Posts Tagged planning

Keep your eye the horizon

When times get tough I always find it helpful to keep my eye on the horizon and focus on where I’m going rather than focusing on all the bumps in the road along the way.

I’ve found that representatives who make a long-term commitment to their profession tend to focus on the positives and what they can do and not so much on the negatives and what they can’t do without figuring out some type of solution to their problem.

One of the biggest advantages to following this philosophy and deciding to make it through the tough times is that many other companies in the promotional field will not and when they give up, you’ll have the opportunity to earn new business from their client base and grow your business to new heights. Smart companies that are determined to weather the storm put themselves in a great position to prosper once things get better.

You have to realize that we work in a $19 billion industry, even if we lost half of our sales, there is still approximately $10 billion worth of promotional business to be had. The representatives who will succeed during these tough economic times are the ones who believe they can and demand the very best from themselves.
They’ll challenge themselves like they never have before and they take pride in the fact that they are able to survive the journey when most others couldn’t.

“Believe that you can, and you give yourself a chance;

think you can’t and you’ll probably be right.”

–Gallant

Value vs. Price

Don’t make the mistake of becoming a price-seller; in tough times, your clients will be looking for the very best value — not the cheapest products.

You need to remember that promotional products are used to represent your client’s organization and help them market their brand. If you sell them cheap promotional products to imprint their corporate images on, you’ll be doing them a major disservice.

Ask yourself this: What type of impression would it give your customers if you imprinted your name on a cheap product? What type of impression do you think your clients would have about you and your organization?

Your clients would be much better off by not making a promotional investment at all rather than giving away cheap promotional products that will give their clients the wrong impression about a brand.

Instead, I suggest that you recommend only quality promotional products, but then you have to go the extra mile by finding them the best possible value through taking advantage of specials, closeouts and weekly specials.

In addition, distributors who sell on price create another problem for themselves by developing a client base that is solely looking for the lowest price. This type of client is loyal to just one thing — PRICE. This holds true even if you come up with creative ideas, meet rush deadlines and supply them with superior service.

When a new company offers them a lower price, their loyalty will not be to you but only to the lowest possible price and you’ll end up losing their business.

Eventually, this leaves you with a client base that isn’t growing, doesn’t refer others to you and doesn’t place reorders.

Don’t make this rookie mistake just because times are tough. Seasoned salespeople realize that they serve their clients best by providing them with quality promotional products at the best possible value.

Believe me; they’ll appreciate it in the long run.

“Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.”

–Warren Buffett

Develop a Road Map

OK, so you’re committed to weathering this storm. Before you head off on your journey, I strongly suggest that you lay out a road map for yourself to help guide throughout your trip and help you map out the best possible route for your individual needs and wants.

It’s time to develop an MBO (management-by-objectives) plan for yourself and your company. Set out by outlining your 10-year goals. Make these goals dreamy and a bit of a stretch. A reporter at the opening of Epcot Center once asked Roy Disney what his brother might feel if he could have seen the site. Disney replied that it only came to exist because Walt had already seen it in his mind’s eye. Your 10-year goals should be somewhat like that; they are where you see your destiny.

Like a road map, you have to account for where you are today and where you want to be in the future. Once you establish that, it’s time to plan your route and choose your pit stops along the way — that’s where your five-year goals, yearly, monthly, weekly and daily goals come into play.

One of the biggest benefit in working an MBO system is that you get daily feedback on the job that you are doing and a chance to reward yourself for a job well done. In doing this, your self-confidence will snowball. Every day you’ll find yourself motivated and drawn to complete your goals so you can get that sense of accomplishment. Even on days you don’t feel like you’ve made progress, you can see that you did what you challenged yourself to do and that you’re on your way toward your destiny and moving closer and closer toward your long-term goals.

Reminder – Just remember to keep your eye on the horizon but pay attention to the daily details that need to be accomplished to get there.

“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.”

–Victor Frankl

Know your Clients better than Anyone Else

The only way that you can know your clients better than anyone else is by asking them lots of questions. You must have empathy for your clients, not sympathy. You should always look to put yourself into your client’s shoes. Get to know their real needs and how you can help them before you make a rock solid recommendation and start showing them how they’ll benefit personally from your solution.

You must:

1: Know more about your clients than any of your competitors.
2: Get closer to your clients than any of your competitors.
3: Emotionally connect with your clients better than any of your competitors.

And the best way that you can do that is through understanding. It’s been said that information is power and the more information you have about your clients real needs, the more empowered you will be as a sales representative.

When you know more about the customer than your competitors do, you have the distinct advantage of knowing how you can help your clients personally which starts the process of you getting closer to them than any of your competitors which begins the process of connecting to them emotionally.

Combining these three actions through asking quality questions gives you a great competitive advantage in the business world.

Nothing else can begin to touch this process in terms of enabling you to transcend commodity and defy comparison.

You must remove yourself from being a commodity salesperson, meaning with price, product, and service and transcend yourself into a valuable partner that offers benefit filled solutions for your clients. Asking questions and knowing your clients real needs is one of the most powerful ways to become a true partner. The type of promotional partner your clients will depend on for the long term. Then and only then will you be able to separate yourself from the trinket salespeople.

“For knowledge, too, is itself a power.”

–Sir Francis Bacon

Invest in Yourself and Your Business

Even when times are tough, you must invest in yourself and your business. One of the biggest mistakes you can make when times get tough is to stop investing in yourself and your business. And when you think that you can’t afford it, that’s exactly when you need too the most. You must realize that you’re in the promotional field and if you don’t believe that you can afford to promote yourself and your business, than how will you be able to convince others that they should?

I heard a sales story once where a sales manager of a housewares company went out to help one of her slumping sales rep’s by visiting him at his house to give him some sales guidance. One of the first things the manager did was to excuse herself to get a glass of water and in the process she noticed that her rep wasn’t using their product line. When she got back to the living room, she asked the rep why he wasn’t using his own product line and the rep said that he couldn’t afford them. He used just about every excuse in the book, “Times are bad”, “I’m not making sales”, “I can afford it”, “My old set works just fine”, etc…

Right then, the manager realized how she could help her rep out of his slump. Sell him a set of his own products! So she went about selling him on all the benefits he would receive personally by utilizing his own product line, she overcame ever hurdle that her rep gave her and ended up selling him a set of his our products. What’s the point? If you don’t believe that you can afford to invest in your own promotions then how will you be able to sell someone else on your solutions?

You have to have a rock solid belief that your solutions will deliver benefits to your clients. You have to know that promotional products are one of the very best marketing investments in tough times like these. They’re one of the only types of advertising vehicles that stick.

Hint – You must also remember that not everyone buys exactly like you and that you must understand peoples real needs and not just sell to people like you would sell yourself.

More importantly, especially in tough times, you MUST investment in improving yourself. Remember that sales are the life blood of any organizations and you’re in sales.

Be proud of that fact, especially if you’re a professional. Professionals constantly invest in their education and that’s why they are also some of the highest paid individuals in the working world. You must constantly look to improve and sharpen your sales skills. There really is no better investment than the one where you’re investing in improving yourself. If you’re saying to yourself that you just can’t afford it right now then that’s a clear sign that you can’t afford not to make the investment in yourself right now.

“The most expensive piece of real estate is the six inches between your right and left ear. It’s what you create in that area that determines your wealth. We are only really limited by our mind.”

–Dolf de Roos

Dan Levin

GallantGifts.com

Simply Sales Training

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