Salesmuser

Mom’s Sales Story

David Bliss — Thu, 14 May 2020 11:43:58 +0000

Part 2: A 30-Year Top Seller at Neiman Marcus

Last week I told the story of my mom and how her family’s world was ripped apart by World War II. Life in war-torn Germany was already exceptionally tough for Mom and her family in the town where they lived. Shortages of food, rationing of other goods, and limited means to earn an income were daily challenges for most.

Chaos ensued as the Russian army closed in on the Nazi regime from the east and the Allies did the same from the west. The Nazi-controlled government forced Mom’s family and the townspeople on a train to nowhere, leaving all of their life’s possessions behind.

After seven days, all the train’s passengers were forced off hundreds of miles from their home. In an instant, my mom’s family of five children and her mother became starving, homeless, and desperate refugees of war.

The plight of my mom and her family is told in part one of this story called a “Mother’s Day Story.”

Moving to the United States

My mom and dad married in 1955. The wedding was spartan, yet filled with joy. Within two months, they were on a ship headed to America. Mom had already lived a life filled with hard work and missed out on the experiences and education of high school. But now, she was headed for an adventure in a new land with the American man she loved. Living in America had only been a dream, but it was quickly becoming a reality. The excitement of living in a country of riches and untouched by the ravages of war seemed too good to be true.

Their final destination would be Fort Worth, Texas. Dad’s parents moved there from a tiny town in Arkansas hugging the Mississippi River in 1947. His family left their hometown to escape malaria that plagued the region where they lived. Grandpa was a lineman for the telephone company and Grandma the proprietor of a small beauty salon.

Unanticipated Struggles

The steamy relentless heat of a Texas summer hit Mom like nothing she’d ever experienced. Mom’s surprise pregnancy made the heat seem even more excruciating. This was the late ’50s in Texas and refrigerated air was the exception in most homes and buildings.

Even worse than the heat was her isolation. Because she didn’t know English, she was unable to communicate with others around her. It made her more homesick with each passing day. Mom admits that her first two years in the U.S. were the hardest time of her life, even worse than living in a war-ravaged landscape.

It would be five years until my parents could find a way for Mom and my sister to return to visit her family.

Adjusting to Life in Texas

Life began to normalize for Mom as she discovered a local program teaching English to German immigrants. She then felt comfortable enough to attend evening courses in English grammar and writing. In 1962, the family grew to four with the addition of me. Both Mom and Dad shared an almost obsessive passion for hard work. You could see it in the way our small home stood out in the neighborhood of track homes.

For some people who grow up poor, there can be a constant memory of difficult times that goes so far as to influence their work ethic. Dad saw his parents struggles living through the depression and the lean times of World War II. Mom’s family lost almost everything during the war. Both of my parents were driven to provide a better life for my sister and I.

Dad worked in the defense industry for most of his career. The job provided a decent income, but my parents dreamed of a larger home. They always spent less than they made, and with every paycheck they purchased U.S. Government Series E bonds for their kids’ education. Whatever money was leftover was set aside in a savings account. But they still wanted more. 30 years passed before they paid off their first home that cost $10,000 in the early 60s. In 1983 after scrimping and saving, my parents bought their dream house. They still live there today.

A New Career for Mom

In 1971, one of Mom’s German friends encouraged her to apply to Neiman Marcus. Unlike working in retail today, it was very challenging to get a position at Neiman Marcus. Like most companies today, Neiman Marcus preferred referrals from their top performers to add new employees. Neiman Marcus offered Mom a temporary position during their Christmas season that started in October and ran through the end of December.

Investing for Success

As the years passed in my career, I often reflected about how companies prepare their staff to sell their product or service. My experience had mostly been the “you’ll figure it out” approach to corporate education. It struck me how unusual Mom’s experience was compared to mine and what I knew of most company training programs.

Even though Mom was just a temporary employee, she was required to attend the same two-week new-hire training class as full-time staff. In the early ’70s, Neiman Marcus was a local family-owned retail business at the time with two stores in Dallas and one in Fort Worth. Their merchandise was luxurious and unique. But it was their relentless obsession with superior service that defined its brand.

