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Sales Training: Your Best Insurance Policy Against Financial Failure
The rich, the powerful and those who attain their dreams and goals all know how to sell. Those who struggle financially and muddle through life living in mediocrity simply put do not know how to sell. In today’s economy, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and those in the middle are being forced to decide which group they will join. Those who proactively fail to choose will see their income and lifestyle slowly erode with the stagnant and deteriorating economy.
In The News….
Just last week the brokerage firm UBS laid off 3,500 financial folks and the US Navy is about to get rid of 2,500 Chief Petty Officers. Layoffs will continue to occur and will in fact accelerate. Sales organizations are not immune from this talent reduction tsunami. In July Cisco, Lockheed Martin and Borders announced a combined 23,000 in job cuts. Those announcements follow 41,432 in planned cuts in June – up 11.6% from May.
Meanwhile, state, local and federal governments have cut 142,000 jobs this year according to the Wall Street Journal and the LA Times reports that layoffs are at a 16 month high.
If you think that you are immune because you are not in any of the industries sited in these articles, you need to think again because a receding tide lowers all boats. Less workers means less people buying stuff. When Borders shut down it was not only Borders that was affected. All of their suppliers and advertisers and the sales people who work for those suppliers were affected. Some of them even wiped out and forced to close their doors when they lost the Borders account.
Let me put it bluntly for you -
I have recently been retained by a private sales training client of mine to build a sales force. Our strategy is not to hire an entry level sales person or one we have to provide a lot of sales training to. We are on a fast track and we are looking for proven winners who are already trained and who are greedy and have a need to make a pile of money.
Honestly, we are being very, very picky because it is an employer’s market and we can afford to do so. We are looking to skim off the top of the sales pile and only pick the very best of the best.
We are not the only company looking to do this. I have, in fact, suggested that all of my private clients assess their sales teams and get rid of anyone who is not a top performer or who lacks the potential and the desire to become a top performer. The company I am consulting for, like all companies, is being forced to be more profit driven and is no longer willing to take risks and waste money on mediocre performers. All but the best have got to go. If this does not serve as a wake-up call for you to get serious about enrolling in some sales training to improve your sales skills and increase your income, I don’t know what will.
Sales Training Tip: Choose What You Allow Into Your Mind Carefully
A front page headline on USA TODAY read:
90% of the Ocean’s Edible Species May Be Gone By 2048, Study Finds
Having Hurricane Irene and the worry over the coming of the 2nd recession isn’t enough. They have to devote half their front page to scaring us about the potential scarcity of Mrs. Paul’s fish sticks thirty- seven years from now.
Since I will most likely be dead none of this really matters to me. I find the reading of the daily paper taking less and less time – no more than the drinking of one cup of coffee. The reason – most of what is in there is of no interest to me and has no bearing on the achievement of my goals. Some may say this is selfish and I would plead guilty – but successfully guilty.
These headlines and stories are nothing new. My first recollection of this type stuff was “The Population Bomb”, a best-selling book, written by Paul R. Ehrlich and his wife, Anne Ehrlich in 1968. It warned of the mass starvation of humans in the 1970s and 1980s. It didn’t happen. And then we had Y2K and the whole idea that all there would be a technological meltdown. It didn’t happen either.
Scientists, psychics, cult leaders, politicians and ignorant, irresponsible journalists have frequently predicted the end of life as we know it – starvation and famine, flood, asteroid attack, the earth veering from its axis, killer bees, or – the latest – mad cow disease, etc. – and they have all been wrong.
God knows how many times one religious group or another has declared that the end of the world was near. So far nothing has happened. Nada. Now we have the fruitcakes who are saying that the ancient Mayan calendar predicts the end of the world in 2012 – that is if the sunspots don’t get us first. Geez, you would think the public would wise up to this journalistic hype and realize that that all this does is sell newspapers and books and get government money for wacky research.
Eventually something, maybe an asteroid will get us and those left will say, “See I told you so”.
I counsel my sales training clients to be wise and not pay attention to any of this hype that simply clogs their brain with useless dribble. If you are really, really smart you will be ruthless about NOT paying attention to anything that doesn’t advance you toward your goals, enhance your important skills, or inspire and motivate you to be your best self and achieve your greatest ambitions.
NOTE: Hobbies don’t count. You get a pass because everyone needs an escape from the ‘nose to the grindstone’ relentless toil that it takes to become rich and achieve total personal autonomy to do what you want, when you want, with whom you want.
Anything that does not achieve this goal has to be filtered out. Blocked. Ignored. Just because USA TODAY feels compelled to fill its front page with silly, scary stuff about the future-without-fish, decidedly unscientific drivel, does NOT mean you must swallow it.
It’s Not About You, Stupid!
