Written by Jerry Dean S on 27 May 2010
Have you ever had trouble getting a customer to take your call. This can be frustrating, no matter how many times you have left a message or sent emails, some times a customer won’t call you back. She may not like you or she could just be very busy, don’t be discouraged, this is part of sales.
I just worked with one of my reps that had this same problem, my recommendation was to send an email that acknowledged how busy she was and asked for another contact that we could work with, guess what 2 days later we got a call back.
This is just one trick, another of my favorites is to try calling first thing in the morning, not at 8:00 but at 7:45, or 5:15 in the afternoon. You will be amazed how often some one will pick up their phone even if they have an administrative assistant answer their phone during the day. I call this the “Spouse Syndrome”, at 15 min. after the normal work day ends, they are looking for a call from their spouse or one of the kids and will pick up the phone, even if they have caller ID, because they don’t want to miss a call from the family.
It may be guilt at not being on the way home or just eager to talk to someone non work related but regardless it works, give it a try next time you think you are on permanent ignore.
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Written by Jerry Dean S on 24 May 2010
Over the years I have hired a lot of people, in many cases I went through an extensive interview process over a period of weeks not days, with multiple managers evaluating the candidates. All of my best hires, the ones that fit in to the culture and were exceptional employees, I knew would be good in the first 15 minutes. Its when I don’t have a great feeling about any of the applicants that I take a longer time to evaluate them, in hopes that I missed something and am going to be able to discover a gem that will be a good hire, these are the ones that I am usually sorry about later.
So what does this tell you if you are looking for work, you only have a few minutes to capture the attention of the hiring manager so don’t wast time talking about things that don’t matter. Keep it to the benefits that you can bring to the business, you can ask questions about the job towards the end when they are trying to sell you on their company. Give examples of what you have done to solve a problem or improve a business that you have worked for.
As a hiring manager or business you should always be looking for those people that you know immediately are going to work if you want to have a team that is exceptional. Exceptional folks are not always available when you need them so you have to take them when you find them.
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Written by Jerry Dean S on 12 May 2010
I was on a flight to Denver today with 2 roadies for a rock band. I fly about 100K miles per year so am pretty used to the normal routine, today was not normal but it was a real study in people. These guys were part of the audio and video production crew, so defiantly not the headliners, but you could not tell that by the reactions of the flight attendants and other passengers. Watching the dynamics of people who think they are talking to a celebrity (or even some one that works with a celebrity) was pretty entertaining and got me to thinking about how your impression of the person you are talking to changes the way you act. After these guys droped some names like Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson, they were able to talk the flight attendant (who I am sure was a rocker chic 30 years ago) into bringing a third roadie up from the coach cabin to first class. Then several of the women passengers are flirting with these guys, both of them had at least 200 lbs on Brad Pitt, and the road crew was milking it for all it was worth.
What really struck me about the situation was how differently people act depending on what they think about the person they are talking to. Most of us have been a bit up tight or at a loss for words when talking to someone of importance to us. It takes a conscious effort to stay calm and remember that the important or famous person you are talking to was probably not that way always. Many of the people that we place on a pedestal started from humble beginnings, Oprah grew up very pour, J. K. Rowling was on welfare before writing the first Harry Potter book, Warren Buffet went from an average guy to one of the richest men in the world in his life time. If you would have met any of these people before they hit it big they would have been just like your neighbor or yourself. Inside people are still people, if you can remember that everyone is first a human being, with problems and desires just like you, and talk to them like you would your high school friend or the person in the next cubical, you will have a much better chance of building a relationship as a peer instead of a fan.
Most celebrates get to where they are by a lot of hard work, sacrifice, focus and a little bit of luck. In the end they are just people like you and I, they form an impression of you the same way that you do of them. How you present, and feel about yourself, has a lot to do with how others see you. Take advantage of human nature and dress and act the part you want to play to others. Not only will you feel better about yourself others will react differently to you. Don’t get me wrong, being fake will always show through in the long run, but if you feel like a million bucks and talk to people on their own level they are going to see it too. Good luck talking to that next CEO, and remember they really do “put their pants on just like you do, one leg at a time.”
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Written by Jerry Dean S on 09 May 2010
If you ask most business leaders if they value creativity they would tell you it is essential, but if you look at the culture of the company you would see a different story. Most businesses start, out of a burst of creativity, the idea for some new way to build something or solve a market problem is born and it is off to the races. Unfortunately the business often gets caught up in the rat race instead of the horse race.