Marcus introduced many of the innovations for which Neiman-Marcus became known, creating a national award for service in fashion and hosting art exhibitions in the store itself, as well as weekly fashion shows and an annual Fortnight event highlighting a different foreign country for two weeks each year. He established the Neiman-Marcus Christmas Catalogue, which became famous for extravagant “His and Hers” gifts such as airplanes and camels. Marcus prided himself on his staff’s ability to provide service and value for each client, often citing his father’s dictum, “There is never a good sale for Neiman Marcus unless it’s a good buy for the customer.”

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Marcus

Can you imagine a retail company in today’s world investing in an education program for every new employee? Retail is a cut-throat business but if you don’t invest in your people, how can management expect superior results. The lack of proper education for sales staff is pervasive across most companies and industries.

Mom’s temporary sales job in the accessories department in the Fort Worth store transitioned into a full-time position working three days per week. Her full-time role allowed her to move from accessories to the galleria department where beautiful and stylish dresses and ladies suits were sold.

The two weeks of new-hire education that each employee at Neiman Marcus attended covered a variety of topics that ran the gamut, from learning the different types of clothing fabrics, how to dress to Neiman’s standards, withholding judgment of shoppers, and how to approach every person who came into the store.

For example, they were told never to say, “May I help you?” to a customer. It is easily interpreted as “May I sell you something?” and provides an easy way out for the customer to simply say, “No, thank you.” Instead, they were taught to say, “Is there anything I can show you?” or “What can I help you find?”

A Manual Customer Relation Management System

One of the most important things Neiman Marcus trained its employees on was managing their clientele book. Each salesperson was required to capture their customer’s name and contact information during the sale. Notes were made on what they bought, clothing preferences and other likes and dislikes. Over time, personal information like their birth dates, anniversary dates, kids’ names, spouse’s name and more were collected.

Salespeople were required to send handwritten letters to their clients for a variety of reasons. Thanking clients for their business, notifying them of upcoming sales or events, and calling them when unique items became available were just a few of the reasons to contact customers.

The Mr. and Mrs. Account

And then there was the Mr. and Mrs. account. Certain men would shop in the store for their wife and apparently their mistress, too. Salespeople were expected to quietly notate in their clientele books when one of these men sent gifts to an address besides their own. “Whatever you do, don’t send the sales item to the wrong address,” was the message that came from every new-hire training class. Mom witnessed a couple of mistakes where the mistress’ gift was sent to the man’s wife by mistake. I would like to have been a fly on the wall to see how that got explained away!

Thirty Years of Sales Success

While Mom worked just three days a week for her first 15 years, she was always recognized among the top 25 salespeople in the store out of a sales staff of over 100. For the 15 years that followed, she would increase to working four days a week. In 1995, she was the top salesperson in the store eclipsing $1 million in sales for the year, (equivalent to about $1.7 million in today’s money). This was all the more noteworthy because she beat out people working five days a week. Mom was always the number one seller in her department and always in the top ten salespeople in the store during her last 15 years.

Mom’s secret to success was quite simple.

Know the merchandise
Learn what your customers like
Have an opinion
Be friendly and humble
Work your clientele book relentlessly
Hustle, hustle, hustle

Customers who frequented Neiman Marcus during Mom’s tenure expected a different experience than they’d get at other stores. Distinctive merchandise was a given, as well as superior and honest service. Customers didn’t have to ask Mom if she liked the dress on them; she would tell them. She called every customer to let them know when outfits that she knew they’d like came in. Customers became so confident and comfortable with her selections, they’d simply ask her to send the outfits to their homes.

Even when automated letters could be generated, Mom never stopped sending handwritten thank-you letters. While most of Neiman’s sellers planned their lunch between 11:00 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., mom always ate at 10:30 a.m., or not at all, to ensure she was on the floor during prime selling hours.

Every year she would hit her new goal, and every year it was raised to what seemed like an impossibly high figure. Her sales target was always much higher than those working five days a week.

Conclusion

I never truly appreciated Mom’s amazing sales achievements until my career inadvertently turned toward sales. While listening to Mom answer my questions for this story, one thing was clear about her success: she learned at a very young age what hard work meant. As a teenager, her income helped support her mom and siblings in post-World War II Germany. Failure was not an option. Perhaps her childhood experiences drove her to not fail her manager and store. I never heard her make an excuse why she couldn’t get something done; instead, she worked tirelessly at her craft, as well as being a rockstar mother too.

That’s my mom’s story. I hope you enjoyed it and perhaps found a little inspiration too.