Most sales people mistakenly thinks the prospect or buyer actually cares about what they sell. If you are inclined to think this way – you need to think again because your prospect does not give a damn about you, your company or what you sell. They only care about one thing – the same thing you and I care about – THEMSELVES.
I am amazed at how many sales people come to my sales training sessions with the idea that they have this great product or service that the world should care about or be interested in. In sales training sessions, I’ve heard sales people call prospects stupid (or even worse names) when the prospect shows no interest in their product. Someone may indeed be stupid in this scenario but it is not the prospect!
NEWS FLASH: The only one that cares about your product or service is you, your sales manager and the geniuses in the marketing department that came up with the idea in the first place. This self centered “I” mentality is an absolute prescription for failure and is a chief reason so many fail in sales.
If you only get one thing from reading this it should be that successful salespeople don’t focus on themselves and what they want. They instead focus all of their attention on trying to truly understand and uncover what problems, issues and concerns the prospect has. Only when the prospect’s problems are fully uncovered and understood does the professional salesperson allow the conversation to progress to the discussion of whether the sales person has a solution. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. Incompetent sales people, on the other hand, focus on pitching product, trying to convince and persuade and justify price. If most of your sales calls consist of talking about product and price you have not graduated from the ranks of the amateur.
To join the ranks of the elite in sales I suggest you get some high powered, professional sales training that will help you develop some very powerful interviewing and questioning skills because above all else that skill is what separates the champions from the pretenders.
If you want to be that Champion CLICK HERE to get your complimentary Sales Training CDs that will help you do just that.
It’s Happening Everywhere
It’s happening in one city after another….
- Elgin, Illinois – 700 teachers are cut from the payroll
- Charlotte, NC – 12 library branches are closing for good
- Columbus, GA – Trash pickup is about to be cut from twice a week to once a week
- Vallejo, CA - A fire department of 122 people and 8 firehouses in 2003 is now 70 people and 5 firehouses
- Pritchard, AL – Monthly water bills run higher than $500 a month, just to help pay retired city workers – who will only get one-third of what they were promised.
- Camden, NJ – Half of the police force has been let go
And since April 2011 the S & P 500 has dropped 17%
This is the reality more and more Americans will be facing….. because America as you know it is an illusion – built during an easy credit bubble.
According to U.S. News & World Report, “Over the last two years, 36 out of 50 states have raised taxes or fees.” This is in addition to already collecting property, sales and income taxes. Cities have also been doing things like putting in separate streetlight fees….fire hydrant fees….and new booze and cigarette taxes. Nevada is even considering a new $5 surcharge on legal prostitution.
If what you have just read scares the crap out of you, don’t get mad and take it out on me – don’t kill the messenger. I am simply reporting the facts from some of the financial newsletters I subscribe to.
For the last two years, I have been preaching – mostly to deaf ears – that this was coming – and now it is upon us.
The only certainty in our country with “this” economy is that there is NONE. Zero, nada, zilch, there is NO certainty; only unpredictability.
That’s why I have made it my mission to save sales professionals, business owners and entrepreneurs from certain self-destruction and economic collapse by arming you with ‘The Blueprint For Prosperity’ – a program about how to make money when all odds are against you and your prospects and customers are more afraid than if the sky were actually falling.
With ‘The Blueprint for Prosperity’ you will once and for all be prepared for the worst, be able to stand up and protect yourself from the 2nd coming of the Recession. And most importantly, YOU will be able to prosper through the most unpredictable economic times our country has ever faced.
Stay tuned for an important announcement…………….
Lesson to Be Learned From Sarah Palin
Kathleen Parker writing in the Washington Post says, “Time will tell, but what recent history confirms is that Sarah Palin isn’t a serious person. If she had been serious about running for president, she would have spent her time filling in the knowledge gaps so painfully exposed during the 2008 election. Instead, she hit the road in a series of moneymaking, self-promoting stunts and has succeeded in achieving the true American dream: fame and fortune.”
What Ms. Parker does not say in her left handed compliment is that Sarah Palin understands full well how to play the media to her own personal advantage, and that she had no intention of ever running for president. If she were serious about running for president she would have remained governor of Alaska. But Palin, whatever you may think of her, is no fool. She realizes that her candle of fame has a limited wick and when that candle burns out she will be done.
No dear reader, she is no fool. She realized that staying sequestered in Juneau and doing meaningful work as governor was a prescription for obscurity not the path to fame and fortune. As only one of 50 of such public servants trying to actually make a difference she would be removed from the main street news.
