The Lazy Salesman
The Lazy Salesman in Jan 2002,
The Worst Customers I Ever Had, Fill the Funnel, Negotiation, Collecting NOs,
Thinking Time, Number 76 of my Selling Manifesto, Change Now!, Sales Job
Interviews, Fail, Cluetrain, Action, The Perfect Customer, Integrity, Closing,
Objection Handling, Summarising, Objectives, Rapport, Networking, Decisiveness,
Qualifying.
The
Lazy Salesman in Feb 2002,
Thinking Aloud, Positioning,
Honesty, Move On, Practising what I Preach?, Doing the Business – Networking,
Issues and Personal Wins, Small Acorns, 4:2 Rule, Conscious Competence,
Question, Listen, and Summarise, Sales Teams, Hunters and Farmers, The
Competition, The Truth about Selling!, What’s in it for Me? (WIIFM), The Best
Salespeople I know, Presenting, Calling High, Networking Again, Birthday –
Ghost Story, Little Things make a Big Difference, Difficult Customers,
Prospecting, Hot (Cheesy) Tips, What Irritates me as a Client.
The
Lazy Salesman in March 2002; Who Wouldn’t I Work For?, Sex Sells,
End Users, Cheesy Closes, High Risk or Low Risk, High Level Contacts, The Hook,
Contact K.I.T., Pricing, Risk, Contracts, Selling Something You Don’t Believe
In, Corporate DNA, Good News, Rejection, Calling High Level Contacts, Good Days
and Bad Days, In the Client’s Shoes (The Observers learn the most), Advance not
Continuation.
The
Lazy Salesman in April 2002; Wait and They Did Come!!, Persist or
Walk Away, Prospecting from Cold, Wait and They will come!, Stamina, Involve
the Audience, One Thing Each Day, Luck, Good Selling Organisations, Be your
Word, Be Honest with Yourself, More Corporate DNA and Zipf’s Law, Smile, Exceed
Expectation, Shut Up Tony, Cardbox, Grassroots Selling, Persist and Have a
Dream, Pick an Onerous Task, Guilt,
Style, Good Will, Mind Expanding Questions!, Tenacity and Lunch, Recovering
Lost Momentum, Competing Customers, Selling Pranks.
The
Lazy Salesman in May 2002: Contact, Resource Availability Close,
Hardware Store, SPACER, My own Call Reluctance, Greetings and Handshakes, How
much to you care?, Advancing after a Good Meeting, What Goes Around Comes
Around, Concept to Cash, The Perfect Supplier, Follow-Up, All Talk and No Product,
Elio the Photographer, Battles and Wars, Dissatisfied Customer, Crooks,
Exhibition Leads, Small Acorns Conversations, The P.A font of all Knowledge,
Practising What I Preach, Don’t Let Things Drift, Human Touch, Dreams Really Do
Come True, Find Your Market.
The
Lazy Salesman in June 2002: Lost Leaders, Loss Leaders, My Sales
Call Reluctance, Can you talk?, Cover your bases, Selling Should be Effortless, 9 out of 10 people just aren’t interested,
Selling Picks and Shovels, Tony the Café Owner, Playing 2 games of chess,
Selling Ratios, Professionals Sort, Amateurs Convince, Onerous Tasks, Marketing
your website, Internet Marketing, Struggling On, Time, where does it go to?,
Prospecting is Non-Urgent and Important, Sell Better or Qualify Out!, Easy to do business with, Is Selling
Manipulating?, Big Coincidence, Revenge Referrals, Engaging, Can you help
me?,Trial Close.
The Lazy Salesman in July 2002: Small
Things, Hang in There, Selling Motivation, Stick at It, Gap in the Market, More
Contact, Anticipation.
The
Lazy Salesman in August 2002: The Perfectionist Salesman, What would
you do if money was no object?, The True
Cost of Business, Good Clients, Run Like Hell if you see a Bow Tie, I have a
dream, Heart and Soul, Check is out with former buyers, Good Job Multiplier,
What’s Your Job?, Ask what is the key issue, Keep Prospecting.