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A Mother’s Day Story

David Bliss — Fri, 08 May 2020 10:18:32 +0000

Part 1: A Journey to Freedom and the United States

This is a special edition of Salesmuser dedicated to Mother’s Day. Today’s story is about my mom, the most amazing and special lady I know. I hope everyone feels the same about their mom. No matter how their kids turn out, moms never give up on their kids. But, as the offspring of our parents, we often ignore or overlook their past and the hardships, the tragedies, and the emotional and physical pain they may have endured. This is my mom’s story..

My mom is a giant in my life. Standing only 5’4”, with a thin build, her presence hides her inner strengths. Endless patience, a stoically calm demeanor, and virtuous resolve. She embodies all the reasons we celebrate Mother’s Day. Although I towered over her, Mom’s gentle and thoughtful ways always kept me in control during my stupid teenage years. Her strong German accent wasn’t noticeable to me, but it apparently was very obvious to others.

This story begins in World War II Germany, where the destruction of war left so many refugees homeless, with no food and no money. Mom was the second oldest of five children. Along with their mother, the family was caught on the wrong side of what was about to be a divided country. Mom’s home was in West Prussia, which would be taken over and become communist Poland, a pawn of communist Russia.

In early February 1945, the Nazi army forced Mom, her family, and the residents of her town to board a train to nowhere. They were told not to worry, leave their belongings, and bring food for one meal. They were told they’d return in three days or less, but there was no other explanation. As they traveled through the countryside, the sounds of gun and cannon fire were everywhere.

The cramped train passengers were starving after a few days. Mom still has a vivid memory of jumping from the train and wading out in waist-deep snow to make a snowball to nibble on during the trip. One evening, the train stopped in the historic city of Dresden, Germany. They left the next day, narrowly escaping the city’s pummeling by Allied bombs. The resulting fires scoured the city, leaving 23,000 civilians dead. After seven days of stopping, departing the train to wait for hours in the cold, and doing it again and again in different locations, they were all finally dumped at a town far away from home.

Post World War II Germany

Mom was twelve years old in 1946. One morning, the American troops guarding the area where her family camped suddenly moved out. The next day, the communist Russians moved in. After two World Wars and countless lives lost on both sides, there was no love lost between these countries.

Russians loathed Germans, and the same could be said for the Germans about the Russians at this time. War is an awful device of human creation. Along with the dead, it destroys lives, torments its combatants, divides societies, and fosters oppressive prejudices and bigotry.

Her family was among the thousands of civilian refugees trapped on that side of the country by a regime that didn’t want them there. Rumors would often circulate among the refugees that the Americans were at a new location.

Every rumor sent Mom’s family in search of the security and generosity of the Americans. Matters were compounded when the hope that her father would return faded. Mom’s dad was a policeman before the war but was drafted into the service. He survived the war but, in an act of cowardice, chose not to return to his family.

Hearing Mom retell the story and seeing the emotional pain well up in her disgusts me. How can a man who was responsible for bringing five lives into the world leave them at their most vulnerable situation and the worst possible time? What kind of man does this?

Most of 1946 found Mom’s family living in the forest and, on a very rare occasion, finding a farmer who would allow them to sleep in their barn. Food came by way of begging. After the potatoes were harvested from the fields for the Russian soldiers, the farmers were allocated a tiny share. Mom’s family snuck into the harvested fields at night to sift through the near frozen ground for any remaining potatoes.

On a frigid Christmas night, the family was desperate to find warmth. Mom knocked on a farmer’s door hoping to find shelter in their house. The man stepped forward to see a family of six.

“Too many kids,” he barked, slamming the door in Mom’s face.

The Evils of Men

War also reveals an even darker side at times. A small number of soldiers lose their moral compass and compound the atrocities of war by committing other crimes. Innocent women experience their wrath through rape.

Perhaps some of the men who commit these crimes didn’t have much of a moral compass before fighting in a war. There is nothing moral about the ravages of war and its impact on those who fight it and bear witness to it. We see how the atrocities of war have severely impacted so many U.S. soldiers fighting terrorist wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Do the horrors of war and the indescribable scenes of death tilt the moral compass of a few men into a criminal zone?

A Terrible Memory

Mom’s family stumbled onto a very generous couple who allowed them to stay in their home one night. These were extremely hard times. Even those who had homes had no money, and food was scarce for everyone. This particular lady and her husband were much different than any of the others who reluctantly helped the family. They welcomed my mother’s family into their home for one night and treated them with dignity.

