering all the things that brought me to where I am today will make me better TODAY! I have written about getting back to the basics and I have taught back to your basics, I have preached back to your basics, yesterday I lived back to your basics and wow what an experience.

I know that some of you may not be able to go back to your rots of selling, it may be because of distance or other reasons. It doesn’t matter, each of us can take the mental trip back to our roots and remember all the things we have learned (and forgotten or discarded) along the way.

I made a promise to myself as I drove away from the building, I will make it a point to at least drive by, if not stop in, every year. I know that the time spent will be rewarded 10 fold with the basics that I will remember and USE after the visits.

GET BACK TO YOUR ROOTS, GET BACK TO YOUR BASICS!

Lorin