Let's face it. It's hard to wake up in the morning to go to work. It's even harder to get up when you're sleeping on a king size bed in a posh hotel room that you're not paying for. Yes, business trips, though often exciting, can also be such a drag. The moment you land on some far off exotic place, you can't help thinking that you're on vacation. You find yourself relaxing - too relaxed to forget that you're there to negotiate an important business merger or to bring in a new investor.
A Common Scenario
After a day of pampering, a nice steak dinner, and maybe a drink or two from the hotel bar, a good night's sleep is in order. And when you're snugly nestled under a comfortable duvet, you might just want to stay in bed and sleep all day. A catty wake up call from the hotel desk staff will only put you in a worse mood ? definitely not ideal when you have that power meeting to go to. Indeed, you need to be brought out of your stupor gently and gradually but still forcibly enough to get you up and about for that important conference, a perfect job for travel alarm clocks.
Wake Up Like Clockwork
Companies should invest in travel alarm clocks. It's a foolproof way of ensuring that those extremely well-paid executives are actually doing their jobs and not snoozing under the bed covers. As the name suggests, travel alarm clocks are portable and can be carried in any luggage or briefcase conveniently, so you and your colleagues will not have the excuse of bulk to leave it at home.
Travel alarm clocks are fairly easy to use. It's not rocket science to operate one; so again, there's no excuse for you not to use it. You can choose from a wide array of alarm sounds, from an incessant beeping to a blaring horn. There are even travel alarm clocks that can play your favorite song or automatically tune in to a radio station, whatever language it may be. Indeed, with trusty travel alarm clocks, you'll never have an excuse to oversleep again.
Go Get ?Em, Tiger
Once your travel alarm clocks have done their job in getting you on your feet, it's time to do yours. After a pleasant night's sleep, a pleasant wake up call from your travel alarm clocks, and a pleasant bath or shower, indulge in a pleasant breakfast. After all, you're not likely to wow those investors on an empty stomach.
You're now well-rested. You've woken up on the right side of the bed. You've had a good breakfast buffet. You know your presentations and your speeches by heart. Now you can stride into that conference room with confidence and panache. Travel alarm clocks have done their job in getting you there on time. It's now up to you to make things go your way. That important merger or that big investment is within your grasp, and there's nothing standing on your way.
Read almost any book about sales and you’ll see some reference to, “you need to have a good attitude." So what does that mean? Sometimes my most effective selling is when I have a “bad attitude" -- when I’m more discerning and skeptical about whether a prospect has money or is willing to make the change. I get tougher then and force the prospect to fit into my procedure. So for the purpose of this article, I’d like to redefine attitude and not talk about it in terms of good or bad, but instead “what attitudes to have."
1. My value can be found nowhere else.
Most high-income sellers are in the business-to-business environment. And in that atmosphere, you must bring value with your knowledge, experience, and observations in a market. So even though you may sell the same type of solution that another company sells, your solution is enriched by you being in the process. High achievers understand that their products or services are better because of their expertise and wisdom. The elite high-income seller has the attitude of “my total solution brings value because the prospect won’t be able to find my value from anyone else."
2. If I want more, I contribute more.
The highest achievers realize something that the average performers don’t. If you want to earn more money, you have to contribute more value and solve more problems for your customer. We say in our training, “if you want to make more money, solve bigger problems." So when you work on your quarterly goals, stop working on what you can get out of the market and start working on what you can contribute to the market in terms of value and solutions to problems. Then, when you make a sales call or attend a sales prospect meeting, you won’t be a needy, begging sales person. You’ll be a contributor at a higher value.
3. There is a never-ending supply of client pain.
The elite sellers--the top one percent--know that even when a market is soft (no budgets) it doesn’t mean there’s no pain in the customer base. So the high achiever is always focused on the problems that he or she can solve and not focused on the budgets that aren’t there. Budgets follow beliefs. If the prospect believes he has a problem and believes it’s worth solving, budgets have a way of making an appearance.
4. My baggage doesn’t matter.
Let’s face the fact that we all have unwanted baggage. That little tinge of fear when we get ready to ask a question that we know we should ask, but some how it just doesn’t roll off our tongue. The average performer decides he will wait to ask the question later. The high sales performer doesn’t let his baggage get in the way of the right question to ask (or the right comment to make). In a sick sort of way, your baggage gets in the way of your customer getting his problem solved. You don’t want to have that on your mind when you go to bed tonight, do you?
5. I am hyper-discerning about my time.
It’s easy to say, “be discerning," but with all the distractions and demands on our time, it’s hard to execute that attitude. So what do high sales achievers do with their time? In the sales environment they create standards of conduct that they demand from the prospect. If on the first phone call, the prospect doesn’t want to share any of the problems they’re trying to fix then they have broken the first code of conduct and the high achieving sales executive should move on. If, on the first face-to-face meeting, the prospect refuses to tell how much money this problem costs them to have, then again, they’ve broken a rule of conduct. The sales executive must move on. Set your code of conduct on what you expect from prospects and don’t deviate. That makes it easier for you to ‘let go’ at the appropriate time.
Both Bradlley Mckoy & Bill Caskey are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Bradlley Mckoy has sinced written about articles on various topics from Education, Public Relations and Careers and Job Hunting. Need a gift for that corporate mover and shaker? Visit executivegiftshoppe.com for a wide selection of ,. Bradlley Mckoy's top article generates over 165000 views. to your Favourites.
Bill Caskey has sinced written about articles on various topics from Sales and Negotiation. During his 19+ years of experience as a leader, experimenter and coach for hundreds of B2B sales teams, Bill Caskey doesn’t blame prospects for how they treat most sales organizations – for not seeing their value, for treating them like servants, and for. Bill Caskey's top article generates over 4400 views. to your Favourites.