The
Lazy Salesman Sept 2002: Convincer or Qualifier?, Success, Mission
Statements, Cardbox, Getting back to your client, Face to Face, Email of
Phone?, Give me a chance, Pest or Professional, Good Service, Referrals and
Networking, Why I hate CRM Systems, Sharpen The Saw, Women, Be nice to the
kids, The point of no return, Life’s too serious to be taken seriously, Very
Lazy Salesman, Good Service, Prospect and Network first, Block the time out for
Prospecting and Networking, You, Creating Chaos, Not Trying to Become Picasso!,
Stretch Objective.
The
Lazy Salesman in Oct 2002: Born Natural, Goal Setting Yet Again!,
Creative Break??, Outlook Contacts, Email Qualification, Gut Fell and
Instincts, Partners and Third Parties, Persistence, Time Planning, ABC’s of
Relationship Selling, ABC’s of Selling, Take it Easy, Definitions of Marketing,
Thinking Time or Idle Time?, Selling to Women (or Women Selling!), Losing a
large deal this week. What have I
learnt?, Negotiate and Mediate, Talk to a lot of People, Hang in there or get
the hell out, Network Marketing (Multi Level Marketing), Genius, Interlude,
Losing Sales through Prejudice, STOP!, He who hesitates, masturbates!, 86
Contact Bill,
The Lazy Salesman
Nov 2002: For those who think selling is a dirty word, It starts to go well when you give up!, Matching, Sales Competencies I wish I had more of!, Sales
Competencies, Pick your second and third level clients to
contact first, Presentations, The Rollercoaster of Selling, Network,
Netwok, Network, Is it an Acorn or a Rabbit Turd?, Enthusiasm
and Passion, Life is too short to work with jerks!,
Why Can’t Management Support Big and Easy, Sales Conmen,
The
Perfect Sales Team, P.A Advice, Humour, Convincer – Not!, Bloody Listen, Attributes of the Best Salesperson, The Best
Salesperson, Monday Monday, Persisting, Letting Go, Make that Call, Getting to Talk to People, Selling
Manifesto, Leaving a Message.
Saturday 30th
November 2002
For those who think selling is a dirty word
If you have something good to offer, then why not tell the world
about it!
I’m just putting together a new workshop for non-salespeople.
Those who think selling is dirty.
What you have to offer may be of value to other people, so why not
tell them about it!
You may be of value, but people won’t know unless you tell them!
Friday 29th
November 2002
It starts to go well, when you give up!
One of my heroes is Timothy Gallwey who wrote The Inner Game of Tennis.
He’s also written, The Inner Game of Golf, The Inner Game of
Skiing, and now,
The Inner Game of Work, which is where this diagram is taken from.
What does it mean?
Simple. The less you try to
sell the more successful you are!
The graph is measuring the interest level of the buyer and how interested
the salesperson thinks the buyer is.
At first the salesperson is overestimating the buyer’s interest.
Then the salesperson thinks the buyer is losing interest and as
the salesperson starts to give up and not try so hard, the buyer becomes interested.
Good eh?
Thursday 28th
November 2002
Matching
It’s always a good idea to match.
Match a CEO with your CEO,
Match a senior finance guy with your senior finance guy.
They can talk, have things in common beyond the business in hand.
I had this come up today when I was introducing a business owner
to a business owner.
The salesperson wanted to talk to the business owner.
The opportunity was there for the business owner to talk to the
business owner and then it didn’t feel like “selling”
Somehow, another person getting involved didn’t seem to quite cut
it.
Sure the salesperson could have done a good job, but it would have
been “selling”.
This way there’s a spirit there.
Wednesday 27th
November 2002
Sales Competencies I wish I had more of!
Here’s a few I wish were stronger in.
See if you can beat them.
Authority, High Visibility, Political, Self Promoter, Delegation,
Convincer, Teamplayer, Implementer, Task Completion, Company Citizen, Written
Communication, Account Management.
Lord I’m bad!!
No wonder I don’t want to sell for a corporate again!!
Mind you if anyone reads this, they wouldn’t want to have me!
That doesn’t mean to say I can’t train people in these skills it’s
just that I don’t readily take to them given the choice.
