Yesterday I made some changes in the way I run my business. They’re not significant changes in many ways but in others they will make positive differences for my clients, my prospects and my readers. Hopefully, HUGE ones! There will be more tips, more strategies, more inspirational stories and more ways for you to read, listen, watch and get involved and get better results in your sales and in your life.

One of the things I am going to do more of this year is blog posting. I already do quite a lot some might say but it’s something that I enjoy and I know that it is one of the key ways that I add value for my clients and my prospects. As a motivational speaker, I have a lot of conversations on a daily basis to help individuals to improve their motivation, their focus, their sales and their businesses. Few of these ever see the light of day but yesterday I had a casual conversation with Rob Scott of Aaron Wallis and he posted our conversation. I thought I would do likewise.

GAVIN (TWEET): Welcome to 2012! Ignore doom-mongers & naysayers! Have dreams, set goals, take action.. make it a great one! Lots of great stuff coming this year… I have good feelings about 2012! You?!!

ROB: I always have good feelings – not much point in being any other way as there’s not a lot that little old me can do about the world’s finances!

GAVIN: I always have good feelings too however it is nice when they come to light! Personally, I think there is little wrong with the world’s finances that a dose of realism and hard work wouldn’t sort out!!

ROB: The FTSE is up 2% so far today – that’s 40% of the loss in 2011 gained in just one day – will this be in the news tonight? Probably not!

GAVIN: Agreed. We ought to spend more time being more positive and asking…

• What do we do well?
• What do others do well?
• What should we be doing well?
• How can we add massive value?

The whole of the West strikes me as bi-polar…. Manically depressive one day and manically up the next BUT at all times, with little handle on the reality of our situation. We need to make massive changes but we’re either crying and moaning about our lot or being extremely arrogant about being “right”.

Let’s start with positivity and hard work and then look for opportunities to add value… Oh, strange… that’s what I do… and you too!!

(ROB as editor) I just found this so true that I had to publish it – hope you enjoy it too!

So, there we are. Three little words that could change your, our, the whole world’s lot in 2012. But will they? How many people will maintain their positivity in the face of business and economic challenges? How many people will do the work necessary to create the opportunities they crave? And how many people will make and take chances to add huge value for their clients, their communities and their families and friends?

I can’t answer that question but I can tell you I will. You with me?

Related posts:

1. What Are Your Goals And Dreams For 2011
2. Take Stock, Take Charge & Take Action!
3. Why People Don’t Set Goals When They Know That They Should

I had an amazing day at the ISMM’s Successful Selling conference yesterday making several amazing video interviews (watch this space… you’re going to love them), meetings many interesting people and all culminating in a motivational sales keynote talk to 500 motivated and professional salespeople. What a great day!

Clearing my emails, catching up from a week away and planning for next week, I just received this into my inbox…

Just to confirm our shared opinion on the best days to call, I’ve just made an absolute gem of an appt. Friday afternoons are the best! Thanks for the course at RIBA last week its proving valuable. Four quality appts this week.

Now, what I actually said was that plenty of people don’t like making proactive calls on Friday afternoons because “nobody is in” but that I always find them productive…

But the main lesson from this is that if you plan for your calls, make them relevant, make them intelligent, make them about the individual that you are calling, make them professionally then you can get proven results. One of the videos I recorded yesterday is all about new business calls and it’s a chat between myself and one of the directors of a telemarketing agency. Watch this space as it is full of tips and strategies and you’re going to love it.

Related posts:

1. Should Cold Callers Ask, “How Are You Today?”
2. What The Mile High Agony Aunt Can’t Teach You About Cold Calling
3. Cold Calling For New Business

After closing a sales conference this week, one of the audience approached me to ask about a sales presentation that they had recently failed to win. They wanted to know what they could have done about it and how they could improve their chance of winning a similar pitch next time.

After asking a few questions it became patently clear that the reason why the sale had failed was that the salesperson had never been treated as an equal by the client and was never really in the running.

Many things had not gone perfectly…

• Prior to the sales presentation the client had refused to answer any questions from the sales team making the presentation.
• The client had only informed the presenters of the time and date of the presentation the day before.
• The presentation was at 9am in the morning 200 miles away from the office of the sales team.
• The client was running late on the day and kept them waiting for half an hour with only a scant apology.
• The client’s team who attended the presentation deliberately refused to make any polite chat, refused to engage like normal human beings, were overtly rude and refused to answer any questions.
• No feedback was given at the time of the presentation and no promise of timely feedback was given.
• The sales team had no idea who they were “competing” against nor the criteria by which they were being judged…

A particularly bad example and I could carry on but I am sure that you have had to deal with many similar situations.

Far too many clients think that the way to conduct sales meetings and presentations is to treat your potential business “partners” as dancing puppets where all they have to do is tweak the string and you do the jig. And far too many sales teams accept this course of affairs as just the way things are or the way that they have to be.

