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Lessons from 40 Years in Sales: 20 Ideas That Will Increase Your Sales

My first sales experience was courtesy of Jerry Lewis and his kids. Mr. Lewis held a telethon for muscular dystrophy every year, and a local television show for kids, Brakeman Bill, asked children to conduct carnivals to raise money for this worthy cause. I sent away for the kit, followed the instructions, and sold the neighborhood kids on coming to my carnival. I raised $11.32 and mailed it in. This experience changed my life; it was the beginning of my life in sales. After 40 years of selling, I decided it’s time to capture some of the lessons I have learned and share them. I hope that you find some ideas to assist you in navigating through challenging times. As a student of history, I will tell you there have ALWAYS been challenging times. Tough times can bring out the very best qualities in us. It’s what built this great

country: It’s not what happens, it’s how we respond! Resolve to improve in 2008! Choose and apply five of the ideas outlined below one at a time, test them, and then track your results. Results are the name of the game!

1. See More People! If you make two calls a week to reach your goals, go see five people! Sales are about activity first, attitude second. In the teeth of the Great Depression, IBM’s Tom Watson, Sr. told his well-trained salespeople “Double your failure rate!” Go to my Web site, www.mattesonavenue.com, and download the “Sales Call Calculator.” It’s free, so plug in your numbers and get to work!

2. Hand Out Five Business Cards a Day! Do you carry your business cards

with you at all times? In my seminars I have attendees stand, reach in their purse or wallet, pull out their card, and exchange it with another attendee. This makes some people uncomfortable, but it’s supposed to! I give away my award winning “window cards” with inspiring quotes on each one every day. This is something I learned from the late Bob Moawad. I give away copies of my best selling book, Freedom from Fear, something I learned from Charlie “Tremendous” Jones. He has sold two million copies of his book, Life is

Tremendous. Remember Johnny Appleseed? What can you give away?

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3. Smile More! Your prospects buy you! How is your attitude? Is it positive? Are you the kind of person others want to be around? It takes 13 facial muscles to smile and 47 muscles to frown! Evidently some folks don’t mind the extra work.

4. Develop a Hearty Handshake! Limp fish or hearty handshake? You have

one chance to make a positive first impression. Are you glad to meet a future

client? Is a future client glad to meet you?

5. A.S.K. = Ask, Seek, Knock! In the Sermon on the Mount, Mathew 7:7-8, the carpenter from Galilee said, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you

will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks,

receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door

will be opened.” So ASK for the sale, will ya’? Unassertive salespeople have skinny kids!

6. REFERALS, REFERALS, REFERALS! If you have done a good job, you

have earned the right to ask for more business. Ask existing customers for more of their business. Ask past customers for the opportunity to work with them again. At least once a year, go back and ask everyone who was delighted

with your work for two names. If you ask 100 people, 80 percent of them will give you two names. That is 160 new suspects in your funnel, and of the 160, you should have the opportunity to hold serious discussions with 80 prospects. From the list of 80 prospects, you should have 40 proposals. If you are any of kind of salesperson, the list of 40 proposals should produce 20 new clients. If you average $5,000 a year from your products or services, and multiply it by 20 new clients, you will have $100,000 a year in new business. Oh, and guess what? These numbers are conservative estimates; your numbers could be twice this!

7. Attend Annual Gatherings in Your Industry! The last time I attended an

industry gathering where I WASN’T one of the presenters, I sat inside a Starbucks across the street from the exhibition center, working on my laptop

from 6:00 AM to 10:30 AM, I bumped into ten people I knew, eight of whom gave me their cards, and six of whom hired me to speak the next year! I was there for only one day, but that night my funnel was full again.

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8. Read Great Sales Books! Invest 28 minutes of every morning in a classic

sales book. Twenty-eight minutes is two percent of 24 hours, the same number of minutes as one bad television sitcom! Do this for 90 days and you will have 50 new ideas that you didn’t have before you engaged in this simple discipline. The first time I made this investment in study, my close ratio jumped from 50 percent to 75 percent! If your close ratio is currently 20

percent, what would happen if it jumped to 40 percent? Calculate what the difference means for you in terms of increased commissions. If you are a sales manager, what would it mean for your organization if your sales team increased their sales by 20 percent? Hmm…For a solid list of books to read, go to my Web site, click on the READING tab, and start building your intellectual capital. The results will astonish you!

9. Go Back to Existing Customers with New Offerings! Innovate! Develop

something new that your customers really need. Read Acres of Diamonds by Russell Conwell. Your existing customers are a goldmine of new business. The TRUST, RELATIONSHIP, and COMPETENCE already exist. It’s a warm call.