Leaving office and launching her own personal celebrity brand made perfect sense if the objective was to leverage – for personal gain – the fortuitous gift handed to her by McCain. More power to her. She didn’t make the rules of what people will pay money for. She simply was smart enough or her handlers were smart enough to take advantage of her celebrity status and use it to extract as much money from the marketplace as is legally allowable. As an entrepreneur she is to be commended even if she isn’t an intellectual heavy weight. This is further evidence that in this society money flows to celebrity more than it flows to talent. You may disagree that this isn’t right – there is no profit in that thinking – and that knowledge and substance should pay more than celebrity, but money doesn’t care what you think.
The question is how can you capitalize on this reality and make yourself a local celebrity that money is attracted to. There is profit in that line of thinking.
The Coast is Almost Clear!
To all my canine friends – LISTEN UP!
It’s the middle of August and do you know what that means? Of course you do – it’s what every dog waits for after a summer of “fun” with the neighborhood kids. The FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL is just around the corner. Woo Hoo…The neighborhood will belong to the dogs again. No more having to dodge kids on bikes, skateboards, roller blades or whatever the latest craze is that poses a severe threat to the family dog! All we have to do is hang tight until that big yellow bus is out of sight first thing in the morning and the rest of the day can be spent doing what we do best – laying motionless. And we can do it wherever we want – in the front yard, the driveway, the sidewalk – it doesn’t matter. Yep, the neighborhood is all ours again and man what a long three months it’s been. I’ve never had to dodge so many things in all my life. Napping outside became a hazard – If one kid wasn’t doing wheelies on his bike in the front yard, 3 other kids made our driveway a pit stop (and unlike NASCAR there was no speed limit!!).
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say it’s safe to assume that PETA has not joined forces with OSHA. Well they should! No dog is safe when surrounded by a group of kids whose main goal for the summer is to irritate their parents and torment the dog. Every summer it’s the same thing – kids hop off that bus for the last time until school resumes in the fall and there isn’t a dog around that doesn’t cringe knowing that the next 3 months will be torturous !! He knows his water bowl will be used to fill squirt guns; his quiet place out back will be taken over by every kid in the neighborhood whose parents did NOT put in a pool last summer.
Well guys it’s almost over…… It’s just a matter of time before we can lay around in the yard and not worry about being mistaken for first base or used as a speed bump during. Be patient my friends the end is in sight….we can go back to chasing our tails for entertainment instead of tucking them between our legs and hiding under the glider until the coast is clear. If the kids in your neighborhood haven’t gone back to school yet – I’ve seen a few buses in the area (even chased one) so it won’t be long. The coast is ALMOST clear!
Until Next Month
Your Friend,
Jake
You Cannot Make Money Sitting On Your Butt
You WILL NOT Make Money Sitting on Your Butt
Do not be misled by the brevity of today’s message. There is great wisdom in these few words and you, dear reader, would do well to take heed and study carefully this brief but powerful message.
There is a deliberate, predictable relationship between the acquisition of money and success and the speed of implementation. If one desires to acquire more riches or become more successful one of the quickest ways is to eliminate the time between having an idea and the implementation of that idea. Most people don’t understand this and spend unnecessary time procrastinating and perfecting an idea before they pull the trigger and ride the bullet of implementation. Ideas are worthless and don’t count for anything unless they are acted upon.
A poor idea acted on will always produce better results than a perfect idea never acted on. Truth is there is no such thing as a perfect idea because everything is a work in progress and ideas are fleshed out along the road to implementation. The very act of implementation gives feedback and birth to ideas and inspiration. As the famous copywriter, Gary Halbert said, “motion beats meditation”. When in doubt – act. Do something. Do anything because lack of momentum guarantees stagnation and failure. Be bold and do not be afraid of failure. Failure is simply a lesson learned. Everyone has ideas but few have the courage to act.
In this NEW ECONOMY the slow and slothful will perish. Victory will go to those who boldly act with the expectation of success. NOW GO DO SOMETHING!
It’s Déjà Vu (All Over Again!!)
Here We Go Again
In the last two weeks the Dow has shed 15% and millions of investors have lost billions. If you have been paying attention none of this should come as a surprise. The signs have been there for those who were looking. Housing inventory up with prices down and continuing to drop, true unemployment in double digits and stubbornly refusing to drop, a dysfunctional federal government unable to keep deficits from skyrocketing out of control, commodity prices accelerating unabated, etc.
Yes, Dear Reader we are back to 2008 with the only lull coming because the Feds spent a couple of trillion of your children and grand children’s money. Nothing has fundamentally changed since 2008. The banks are still insolvent and the Feds now own billions of bad mortgage debt they bought from the banks with fiat money (that they can’t unload).
Dear Reader you are about to see more of the same – or worse – of what you saw in 2008. I hope you have used the last few years to your advantage by sharpening your skills to be able to compete in this brave NEW ECONOMY.
