You're Going To Be Great At This!

Have you ever watched a comedian bomb onstage? If done correctly, it can be both horrific and entertaining at the same time. Sometimes you actually feel sorry for the poor idiot on stage with their crappy material and defensive attitude when the heckling starts.  But sometimes when a comic has been especially bad and even more defensive, watching him or her fall without a parachute can be gratifying. I once saw a comic in Raleigh, NC who was mediocre at best. He had this crappy "I shouldn't have to be working this crappy club in North Carolina, I should be in Vegas," attitude. At one point he made a racist joke that more than irritated a very large African-American gentleman on the front row. "That joke sucked!" the man said with a very loud booming voice.  The air had been sucked out of the room. The comic lost his train of thought and blamed us, the audience. At this point, he should have been trying to win us over, but instead he decided to push us away. It w...

In the previous two posts I discussed a couple of company sponsored sales courses that I was required to take as part of my onboarding. One was focused on memorizing a sales pitch word for word with some extra emphasis on keeping a positive mental attitude. The other was nothing more than product training. Both of these companies had a lot of turnover, which meant that they needed to constantly hire new agents as the previous agents would quit just as quickly.  With this in mind, I would be remiss if I did not discuss one of the better sales courses. This sales class was with a very large life insurance company (I'll call them ABC) and was more comprehensive than the others. In my mind, the larger the class, the more turnover the company had. And as we have seen, more turnover means less successful sales people. Our class at ABC only had about a dozen of us, so that seemed promising.  One of the first things they mentioned was that only about 15% of the applicants had made it ...

As I have mentioned in my book, we all are selling something. Whether you are selling cars, books, workshops, financial services, real estate, or even yourself (see: applying for a job), we are at some point trying to sell something. My definition of sales is trying to get someone to do something, right now, that they could do later or don't want to do at all.  That all sounds pretty opaque, so let me give an example. Let's say that Mary needs a new car, but she's been putting off the purchase for various reasons. She shows up at your lot "just to see what prices are like these days". Mary honestly has no intention of purchasing a vehicle, but thinks she is doing research.  First off, Mary could be doing this on the internet, but Mary is old school. By showing up on the lot, we can assume that she is interested in a car, even though she says that "now isn't a good time." Sorry Mary, but you should know that you have walked into a den full of closers....

If you are in sales you are either a W-2 employee, with a nice benefits package and salary. On the other hand, you may be like myself and countless others who are independent contractors, which means we are on our own when it comes to benefits, wages and overhead. In other words, we are self-employed. With any situation like this there are advantages and disadvantages. A few of the advantages are: You work when you want . You are not bound to a schedule, generally speaking. But if you want or need a vacation, you can do so whenever you care to. Personally, I like to work late at night or early in the morning when I don't have a lot of interruptions. If my work is finished I can "clock out" when everyone else is starting their day.  Lots of tax deductions . I write off everything I can because I'm self-employed. If I take a client out for coffee or a meal, I write it off. Travel expenses, including gas and lodging, are also written off. Work from home? I have a home of...

Let's face it, when it comes to selling products and services to people, not everyone is going to be happy. Our job is to make sure that people are satisfied with their purchase, but there are those people out there who, know matter what you do for them, will never be pleased. The root of all of this is the adage that says "The customer is always right." We know that this is not the case. Telling people they are wrong or "misinformed" is hard to do, especially when the customer sincerely believes they are right. When I sell insurance I go over a lot of information, maybe too much. That is part of the job because the majority of my clients really are not insurance experts. They know what they have been told by their family or friends.  For instance, I had a grown man, probably in his 40's, who only bought whole life insurance because "that's what my father bought". We did the math and figured out how much coverage he needed. When I looked at his...

Growing up in North Carolina, we were like most kids on April 1, who would carry out mildly dumb jokes and pranks on our friends and teachers. "You're shoes are untied!" was a classic to use. The other person would naturally look down to see that their shoes were tied just fine, only to get "April Fools!" yelled at them. It was even funnier when the other person had shoes with no laces, like loafers.  In my opinion, the best jokes were simple and harmless, like the above example. No one got hurt and it was over in a few seconds, so we could move on with the rest of our day, or to the next victim. And the most important rule was that if you were going to dish out a joke, you better be prepared to take one as well.  However, there were those people who just couldn't take a joke very well. For instance, there was a tightly wound kid (I'll call him Bill) who lived in the dorm room next to me. I spoke to him rarely because I always sensed he had all the attri...