That’s why I’m happy doing what I do, because I don’t have to
force myself to do these things which are often necessary in working for
corporates.
Tuesday 26th
November 2002
Sales Competencies
I’m just pulling together all the possible sales competencies.
Just for fun I’ve chosen the ones I have, not necessarily the ones
you need to have!
Qualifying, Networking, Rapport, Questioning, Listening,
Summarising, Tools Mastery, Creativity, Self-Educator, Prospecting, Tenacity,
Integrity.
There’s a few more I wish I had!
Maybe tomorrow.
Sunday 24th
November 2002
Pick your second and third level clients to contact first
If you have calls to make and you’re selling something new or
re-contacting clients, pick on your second and third level clients first to practise
what you’re saying.
It’s a bit like going to a job interview.
Don’t go for the interview of the job that you really want first.
Go to a few more other interviews with other companies you’re not
so keen on so that you can practise being questioned and talking about
yourself.
Mind you, I always end up liking the companies I’m practising with
because I’m more relaxed.
Don’t screw up on your best clients. Have a practise where you can do the least
damage.
Saturday 23rd
November 2002
Presentations
A fantastic piece by Doc Searls on
good (and bad) presentations The Problem With Presentations
It’s
really inspired me, especially looking at one of his own presentations.
Linux Journal - The
Premier Magazine of the Linux Community
It’s very Tom Peters! and I like the idea of using headlines for
each slide, and making each slide a masterpiece in its own right.
I’m not looking to build a single master slide set and then pick
and choose for each presentation.
No more deleting of slides, just pick them from a master set and
add new ones.
I love the simplicity of some of the slides which is what I’m
working towards.
Also Doc’s style and design is so transparent. You can see how he designs them and where he
gets some of the material from.
It does rely on really knowing your subject and being a good
Internet surfer.
Of course it reaffirms what I’m already doing in my presentations.
But it’s taking the next step up from being a good presenter to
being a great presenter.
I’m beginning to know what I want to say, and I’d like to work
some more on the style in which I say it.
Friday 22nd
November 2002
The Rollercoaster of Selling
So for the last 2 weeks I’ve been on a down-curve, more with the
activity then events.
And suddenly this week amazing things and contacts have happened
and I’m on a real roll; an up-curve.
Enjoy it whilst it’s there.
Selling is like that, and the more time you’ve been in selling the
more you smooth out the curves or at least react less sharply to the extremes
of the curves.
The trouble is it means you don’t get as excited when things go
well!
Thursday 21st
November 2002
Network Network Network
Today I’ve networked like crazy.
It will pay off eventually.
In fact as a result of today, I may end up collaborating on a
venture to do with Networking!!
Wednesday 20th
November 2002
Is it an Acorn or a Rabbit Turd?
Taken from this month’s Fast Company magazine, you have to find
1000 acorns to grow an Oak tree.
Find 1000 suspect to turn in to 100 prospects to get 10 best few
and 1 really big one.
Before you can find 1000 acorns you have to be able to distinguish
between Acorns and Rabbit Turds.
In other words qualify.
I can think of a few Rabbit Turds I’ve come across over the last
few days and weeks!
Tuesday 19th
November 2002
Enthusiasm and Passion
For some strange reason my passion and enthusiasm are beginning to
shine through when I’m talking to people.
Mind you I should be listening instead of talking, but sometimes I
get so carried away with my enthusiasm.
It seems to be working and it’s not something I think about so
much now, I just get on with it. It
flows naturally.
I don’t know what I’m doing and hope I’m doing it right.
In previous early years I was more thoughtful about selling,
because I wasn’t passionate about the product.
It was more an intellectual sell, where now it’s a no brainer.
Nowadays I can go anywhere and choose to sell anything, where in the
past I was restricted to product and limited on clients.
Yippee, the world is my oyster.
You can sell something you don’t believe in and it’s not morally
wrong in that it’s up to the customer to decide what’s right for them.
You can’t lie about a product or service, but just because you
don’t like something doesn’t mean someone else doesn’t.
Otherwise we’d all be the same people, in the same clothes,
driving the same cars and using the same products.
