Joe da Silva | Speaker | Trainer | Coach
~ If you are no better tomorrow than you were yesterday, then you've wasted today.
I had a very good friend recently tell me about an experience which made them rather uncomfortable and suspicious. It seems they were asking a certain individual about their business and what it entailed and all they got back were cryptic answers without revealing what and more importantly, why they should get together to discuss the opportunities. After persistent asking, it finally came out. It was a multi-level marketing business.
In today’s world of business, it has been decreed by many that in order to establish oneself as a learned professional in their field, that person must share a portion of that knowledge to the masses so they may actually decide for themselves whether or not they want to avail themselves of your products or service.
Once you have shared that knowledge, or provide an offer such as a consultation at no cost, it is out there and one must accept that fact. Once shared, one cannot complain that it is being used by someone else. You can hope they cite you, but unless it is trademarked or copywritten, anyone can do with it what they please.
Very recently during Challenge Night, where individuals bring their challenges to a session of The Action Suite and as a collective, we work on solutions for them, we do a Challenge Night quarterly and someone brought up the challenge of ‘cold calls.’
There is one thing that we must all come to grips with. This is regardless if you are a business owner or an employee. This one thing is that you are the face of the business that you represent and, like it or not, the persona that you put out into the public eye directly affects your business.
The more successful you are, the greater the external pressure to know more about you grows. When everyone now possesses the power to be a reporter via cell phones, then what you say and do is instantly broadcasted to a wide variety of people. Some of these may not be your clientele; however, some may be. That is why as a business owner/employee, you must take great care on how you want that persona to be perceived.
One of the foundational steps in any sales professional’s arsenal is that; people buy from those that they like, trust and remind them of themselves. Therefore, why does it seem to be impossible to build trust with our prospects and even clients?
It may not be something that you are necessarily doing, but there are some that are tainting the whole profession by doing some of the following. In other words: “One bad apple does spoil the whole bunch.” Make sure you are not one of those bad apples.
The challenge which most of us in sales have is that we make simple things hard. We take a look at a concept, or new idea and think: “It can’t be that simple, can it?” Not only is it that simple, but it is also easy. We further complicate the process by again saying to ourselves: “Let me see if I can actually find the way to do this.” Therefore, making it harder than it has to be.
