BEING MORE COMPETITIVE - DETERMINATION

First, I apologize for being late with this weeks offering. Today is my birthday and I took a few days off to go up to the foothills with my Mrs. and our two cats in the motorhome. Great time ! Great weather !

Second, I got as much feedback, questions, comments, etc about last week's perspective as I ever gotten from previous ones. So, as you can see, I've decided to elaborate a little more about this quality that a few people have, but others can acquire. Call it what you will, but it's determination, it's a competitive nature, it's motivation to analyze what you can do differently to find buyers, to close deals, and to build long term relationships.

Very few people who do sales for a living really get it. When I'm in a session with a group or with individuals and ask them to brainstorm / analyze what they could do differently to add to their success. The suggestions or ideas usually don't come fast and furiously, if at all. It's not stupidity and it's usually not laziness ( sometimes, maybe ). It's generally a combination of not seeing the value of putting forth the effort and needing some form of leadership or direction to understand what might possibly be done to add value to their existing product or service.

I don't care what you sell, there are numerous ways to compliment your efforts with new and different directions. There are different ways of presenting what you sell. There are different ways to add more value to what you sell ( and many don't cost much at all ). There are different ways of finding buyers - marketing yourself and your products. And there are unique ways that you haven't even considered for enhancing existing relationships plus finding / building new ones.

What holds certain salespeople back ? Fears. All kinds of fear. Fear of being wrong ! Fears of failing ! Fear of self -promotion - don't want to be perceived as being a pushy salesperson. Fear of public speaking ! Fear of doing something different ! And numerous other fears. And my standard comment to all of those fears - "DO YOU HAVE THE BUSINESS NOW " ? What's the worst that's going to happen ?

My last comment about this topic ( for this week ) ! How many of you know or remember the term "benchmarking" ? Tom Peters and many other guru's were preaching this method of improvement way back in the 80's & 90's. It means you find some one or some organization that has a level of successway beyond wherever you are now and ask them to share how they got to where they are. In the case of an aspiring salesperson, find a super successful salesperson in another market than yours and ask them to share what they do that might possibly affect your success ! For me, it was a commercial real estate broker who in 1985 was making close to a million dollars a year. He blew me away with his skills, organization, database, etc. and greatly affected my success.

Or you could get a sales coach !!!!

I didn't mention the economy today - I'm tired of talking about it. We need to find buyers !