Monday 18th
November 2002
Life is too short to work with jerks!
I finally found part of the Tom Peters quote in one of his slides,
“YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE YOUR CLIENTS! (Wanna be-stay-get COOL …
Work With Cool Clients!)
(YOU ARE YOUR CLIENT LIST.)
(LIFE IS TOO SHORT TO WORK WITH JERKS.)
(Mass marketers: TARGET INNOVATION. E.g.: African-Americans … Hispanics …
the Aging Population … Greens … Women)”
It’s inspired to go find
some cool clients.
Oh, and finally got to see
“The Office” over here. First episode
tonight on UK-TV, Foxtel Australia.
Very near the knuckle, and
cringingly true. In fact the first shot
of the intro, I’ve worked in that office in Slough!
Sunday 17th
November 2002
Why Can’t Management Support Big and Easy?
This Dilbert cartoon says it all.
Saturday 16th
November 2002
Sales Conmen
Just watching a TV programme which films cheesy conning
salespeople.
Security and Vacuum Cleaners selling to people in their houses.
Fear Uncertainty Doubt.
Giving selling a bad name.
The vacuum cleaner is £1400!! Well that’s ok if it’s a considerably better
vacuum cleaner. But it’s probably not.
What I like is they offer you £200 for you
old vacuum cleaner taking the price down to £1200.
It very difficult to think of this as a
discount on an over inflated sum, but more a nice offer on your crappy old vacuum
cleaner.
Nice one.
I have to admire these salespeople who
can sell people things they don’t want.
I couldn’t do it. It a bit like these optical illusions.
It gives selling a bad name because
people have the image that selling is about convincing people of something they
don’t want.
Selling should be about value, but
without manipulation.
I guess value is in the eye of the
beholder and as long as people feel they have value, does it matter if they’ve
been ripped off?
It’s a fine line isn’t it?
But watching a confused pensioner who’s
been ripped off to the tune of a few thousand pounds is disgusting.
Selling is about making your target
with integrity. Integrity!
Friday 15th
November 2002
The Perfect Sales Team
I was thinking the other day about what the perfect Sales team
would look like.
Of course ideally it would consist of 10 star performers with 100%
perfect 10 year track records.
So maybe it should be the realistic Sales team.
The first choice is whether to go for similarity or diversity.
Let’s have some fun with diversity.
The first general area to set is a prospecting culture.
Too many organisations and sales teams have lost the prospecting
culture.
They get caught up in too many other wasteful areas.
And what I mean by a prospecting culture is not forcing people to
go prospect but to set it up so that if six salespeople are good prospectors a
seventh member joining the team will see that prospecting a key part of the
culture, they accept it as the norm.
After that, diversity can set in, whether it’s cold calling,
networking, growing current clients bigger.
I’d like to see a mix of hunters and farmers. Those that can go out and identify new
business and those that can grow current prospects/clients.
I’d like some steady plodders who hit 100% every year and a few
risk takers for the big ones. But no
bullshitters.
One of the challenges of a salesmanager is to manage diversity and
not to have everyone in you own image which can be dangerous and limiting.
High prospecting does not mean being out of the office all the
time. I don’t believe that many of these salespeople that you never see are out
there doing a good selling job, because after all if you have prospects, you
need to be emailing them, writing proposals, gaining support from your company,
and besides, if you go for the right type of business you don’t need to be out
there all the time, because you’re working on the well qualified big ones.
I’d consider pairing up a hunter with a farmer. Let the hunter find the business, and let the
farmer build the business case internally and externally and grow the business
and complete it. The two skills of
hunting and farming are very different and rare to have both in salespeople,
thought they like to think they’re good at both.
Qualifying is the second key to prospecting. In fact it’s the first key; knowing which
business to go after or to attract.
Competition. I’m not a
great believer in setting the team to compete against each other. They should see themselves as all in it
together to help each other make it.
Great sports teams are not competing against each other, they’re
competing against another team.
Team members in a successful sports team don’t usually brag to
each other about what they’re achieving or what they’re getting paid.