10. Be Nice! Nice guys and nice gals finish first! Read the book by Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval, The Power of Nice: How to Conquer the Business

World with Kindness. This remarkable little book proves the point NICELY! Do what they suggest!

11. Give to Get! What can you give to your clients and prospects? Articles on

subjects THEY are interested in? E-Books that would help their business? Novels they want to read that teach life lessons? Ideas, stories, and best practices of leaders in their industry? Ask and answer: What can I give to them without any expectation of return? Give and forget. Give some more and keep giving. The law of compensation will balance the scales. Often the return comes from unexpected sources, but it always comes. Dan Holohan recently wrote an article sharing 50 great Web sites. Send me an email and I

will forward it to you, or go to Dan’s website, www.heatinghelp.com.

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12. Start Writing! Become an expert in your industry and start writing articles

for trade magazines in your field. I promise you, there are least two magazine editors in your industry who are screaming for copy from leaders who are succeeding in the field. I know, because I have written for over 12 different magazines and six e-zines other than my own. I can hear the objection, “I can’t write!” Hey, I failed high school English, but I simply wrote something

every day! Then I surrounded myself with really smart people who know how to edit copy. Copyeditors are professionals; most of them hold post-secondary degrees, as well as editing certifications, and many of them are also published writers. While their fees reflect their professional status, the service they provide is worth the investment. They can make you look really good on paper and reinforce your image as a professional by ensuring that your writing is polished and error-free. You can locate a good copyeditor from several reputable firms’ Web sites: the Creative Group, www.creativegroup.com; Elance, www.elance.com; McMurry, www.mcmurry.com; and o-Desk, www.odesk.com, to name only a few. Remember, even Stephen King has editors!

13. Start Building Your “Invitation” Marketing E-mail Database! Four years

ago, I had 50 subscribers to my e-zine and now my list is up to almost 4,000. Clients, prospects, friends, and relatives receive my free e-zine once a month. I briefly mention it when I present, providing a sample of it in my handouts and sending it around on a clipboard. Viral marketing or “sneezing” means that my clients forward the e-zine to their co-workers and friends. I offer a free e-book and special report as incentives for signing up, and it all started by writing something every day. Before you know it, you have a cost-effective electronic marketing machine that drives people to your website, and ultimately prospects and clients contact you for new business. It’s a very different dynamic when prospects contact you, the difference between invitation marketing and disruption marketing. To sign up from my FREE monthly e-zine, or to read articles archived over the last four years, go to www.mattesonavenue.com and sign up. I invite you.

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14. Borrow Boldly from the Best! You don’t have to reinvent the wheel: Find

out who the top five salespeople are in your company or industry, and call them up. Send them an email. Take them to lunch. Ask them the following questions:

• Why are you so successful?

• If you were just starting out, what would you do differently? • What is the most important thing you have learned about succeeding in

sales? • What books should I read? • What seminars should I attend?

Afterward, send them a gift, a book or gift card, with a thank-you note. Stay in touch. Make certain THEY receive something from the exchange. These are very busy men and women, so adjust your schedule around theirs. Perhaps only half of the people on your list will actually meet with you. You might need to start with a list of ten people to secure five lunches or an hour of someone’s time.

15. Increase Your Belief in Your Products or Services! Practice what you preach and believe in what you sell! If you sell service agreements, sell one to yourself. If you sell insurance, double your own policy amount! Sales are a transfer of belief. Have integrity. I can tell you to read a book a month because I read five or more a month. It has changed my life.

16. Learn to Actively Listen (Hey! Listen up!) It’s not just the words; it’s the

intention behind the words. It’s the emotion you see and hear in the extra-verbal aspects of another person’s message (tone, pace, volume, intensity). Listen for sadness, fear, sorrow, frustration, anger, or pain. When you hear it, say it: You are frustrated by increased repair costs. Morale is at an all time

low and turnover has never been higher. It’s costing you a fortune and you

would be delighted if you could cut it in half! You will see a positive change

in a prospect’s body language, tone of voice on the telephone, and the e-mail that he or she sends. Listen, Pause, Question, and Paraphrase. LPQP. It’s magic.

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17. Find Industry Mentors! Make a list of five people in your industry in

another state who have done what you want to do and have been where you want to go. Call them up, send them an email, or write them a letter. Ask, and then ask again in a different way. Volunteer your time to serve them. Attend the seminars they attend. Read the books they read. Subscribe to the e-zines they read. Ask them if they belong to a mentoring program and sign up. I have

personally done each one of these and some of my mentors have become lifelong friends. Respect their time. Don’t assume they will drop everything to help you. How can you help them first?

