by Admin | Dec 14, 2014 | Business Relationships, Goal Setting and Achievement, Networking
What an amazing year! And like the one before, it seems to get faster and faster as we get older. One of the greatest benefits of aging is gaining wisdom through life experiences – both your own and others. As we reflect on 2014 and look through our experiences, I encourage you to think of who enriched your life this year. If your schedule is like mine, holiday parties, family activities, gift buying, wrapping up year end, etc all seem to take every spare moment until there is not a single moment to just be. I encourage you to really take a few moments, carve them out, and look back on who really added to 2014. I was reading a great article this weekend in the Huffington Post that talked about the 5 lists to make in reviewing your year. After reviewing their list (and enjoying the post tremendously) I thought I would share with you my own top 5 lists to make. And in the spirit of our tagline – SalezWORKS where relationships meet opportunity, I will talk with you about the top 5 lists of relationships to develop, nurture and grow in 2015. 1. Let’s start with your top new relationships in 2014 – this one is a pretty obvious place to begin. Take a look back at the people who have led you to great new clients, introduced you to new productive referral partnerships, enriched your knowledge base or has just proven to be a fabulous person to know. All of these are critical components belong in your center of influence. If you wish...
by Admin | Oct 20, 2014 | Networking, Referrals
With referral partners? Made you look, didn’t I? This topic of conversation has arisen this week even more than it usually does, which inspired me to write this post. We cultivate relationships with referral partners hoping to gain those quality introductions, not be one of 3 on a list that is emailed over with no added insight from referrer. Introductions are something many struggle with to obtain from referral partners. It makes the difference between a 10% chance of getting the deal to a nearly 90% with a highly influential referrer. We often run with ‘you can use my name when you call’ permission from the referrer just because we don’t want to push our luck. What does this have to do with monogamy? The question is, should you only have one referral partner in a given profession? Is it cheating to have more than one? Let’s consider a few factors…. When an introduction is made, risk is taken by the referrer opening a door to a valuable relationship that could be lost if you screw up. I think just about anyone who has been in business for a significant time has been present and accounted for at a train wreck and I know of a few that have even caused the death of a few companies. Much is at stake. Trust is key. Which necessitates open doors of communication with referral partners about exactly who is, and who is not, a great referral. When I ask ‘who is a great client for you?’ and the response is ‘anyone who has a business, job, pulse, etc’ I am immediately...
by Admin | Sep 29, 2014 | Goal Setting and Achievement, Prospecting, Sales
Eeek! I’ve got all these things I have to get done this week and I just don’t know where to start to make a dent! I am behind on my quota and not quite sure where to go or what to do to hit my numbers for the year/month/week. Sound familiar? Let’s talk prioritization… This is actually an area I find the most challenging. Typically we gravitate towards those activities we are the most comfortable doing and procrastinate on those we are less comfortable with. Most sales professionals have their favorite activities and these are those that get done consistently, I like many sales people, hate reports. I will procrastinate with the best of them to avoid filing out my own sales projections, invoice requests or following up with that billing issue. “The new phone book has arrived, I bet there are businesses I haven’t contacted yet, I have to get my prospecting calls in” is my mantra when it is time for bi-monthly billing. And then I have that Midwestern work ethic fulfillment from prospecting (my favorite activity). We all deal with this issue, just in different areas and some better than others. Let’s talk through developing your priorities for sales. Who has already engaged you? What have you sold that you are responsible for delivering on those commitments. Take care of those who are committed to you because of you. Remember your prospects bought because of your ability to prove to them you were the solution to their issues. Deliver. What have you committed to? Many sales people fail to follow through on their commitments. This is...
by Admin | Aug 5, 2014 | Business Relationships
I remember my dad’s advice at a young age – the best way to ensure mediocrity is to attempt to make everyone happy. It reminds me of a quote from Aristotle, “There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.” It seems as if you are taught early in your career, the customer is always right is rule #1. And rule # 2 is when the customer is wrong, read rule #1. That is instilled into us early and often in our career and in my humble opinion – it sets us up to be doormats. Miller Heiman talks about how our relationships with clients fit into one of 4 quadrants – win/win, win/lose, lose/win and lose/lose. We know we want to live in the first quadrant, but yet often set ourselves up for one of the others through expectations that are established. We then second guess or undermine our own position, try to anticipate what the other person wants and in general make life much harder than it has to be. Here are a few ideas I myself continue to work towards in win/win relationships. Know when I win. Whenever I am looking at an opportunity, I am thinking about what does a great outcome look like for me. This seems simple but often times we think of a superficial outcome without really looking deeper into the implications. Think of the really really big client that could represent a lot of revenue or income to you personally, but limits your ability to find any other accounts. You may end up losing in the...
by Admin | Jul 7, 2014 | Business Relationships, Networking, Social Media
It all started with the Super Bowl. In our household (males are well represented) the Super Bowl is the evening program that is not to be missed. This year, like many other folks, I found my entertainment in the commercials and conversations on Twitter. I have found Twitter to be a delightful way to keep up with content delivered by thought leaders across many industries and listen in on great conversations. One of the conversations I was enjoying regarding commercials was led by my Linked In hero – JD Gershbein. This blog post features how social media created one of the most exciting events I have been privileged to participate in and has opened the door to a fabulous relationship. There’s a lot to this experience and we will be sharing in several posts over the next few weeks along with lessons we learned along the way. My mentor on social media is my business partner, Joyce Layman. I have listened to many ideas she shares on making the most of Twitter. One of the basic tasks on Twitter that often gets missed is acknowledgement of mentions. It is one of the few platforms that you can stand out amongst a lot of noise and engage directly with some pretty cool people. During the Super Bowl JD shared a great article that I enjoyed enough to retweet to my followers (all 186 of them want to be my friend on Twitter? I need more friends). Of course JD immediately acknowledged my retweet (He is the most gracious gentleman you will ever meet) and I responded with a reply to...
