The File Room located at 4101 North Rider Trail in Earth City, MO is hosting their first FREE Shred Day this Saturday,

April14th from 9 AM to 12 Noon. For more information call (314) 209-0600 or visit their web site at www.thefileroom.com

“Get back to real selling for that is what we do.”
~ Miller Heiman

There are only 12 more Selling Days in August and 33 remaining in the Quarter!!!

Getting leads should always feel like a luxury rather than an entitlement. Marketing’s job is to accelerate the sales cycle. Developing highly qualified leads is absolutely the best way to deliver on this commitment. But business development success ultimately rests on the salesperson and delivering real results should be the number one focus instead of figuring out who to blame. Professional salespeople need to take control of their own destiny and be proactive.

Sure it is a lot easier when you simply respond to a lead and try to build on the momentum that marketing has already created. But often times, clients have done some of their own diagnosis and you may find yourself pigeonholed into answering product-specific questions rather than having a discussion about their business issues. Beginning this dialogue is not a situation where you just wing it. Take the time to develop a Valid Business Reason that will resonate with the client. And no, saying something like, “Mr. Customer, would you like to talk to us about how you can increase productivity and reduce expenses?” will not work. It needs to be specific to the client and it needs to feel a little risky for you to bring up. After all, you are taking a chance that your ideas may not be compelling to the client. If you are not able to get them interested in a discussion then maybe you really don’t have a fit at this time. Getting a dialogue going with the client is not something that happens with a catchy phrase or a smooth answer. It happens when you can quickly demonstrate that you are an expert who understands some of their key issues and you have some ideas to help. This is the risky part. You may not bat a thousand but the conversations that do get traction will certainly be ones where there is some clear common ground.

As salespeople, we are ultimately responsible for our own success. Pointing fingers and worrying about things outside of our control are not strategies that will enable us to hit the objectives we agreed to. So let’s get back to real selling, stay passionate about what we do each and every day and never cheat the company for our customers are counting us. 

Go out and have a Great Selling Day and make a difference in at least one person’s life today.

“You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.” ~ Oliver Goldsmith ( 1730-1774, Writer and Poet )

There are only 16 more Selling Days in August and 37 remaining in the Quarter!!! 

In the category of human achievement there are many antidotes, words of wisdom, and quotes from famous people, some long gone, and some still living. But rather than merely reciting these cool phrases, and motivational hot buttons as I usually do in this space daily, perhaps you and I  should stop talking about it all, stop sitting in committees, stop proposing “what if’s”, and just write down what you have so far, and commit to doing something about it. It’s easy to get ready, to take aim, to go back and get ready again, but sometimes it is most important to just pull the trigger; to start.

You can’t win if you never try, and talk is cheap in business, talk is cheap in  sports, about the only thing talk is good for is the courtroom or the political podium. If you are a politician, perhaps you can keep on talking yourself into a higher office, or if you are a lawyer maybe you can convince the jury that you actually have the better argument for the case. But if you are someone who would like to achieve something in your life, something worthy, then isn’t it about time you go out and do something?

Now then, we both know all the quotes off the top of our heads, and we know all the slogans such as; go for it, or just do it. And yet those words and phrases don’t mean anything if you don’t take action. Look, we all have  people that come to us all day long with ideas, concepts, and even inventions, and I never know what industry they will be in, but generally there’s always an excuse why the individual, group, or business did not act on their innovation.

What good is a great idea sitting on a sketch pad, or on the back burner in the back of your mind, or sitting on a white board with a 20 person committee brainstorming and shouting out ideas, if you are never going to act on a single one of them – tell me that question – or don’t tell me, let me tell you. It is no good, it’s worthless, it’s junk. If you don’t do something about it will never happen.

If you want to achieve anything in life you’ve got to get out and do it, you’ve gotta want it, you have to care, you have to set your sites, and you have to start with passion. Indeed, rather than me continue this article and harp on something you already know to be true, let me end this article right now, and you get off the Internet, stop procrastinating (I said to myself) and go do it. That’s all I have to say.

Go out and have a Great Selling Day and make a difference in at least one person’s life today.

“Relationships drive your business just in case you had forgotten.”
~ Patricia Fripp

There are 18 more Selling Days in August and 39 remaining in the Quarter!!!

You don’t close a sale. You open a relationship.

And remember, the real sale comes AFTER the sale! Technology does not run an enterprise. Relationships do. Staying in touch is a very important part and just as important as getting in touch with customers in the first place.

Years ago, the first president of the National Speakers Association, Bill Gove, was sales manager of the 3M Company. He wrote his customers thank-you notes a trait I still do to this very day. One day a friend was teasing him: “Hey, Bill, all you do is write notes all day long.” He said , “No, seven minutes a day, and everyone who does business with me hears from me at least once every three months while my competition is calling on them, asking for their business.”

Now that we have technology it’s must easier to maximize your client relationships. Keep in touch and as I said just recently make that touch call.

Go out and have a Great Selling Day and make a difference in at least one person’s life today.

“You must take action today.”
~ Dr. Denis Waitle

There are only 19 more Selling Days in August and 40 remaining in the Quarter!!!

Get Up and Get Going. Don’t wait for that miracle or that break or “the right time.” Today is your day. This is your time. Choose how you will spend it, and do the same with every other day of the rest of your life. You are in charge of causing your results. Don’t put it off. Don’t put success on lay-away. Don’t sit staring at that TV screen letting your mind go blank while you repeat the procrastinator’s motto: ‘I think I can, I think I could; I think I may, I think I should; I think I might, I think I will; I think I better think more still.’ Stop rationalizing, get out of your chair, stop stewing and start doing!

For starters, ask yourself some hard questions:

• Are you dissatisfied with the status quo?
• What do you have to change in order to move toward where you want to be?
• Which fears do you need to conquer? Do you fear change? Do you fear failure? Do you fear success?

Forget the advice of all those experts, associates, friends, and relatives (I guess I mean me also) who tell you,  you can’t possibly have what you want. Remember, producer Irving Thalberg strongly advised Louis B. Mayer against buying the rights to ‘Gone With the Wind’ because no Civil War picture had ever made a nickel. ‘Gone With the Wind’ is heralded as one of the best and most popular motion pictures ever made – well then almost every movie produced in 1939 was great and so can you be and today I am going to follow my own advice for a change.

Go out and have a Great Selling Day and make a difference in at least one person’s life today.