60 Sales Calls A Day

Most of us work well with targets.
Salespeople are no different.

So how many sales calls
should we be making
to achieve our goals?

According to Michael Pedone,
“If you want to make
or even break your sales goals,
60 sales calls per day
(including callbacks from prospects)
and or 3 hours of talk time
(to prospects, not your mom)
has been the best winning formula
I’ve found to help me outsell
my co-workers
and outwork my competition.”

Make those 60 calls
quality calls.
Do your research.
Know how your product adds value.
Make those meaningful, sales winning calls.

Published
Categorized as Sales

Henry Cavill On Success

In November’s Cineplex Magazine
(yes, I DO take time off
to go to the movies
once or twice a year),
rising actor Henry Caville,
often dubbed
the “Unluckiest Man in Hollywood”
due to the roles he has lost,
talks about his work schedule.

“On Tudors
I had to start training [for Immortals]
even though I had heard nothing
from the producers.
I was getting up at
around four in the morning,
training for two hours
before Tudors started shooting,
shooting a 14-hour day on Tudors,
going to bed
and repeating five days a week.
That was tricky.”

Henry Cavill was working 2 hours a day
on top of a full time job
for the chance, the CHANCE,
he might be given a role.

How many hours a day
are you putting in
to secure your future sales?

Published
Categorized as Sales

Antonio Banderas, Career, And Consistency

In November’s edition
of Cineplex Magazine,
Antonio Banderas addresses
the concept of career.

“I never liked the concept of ‘career’….
Because of your career,
you may say no to projects
that you would love to do,
that are the complete opposite
of what you have done,
but you think,
“What will the audience think
about me if I do this comedy,
this frivolous comedy?
I cannot do that
because of my image, my career.”
I hate that.
In a way, to be coherent
is probably not a good idea for an actor.”

The quickest way to build
a brand
is to be good at one thing
and to do that one thing
over and over again.

It is also the quickest way
to become obsolete
if you never move beyond
that one thing.

There is risk in every route
to success.

Be aware of that risk,
try to manage it,
and make conscious decisions.

Published
Categorized as Marketing

Promises And Surprises

There are expectations in every industry.

When patrons go to a restaurant,
they expect to be fed.
When readers pick up a romance novel,
they expect a love-related happy ending.
When patients go to the dentist,
they expect their teeth to be looked at.

Mess with these expectations,
these promises,
and you’ll have very pissed off customers.

But…but…but I want to surprise customers,
you say?
(I hear this from new romance authors
ALL the time)

Yes, surprises, extras, differences
delight customers.
That’s where the magic happens.

But the skilled authors and business owners
figure out ways
to surprise and delight customers
while still delivering on the core promise.

No one ever said delighting customers was easy.
That is one of the reasons
why companies that delight
deserve their success.

The International Small Company

One of my smaller publishers
claims to be an international publisher.
She isn’t, not truly.

Yes, she sells books all over the world
but her customer service hours
are 9 to 5 EST.
Marketing events are done
on an EST-friendly timeline.
That makes sales overseas more challenging.

So how does a small company
make all customers happy?
She is a one-woman shop.
She can’t stay awake 24 hours a day.

One solution is to have rotating hours.
A one-woman software company I know
is open from 12 noon to 8 pm on Mondays,
9am to 5pm on Wednesdays,
and
4 am to 12 noon on Fridays.

She services all of her customers
AND gives herself a longer weekend.

If you’re a smaller company,
you have flexibility
and a greater ability to respond
to your customers.
Don’t be locked into
big company restrictions.

The Quest For Perfection

We discuss perfection often
here on clientk
because
thinking things have to be perfect
is one of barriers
to success
for intelligent, hard working people.

The quest for perfection
is also an excuse.


As Seth Godin states

“The quest for technical best
is a form of hiding.
You can hide from the marketplace
because you’re still practicing your technique.
And you can hide from
the hard work of real art
and real connection
because you decide
that success lies in being the best technically,
at getting a 99 instead of a 98 on an exam.”

I’ve seen this
in the writing group I’m leading.
A highly intelligent woman
has been working hard,
polishing a manuscript.
She’s been doing this
for over 10 years
because she’s scared to send it out.

It will never be perfect
because there are no perfect novels.

Great, amazing, good enough
are possible.
Perfect is not.
Every time you use the word ‘perfect’,
substitute it with ‘great’.

Gratitude

One of the most powerful
emotions in the world
is gratitude.

I grew up very poor.
We didn’t eat every day.
We didn’t have running water.
Yes, even in North America,
people live this way.

I’m no longer poor
but I’ve never forgotten
what it is like to be poor.

I work hard
because I know
I could become poor again.

I don’t squander resources
because I know
what it is like
not to have resources.

I treat people well
because I know
I could be at their wealth level again
and I know
I might need their help
while I’m there.

I support dreams
because I know
I made my own impossible happen.

This positive energy
is why gratitude is so key.

You are alive
and have access to a computer
and you live in a country
where those two things
combined with hard work
can make great things happen.

Find gratitude
and harness it.

Meaningful Work

I once worked in
a HUGE telecommunications company.
One of my coworkers
was grumping about
how his job was meaningless.
I piped up and told him
he was changing the world.

“How am I changing the world?”
he muttered.
“I’m selling phones.”

“You’re not selling phones,”
I pointed out.
“You’re making it easier
for people to talk to each other,
to communicate.
Wars have been prevented
with more communication.”

The Sales Blog has an absolutely wonderful post
on why sales or any other position you take
can be meaningful work.

As The Sales Blog states…

“The only thing
that makes work meaningful
is that it makes some contribution
to helping other human beings.
That’s it.”

Published
Categorized as Sales

The Emotions Around Failure

Tell someone you failed
and what is their response?
“That’s awful!”
“How terrible!”
“I’m so sorry for you!”
“What did YOU do?”
Notice how the responses
are loaded with emotion.

And that’s why many people
do whatever they can
to avoid failure.

As Seth Godin states
“Early in our careers,
we’re encouraged to avoid failure,
and one way we do that is
by building up a set of emotions
around failure,
emotions we try to avoid,
and emotions that
we associate with
the effort of people who fail.”

Many times the best way to avoid
feeling these emotions
is to not try,
to do nothing.

So the next time you hear
someone failed,
be conscious about your response.

Telling that someone
you’re sorry she failed
is the equivalent of telling her
you’re sorry she tried.

Mistakes And Intent

While working on a recent project,
two ‘mistakes’ happened.

One was HUGE.
It was brand damaging.
When the person who made the mistake
found out it WAS a mistake,
she was horrified and profusely apologetic.

Although the other mistake was not-as-major,
it was still damaging to the project.
However, this team member
knew BEFORE making the mistake,
it would have negative consequences.
How did she know this?
Because she’d made the same mistake before.

I was more concerned
about the second, more minor mistake
than the first.
Yes, we had to go into crisis mode
and quickly fix the major mistake,
but mistakes happen.
The team member is wiser now.
I doubt it will happen again.

I can’t say that about the second mistake.
I suspect the intent
was to sabotage the project,
and I have zero tolerance for that.
I won’t be working with that team member again.

When your team members make mistakes
and they WILL make mistakes,
look at WHY the mistake was made.
That is often more important
than the mistake itself.