"Walk a Mile in my Shoes"

When I sold something or complaining about a product that isn’t working for me I want to feel like the salesperson cares about me. My likes and dislikes, for that matter anything that will make my experience special. I really find it tedious listening to a sales person who’s just going through the motions. More frustrating is the stance and facial expression that says “Well what do you want me to do”?

When the customer comes back to complain about a product or they are not happy with the service they had received is when the salesperson needs to get into action and give the best presentation possible. They must go out of their way to give the client a solution that will satisfy them and get them to purchase again. WOW the customer!!!

I was on holidays with my daughter in Sydney staying in a 4 ½ star hotel in the city. We had a beautiful room on the 25th floor. She wanted to make me a coffee as we had our own espresso machine in our room. How cool we thought until a huge cockroach came flying out the machine. Well did we scream? There was no way we were going to stay in that room that night. I phoned reception demanding another room. By the way this was at 9.30pm at night. Well, I got a very apathetic person at reception who found us to be an inconvenience. They did change our room after one hour.

Did they WOW us NO!!! Would I stay there again or recommend this hotel NO!!!

If they had just put themselves in our shoes and asked the question how would I feel in this situation? They would have come up with a solution that not only WOWED me but had me coming back again as guest and telling my friends.

Perfection is the Poison of Profitability

'Perfection is the Poison of Profitability' Jay Abraham

This is a phrase I have heard previously and resonates with me. I meet and chat to many sales people who don’t actually get enough time out there making money because they want for the conditions to be perfect.

The most successful sales people do not wait for perfection they get it out there and find the customers and make the sales.

They don't obsess about doing everything 100% right or the exact right time. They just talk to more customers each day and get more referrals.

In the same time it takes for other sales people to make one call, they have:

• They have made their first call out to see a client by 9.15am
• They have planned out their day and who they will visit
• Have a list of potential clients to call
• Sent out potential correspondence to clients
• experimented with a new sales script
• Know their conversion, budgets and exactly how much they need to achieve and how they will do it.

You get the idea...

They also understand the importance of building and maintaining relationships, the power of leverage to get all this done.

This is why 20% of the top sales people make 80 % of the sales.

CHANGE: Why Is It So Hard?

We have just moved into an apartment in the Docklands, I must admit not my first choice of area to live at. After 6 months of looking, we knew we needed to take the plunge and this fitted most of the criteria.

People’s reaction has been mixed. Comments range from why you would leave such a beautiful newly renovated home to move to an apartment; to I wish I could do that and then proceed to give every reason as to why they couldn’t. Even the taxi driver thought I was crazy and I would regret it. Many people admire our courage to do something different and make changes in our life.

Life is about making changes and having the courage to try something different. The great thing is you may not like it or it may not work, then you do something different. This is no different in sales, you may have done things the same way in the past if that worked that’s great but more importantly are you reaching your full potential. Could you be making more sales and earning more commission by making some changes and learning some new techniques.

Fear of the unknown is common as is the fear of failure. It’s okay not to be perfect and to make mistakes, learn from them and move on. It’s better to have taken the leap forward and made the mistake rather than to sit on the fence or choose to do nothing!

Let me know what changes you made this week?