In his insightful book ‘NO BS Sales Success In The NEW ECONOMY’, Dan Kennedy writes, “only the most self-aware, self-disciplined, and highly skilled salespeople who view their selling as art and science, as a professional skill, and as a sophisticated process will prosper……………………………Placing yourself in the proper mind-set space here is predictive of your future prosperity in or forced exit from your business. In The NEW ECONOMY, 95% of the money gravitates to the Ambitious and Eager-to-Learn, and will separate and be shared disproportionately by the most ambitious and most eager.”
Translation: the top 15% of sales people will sell 95% of everything that is sold and the bottom 85% will pick up the remaining 5% crumbs. Sales forces will shrink dramatically. Since 2008 the drug maker Pfizer has eliminated one-third of its 7500 sales people, a Clear Channel client of mine was told to eliminate one-half of her 40 person sales team in a period of one week. And just this week two of my private sales training clients fired sales people for low performance, one of them the president’s thirty-three year old son.
The NEW ECONOMY will put pressure on companies to upgrade their sales teams and provide more sales training to the most productive sales professionals. No longer will mediocrity, laziness, sloth and poor performance be tolerated.
Tighten your seat belt and make sure you have your shoulder harness securely attached because we are in for one hell of a wild ride. Frankly, I welcome it because it will thin the herd of the imposters who should not be in the profession.
The One Destructive Habit We All Engage In
Excuse Making – We All Do It.
The temptation is just too overwhelming. Some of us do it more than others. It is one habit that leads to destruction and failure in business and in life. We have become a nation of habitual excuse makers rationalizing poor performance and incompetence.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the sales arena. Sales organizations are full of non-producers and sales managers who blame the economy, their competition’s low ball tactics, their company’s management practices, the cost of their product or service, the marketing department, and…. YES they even BLAME THEIR CUSTOMERS for their poor performance.
The Blame Game
Admittedly customers have too tiny of minds, too short of attention spans, are overwhelmed and easily distracted to pay attention to anything that requires more than a nanosecond of serious thought. Certainly, customer’s tastes, preferences and demands have changed, and not necessarily for the better. And the population as a whole isn’t getting smarter, more studious, or more noble. But whatever customers you have chosen – they are what they are – and blaming them will prove to be nothing but a waste of time.
Sales reps, sales managers and business owners who blame their failure on their customer’s ignorance, short sightedness, cheapskate mentality, and stupidity have two choices: replace these customers or fix yourself! You are not going to fix them. Fixing yourself requires that you get your head out of your ass and realize that you need to acquire new, more powerful sales skills by participating in intense sales training or sales management training. Fail to do this and your future results will not improve.
If you or your team are under performing it is either because a) you are not selling what your customers want or b) your selling skills are impotent and you are simply not persuasive enough. It is not their fault they don’t buy from you. Either way professional sales training or sales management training will help if you are willing to invest in yourself and grow. Fail to do this and it’s simple – your results will stay the same – so don’t expect anything different.
As Pogo said, “we have met the enemy and it is I.” This self-admission is the starting point of all growth.
The Dog Days of Summer
OK, I know I’ve complained about the heat for the past couple of months but now its almost August – the DOG DAYS of summer and that entitles me to continue my rant!
People (and Steve this includes you!) – If you see your dog laying under the car to get away from the heat – for heaven’s sake put him in the house. It is NOT cooler under the car…..yeah we’re out of the direct sunlight but there’s also no air circulating under there and there’s also a pretty good chance we’re sprawled across a puddle of the latest thing dripping out of your car!
If your dog is sitting straight up but his tongue is on the ground – that’s a pretty good indication that he’s hot – again open the door and let him in the house. Unless you are one of those thoughtful dog owners with a doggy door – and you know who you are (unfortunately for me Steve does NOT fall into this category!) then we’ll decide for ourselves when it’s time to go in and out. And personally if the decision is left up to me – I’m INSIDE from June through October!
Oh and by the way, who came up with the idea that only cats get to do their ‘business’ in the house? Don’t be so sure your dog can’t be taught to use the bathroom. We’re smart enough to go to the door and spin in circles so it’s a safe bet that we can master the art of hopping into a dishpan full of sand! It’s pretty much a no-brainer. If a cat can do it any animal can do it – trust me! The reason I bring this up – not to air our family dirty laundry or anything – but Steve has a habit of putting me out because HE thought it was time for me to go to the bathroom. Hey Steve, you stick to coaching and sales training and I’ll decide when it’s time for ME to go to the bathroom!!!
Anyway, the Dog Days of Summer are here and I’m trying to deal with it! But until Steve decides that I can lay around on his bed in the air conditioning and go to the bathroom anywhere and anytime I please is it too much to ask to be taken to the groomers. I’m covered in fur….and it’s like 120 degrees outside. I have the number for PETA – don’t make me use it!!!
See You in September!
Jake
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