One of my friends works for a well-known organization who set up meeting after meeting for him to attend. At every one, by the time he attends, the client is looking down on him from a great height. It’s a totally one-way process. He performs, they yell to him from the stage wings, “Jump!” and he has little choice other than to scream back, “How high?!” Failure to do so would be unacceptable to his clients and unacceptable to his management team who are the very people who position the meetings so poorly in the first place. His management team think that this is how you do business.

Once you are out of position it is difficult to get back into position. Once you position yourself as less important that your prospects, it is unlikely you will repair the mismatch. Once you devalue your offering, you will struggle to create the value or the relationships that you want and need to build the relationships and the business that you want.

Far too many sales presentations are one-way affairs where sales teams effectively beg for business and prospective clients bestow their deity-like, benevolence on the lucky “winner”.

It doesn’t have to be and it shouldn’t be this way. If you want partnership relationships with clients who believe in you and appreciate the value that you add, if you want to be paid commensurate with the work you do, if you want sustainability, satisfaction and success then you have to get your positioning right and this has to be done right from the start of your relationship.

Getting yourself in position may sometimes prove challenging and it may not always be possible but equally getting out of position is not something that just happens, it is something that you allow to happen!

I talk about this in my sales masterclasses and even run one off seminars from time to time on positioning. It is that important. I even touch on it in my New Rules of Selling seminar which will be taking place in London in November… but you can start to do something about it today by focusing on a few simple things.

Here are 6 to get you started…

1. Define your clients. Who are they? Why do they work with you? How do you add value for them?
2. Position yourself as an expert. Create a brand and a name for yourself that attracts clients to you because of what you can do for them. Clients come to me because of what I do not because I am just another sales speaker.
3. Keep your engines running. Far too many salespeople take their feet off the gas when they have “enough” business and their sales activities career to a grinding halt. Lack of opportunities can create desperation and desperation makes it hard to not start playing the fiddle furiously whenever anyone instructs you to dance a jig.
4. Get familiar with the word, “No”… saying it and hearing it. If you are in the wrong place, with the wrong client or pursuing the wrong opportunity and you cannot do anything about it, “No” can be the most liberating, time saving and sales boosting option.
5. Build huge value. It’s easy for clients to treat salespeople as “all the same” if they are pretty much interchangeable. Whilst technology and transparency may have made products and approaches pretty much interchangeable, your expertise, your personal approach and the value that you deliver is not.
6. Be honest. Many sales and business people have long wooden noses when it comes to not admitting that they are dancing like puppets on a string. Without honesty about your current relationships and your current situation, how can you improve it?

Start now by having a think about the relationships you have, where they’re at, how you can add more value to them and what you need to do to be seen as more equal than your competitors in the future…

Related posts:

1. The Sales Apprentice 2009: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Week 12, The Final
2. Sales Prospecting Persistence On The Costa Blanca
3. Does Cold Calling Work, 2?

This morning I was on my way down to London on the train and I had the “pleasure” of travelling in rush hour into Central Leeds. It’s been a while since I have travelled in rush hour (something I try and avoid when attending motivational talks where possible!) and like many activities it was good for a bit of people watching! The train was already full when it pulled into my home town station with many people standing and commuters crowded into the seats. I struggled onto it with my laptop, kit bag and suit carrier and sought to find a place which didn’t leave me balancing the bags and with nothing to lean or hold onto.

After a couple of minutes, the train pulled out of the station and moved on to the next station and then the next where several people got off to switch trains for Bradford. As they did so one seat was left empty and maybe 30+ people were still standing. A man, aged about 30, whipped past everybody and sat down. He was, I would say, old enough to know better (?!!) but young enough to stand without coming to any harm. I looked around the carriage. Standing up were two women over 60, one man who was even older, one guy with a stick, a slightly pregnant woman and a whole host of other people… at least half female.

Now certainly, I was taught to stand for women, children and older people let alone pregnant women or people needing a stick to help them stand. And even if this is not de rigueur anymore, is it too much to expect a totally fit man not to use his speed, agility and bulk to force his way into a seat?

I think not. And this selfish, “it’s all about me” behaviour is not isolated to travel either! We see it in all walks of life…

Leaving political comment about greedy bankers, thieving rioters, corrupt politicians and people too idle to work out of it… let’s talk about shopping! When shopping, people mill about and get in each other’s way from time to time. Every trip, creates at least one situation where one person or another has to step out of the way to avoid a collision. I am pretty aware of my surroundings and people around me so it is not often me walking sideways, bumping into people or randomly stopping or changing direction!

Yet…

It’s always me saying, “I’m sorry,” even when it is clearly the other person’s fault. I can’t help it, it’s innate, its deep inside me. I just say it! I’ve tried not to but I cannot stop myself no matter how hard I try! (My Mum would be pleased). And yet, few other people murmur anything at all. I reckon less than 1 in 20… not that I’m counting or anything! It’s like, “Who are you? Get out of my way.”