Many years ago when I was working in retail I had a boss who was a real sarcastic guy. Whenever we had a problem with a customer or an employee he would say, "If it weren't for people it would be the easiest job in the world." He was absolutely correct in this assessment. People can be a pain in the butt. Dealing with people can be difficult. Everyone handles the day-to-day problems they have differently. Some get stressed out while others are like those non-stick pans with their problems just sliding off of them. There is no "one size fits all" approach to people, especially when it comes to your clients, customers and co-workers.  I once worked with a very abrasive young man. He had a thick New York accent, which in South Carolina went over like a lead balloon. In a lot of ways he sounded like the cartoon aardvark that was always trying to eat the ant. So when he would make his morning calls to set appointments, he didn't have much success.  "I do not...

Last week I received one of the highest compliments an insurance agent can get. My client, whom I have worked with off and on for several years, handed me a sheet of paper with about a dozen names on it. "These are friends of mine. Some are family. I told them what a good job you do and how you don't pressure me into anything. They are expecting you to call them." This was a big surprise because I mention referrals from time to time but don't push for them as much as I probably should. There have been times over the years when I have been chastised by sales managers for not using the litany of Jedi mind tricks we are taught in sales school. Having a nice list of names presented to me on a silver platter is a different matter altogether though. Sometimes I will explain to a client that they can take "ownership" in my business by giving me referrals. The reasoning is that if a client refers me to a friend or family member, I can spend more time working with th...

A few weeks ago a friend and I were talking about all things motivational. We discussed people we knew who needed motivation, including ourselves. Soon we were throwing out names of famous motivational speakers and their speeches, which was interesting since we both mentioned a few that the other had not heard of previously.  Being an NC State graduate, of course my favorite motivational speech is the "Never Give Up" talk given by Jim Valvano at the ESPY awards. At the time, Valvano was in the middle of a battle with cancer and anyone could see that he was physically in bad shape. I learned many years later that he had been violently ill that day and had even considered not attending to accept the Arthur Ashe Award, which was why he was there. As he said in his presentation, his mind was still working. He was on point as he moved the audience to tears and laughter, all the while giving one of the most memorable talks I have ever heard. To this day, I still watch it on YouTube...

Typically the first post of the new year would be about something like goal setting or making a vision board*. As a matter of fact, I would imagine that most of the sales managers, team leaders and other mentor types are going down that path this time of year. But after the year we just had I figured you could use a respite from motivational talks.  Let's face it. Whatever New Year's resolutions or goals you set at the beginning of 2020 probably got thrown out in mid-March, along with college basketball and pro sports. I considered kicking myself for not hitting the sales numbers that I had set for myself, but what would be the point of that? I think that most of us did pretty good considering the circumstances. My suggestion for you is this: Take 2020 and put it in the past. Forget about and never speak of it again. Much like that shameful one-night stand you had in college, let it be. No one will think less of you as long as you don't mention it again.   As for those reso...

Honestly, I'm not a big fan of all of the motivational material out there. It probably comes from my past experiences of seeing a speaker on stage giving what my father would call a "rah rah" talk and getting salespeople excited and enthused. Within 72 hours that enthusiasm is gone. The sales person went to work expecting success because they were pumped and got smacked in the face with a dose of reality. Enthusiasm was no match for b ad clients, no clients and poor execution. Of course, we all need someone to push us and hold us accountable. A coach or a sales manager will do their best. Or perhaps a speaker will give us a better reason to go out and try to sell a product or service. Thankfully, YouTube has plenty of speakers on tap to get your juices flowing (or you could hire me). Ultimately the motivation has to come from within. Truly successful people don't wait for the next Zig Ziglar presentation to come to town. They are already to go each day. The source of ...