Whenever I go to a seminar,
I usually contact the guest speaker
and ask
if she wants to have
lunch or dinner or coffee or whatever.

Often she’ll be busy.
The savvy organizers
will fill her free time
before and after the event.

Sometimes she won’t be.
I’ll ask her how many people
she wishes to have lunch with
and I’ll invite a mix
of folks at her level,
(because successful folks
like to mix with successful folks)
and potential fans.

The rare but golden time,
she’ll have plans
but she’ll invite me along.

I risk absolutely nothing
by asking
and have everything to gain.

Scott Ginsberg has a great post
on setting yourself up
as the answer
to customer’s problems.

One of his tips?

Be brief.
Give the answer
and nothing else.

“Brevity is eloquence.
No need to deploy every weapon you have.
Like my mentor says,
“Pastors need to learn
how to preach one sermon at a time.”
Are you vomiting when spitting would suffice?”

It used to be
we’d put up
with that know-it-all
(usually with the fancy degree)
in the office
who had the answers
but forced us to sit through
a long rambling speech
filled with fifty cent words.

With the internet
and the speed of information searches,
we no longer have
that sort of patience.
We want the answer
and only the answer
and we want it now.

If you want to be seen
as the go-to gal,
don’t make your customers wait.

A small publisher told their writers
that they couldn’t share sales
during chat days.
Their words?
“It can’t be done.”

You and I
and anyone with any IT knowledge at all
knows that is bullshit.

What they really mean to say is
“We won’t do it.”
or
“It will take time better used elsewhere.”

Be very, very careful
when claiming that something CAN’T be done
because someone, right now,
is doing that impossible something.
When your audience finds this out,
trust will be shot
and they’ll distrust every word you say.

There are no CAN’T’s in life.
Take that word out of your vocabulary.

I was eating at one of my favorite restaurants
and the waiter started complaining
about how demanding patrons were
and how they were never happy, etc. etc.

He thought he’d get sympathy.
My reaction?
This man can’t handle his job.
And I figured
that I was one of those ‘demanding’ patrons
he’d tell his next table about.

If you complain about your customers
to other customers,
you soon won’t have customers
to complain about.

If it is a legitimate complaint,
talk to your manager
under the guise of
‘how would you handle….’

If it is one of those work grumbles
we all get,
talk to a friend who is disconnected
to your office
(i.e. she won’t tell anyone
about your rather trivial complaints).

If you need an excuse
to give a customer
like
’sorry, it has been crazy in here’,
present it as a positive observation,
rather than a complaint.

I once saw a waiter get chewed out
by a customer.
That waiter came to my table,
grinned
and said ’she’s one of our regulars.’
I don’t know if he was joking
but we all laughed
and he was seen as a professional.

Customers buy
solutions.
Don’t load them down
with more problems.

A loved one is a teacher.
She’s a damn good teacher.
Not only does she continually take courses
to become an even better teacher
but
she surrounds herself
with the same cultural influences
her tweens are surrounded with.

She watches the same movies.
She reads the same books.
She listens to the same music.
She plays the same video games.

Why does she do all this?

Because her job involves communication
and, to communicate,
it helps if you speak the same language.

She gets the one-word answers
her tweens often give her.
She encourages essays on current topics
like werewolves vs vampires
and she can talk the Twilight books
well enough
that she can give struggling students prompts.

If your sales prospect gave you
a one-word answer
using her industry’s jargon,
could you understand her?

Heavy Hitter Sales Blog
has a great post
on the Seven Deadly Sins Of Salespeople.

His deadliest is
ignorance.
“Ignorance is the deadliest sin.
If you do not have a spy
within an account
who is telling you
what is happening in closed-door meetings,
defending you when you are not around,
and disseminating propaganda on your behalf,
you will most certainly lose.”

These spies are precious resources
and must be nurtured
whether you currently have their account
or not.

They are also
NOT duly appreciated by
the company you work for.
They are seldom acknowledged
as even existing.
You will get grief
if you expense money nurturing them.

But they are
what differentiates
successful salespeople from unsuccessful salespeople.

Spend the time and cash on them,
even if it is your own time
and your own cash.
They are a wise investment.

A cousin of mine
will be visiting my city
at the end of July.

She phoned,
asking me to send her
details on where I live, etc. etc.

I sent her
a chatty ‘glad-you’re-coming’ email.
Her reply
was very professional and rather dry.

I teased her about it
as I knew she didn’t mean to be such a stiff
but when I received it,
I felt like she slapped me in the face.
All my friendliness was being rebuffed.

It is SO important to mimic your prospect’s tone.
If she is formal, address her formally.
If she is informal, address her the same way.
Not only is it respectful
but it puts the other person at ease.

A Survey of sales targets by
The McKinsey Quarterly states that
‘most destructive’ failures
of business-to-business sales reps
are too much contact with customers (35%)
and inadequate product knowledge (20%)’

Really?
Really?

I agree that nothing pisses me off
like sales reps wasting my time
or contacting me in a way
I’d rather not be contacted
(by phone)
or trying to sell me products
I can’t possibly need.

But I have never ever complained
about a sales rep
sending information core to my business
or helping out on volunteer events I support
or checking in after a major event.

Never.

Go ahead and contact your prospects
whenever you’ll add value to them.

I wince every time
I read a study saying
that beautiful people are more successful.
That, I believe, is bullshit.
Confident people are more successful
and while beautiful people are more likely
to be confident,
the two do not always equate.

Yesterday, I watched a documentary
on Cleopatra.
When I think of Cleopatra,
I think of a beautiful seductress,
a woman who captivated powerful men
such as Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.

The thing is…

She wasn’t beautiful.

Research shows that she was quite homely.
What she had though
was confidence,
loads and loads of confidence.

Confidence is sexy.
People, men included, want to be around
confident people.
If people want to be around you,
they will also help you become successful.
In Cleopatra’s case,
they helped her win back
the leadership of a country.

As I often tell my girl friends,
it isn’t how you look FOR a man
that counts.
It is how you look AT a man.

Be confident.
Be strong.
Be successful.

My recruiter recently told me
that I had the worst resume ever.
The reason that I land gigs
is because…
well…
I’ve landed gigs
at some of the top companies.

Why is my resume
the worst ever?

Because it is task heavy
and not results focused.

Employers want to read
about results.
They want to hear how much money
you saved previous companies,
what products you successively launched,
and
what changes you made in a company.

If you’re like me
and still stuck in the ’80’s
with a task heavy resume,
you may wish to update it.
You never know
when you’ll need it.

Forbes has a great list
of five things a recruiter
wants from employees.