Maybe an external competitor like another sales team or company
can be seen as “The Competition” but I’m not sure on that one.
I’m a big sports competitor, but competing in selling has never
been a great motivator to me.
I’m competing against myself, the limitations I set for myself and
overcoming them.
No boring sales meetings delivering boring figures and facts.
Forget it.
Either sales meetings are fun, exciting and motivational or do
away with them and go Go-Karting or something everyone enjoys.
I’d have weekly one to one reviews, and monthly reviews where
other team members listen and advise each other.
Congratulation and recognition for those that need their egos
massaging, and lots of help for those struggling and/or out of luck!
So the perfect sales team would have a strong qualifying and
prospecting culture which everyone feels is the norm, so it’s not a case of
people needing encouragement or training, it just happens. A mix of hunters and farmers. Plodders and Risk takers. And a range of skills within the team, some
good networkers who can get you to anyone, some good technical skills, a bit of
rebelliousness in case we’re all heading in the wrong direction or up the wrong
ladder.
It’s difficult to pick a team because I’d want people I like
buying from, but my preferences aren’t what works for all client and customers.
Personally I like buying from fun, friendly, flawed, roguish type,
and not the smooth professional “Salesman”
I’m more a Gary, Wayne, Robin, Peter, Terry, Lloyd, buyer than
a
Mike, Stuart, Kim, Nick, Anthony, Ian, Pam, type.
But that’s me.
Thursday 14th
November 2002
P.A advice
This one has been sitting there for a while so I’d better write
about it.
Just the idea that rather than seeing the P.A as the “gatekeeper”,
they’re a great source of help.
Ask them how and when it’s best to contact the person you’re
trying to get hold of.
They’re normally only too willing to help and give advice and
opinion.
I must give this one a go, because my recent record of getting
hold of people is terrible.
Wednesday 13th
November 2002
Humour
I guess you could always use humour to sell.
Make em laugh!
The trouble is, what you think is humorous they might not!
Ever been sent a ton of jokes over the internet and found them all
crap.
Ever sent a joke which you thought was the best ever and no-one
else did.
I guess some people are universally funny, so you’d better model
yourself on Charlie Chaplin or Mickey Mouse!!
Tuesday 12th
November 2002
Convincer – Not!
You know what; I think I’m becoming quite a good convincer!
Never have been, but now I really believe in my product – ME!
Sometimes I get carried away and put my foot in it, but that’s
because I’m passionate about what I believe in.
Nowadays, when they see the whites of my eyes they’ve seen so much
crap out there, I often make a pleasant change.
Sometimes I talk too much and don’t listen. That’s my passion!
I hope they can see that.
I had a great one the other day.
“Sorry Tony, we don’t want anything until next March at the
earliest. Now what was it you wanted to
talk to me about?”
……”Hey that sounds good, I’d be interested.”
What has happened is that someone has shown me a need in the
marketplace which is effectively like the feeding frenzy of fish in a barrel
being fed, which I’ve written about before.
We’ve identified the barrel of fish, and now all I have to do is drop
the food in. There’s no convincing to do
because the need is so great.
I’ve always thought this idea of identifying the need a bit passé
but in pure marketing terms, this is finding the market/problem/need first and
then supplying to that need.
Not everyone is in a position to do this because many salespeople
work with a fixed product that has to go searching for a need.
I’m free to develop a product to meet an identified need. I don’t have to develop the need.
Actually come to think of it, I’m still a terrible convincer; I’m
just identifying the market so that I don’t need to do any convincing!
Monday 11th
November 2002
Bloody Listen
This is how not to be with clients and customers.
A couple of months ago, I took a form down to my bank to have it
signed and sent away.
The assistant manager there had a look at my form and asked me for
my 2 years worth of bank statements.
I told him I don’t need 2 years worth of bank statements. He insisted I did, otherwise he couldn’t
guarantee a card.
I told him that if he looks in the new training manual which his
people use and they showed me the week before it says I only need 6 months of
bank statements.
Did he listen? Did he
hell. So we had a blazing row in the
main foyer of the bank.
In the end I bypassed this idiot and went to card services and
dealt with the phone banking people who were very pleasant.