As evening fell, Mom’s oldest sister (who was16) was already wrapped in a blanket and hiding under a bed; these were the precautions necessary in case soldiers came to the house. It wasn’t long before the front door of the house rattled with banging from the outside and shouts to open the door. A Russian officer and other soldiers barged into the room. The officer waved his pistol, pointed it at the couple who owned the home and told them if the search uncovered any guns in the house, everyone would be shot.

No guns were discovered, but the officer was enraged. He shouted at everyone in the house and shot his pistol once through the ceiling and once through the floor. The families shivered with fear, anticipating one of them would be shot next.

The officer then turned his attention to the women. He looked first at my mom’s mother. She knew what they were after and prepared herself to look old. She was only 37 but wearing a tattered scarf helped hide her youth. When the officer lifted her chin, she presented him with a nasty scowl that made her look much older than she was.

“This is an old woman,” he growled.

Then, he grabbed the kind lady who invited Mom’s family into her home. He dragged her up the stairs while she screamed and fought to get away. As Mom recounted the story for me, the rawness of that memory came flooding back. She paused to regain her composure and continue retelling the story. Everyone could hear the woman screech and beg them to stop as she was raped.

Mom was a 12-year-old girl, bearing witness to the evils of war.

Dividing a Country

The constant search to find the Americans caused my family to unknowingly cross the border that separated communist Russia from the free western countries of Europe. The Soviet Union (USSR) was formally Russia but now included many countries it had taken over during the war.

The day after they crossed, the border was closed. Mom’s grandmother, five cousins, and their parents were stuck in communist Poland. Her cousin’s father was seized for false reasons and sent to die in the infamous USSR Gulags. The relentless work by Mom’s mother, working through the Red Cross, finally allowed the fractured family to reunite four years later.

Freedom

Once the family crossed the border, they were interned in a refugee camp operated by the Americans. First, the family was sent through a delousing process. Then families were randomly assigned to different parts of Germany. Mom and her family were shuttled off to their designated town in northern Germany.

Initially, they lived with 30 other refugees all crammed into a one-room school. Over time, families were relocated to farmers’ homes in the area. The people who had homes were each required to make a room available for one refugee family. The refugees were not wanted by the farmers as they added to their hardships, too.

A Catastrophic Loss

In 1947, not long after being assigned to their new hometown, tragedy struck. Mom’s oldest brother, Gerhard, came down with a severe infection. He picked a pimple on his nose, which turned into a larger sore that he continued to irritate. The sore got infected, and within a few days, the infection ravaged his body and finally caused his death. There were no antibiotics around at the time; if there had been, they would have saved his life. After living through all of the chaos and fears of war, along with Mom’s oldest sister surviving typhoid fever, the fragility of life and loss of her brother devastated Mom’s family.

Mom’s family of six was sadly now just five. They would live in this one room of the farmer for six years. After about two years, her oldest sister, Hilda, fell in love with a wonderful, kind-hearted man. She married Bruno when she was 18, and they would spend more than 50 years together. There were now four living in one room, and the burden of providing an income fell on Mom’s shoulders.

The state provided the family the equivalent of $9.00 U.S. per month. Half of the money was paid as rent to the farmer, and the rest was used for food and clothing. Mom and her youngest sister would look for work each day after school at different farms to help the family.

The First Official Job

Mom’s commitment to the family and to provide money for them prevented her from attending high school. She dreamed of being a gym teacher, but there was no money or chance to fulfill her dream. Her first job was as a housekeeper for a dentist and his family many hours away from her home. She lived in a tiny room and worked from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day making $12/month. She did all house duties except cooking, with never a moment to spare for herself. Almost a year passed before she could leave to visit her family during Christmas. When her mother learned of the long hours she worked, my mother wasn’t allowed to return.

She found a job making light bulbs at a factory run by the Dutch firm Philips. The job was closer to home, but it required a 25-mile round trip commute by bicycle each day. At 18, Mom was able to apply for an apartment subsidized by the German government. Within six months, a small one-room apartment came available in a larger town, allowing the family to finally be on their own. The job and security lasted about a year until the factory closed.

Mom’s next position was at a meat rendering plant and food preparation and processing factory. Mom worked for about four years in a vast kitchen preparing the food for canning.