So there I was, standing on the train, wondering whether I was wrong? Wondering whether offering my seat to someone else, holding a door for someone or showing politeness to someone was wrong? By refusing to ignore people, not wanting to slam doors in faces and by being unwilling to grab the last seat and play Angry Birds on my iPhone, does this make me sexist, ageist, out of touch?

Maybe you think it does? Maybe you think it doesn’t? Maybe you think I am wrong? Maybe you think I am right? I’m sure you will tell me but I think manners do matter. I think manners make society. I think manners show respect for others, respect for society and respect for yourself. Manners maketh man. And I am a man not an ape. And as a man, I care about others. I respect others. I am aware of others. I am aware of their existence and I value them. And I think that is important.

But I also think that manners stem from respect for and caring for others. And these are some of the things that make me a good speaker, a good salesperson, a good friend and good business partner.

If you want to be a good salesperson you need to care about others. If you want to be a good salesperson you need to respect others. Great salespeople respect their clients, their colleagues, their peers and their profession. For sure, you might be able to point at some money-grabbing, non-feeling, dinosaurus-rexus of a salesperson who chases their clients around biting huge chunks out of any they can catch but they are on the way out, they are soon to be extinct. Just like T-Rex.

It’s not all about sales skills. It’s not all about sales ability. It’s not all about sales training. It’s also not all about the company you work for or the product you sell. And it is most definitely not all about the market and the economy. Who you are and how you behave have a profound impact upon your client relationships, your sales conversations, your sales results and your life.

So on your way home tonight, think about it a little before you bump into the person next to you and say nothing, before you dive into the nearest seat without a thought for others, before you walk off leaving the door to swing into someone’s face. Not being aware of who lost out does not make them lose out and suffer any the less. And it does not make you a better person.

Me, I am going to continue to stand up and offer my seat, I am going to continue to hold doors and I am going to continue to say, “Sorry.”

Related posts:

1. The Sales Apprentice 2009: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Week 12, The Final
2. Check Out This Loser!
3. The Sales Apprentice 2011: Sales Training & Business Development Tips From The Hit TV Show, Week 8

I hope that you’re having a good week, speaking to lots of new clients and winning lots of new business. I want to start this blog post by asking you a question, “What do you think about cold calling?” Now by asking that, what I don’t mean is do you like being rung at home when you’re eating your dinner (tea for us Northerners) and someone trying to sell you timeshares? No, what I mean is, “Do you think cold calling works?”

Now I know that this is a very divisive question. It’s divisive for a whole variety of reasons. It’s divisive because everyone has so many opinions, ideas and beliefs about whether cold calling is coming, going, works, doesn’t work, is ethical, is unethical, is powerful, is a waste of time…

And not everyone can be right, can they?

Or can they? As a sales motivational speaker and sales author I get to work with salespeople of all flavours and I have clients from all industries from car sales to insurance sales, from park home sales to engineering sales, from pharmaceutical sales to financial sales and pretty much everything sales inbetween. And on my travels I see people who win lots and lots of new business by picking up the phone and making appointments with key new prospects and many, many people who fail miserably too.

And whilst I agree that cold calling is more relevant for some industries than others and more relevant for some products than others and it is most definitely not right in all situations, I have met salespeople from all walks of industry who use it effectively. I’ve also worked with them and seen the results.

You see, most of the time, it’s not the industry or the product, it’s the salesperson and the sales system that makes the difference.

Melody proved this on The Apprentice (UK) last night when she picked up a mobile in the back of a car in France (!) and set up 6 appointments. But could the others Apprentices repeat her success?

Nope.

What did she have that the others didn’t? How did she approach prospects that got results where others failed?

Why do some people in your office get great results on the phone and others get only mediocre results… or worse?

Sure, we could get into an argument about what a cold call is. We could debate whether your call should be called a cold call at all if you’ve done the right research and weaved it into your call effectively. We could discuss the percentage of your time you should spend on the phone versus utilising other methods of contacting or attracting new clients…

And that would be useful but it would not change the facts. Cold calling works when done right. And you may not want to do it. And you may not want to hear it but that’s the way it is.

Someone once asked me why I blogged and why I used Twitter and why I networked if cold calling was so effective? And that’s the problem here. People want to say something has replaced something else. It’s black and white. It’s either or. But it’s not…

My answer was simple. “I do what works. I do a combination of things designed to consistently bring me in business. I do the ones that work. As long as they work I use them. And when they don’t, I will change what I am doing or stop.”

I have a highly refined new business sales system based on sales mindset, structure and language. The call engages clients by focusing on them not you. If you’re interested, read some more of my blog posts on cold calling and selling in general or watch a video or two. Better still, why not come to one of my No Fear Cold Calling seminars? If you want to eliminate fear of cold calling, get the mindset for success, better engage with your clients, set up more appointments and win more new business then it is a must attend.

Related posts:

1. Why Cold Calling Doesn’t Work…
2. Does Cold Calling Work?
3. Cold Calling Sucks & It’s Only Going To Get Worse…