I got my card a few weeks later.
I lost my card, so I had the card blocked and ordered a new one.
A letter arrived last week telling me that the card had been dispatched
to my local bank branch.
Ambiguously it said “Please note however, renewal cards can only
be collected after 17 November 2002”
I took that to mean cards which were being renewed after a few
years, and not replacement or new cards.
So I drove down to my branch 15 minutes there, 15 minutes back.
And guess who’s on the front desk controlling cards. Yes the idiot from a few months ago.
I really didn’t want to deal with him, but all I had to do was
show him the letter and ask for the card.
He looks at the letter and says. “The card isn’t here I just
looked through them, besides the card isn’t with us until 17th
November.”
I said, “No, I think that’s for renewal cards, mine is a
replacement card.”
He replied, “Well it isn’t here come back after 17th
November.”
So I drove home. I thought
some more about this, reread the letter and I was sure that the 17th
November referred to renewal cards and not replacement cards.
After all you’d want to get a replacement card to someone as
quickly as possible and not 3-4 weeks later.
I called the Commercial Card Division. They confirmed that replacement cards are
dispatched immediately and that mine had been dispatched to my branch last
week. They called my branch to
confirm. Yes, the card is there.
I was fuming.
I drove back to the branch, 15 mins there, 15 mins back.
The idiot was busy with other customers.
One of the other assistants helped me, I signed the form, received
the card, and now I wanted to change my PIN.
We went to the front desk where the idiot stands. He’s just telling the other customers that
he’s the manager.
He notices my letter and realises he’d not found the card 30
minutes before.
“Someone must have misfiled it.”
My answer, “Or you don’t listen. This is the second time you’ve not
listened to what I’m saying.”
And so our second row broke out in front of the whole branch.
Firstly he claims his was away 2 months ago when I suggested we
had our first row. Okay, so maybe it was
3 months ago.
Next he says he was acting on information that the head office
gave him when he phoned them in my presence.
So of course it wasn’t his fault.
How come the branch people, me, and card services all worked
together to get me a card then.
He apologised for not finding the card.
But still he wasn’t listening to what I was saying.
He seems to think the issue is with head office. He seems to think the issue is with someone
else misfiling the card. He seems to
think the issue is with me.
He’ll blame everything on everyone else except himself.
His attitude is not one of the glass being half full and how can I
help, or better still, how can we solve this problem together.
How can I help you get a card, let me look one more time because
we should have received the card.
What this guy does is play by the rules (because he’s probably a
newly promoted manager), except he doesn’t read the rules properly and acts
like an authority on everything, when he isn’t.
It’s not that head office gave him the wrong information or that someone
misfiled the card, but that he wasn’t listening.
He didn’t listen when I told him that his own documentation in the
branch suggests I could have a card on 6 months worth of bank statements.
He didn’t listen when I said the letter refers to renewal cards
and not replacement cards.
If he stopped to think, how can I help this customer, it doesn’t
sound right that he’s waiting for a replacement card for 3-4 weeks, it must be
here somewhere.
Bloody Listen. I sure as
hell wasn’t listening to him as we were rowing away!!
Sunday 10th
November 2002
Attributes of the Best Salesperson
They make their target consistently. That’s a pretty good measure but not always
the only measure.
They network and can get to anyone and they’re always talking to
people.
They can put the deal together and sell internally to their own
company.
They pull resources together and have people who want to work with
them.
They have a good technical grasp.
This isn’t essential but it’s a nice one to have.
They’re good at getting on with people.
I guess they schmooze and have chutzpah – they’re sweet talkers
and they have cheek.
They don’t talk too much.
Again this is a nice to have but not essential.
I once listed the attributes of a salesperson and it came to over
50 different skills/attributes/competencies, and no-one could agree on what is
most important.
I guess the best way is to look at who is good and ask yourself
why are they so good.
Often it’s luck and sometimes it’s something else. That extra special ingredient which loses its
power if you try to isolate it or write about it or train people with it.
That’s the problem of sales training. It tries to isolate the good practises of
good salespeople but somewhere along the line the spirit of what is good
selling is lost.
