A newsletter designed to support our training participants with continuous development ideas and opportunities. 

What’ New with us:   

Things are going great! Several of our current programs are going well and the results are showing in double digit growth!  

Kelvin Daniels, our sales associate, wants to remind you of the September Public Sales program. Our dates are Tuesday/Wednesday September 20 -21 Contact Kelvin at kdaniels@itstartswithyou.net .  

Kelvin will also be in Jamestown , ND for the Chamber Luncheon on September 21. Stop in and meet him.  

A public sales program will be starting in Fargo , ND with September dates of the 20^th-21^st, Tuesday/Wednesday. This program is two intense days with 16 hours of follow-up programs, or a total of 32 hours of training, coaching and application. Check out the Zig Ziglar Selling program for a detail look at this challenging and productive selling approach. We already have good group of companies signed on for this session! Click on “Selling” on the left column of this newsletter.  

Don’t forget to check out our web site! We have been adding things on a regular basis. www.hgoergerassoc.com  or www.itstartswithyou.org  

We have several Corporate Programs scheduled for this Winter and Spring. If your company would like to see more performance we may very well be able to help you out. Contact me at Harlan@itstartswithyou.net  

Selling Skills for the Month:  

In our previous letters we have talked about getting the sale started using the Value or Problem Statement. Hopefully you have been able to get some results from the information.  

One tool we have not mentioned is the use of “Showmanship”. Now some times I get the response “Show off man ship”. There is a very big difference. One sales participant was a very good magician and always had a trick to show people when he made his sales calls. Even though he was very entertaining he did not get the sales! Then he started thinking about how his magic could make a very clear point about the results he could provide. His sales went up, he was no longer just entertaining, he had people really thinking right away! He had gone from “Show off man ship” to purposeful “Showmanship”! 

Once more we look at what the customer wants, use their language and create a way to demonstrate the results our product or service can provide. We create a method that will get their attention and remain with them longer.  

When I worked with an industrial supplier they had a line of electrical motor drive controls that had gotten smaller and more powerful. The product had gotten small enough to hold in your hand! On several occasions I would walk into an account that we had not been getting much business from, the customer would come to see me at the door for a very short conversation, but I would toss this new technology into their hands and would say, “Do you believe that’s a 5 hp controller? What kind of control problems would it solve for you?” Every time we got their attention and a sale! Now note we did not talk product, rather what the results might be if the technology were applied.  

A radio salesperson puts the customers ad message on a continuous form feed paper, one page for each time it is run, and tosses it out on the customer’s floor! “This is what your ad package looks like in print!” They got the order.  

A glass salesman is the top producer for the year selling shatter proof glass. The company asks him to talk at the annual meeting on how it did it. “I walk in, show the buyer the glass and take a small hammer and hit the glass.” Next year he is again on top with even more production. “I walk in, show the buyer the glass and hand them the hammer.” 

Some guidelines for good showmanship are: 

         Must be relevant to the sale 

         Must involve the customer 

         Must be safe to do 

         Must be tactful and tasteful 

         Must be practiced 

So take the results from Reverse Engineering you product and come up with some creative ways you can use showmanship though out the selling process. Just don’t let it take you away from the Discovery, rather, use it to get you into Discovery!    

Management Skills for the Month:  

So let us suppose we have an employee or sales person that has acknowledged a performance issue, has come to us with their plan to correct it, agreed to follow the plan and yet falls short of improvement.  

Now what do we do? If we have been following the person, discussing their plan and tracking their progress on a regular basis, both of you should know they are not meeting the objective. A very frank discussion about the plan, the objectives and the changes needed has to be held. The discussion should focus on the original plan and what is causing the short fall of the plan and what the person is planning to do to get it on target. Listen carefully to excuses and if there are underlying circumstances that may be influencing the situation. This is where personal and family issues may come in, drug or alcohol problems or indications you have the wrong person in the position.  

If you hear just hollow excuses it may mean a significant change is needed. If out side issues such as drug or alcohol come out, you have a problem. If they ask for specific help in areas they may be salvageable. If family or personal issues that you were unaware of come to the front, it may be salvageable.  

How many times you take the person through this process is up to you. What you accept for reasons or excuses is up to you. I believe in 3 strikes your out and it is better off to have an empty spot than have the wrong people in the seat.  

Now does this mean termination? In many cases it may, sometimes it means changing people around or making changes to accommodate and maximize the strengths of your people. It goes back to understanding what strengths and abilities are needed and how you can get the right skills into the right place.  

Food for the Attitude:  

As we continue to discuss this idea of self-perception and how to change it, we need to talk about one four letter word, “Fear”. There is virtually no one that is totally free of fear. Each of us has to deal with some type of fear some time.  

It is this Fear that has a dramatic effect on our Self-perception. It keeps us from believing it can be better, we can be better or even trying to be better.  

Here is a short list of fears that many people deal with, you can add to the list.  

Fear of failure, Fear of Success, Rejection, Fear of People, and Fear of change:  

This affects our, self-esteem, self-perception, security, ambition, personal relationships and our ego.  

As we look at such fears as “Fear of Success”, it really is about fear of change, fear of responsibility, fear of loss or fear of people. We fear the changes we have to make to our comfortable lives, we fear the responsibility that comes with success, we do not want to fail or loose what we have and we are concerned over what others might think or say. Success means we have to change and may have to leave what is comfortable to us behind, even leaving some people behind.  

So what do we do about these fears? First we must admit that the fears do exist, and then we must develop actions to overcome the fears. If one is very timid and fears people, perhaps approaching a new person every day and introducing themselves will quickly help them overcome the fear.  

Once you have isolated your fears, take small steps to overcome them and continue to do so until the fear is not an issue.  

Interesting Info for You:  

 “Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain!” 

                                    William James 

Till next month, You make it a great day as only you can!!! 

Harlan Goerger