18. Keep a Journal and Do an Autopsy After Every Call! In 1992, I began

tracking what I had learned from every call. Sixteen years later, I still do it. Ask and answer on paper: What went well on this call? What could I improve? List as many things as you can think of. After every presentation, I draw a line down the center of a page in my journal and list positive and negative things I did. Capture them while your memories are fresh.

19. Disqualify up Front! One of the greatest things any salesperson can say is, It

sounds like you are happy with who you are using! When the prospect replies,

Yes, that’s true, the next words out of your mouth should be, You probably

wouldn’t switch no matter what I said or did? The prospect will say, Yep!

What you say next is vital: I don’t mind being number two OR It sounds like a

timing issue. Do you mind if we talk again in six months? Your prospect will experience a huge sigh of relief and his or her countenance will change. In an e-mail, you will see bolded font and/or lots of exclamation points!

20. Ask the Hard Questions! I am amazed when I go on calls with salespeople

how few will actually ask the hard questions. In fact, 75 percent of new salespeople will leave the first call without asking the following questions prior to a tremendous amount of legwork, research, and proposal creation:

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• Do you have a budget? High? Low? • Whose project is this? • Who is accountable for the results of this project? • Who ultimately will authorize this idea/agreement/project? • What is the timeline for this project, the drop-dead date? • What if you did nothing?

• Why us? • Why now? • Why in this manner? • How will we know we succeeded? If we tripped over the results, what

would they look like? • What keeps you up at night? • What is the next step?

If you received value from these 20 ideas, send them to a friend or co-worker. Better yet, forward them to your sales manager and conduct a “Lunch and Learn” session to discuss them. Find a way to incorporate at least five of these ideas into your business or sales disciplines. If you have anything to add, send ME some ideas. Of course, you can always call me and book some time, bringing me on site to teach

these ideas to your sales team or to conduct a tele-seminar. Let’s keep building the list. I need to send Jerry Lewis a thank-you note. He changed my life…I wonder what the next 40 years will teach me? *******************************************************************

Book to Read Clapton: The Autobiography by Eric Clapton This is one of the most honest autobiographies I have ever read. He is genuine, authentic, and generous. He survived tragedy, multiple addictions, divorce, and the premature death of a loved one. And Slowhand is still playing. *******************************************************************

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Food for Thought I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I am going to be, But I am thankful that I am much better than I used to be!

—Anonymous Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When you don’t know what harbor

you’re aiming for, no wind is the right wind. —Seneca, Roman philosopher and statesman

No written word nor spoken plea, Can teach our youth what they should be. Nor all the books on all the shelves, It’s what the teachers are themselves.

—John Wooden, legendary UCLA basketball coach What we need is not a tension-free life, but an exciting and compelling goal to move

us toward the future with positive expectancy!

—Victor Frankl, death camp survivor, author, and lecturer *******************************************************************

My Life in Five Verses

1. I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. I am hopeless but it isn’t my fault. It takes forever to climb out.

2. I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I

don’t see it. I fall in again. I can’t believe I am in the same place. But it isn’t my fault. It still takes me a long time to climb out.

3. I walk down the same street. There is deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it there.

I fall in again! It’s a habit. My eyes are wide open. I know where I am. It’s my fault! I climb out immediately.

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4. I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it. I walk around it. I smile.

5. I walk down another street.

The moral? Today, I make NEW Mistakes! I love to learn, grow, and evolve.

Life is so good.

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Song to Listen To

I am having a love affair with my iPod. I read a book about it some time back that raised my awareness about the features of this amazing little phenomenon. The WOW is the “Shuffle” feature. I discovered a song that had been downloaded on a visit to a client (THANKS, DAVID!) Now mind you, I am not a big country and western music fan, as many of you know. However, the lyrics of the song hit me like a two-by-four across the forehead. They are poignant and thought provoking. Now this particular singer has crossed over to the mainstream with songs like this, along with his portrayal of an abusive alcoholic father in the movie Friday Night Lights. Tim McGraw’s “Live Like You Were Dyin” is worth a listen. Hey, you can even

download the ringtone on your cell phone!?! Okay, that is where I draw the line. What do you have on your iPod? *******************************************************************

Some Thoughts about Managing the Rapids of Change:

• Transformation of corporate culture presents some unique challenges and there is a specific process in order to successfully navigate them.