Maybe another way to look at it is, as a salesmanager, who would I
want in my team?
And come to think of it I’d want different types of salespeople in
my team.
Saturday 9th
November 2002
The Best Salesperson
I’m having a think about who the best salesperson is I’ve known.
And why.
I’ll have a think about this one.
Sometimes I’ve seen people who are good and successful but I
personally wouldn’t buy from them.
I guess it would have to be someone I liked.
I have a good idea who it is, now I have to think why he was good
and if he was the best.
Friday 8th
November 2002
Monday Monday
Just in idea this one.
I’ve noticed that as the week progresses the things I’m working on
to send to people normally get completed at the end of weeks.
So therefore I send them on a Friday.
I was thinking of what someone does with an email or document that
arrives on a Friday.
My guess is that unless they read and act on it immediately they
put it off until Monday.
The trouble with that is that they may get snowed under with all
the things that crop up that week.
The email or document has lost its sense of priority and
urgency. It becomes just something else
to do.
If something new arrives that takes precedence.
Now if something arrives on a Monday, there’s a feeling that it
has to be dealt with that week.
It stays near top of the pile because it’s entered into someone’s
consciousness at the beginning of the week.
It’s just a thought. I sent
something today, Friday, and I’m wondering if it doesn’t have more impact on a
Monday.
Thursday 7th
November 2002
Persisting
And today having let go yesterday, my persistence paid off having
finally got to speak today to all 4 people I’d been chasing.
What is it about today that they were all available and answering
their phones?
Wednesday 6th
November 2002
Letting Go
Today I stopped trying so hard and let go a bit and enjoyed my day
more, eventually.
Tuesday 5th
November 2002
Make that Call
There’s a call I should have made 6 months ago, to a guy that runs
his own training company.
I spoke to him very briefly and said I’d call him back.
I never did, took a decision that I was having too many
conversations with people who were in the same market place.
Lots of nice meetings, lots of mutual agreement, but competing in
the same market place.
Met a guy last night who by stunning coincidence works with the
guy I should have phoned.
That business could have been mine. At about the same time as I called 6 months
ago.
Damn. You can’t get it all
right, but the one I really chose to not pursue could have paid off!!
What do learn from this?
Make those calls!
Monday 4th
November 2002
Getting to Talk to People
I don’t have the answer to this one right now, but it’s damn
frustrating to have 100% of calls not answered, but on a voicemail, P.A., not
in, busy etc.
I don’t want to leave a message, because they might not get back
to me, and what is so compelling that they will return the call.
I know, I know, all about calling early or late when they’re
likely to be in, and leaving a message that hooks them, or asking the P.A how
best to help me.
But right now, I just want to talk to them. It’s not as though they’re cold calls,
mostly.
It tempts me to send emails, but my experience suggests people are
crap at responding to emails.
I can make and email more compelling and more considered with the
message, but people don’t seem to be responding to email anymore.
What to do?
Sunday 3rd
November 2002
Selling Manifesto
I just read my Selling Manifesto again on Friday.
Someone had asked me for some material and tips on selling.
I didn’t know what to send and then realised I’d already written
this months ago.
Rather good though I say so myself!
Friday 1st
November 2002
Leaving a Message
The general rule is don’t leave a message for someone you’re
trying to contact.
It puts the ball in their court and leaves you waiting for them to
call back, and they might not.
Believe me, I never learn my lesson. I’ve left a message for someone recently, and
they haven’t called me back.
Now what do I do. If I call
back I’m being pushy.
The trouble is the reception, P.A or colleagues begin to recognise
your voice if you call up 10 times over 3-4 days to see if their in.
On the other hand I’m beginning to realise that maybe I don’t want
to do business with people who don’t return their phone messages or emails.
To hell with them. If they were
interested or polite to do business with they’d call back.
Amazing that those who are most successful and very busy, still
return calls and emails.
Some don’t get it do they.
I’m amazed at how often I can do people some serious damage in
their business and careers by the other people I bump into in their sphere’s of
influence.
I don’t often stick the knife in, but I’m hardly going to praise
them, am I.