Recently while discussing a young man's business with him, he spoke about how hard it is to get on the phone and call people. Using the "fear of phoning" phrase, I pressed the importance of making appointments. Rather quickly, he corrected me; "I'm not afraid of phoning. It's just such a waste of time because nobody picks up the phone anymore."
In the past, and probably today too, we were afraid to call because we knew what the answer would be - "no", "too busy" etc. Add to that not being able to reach someone and "fear of phoning" takes on a whole new level.
This is an area where goal setting is advantageous. Decide on the number of phone calls to make each day. Set a minimum number of reaches you will accept. Have your thoughts together so that when you do reach someone you'll speak intelligently. Perhaps in the middle of your calls you should call a friendly customer so that your spirits will remain strong. Make the calls at odd times of the day - before 8 a.m., during lunch (not everybody goes out!), after 5 p.m. Leave concise messages and perhaps follow-up a message with a piece of snail-mail like a post card etc.
Don't hate the process. It is what it is and it needs to be accepted as part of business and move on. But this does underscore the fact that when you get the face to face meeting you must make a good impression, start a relationship and leave yourself in a position to be able to reach the client or get the call back.
What do YOU do to reach people? Let us know !
Showing posts with label Goals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Goals. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Friday, July 3, 2009
Quote for the Day
"Learning to write is learning to think. You don't know anything clearly unless you can state it in writing." - S. I. Hayakawa
Friday, June 26, 2009
Self-Motivation
Motivation is a concept right up there with "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", "to each his own" etc. What moves one person may not get as much as a blink of an eye with the next.
A few years ago a sales contest was held to give a boost to a particular product group. Polling the sales guys revealed that most would be interested in a vacation trip for two. The grand prize ended up being a four night, five day stay in the Bahamas - company paid and no personal vacation time required to be used. It was wildly successful with exposure and sales for that product line more than tripling over the previous quarter. The winner didn't want the prize and only asked that he be able to take the 5 days as extended weekends over the course of the year. A quiet man, his only goal was to show that he was the best.
While many seminars on motivation seriously motivate some people, most attendees that I have talked with admit that the surge lasts only a few days. My question to them then is "Have you learned anything that you can use to motivate yourself when you need to achieve?" Most say they know what to do and they just have to make themselves do it. This is where goal setting blends with motivation - set a goal and take the steps to do it.
When I young in the sales game, I blazed away for a while and then I "blazed away" like a piece of charcoal. Still hot but the bright flame was hard to see. My manager, an "old" guy who at the time was younger than I am now called me to his office as he could see some of my frustrations.
After admitting that it was difficult getting "up" to see some accounts he put it very succintly - "Do your job and then some and you'll pick back up very quickly. If you don't do your job, it WILL very quickly become a real chore and you will fail". How right he was! If you at least do the job and a little bit more, the bad times will be in the past and you'll get moving again.
As Zig Ziglar says "the auto-university" is an excellent way to listen to motivational people and to learn. The big sellers are big for a reason; they speak well, they speak to you and they speak to success. Invest the money to listen to the best like Ziglar, Napolean Hill etc. I'll go through my audio library soon and will give you a list of some that I like.
My son makes fun of me for this but I like to listen to music that inspires me before I go into a big meeting. "1812 Overture", Theme from Superman, "Hall of the Mountain King", "Star Wars", "Impossible Dream" etc. Do what it takes if you require a little mental boost. Put a picture on your dashboard of the person you want to impress, read a great speech, listen to a motivational speaker or to music that wakens your soul. BUT BE SURE TO DO IT.
A few years ago a sales contest was held to give a boost to a particular product group. Polling the sales guys revealed that most would be interested in a vacation trip for two. The grand prize ended up being a four night, five day stay in the Bahamas - company paid and no personal vacation time required to be used. It was wildly successful with exposure and sales for that product line more than tripling over the previous quarter. The winner didn't want the prize and only asked that he be able to take the 5 days as extended weekends over the course of the year. A quiet man, his only goal was to show that he was the best.
While many seminars on motivation seriously motivate some people, most attendees that I have talked with admit that the surge lasts only a few days. My question to them then is "Have you learned anything that you can use to motivate yourself when you need to achieve?" Most say they know what to do and they just have to make themselves do it. This is where goal setting blends with motivation - set a goal and take the steps to do it.
When I young in the sales game, I blazed away for a while and then I "blazed away" like a piece of charcoal. Still hot but the bright flame was hard to see. My manager, an "old" guy who at the time was younger than I am now called me to his office as he could see some of my frustrations.
After admitting that it was difficult getting "up" to see some accounts he put it very succintly - "Do your job and then some and you'll pick back up very quickly. If you don't do your job, it WILL very quickly become a real chore and you will fail". How right he was! If you at least do the job and a little bit more, the bad times will be in the past and you'll get moving again.
