ARE YOU A DIFFERENTIATER ?

Don't laugh ! What the H*** is a DIFFERENTIATER ? That is someone who is very good at separating themselves from everyone else they compete against ! Do you want customers and potential customers to view you as the typical salesperson ? You basically do the same thing as all of your competitors do. So what happens ? Price becomes the major consideration and / or they see no reason to change their buying direction.

Please keep in mind that the ability to differentiate yourself is available in multiple directions. And you may have more influence in one direction than the other. What do I mean ? Well, take a look at your product - you know what you sell that the customers utilizes - it could be a service - a product - or both. Differentiating your product or service may involve many more people and obstacles then you could ever imagine but you could be the stimulus for that effort and thereby make yourself more sales revenue, etc.

The second area of differentiation allows you a lot more control and input - even though there may be some approvals required. It is basically built around how you sell and market yourself along with your product / service. In otherwords, how do you make connections and endear yourself to customers and potential customers. Believe it or not - here is an area where most sales professional fall short. My standard line has always been "it so easy to soar like an eagle because you are surrounded by a bunch of turkeys" ! Heaven forbid that I would demean the competition - never to the customer !

What we are alluding to is how you market yourself. How do you engage contacts ? How do you make and build relationships. What is unique about how you do what you need to do ? As a potential customer - how would I learn about you and what you sell ? Where would I meet you ? What kind of an approach would you take to peek my interest ? And on ! And on !

Differentiation is a vast area of awareness and I have seen up to three day seminars about the subject. Why ? Because it requires a great deal of effort and research to learn what you could do differently. It requires intensive analysis of your marketplace, your competitors, and the needs of potential customers. It also requires a professional salesperson who is innovative, intense ( competitively speaking ), and someone willing to try being different in their approach and their relationship building skills.

What can you do ? Call me - let's discuss it ( free ).

PERSONAL TIME MANAGEMENT - HOW ARE YOU DOING ?

Are you a good time manager ? It's obviously one of the key issues within a professional salesperson's career. And most of us struggle with it on a daily basis; if not minute by minute. As you well know there are a million resources to educate you and make you aware of some possible directions for improvement; and some of them are very good. I encourage you to periodically visit some form of time management influence and recognize that there may be some things for you to differently that could affect your productivity and thereby your success.

Here's my tip and what I try to do to influence my own issues with time management. ( it's not original with me or is it earth shaking but it works )

DEFINE YOUR PRIORITIES AND FOCUS ON THEM ! Let your priorities drive your direction and focus. What are your priorities ? List all of the things that you do, all of the things you should do, and all of the things that are required for you to do. Once you have compiled that list; then go through the list and put them in order of how essential they are to your success. A simple example would be that your manager requires your sales report on his/her desk by 10 AM Monday. How important is that to you ? To your Manager ? To your continued employment ? I'm assuming it's pretty important and so it better get a pretty high mark on the priority list. That's easy.

What about calls to existing customers, new customers, follow up calls to last week's appointments, and on and on and on ! So, you should have a pretty lengthy list - right. Now out of all of those, which are the most likely to contribute to your future success ? Aye there's the rub ! The ones that are most likely to affect your future success are not necessarily the ones that receive the priority status and attention needed. We all manage our time and most of us don't screw around that much and so we see ourselves as pretty good time managers - we are always busy !

But are we focusing on the items / tasks / challenges that should be the "focus" of our time management. Or are we deferring to other tasks that we enjoy doing more, find less uncomfortable, and give us a better feeling of accomplishment ? That's for you to decide. Unless I am your sales coach and I will assist in pointing out where the "FOCUS" of your time management needs to be discussed and contemplated !

Think about your PRIORITIES and your FOCUS !