• Knowledge = Tactfully Raising the Awareness of the Team

• Attitude = Defining and Demonstrating Positive Attitudes

• Behavior = Rewarding the Habits You Want Repeated and Modeling that

Behavior from the Top Down

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• Reinforcement = Sustaining the Momentum Creatively and with Active Participation and Involvement

• Repeating = All Meaningful and Lasting Change Starts First on the Inside and

Works Its Way Out

Some Additional Ideas to Remember About Change:

• People will feel awkward and ill at ease about change. – Strategy? Just knowing this helps: It’s okay because we all feel this way.

• People will feel alone, even though everyone is going through it. – Strategy?

Support, Listen, Coach, Empathize, Paraphrase Emotions

• People will automatically think about why they might or must give up. – Strategy? Allow them grieve, and then discuss what to add, improve, or innovate.

• People can handle only so much change. – Strategy? Keep it simple; choose

ONE THING to focus on at a time.

• People believe they don’t have enough resources, skills, time, etc. – Strategy? Get creative with resources and solutions. Process improvements with the team involved in creating solutions.

• People are at different levels of readiness for change. – Strategy? Be patient, praise and affirm progress, train and retrain, reward and reinforce and repeat.

• People will revert to old behaviors if you shift your focus from cultural

transformation. – Strategy? Be persistent and stay the course until you see the desired behaviors become habit.

• One last thought: Spend more time with people who deserve it and have

demonstrated the behaviors you want to see, but show those who are not changing how to deserve your time.

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Lifetime Leadership Lessons

One of my lifetime goals is to see the Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Georgia. I am in the process of planning a trip with two high school basketball teammates to realize my goal. The trip will begin with a visit to the 2009 NCAA Men’s Final Four basketball tournament in Detroit, Michigan. From there, we’re off to sunny Georgia. I hope that we can pull it off. I reviewed some old journals recently while in Lake Chelan, Washington. I came across some quotes from a story sent to me by a client and good friend. (Thanks, RICK!). The story was a profile of one of his mentors who had passed away. It was a fascinating story of a man who invested in a television station during the

medium’s Golden Era. He was a very successful businessman on every level. He spent the last few years of his life making speeches and giving away money. Here are some his leadership lessons, taken from a speech given to the Atlanta Rotary Club, March 9, 1987:

! The more I give, the more I have.

! It’s not what you pay for a deal, it’s how you structure it.

! I have learned that no one has a second chance to make a first impression.

! When I am doing the talking I am not doing the learning.

! Opportunity is always temporary; it is always seized or lost.

! I developed a theory that it is always cheaper to buy a business than to start one.

! Channel Six really began in my mind in 1939 at the World’s Fair. I saw

television and knew that was what I had to have. I had to be a part of it. I learned everything I could possibly learn about it.

! A temporary tolerance of mediocre performance leads to a permanent

acceptance of poor performance.

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! Popularity is often an accident. Riches can vanish in a day. The wealthy make their living from their money, but they make their mark by what they give and what they share.

! Reading is the most efficient way to keep up with the amount of knowledge

needed to be successful. Fortunately, I learned to speed read from a high school teacher. I recommend it to you. Nothing has been of more value to me

in trying to satisfy my curiosity about all there is to know.

! Miss Glenn got me interested in dramatics and debating in high school. It’s not one my best talents, but I can get up before ten people or ten thousand without increasing my heart rate. That ability served me especially well during the ten years I spent in the political arena.

! In high school you learn how to learn more. In college, you have to learn how

to think.

! If you want to be a leader, the simplest way to be a leader is to copy what great leaders do. Most people would rather play followers than play leaders.

! My own definition of success is doing the best you possibly can that day.

! Successful people are successful because they take the time out to THINK. Maybe you do your most important thinking in the shower, on the golf course, or somewhere else. Most of the important planning and thinking in my career was done lying flat on my back in bed. Simply taking the time every day to do some serious thinking is the most profitable habit you become addicted to.

! The largest deals I have ever made were made on a yellow scratch pad.

! OPM= Other People’s Money. OPB= Other People’s Brains. If you learn how

to borrow other people’s money and develop a good credit reputation, you get OPM to work for you. Other people’s brains are even more important.

! Marketing has been my thing all my life. Nothing happens without somebody

selling or marketing something.

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! Small things make big impressions. When I was 13 years old, I sent away for a program that taught Morse code and a booklet, How to be an Amateur Radio

Operator for twenty-five cents. That was the greatest investment of my life. It set the direction of my life.

! There is no more a successful person than one who becomes a good teacher

and is dedicated to conveying knowledge to others. Certainly, there is no

greater success than a woman who becomes a mother and rears respectable children.

! A higher return on effort comes from making good companies better rather

than trying to turn around the losers.

