Thursday 19th August 2010
You may be in sales, marketing, operations management, or human resources. You could be an entrepreneur and a small business owner. However, one thing you all have in common; your primary goal is to make money.
This generally means selling more goods or services to a growing customer base, which means speaking to more people; [the more you tell the more you sell] is a very old saying but, is a very true one.
It has not changed in the forty plus years since I’ve been in business! What has changed is the way we now do our prospecting. I used to absolutely love cold-calling on prospective customers, going onto a business estate and tramping around knocking on doors, asking the same basic question; which always was. “Could I speak with the boss, please?”
The amount of No’s I got used to demoralise me at first, then I always remembered John Woodworth, Managing Director of “R. Wood Commercial Investigators, a commercial debt recovery company; which by the way is still going to this day” His words to me back in the late 1960’s. Geoffrey he would say; every time you get a No, think of it this way; your one No closer to a Yes, aren’t you?
Should we say you’re selling a product that’s worth £100:00 and every sale is worth 25% that’s £25:00 commission to you. So for each No you get; say “Thank you” because your conversation rate is One sale out of every Five calls you make; so for each of those No’s you get, each one is actually worth to you £5:00 because you know that on the fifth call your going to make £25:00 commission. Or multiplied up to whatever the gross value is of the product or service your offering or, change it to what you know is your personal conversion rate, “Which I do hope, YOU Know”
Question: How do you go about your work?
Answer: Look at you “Personal Goal Setting”
Whether you’re an experienced salesperson or not, you must remember to “Set the Scene” you should ask yourself a couple of qualifying questions then make a few statements to yourself.
Question: What do I, want out of the company I’m with?
Answer: I will only get out of the company I’m with, what I put into it.
Question: What am I willing to do to reach the top?
Answer: I am willing to work hard, to achieve this aim.
Question: How will I reach my targets and goals?
Answer: I will set my own personnel Targets and Goals
Without stating the above and “putting them in writing”, you will constantly be going around in circles and not achieving any great degree of success.
“About 50 years ago a class at Yale University, were asked how many of them, had set any Life Targets or Goals, for their future development, and additionally “had written the down”. Only 3% of the class had. Some 30 years later the survivors met again and where asked their Net Worth? The 3%, who 50 years previously had set their targets/goals, were worth more than the 97%, collectively who had not bothered to plan anything”!!
Question: Do I want to be successful with this company I’m with?
Answer: Yes I Do!
“Success breeds success”, people will duplicate, and follow others who are more successful than they are. They will only become successful if they have, “The will to want to succeed”, especially if they truly believe that duplication is possible as well.
Question: Why do so many people say no to the above?
Answer, (a) Fear of Rejection,
Answer, (b) Fear of “What if I am wrong”,
Answer, (c) Fear of Failure
Answer, (d) Fear of others saying; “you’ll not succeed”
Answer, (e) Fear of coming out of the “Comport Zone”
Statement:
“Persistence Reduces Resistance”
Here are some guidelines in helping you establish you’re short and long term goals; using S.M.A.R.T.
1. Specific: A specific goal has a much better chance of being accomplished than a more general goal.
2. Measurable: You must be clear about what you want, establish concrete criteria for measuring your progress in attaining each of the goals you have set.
3. Attainable: When you identify the goals that are most important to you, you will figure ways that you can make them true. You develop the attitudes, abilities, skills and capacity to reach them.
4. Realistic: To be realistic, a goal must represent an objective toward which you are both willing and able to work. A goal can be both high and realistic; you are the only one who can decide just how high your goals should be.
5. Time Limit: Goals should set within a time-frame. With no set time there will be no sense of urgency. If you want to lose 10lbs weight, when do you want to lose it by? Someday will not work. However if you anchor it within a time-frame; by 1st of, then you’ve set your unconscious mind into motion to begin working on the goal.
The S.M.A.R.T. steps mentioned above are all well and good. However, without writing them down, they are worthless. Successful achievers always have their goals written down on paper.
Remember This Formula! Think! – Write – Act!
