Archive for 2011
November 14th, 2011
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The bar is only getting higher every day.
You used to be able to pretty good at one part of your job to stand out from the crowd. Have slightly better customer service? Have a 24 hour phone line? You won the game if that was your model 20 years ago – be the least painful option.
Then you had to be excellent at one part of your business to stand out. Win awards, get recognized, be brilliant. That is how you stood out 10 years ago, by being a better option.
That doesn’t work anymore. Being brilliant is no longer a differentiator, it is expected. It’s the minimum level needed to be truly successful and sustainable. Buyers are looking to only spend their money on the things that will give them the best result, the best experience, the best return. This is double so as the recession continues globally.
If you are not absolutely brilliant at what you do, and you don’t show that to your clients, you are losing. Start to show your awesomeness now if you have it, and if you don’t – it’s time to change what you do.
October 31st, 2011
Disuse atrophy of muscles (muscle atrophy) and bones, with loss of mass and strength, can occur after prolonged immobility, such as extended bedrest, or having a body part in a cast (living in darkness for the eye, bedridden for the legs etc.). This type of atrophy can usually be reversed with exercise unless severe. Astronauts in microgravity must exercise regularly to minimize atrophy of their limb muscles.
From Wikipedia
In the course of recording Don’t Sell Me Bro last week, we interviewed Andia Winslow – US Olympic hopeful in the Skeleton and someone who is looking to get her business off the ground. Coming from an athletic background she dropped a great term on us – Business Disuse Atrophy.
Much like the muscle atrophy above, your business skills will lose mass and strength. It’s easy to get away with taking some time off from selling when business is good, your future work schedule is stacked up and you’re no longer worried about paying rent next month.
However, just like your endurance wanes when sitting on the couch watching sports instead of playing them, your sales skills will get rusty just the same. Some simple steps to keep this from happening to you:
- Educate Yourself: My guess is if you are here you’re already doing some of this. But read about your craft, read about what you want to get better at, take a class, read things that don’t seem necessarily related but tax your brain. Give yourself the chance to learn something that you can apply to your business and try something new.
- Schedule Your Workout: Take some time on your calendar every week to do sales related tasks. Block a couple of hours for prospecting, a couple of hours for reconnecting with past clients, and even some time for checking on deals you thought were dead. Put that time on your calendar as an appointment with yourself and keep that appointment!
- Get a Coach: When you want to take your game up to the next level, you’ll have to have someone push you beyond what you think are your limits. A coach or trainer in the gym will push, yell, bribe, and pull you to your best workout, so why not in business? Have a coworker partner with you on this, where you’ll work to hold each other accountable to getting better. Work by yourself? Get a fellow solo entrepreneur to have lunch with once a week and check in on each other. If you can’t do that, find a group online to start this process
Keep your business muscles worked out and they’ll be there when you need them.
October 27th, 2011
This may sound like heresy but as a salesman your greatest aspiration should be to stop selling.
I’ll let you re-read that again and catch your breath before I move on.
The best brands out there do not sell you – you seek them out. You want to buy from them even with minimal visible effort on their part to convince you of that. Contrast the number of commercials you see on TV for Hondas, Chevys, and Toyotas versus the number of ads you see for Rolls Royce or Maybach. Those are all great cars that will get you to where you need to go functionally but you want the form and style of the latter ones. That’s an extreme example but let’s break down why it works.
Ultimately it comes down to one thing: Rolls Royce (and their analogs across other verticals) know themselves.
They know what they are, what makes them desirable, and what their buyers want. They know that they are the top of their food chain because they perform at a level above and beyond functional. They are flawless in style and performance. For an average user the differences aren’t something that you can really tell, but you know you want them. They go above and beyond to demonstrate, often by literally holding their buyers hands and showing, the most detailed of features so that there is no mistake of what you’re getting.
As a salesman if you know yourself, you’ll be able to identify what makes you so desirable to your buyers, and in time turn them into your sales force. It takes a commitment to excellence that is difficult to hold yourself to, but all great rewards come with a great cost.