Many things contribute to this, the original idea person wants others to do it the same way he envisioned it and tends to hire people that follow instructions very well. They add people to build or implement the product and discover that it is not getting done the way that they designed it, so they hire some more people to develop the processes or assembly lines. As they grow they continue to add people to train the workers and then others to check the work. All of this activity is designed to do it the way that the originator wanted, occasionally there will be an effort to improve quality, but this is really all about improving the process for making the end product.
Eventually the market begins to mature and competitors get into the game. There is always someone out there that thinks they can do the same thing for less money. The original company responds with some efficiency experts to improve the process and the downward spiral continues, turning it into a commodity business.
Since the business was built on doing the original idea more often and faster, people are paid for the highest output or the most compliance with specs. All of this has driven the creativity out of the business at a time when it is needed the most, as billions of workers are moving into the labor pool across the world. With all of this labor available it is no surprise that over time the cost of the product will go down and in fact the quality usually goes up.
Without creativity every business is set up to follow this path, creativity is required for long term success, to innovate new products not just improve the process for making things. For some reason very few companies walk the talk, encouraging and nurturing creativity into their culture.
If you want a job that makes you one more cog in the well oiled machine, by all means look for one of these busineses, they will likely feed you and your family and can provide a good living. If on the other had you want to use your creativity to help make something unique, and to build your skills for your own future, look for a company that really values creativity. If you don’t surround yourself with creative people that have an opportunity to exercise it you will not develop your own. Like so many other things in life, if you don’t use it you loose it.
I personally have much more fun when in the middle of solving a problem or innovating a new product, but until recently I did not realize what it was that made me the most fulfilled, its using my right brain, and developing my creative side.
Posted in Sales | 1 Comment »
Written by Jerry Dean S on 26 April 2010
I was recently asked a question from a young lady that I meet in an airport cafe; she had been having a conversation with a man at another table about her career choices when she graduated from college in 9 months. I got up to catch my flight and suggested that she look into sales. She had just carried on an intelligent conversation with a complete stranger for 20 min, she had the basic skills to be a great sales person, she could talk and was likable.
I left her my business card and did not really expect any contact but about a week later she did follow up and we set up a phone call to discuses her future and explore further the idea of a sales career. After several months of exploring she sent me an email with the classic question, “How do you gain any experience when no one will hire you?”
This is a common problem, how do you get any experience at something when no one will hire you in the first place. I will say that I think this is very short sighted on the part of employers. I have hired many people over the last 20+ years and have developed a bit of a bias towards, lets say the inexperienced. In sales in particular, many folks that have been at it for a long time carry too much baggage from their past, they become set in their ways and don’t want to work as hard as those that are just getting into it. There are many exceptions but I am certainly not afraid of hiring people with the basic skills, giving them some targeted training and letting them run, they have been some of my most successful sales reps.
Sales is a business where those that have high energy will do better that those that don’t, you need to be able to get knocked down, get back up, look for a slightly different angle and run at your objective again. Energy, persistence, enthusiasm, or just plain stubbornness, you can call it what ever you want but it is essential in sales. You can’t take it personal when someone says no, you may have to reform the question before you ask it again but as long as they don’t say HELL NO and show you the door, you should just assume that you have not communicated the benefits of your product yet.
My point is that when you find the job that you really want you should ignore the experience requirement and go for it, this will be your first sale, and you will be selling yourself. This doesn’t mean that it will be easy, tossing your resume over the corporate fence and expecting it to find the top of the stack will not get you the interview. You will need to pursue the job, in fact you may have to pursue many of them to get one that fits your needs. (More on this later)
She also asked what you can do to prepare yourself, I believe that she had the basic skills needed, she was able to talk to people and was likable, you also have to be persistent and follow up, again she had already demonstrated that. In the end customers buy from people that they trust and like. Of course you can still learn things about the sales process, that will prepare you for a job in sales.
I will work on some books for you to read that I think will help you out, the first one that comes to mind is called “Red Hot Cold Call Selling”, you can get it on Amazon or pick it up at Barnes and Noble. This is a basic book on how to make a cold call and the importance of filling your sales funnel with opportunities by calling customers over and over, again and again. This is also something that most sales people do not like to do, so those that learn how to do it and get very comfortable with it have much more success. After you read this book, come on back and leave some comments, in the mean time I will work on some more recommended reading.
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