Last week I
bumped into and old colleague, Neal Murphy, one of the most top-flight
super-sales man and extra super-sales managers in the country. We immediately
got down to it and, as usual, started talking business.
Neal has been
a front line salesman and sales manager in insurance and health products as well
as running the countries leading call answer service ARMCHAIR ANSWERCALL, taking
1,000,000’s of calls for small and medium size enterprises (SME’s) and of
course IFA’s.
Neal’s secret is JUST DO IT. When I pushed him on this he told me what I already knew, because I have witnessed him in operation. He doesn’t allow himself to get bogged down with paper work, minutiae, and trivia. Every day he makes sure he get in the sales, the confrontation time: actually doing the one thing that counts: SALES. That gave me the whole idea of this weeks HOT TIP and it really is HOT!
Over the
coming months we’ll be discussing many sales angles in minute detail to get
you on the road to big money. Details and tips on closing, generating leads,
presentation, letter writing, rapport building, and referral gathering all in
great detail. But let’s stick with THIS WEEKS HOT TIP.
JUST DO
IT.
I am
privileged in the fact that I have the opportunity and pleasure to work with
lots of IFA’s, salesmen and consultants through my books, tapes and seminars
and course I get tremendous feedback all the time. I often get a birds-eye view
of what is happening in people’s offices and in the field, from many
individual perspectives.
It has become
very clear to me many sales people have lost their way. It’s not that they
have forgotten how to sell -
but that fact they HAVE to sell.
Many have allowed themselves to get completely bogged down with filing, diary keeping, admin, compliance, sweeping, cleaning, computer entries. Unfortunately these are not a salesman’s job but in many instances have now completely overwhelmed the salesman so that 90% of his time is spent on the forgoing and only 10% of effective time spent of selling. A RIDICULOUS STATE OF AFFAIRS! directly impinging on your earning potential.
There are a
number of words that spring to mind. AWARNESS, SELF DISCIPLINE, JUST DO IT!
AWARENESS:
Become aware that many of the greatest salesmen on earth have often started out
from a point of debt, poverty, illiteracy, little education, being born the
wrong side of the tracks, not too many other skills. Many got into sales because
that’s where one could make a lot of money by getting out there and selling a
product or service and keep repeating the same trick over and over again and
making more money. Successful salesmen are fully aware that if they do not spend
AT LEAST 90% of their time SELLING they will not be SUCCESSFUL!!!
SELF
DISCIPLINE: Successful salesmen who rise above
mediocrity do so because they focus on the future, create sales, creating
success making money. I mean LASER BEAM FOCUS. They refuse to get bogged down in
mediocrity or anything that impinges on confrontation time (ie the only time
that counts – time in front of clients)
They bite the bullet and either employ someone to do all the diary keeping, appointment making, filing, accounts and the HUNDREDS of other tasks that get in the way of confrontation time or they DISCIPLINE themselves to set aside time late at night or very early in the morning or a whole Sunday morning. What they will not do, under any circumstances, is start to carry out NON-PROFITABLE ADMIN during the course of the week. Build the business NOW clear up the mess LATER!
JUST DO IT: To analyse is to paralyse. Don’t give it too much thought. ACTION is the key word.
The sceptics
will say ‘Ron Holland just doesn’t realise how much paper work is
involved’ The truth is I do! More
than you know! And what I am saying is, so do successful salesmen, and as a
result of their own success they generate many more deals and income which in
turn generates even more compliance, admin and paper work. But they get the
PRIORITIES right and do the sales first.
So; clear the
decks whether you are ready or not, make the DECISION to get laser
beamed focused on sales and make the DECISION not to do
compliance, admin, paper work in sales time. (Which for your information is
usually 8am to 9pm Monday through Friday until you make your pile! AND throw in
a few Saturdays for good measure, just so there’s NO misunderstanding!) In
other words start behaving and getting into the mode that you were in when you
very first started getting involved in the SALES arena.
Once you have cleared the decks you will be amazed that the only thing left is to get on and meet people, crank up on the phone, send out letters, generate business and sales and confrontation time. As far as successful salesman goes these are the ONLY things that matter. Everything else is pants!
(in the meanwhile, registering at www.FindaPro.co.uk free of charge might help!