– Fridtjof Nansen (1861–1930)
Norwegian explorer
Nobel Prize winner

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Sales thoughts…

A couple bright sides to remember…

1. Those gatekeepers keeping you from your prospects… You’ll love them once you’re on the other side and your competition comes calling. (Just be sure you’re continually qualifying your prospects – investing your effort only with the best possibilities).
2. That deal you lose to a low-cost provider… Sometimes it can be more valuable in the long run. When the lowest priced product or service doesn’t meet the expectations of a customer, a deeper appreciation of the price/ value relationship is developed. This can create a new sales opportunity from what was initially lost – an opportunity for a much stronger business relationship than otherwise may have existed. (Make sure you keep your cool & kindness so you’re called if it happens.)

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Do you have your copy of "A Message to Garcia"? One of our favorites for inspiring initiative and responsibility (and required reading for Marine Corps recruits and at the Naval Academy). If you have young kids, we’ve also created a version for them (Rowan to the Rescue).
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If you’ve not seen it… Here’s Eric Thomas on Work (calls himself the Hip Hop Preacher – 5-minute video). It’s meant for students but it’s reminded me more than once to work hard and focus.

(Don’t understand the "Cross The Line" reference in today’s subject line? Learn more here.)

Connect with Sam (guy behind this stuff)…

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– Chinese proverb

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Sales truth…

You don’t know everything.

You do know that, don’t you?

Continual learning is a basic necessity to professional improvement and in many cases it’s other people who will help you get there.

But only if you’re coachable. Are you?

To be coachable means to be…

• Approachable
• Attentive
• Receptive
• Curious
• Objective
• Trusting
• Shapeable
• Confident

It means you listen with the intent to learn rather than to show what you know – exactly the type of listening required in the sales process. (listen > talk)

Get more insight and a quick 8-point check on your coachability.

Connect with Sam (guy behind this stuff)…

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– Carl Jung (1875–1961)
Swiss psychiatrist

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Sales thoughts…

Embrace the objections of your prospects and customers.

Right now and over the next several weeks, position in your mind the regular objections you hear as not only an inevitable step to bringing in more business, but also a positive step. Objections confirm a level of need or desire for your product or service and help you better determine the next steps you should take in a sales process. For the prospect, it’s your responses to the objections that help validate or support their buying decision.

This is the reason the responses to your top objections (those you and your team hear most often) must be planned and prepared with a professional’s level of attention.

The keys… Appreciate. Validate. Be direct.

Learn more and get 3 starter ideas for objection responses.
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One more thought…

Sometimes, if we don’t have success after repeated attempts to do something, we can lose confidence and eventually give up trying. It’s called "learned helplessness" (we learn to be helpless).

Sales check: Any areas where you and your team have stopped trying (or try, but with little commitment) because prior repeated failures and/ or a perceived inability to succeed has trained you not to try? In prospecting and customer contact efforts? In motivating and improving team attitudes and cooperation? With customer care improvement initiatives?

If so, what can you start doing today to minimize any "learned helplessness" that may have set in?

To see (6-minute video) an interesting take on the concept from a class at Penn State Erie and to learn a little more about the person behind it… click here.

Connect with Sam (guy behind this stuff)…

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– Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)
Austrian psychiatrist

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Sales inspiration…

Remember… We are The Economy. (That includes you.)

Recovery depends on the work we do today… regardless of difficulty, regardless of political belief, regardless of what the media says. It’s our work (your work) that will get us there.

The US Navy SEALS have a creed they live by in their work. A few of our favorite lines are…

• The lives of my teammates and the success of the mission depend on me… (individual accountability)
• If knocked down, I will get back up, every time. (resilience)
• In the worst of conditions, the legacy of my teammates steadies my resolve and silently guides my every deed. (purpose)
• By wearing the Trident I accept the responsibility of my chosen profession and way of life. It is a privilege that I must earn every day. (commitment… did you catch that word ‘privilege’?)

What if we all had a Trident for our work – something that says we truly accept the responsibility for our chosen profession – and we did it?

You up for it?

(the entire creed with a printable version)
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If you’ve not seen it or need a reminder, 1 minute from Nike… Excusing us not.

Connect with Sam (guy behind this stuff)…

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–Marie Curie (1867–1934)
Polish-born French physicist and chemist
two-time Nobel Prize winner

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Sales objections…

Embrace the objections of your prospects and customers.

Right now and over the next several weeks, position in your mind the regular objections you hear as not only an inevitable step to bringing in more business, but also a positive step. Objections confirm a level of need or desire for your product or service and help you better determine the next steps you should take in a sales process. For the prospect, it’s your responses to the objections that help validate or support their buying decision.

This is the reason the responses to your top objections (those you and your team hear most often) must be planned and prepared with a professional’s level of attention.

The keys… Appreciate. Validate. Be direct.

Learn more and get 3 starter ideas for objection responses.

–Golda Meir (1898–1978)
Russian-born former Prime Minister of Israel

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Sales inspiration…

What if…

John and Abigail Adams had been more concerned with themselves and work/life balance than creating a democracy (if you’ve not seen the HBO miniseries – great stuff)?

What if… Abraham Lincoln (born on 2/12… coincidence? maybe) had quit trying after having a business go under and losing his first local legislative race (and then 3 congressional races and 2 senatorial races)?

What if… Martin Luther King didn’t have a dream and played it safe (and didn’t travel over 6 million miles giving more than 2500 speeches). What if he thought he was too young to have an impact (he did everything he did in a life of only 39 years)?

