You're Going To Be Great At This!

If you're in sales, whether it's B2B or door-to-door vacuum cleaner selling, you need to expand your network. I read a book years ago that said, on average, people have 250 friends. If you could get your 250 friends to introduce you to their 250 friends your network would explode. A training school I attended wanted us to set sales goals, and from that we were supposed to work backwards to find out how many cases we needed to open, and from that how many prospects we needed to open those cases. This company was all about finding prospects. I get that, but I took it backward one more step to how many people I needed to meet. I understood immediately that sitting in an office with a nice sign outside wasn't going to get me business. My sales were relying on me getting out and meeting people in my community, almost like a politician. Finding groups of people made me more efficient. Networking groups are great if you know where to find them. Look for groups in your are...

Sales can be difficult, especially if you don't have a warm market, or a built-in social circle to work with. Many companies will encourage you to start off by calling on friends and family. Personally, I think this is a horrible idea. The best way to build a career in sales for the long run is to work off of referrals and new relationships. Why new relationships, you ask? Because they don't have any preconceived ideas about you or your rapport with them. One of the best finds you'll get in your career is someone who will mention you, go to bat for you and be an overall advocate. As long as this person has some decent standing in the community, having someone to endorse you in public is very satisfying and can be fruitful.  Always be grateful and reciprocate whenever possible. In today's world, we call these people influencers. Social media is full of them but finding them and getting them to work on your behalf is difficult. Until you can find a famous social me...

A few weeks ago I had a bit of a chat with a local lady who is a connection on LinkedIn. I've only met her a couple of times in the past and don't know her all that well, but I do know that she is well-liked and respected in the community. From the look of her profile I gather that she's in corporate training, so when she "liked" one of my posts I appreciated it even more. She and I exchanged messages in regard to my memes, which she found to be humorous and I thanked her. Half-jokingly I told her that I was creating the " demotivational sales technique " market.  Her response was priceless. "Own that niche if it resonates with you! I love that. You be you."  Sales people can be very homogeneous. In an age where we're told that we should set ourselves apart from our competitors, do we? The adage of "birds of a feather flock together" should be taken seriously here.  Ask yourself what kind of people do you attract? More...

Welcome to the new You're Going To Be Great At This! blog!  If you aren't quite familiar with me or my book, my accountant strongly encourages you to head over to Amazon and check it out. Click here to see what a value it is and read the reviews. So why did I write a book on sales? I have read tons of self-help or motivational books. Maybe it was tens. Either way, I concluded that most of them had the same general message - set goals, visualize them, keep a positive attitude, etc. On the whole, I found the motivation to last for brief periods of time, only to be told to find another book and keep reading.  I had a revelation. Hardly any of the successful people I knew had read these books. They people were wired for success when they were born. And these books presumed that I, as a reader, obviously needed to be rewired. In other words, since I was looking for help, I must be defective.  This conclusion irritated and confused me.  First of all, I know plent...