! I have learned that when people know the results of their efforts are being measured and appreciated, they try a lot harder.

Rick, that’s good stuff. I am grateful for clients and friends who share who and what inspires them. Do you have any inspiring mentors and stories? Send them along to me. They might end up in a future e-zine. Now where is that link to the Web site for the Masters in Augusta?

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Four Steps to Working Smarter in Construction

Would you sit on a chair that did not have four legs? Four is a nice number; it’s easy to remember. If one those legs are missing, you will probably choose to stand. According to numerous studies by the consulting firm, FMI, 30 to 40 percent of direct labor hours are wasted moving materials from place to place, redoing work that was wrong, or standing around. The first question to ask is WHY? What is most often heard is, “You can’t get good people!” Blame doesn’t improve the profitability of the job; it only lowers morale and productivity. Instead, on the next job, what if you invested the time to analyze the causes for delays, rework in the field, and why these situations occurred in the first place? Many consultants believe that 70 percent of problems in the field are caused

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by poor management: a lack of project planning, daily goal setting, feedback communication with crews, and the failure to learn from past successes and failures. The problems are rarely caused by a lack of knowledge of how to do the job or unwillingness to perform. Here are four steps to work smarter in construction:

1. Think before you leap into that job site. Most owners are more concerned about your end date that your start date, and will understand your need to prepare, if you just explain the wisdom of preparation to them.

2. Management in the Field. Two or three-week interval schedules, prepared

by a superintendent, and daily look-ahead plans prepared by foremen, are critical to the productivity process. How can you have equipment, tools, and materials unless someone knows when they will be needed?

3. Motivating your team. Using short-interval schedules as a base, each crew

should participate in setting goals for tomorrow. Measurement of the crew’s progress toward the goal should be ongoing and feedback provided. The foremen who invest 10 minutes a day setting goals and providing feedback

and acknowledgment to their crews, will have motivated crews and empowered teams.

4. Learning from your experiences and mistakes. Use a post-job review

process to discuss: a. What did we do well? b. How could we improve next time?

Make the time to communicate the insights to the rest of the company. Every job, good or bad, can teach us something. But unless we invest the time to understand, we won’t learn and make new mistakes.

When leaders model the behavior they want repeated, employees follow. Repetition

is the mother of skill: Teach, review, reward, teach, review, reward, and repeat. Say, can I borrow that chair? My legs are sore from working in the field all day *************************************************************

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On Aging

George Carlin passed away last month. You either loved him or you hated him. Regardless, one thing was clear; he was a master of words. Here is his take on aging: “Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we're kids? If you're less than ten years old, you're so excited about aging that you think in fractions. 'How old are you?' 'I'm four and a half!' You're never thirty-six and a half. You're four and a half, going on five! That's the key. “You get into your teens, now they can't hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead. 'How old are you?' 'I'm gonna be sixteen!' You could

be thirteen, but hey, you're gonna be sixteen! And then the greatest day of your life: You become twenty-one. Even the words sound like a ceremony. YOU BECOME TWENTY-ONE. YESSSS! “But then you turn THIRTY. Oooh, what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk! He TURNED; we had to throw him out. There's no fun now; you're just a sour-dumpling. What's wrong? What's changed? You BECOME twenty-one, you TURN thirty, then you're PUSHING forty. Whoa! Put on the brakes; it's all slipping away. Before you know it, you REACH fifty and your dreams are gone. But wait! You MAKE it to sixty. You didn't think you would! So you BECOME twenty-one, TURN thirty, PUSH forty, REACH fifty, and MAKE it to sixty. “You've built up so much speed that you HIT seventy! After that it's a day-by-day

thing; you HIT Wednesday! You get into your eighties and every day is a complete cycle; you HIT lunch, you TURN four-thirty, you REACH bedtime. And it doesn't end there. Into the nineties, you start going backwards, 'I Was JUST ninety-two.' Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over one hundred, you become a little kid again. 'I'm one hundred and a half!’ May you all make it to a healthy one hundred and a half.” *************************************************************

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How to Stay Young

Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight, and height. Let the doctors worry about them. Keep only cheerful friends; the grouches pull you down. Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever. Never let the brain idle. “An idle mind is the devil's workshop.” And the devil's name is Alzheimer's. Enjoy the simple things.

Laugh often, long, and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person, who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive. Surround yourself with what you love, whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, or hobbies. Your home is your refuge. Cherish your health. If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help. Don't take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, to the next county, or to a foreign

country, but NOT to where the guilt is. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity. AND ALWAYS REMEMBER: Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.