What if… Gandhi, Teresa, Roosevelt, Ford, Disney, Walton, Gates, Winfrey, Jobs, Stewart, and Ash hadn’t stepped up and worked hard. (What if the thousands of people who supported them hadn’t?) What if your police, military, firefighters didn’t?

What if… No one pushed it, risked it, and pushed it again (and again)?

Be obligated to your world (your customers, your people). Be SalesTough.

(28 salesdays remain in the quarter. Get your 2011 printable SalesDays.)
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Think more and fear less… Be inspired with this favorite clip from the film Defending Your Life.

–Sam Parker (1965 – )
Co-founder of JustSell

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Sales challenge…

A simple challenge where everyone wins (you and those around you). No risk. No additional time required.

Within the next three weeks, set a 2-day period as your days (or your team’s days) to inspire others. Two days where you’ll put on blinders to anything negative and be the one in the office who everyone else can count on for words and actions that inspire and encourage. Two days where you’re the light for other people – your colleagues, your prospects, your customers – no matter what.

Allow nothing negative and focus only on your service to others.

Once you set your two days, fully commit to the effort regardless of the inevitable challenges, regardless of the weather (please, never the weather). Fall off the inspirational horse at 2:11 on the first day? Get back on at 2:12 – no excuses.

Remember, you wake with an option for your daily attitude. Challenges will come up regardless.

Choose positive. Spread it for two days.

Be SalesTough.

Not only will it be contagious… it might become a habit.

(Who could do it with you? Forward this idea to them.)
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WARNING: MOTHER’S DAY IS IN 48 HOURS (If you miss it, you could always shake things up and wish her a Polish Mother’s Day on the 26th or go Swedish on the 29th.)

–Mother Teresa (1910–1997)
Albanian missionary
Nobel Peace Prize winner

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Sales risk…

One thing that’s helpful to me when I catch myself shying away from taking a risk…

I remember that I’m not so important that a mistake or failure will likely have any lengthy impact or be that difficult to overcome with a little extra effort and time. (If you happen to be a head of state, a Supreme Court Justice, or a military general, maybe you need to be a little more careful. Of course, I’m fairly confident you’re not getting SalesQuotes.)
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resilience: noun: an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change (from Merriam-Webster)

We all fail from time-to-time (our doing, someone else’s doing, something else’s doing, a combination of each). It’s life.

To be resilient…

1. Focus on results. Embrace the fact that results are what we’re all really after. Effort and attempts are great first steps, but we need to act with commitment to delivering (just like we want people to do for us).
2. Make lessons of failures. Minimize the tendency to make a failure or mistake anything more than a lesson on how not to do something. We need to learn from our mistakes and truly accept them as tuition for succeeding later. And yes… Our mistakes might put us in a bind at times and have some uncomfortable consequences but again, that’s real life.
3. Continue on. Smarter.
4. Reinforce. Support each other (and ourselves) by continually reminding and encouraging one another to deliver on the first three points.

That’s it. Let’s practice it more.

(email this reminder or inspire someone with the resilience pocket card or wristband)

Outside the money hours (or on a well-earned break) Honda has 8 minutes on how failure is a part of success (on the track and in business).

–Florence Nightingale (1820–1910)
English pioneer of modern nursing

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Sales thought…

No one really cares. (NORC)

Prepare with that in mind and you’re more likely to create something wonderful… your opening statements, your responses to the standard objections you hear, the follow-up voicemail messages you leave, the email responses you send, the reasons you give for why someone should buy from you.

It’s not that your prospects and customers shouldn’t care (or never care). It’s about earning their attention.

Get some more insight on NORC and a printable reminder (to keep you from assuming someone will give you their attention).

–Cory Booker (1969 – )
American mayor of Newark, NJ

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Sales encouragement…

complainless: (adj.) 1. to be free of complaints 2. a pleasure to be around

Your words move others. Your words move you.

Let yours send everyone in the right direction.

Here’s how to be "ComplainLess"…

1. Be aware. Recognize your typical paths to complaining – what (who) sparks your tendency to gripe. Minimize your exposure to them (eliminating those ‘sparks’ altogether may not always be realistic or the best thing). Know that your grumbling is a complete waste of energy.
2. Be thankful. Regularly reflect on all the good in your life (people, opportunities, things). Understand and enjoy how lucky you really are. Be entitled to nothing.
3. Pause before you begin. Clip a complaint as you feel it coming. Put a smile or thoughtful statement in its path. Blame no one. Blame nothing.
4. Be accountable. Focus on solving problems rather than having them (especially with prospects and customers). Set the example for others and recommit when you slip. Care for yourself and create a positive habit.

Simple. More enjoyable for everyone. SalesTough.

Spread the message with the ComplainLess pocket cards or forward this email to someone with a "Let’s commit to being ComplainLess together."
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If you’ve not seen it, on a well-earned break, here’s a hilarious 4.5 minute video clip that speaks to the being "ComplainLess" (from comedian Louis CK on Late Night with Conan O’Brien from a couple years ago).

For a different twist on complaints, here’s 3 minutes from Monty Python’s classic sketch, Four Yorkshiremen.

**Today’s quote is from the 5-part documentary on Mayor Booker and his community’s (Newark, NJ) fight to reduce crime and poverty in their city. Good stuff. If you’ve got Netflix, it’s streaming or you can pick it up at Amazon too.