As Zig Ziglar says "the auto-university" is an excellent way to listen to motivational people and to learn. The big sellers are big for a reason; they speak well, they speak to you and they speak to success. Invest the money to listen to the best like Ziglar, Napolean Hill etc. I'll go through my audio library soon and will give you a list of some that I like.
My son makes fun of me for this but I like to listen to music that inspires me before I go into a big meeting. "1812 Overture", Theme from Superman, "Hall of the Mountain King", "Star Wars", "Impossible Dream" etc. Do what it takes if you require a little mental boost. Put a picture on your dashboard of the person you want to impress, read a great speech, listen to a motivational speaker or to music that wakens your soul. BUT BE SURE TO DO IT.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Imperative: Goals
There must be a reason why so many books, magazine articles, seminars and speeches are given about goal setting. What do you think it is? To make money? Maybe / probably but that isn't the main reason. It is important? BINGO ! So why don't more of us do it?
Not setting goals makes life so much easier. No pressure to meet expectations. No deadlines.
How about - NO SALES ! Sure some industries are easier to float with the current than others but is that going to help you, your customer, your co-workers or the company?
Some experts turn goal setting into an ordeal by giving you life advice on setting goals for everything. Some focus strictly on the money aspect - Two Million $$ a year at 43% profit, etc.
Most of us don't want to be decathletes but some of us are willing to work on what we understand to be weaknesses. Perhaps we do need to set a dollar goal or a goal for the number of phone calls required per day. Maybe it needs to be to see a new person each time you visit an established account or to invite a customer to lunch more frequently.
Goals need to make you stretch yourself, to be something positive, sustainable and trackable and to be realistic. In a college PE class, we had to set up a fitness schedule that we could implement once we became working adults. I failed it because "this is great if you want to go to the Olympics but not reasonable for the average person with a job and family".
Think about what needs to be accomplished, prioritize, plan and start to implement!
Not setting goals makes life so much easier. No pressure to meet expectations. No deadlines.
How about - NO SALES ! Sure some industries are easier to float with the current than others but is that going to help you, your customer, your co-workers or the company?
Some experts turn goal setting into an ordeal by giving you life advice on setting goals for everything. Some focus strictly on the money aspect - Two Million $$ a year at 43% profit, etc.
Most of us don't want to be decathletes but some of us are willing to work on what we understand to be weaknesses. Perhaps we do need to set a dollar goal or a goal for the number of phone calls required per day. Maybe it needs to be to see a new person each time you visit an established account or to invite a customer to lunch more frequently.
Goals need to make you stretch yourself, to be something positive, sustainable and trackable and to be realistic. In a college PE class, we had to set up a fitness schedule that we could implement once we became working adults. I failed it because "this is great if you want to go to the Olympics but not reasonable for the average person with a job and family".
Think about what needs to be accomplished, prioritize, plan and start to implement!
Friday, May 29, 2009
Making Enough $$$$ for the Time Spent?
Some industries and customers rely on the "milk run" approach to selling. This is when a salesperson is at the same account on a given, repetative schedule. Unfortunately, this can lead to a territory not getting enough analysis because the salesperson reasons that his customers don't want any deviation. He can't "afford" to anger anybody by not being where he is "supposed to be".
James was a milk run kinda guy. He had been in his territory for 25 years and by his reckoning "knew everybody worth knowing" . The first day that we worked together, I had the printout, for you younger folks that was the predecessor of the laptop spread-sheet.
The first call of the day was to one of his "key accounts". First call every Monday. We stayed about an hour and James said that was pretty normal. Looking at the print-out I did some basic math quickly in my head and asked if he knew how much he was making at XYZ. When I advised that he was making a little more than $4 each call, he was amazed and said there was a mistake. Doing the math with him showed him the light. That was not the kind of money our company wanted him to make and he agreed that he didn't either. The next account we went to had much better potential but his sales there were poor and thus he didn't put in much effort. He agreed to stop at the first company once a month and increase the time and effort at the other, which paid off for him and the company.
Have you done your math? How much do you need to sell each year, month, week, day, hour and per sales call to reach your goal?
James was a milk run kinda guy. He had been in his territory for 25 years and by his reckoning "knew everybody worth knowing" . The first day that we worked together, I had the printout, for you younger folks that was the predecessor of the laptop spread-sheet.
The first call of the day was to one of his "key accounts". First call every Monday. We stayed about an hour and James said that was pretty normal. Looking at the print-out I did some basic math quickly in my head and asked if he knew how much he was making at XYZ. When I advised that he was making a little more than $4 each call, he was amazed and said there was a mistake. Doing the math with him showed him the light. That was not the kind of money our company wanted him to make and he agreed that he didn't either. The next account we went to had much better potential but his sales there were poor and thus he didn't put in much effort. He agreed to stop at the first company once a month and increase the time and effort at the other, which paid off for him and the company.
Have you done your math? How much do you need to sell each year, month, week, day, hour and per sales call to reach your goal?
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