A Fortuitous Event

Back in the U.S., during the 1950s young men wondered if they would be drafted into military service. Conscription (commonly known as the draft) for World War II began in 1940. The draft remained in place to fill the military’s ranks until 1973, when the U.S. military became an all-volunteer service.

My dad’s basketball scholarship to T.C.U. would be cut short his sophomore year when he got drafted into the U.S. Army. After his basic training at Fort Lewis, Washington, was complete, the sergeant lined up all the men. He cut the company of 220 soldiers in two with the wave of his hand. He then announced the group to his right was going to Korea and the other group would go to Germany. Dad went to Germany.

Dad served his two years in the Army and returned to the States. Upon his return, three of his friends from the Army decided to go back to Europe with the money they’d saved from their military service.

It just so happened that Dad and his friends found their way back to Germany. Being the gregarious type, Dad somehow met and became good friends with a local German family. While his travel buddies returned to the U.S., Dad stayed in Germany and worked at his newfound friend’s business. Later on, Dad took a job at a meat processing plant.

A Streetcar for Love

Along with a very long walk, Mom hopped the streetcars each day to her job. One day, my dad spotted her on the same streetcar he was traveling in. About a year later, he saw her again on the same streetcar.

This time he decided to approach her and introduce himself. First, he asked her if she spoke English, to which she shook her head no. Then, being completely silly, he asked her if she knew Spanish. She looked at him bewildered. Dad didn’t know Spanish either and not much German, for that matter. But when you’re goofy over a girl, you do goofy stuff.

Over the next six months, he would see her many times and noticed she worked at a different location at the huge meat factory where they were both employed.

In the large break room for the employees, Dad got his chance again to make an impression on Mom. He spotted her sitting with co-workers at a distant table. Dad told the attendant bringing food and drinks to the workers’ tables that he’d like to buy a Coke for the beautiful maiden over there. Cokes were almost a luxury item and far outside of Dad’s budget.

To Dad’s surprise, the beautiful maiden declined his gracious gift. She remembered what her mother told her about men.

“If you take something from a man, they’ll want something in return,” her mother had explained.

It took from December to May before she would agree to their first date over coffee. They sat quietly and uncomfortably, sipping from their cups of coffee. Dad knew a little more German but hardly enough to hold a conversation.

Even so, in a little less than a year, Mom and Dad got married and left for the United States. After Dad proposed to Mom, her mother insisted they find her father to tell him. A laborious search finally uncovered his whereabouts. Mom was filled with hope that maybe her father would become part of their life again.

She knocked on the door of his apartment. Another woman answered the door and showed her inside. Her dad was laying on a couch and finally turned his gaze to his daughter. During the brief and awkward conversation, he didn’t even lift his worthless self up to hug his own flesh and blood. The disdain and disrespect shown by her father ripped Mom’s heart in two. Witnessing the scene of her cowardly father left an indelible mark on her soul. She swore to herself, never again.

That was the last time Mom would see or hear from her dad.

Mom’s story will continue in part two of her life in the United States.

Do you know your parents’ story? Please don’t wait for Mother’s Day to learn your mom’s story. Find your own way to celebrate your mom on Mother’s Day, and don’t stop there. Every day is a perfect day to tell your mother how much you love her and appreciate her for all she’s done for you in your life.

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Year Two of Salesmuser

David Bliss — Thu, 16 Apr 2020 11:41:55 +0000

The Genesis of Salesmuser

Stumbling upon the story of James Clear about nine years ago provided the spark to start Salesmuser. Clear committed to writing two well-researched posts on self-improvement every week for two years. By doing so, he would become an authority on the subject. James Clear is now a best selling author and renowned speaker on this subject. His book, Atomic Habits is a must-read.

If you’re a career salesperson like me, you too may have read countless books on selling and attended several different sales training programs. Some of the books were fantastic additions to my knowledge of selling. Even the not so good books always revealed at least one new valuable selling nugget. There appeared to be a common theme across all the books on sales and the different sales classes.

The Missing Piece of Selling Education

Something was missing in these books and courses. The authors or instructors hadn’t been in the selling trenches for years. In fact, most had less than ten years of direct selling experience before they moved on to writing and instructing others about the art of selling.

Would the view of individual contributor salespeople and sales managers appeal to an audience in a different way? Would stories of successful salespeople help new entrants to the profession? Would these stories help spawn new ideas? That was and still is the idea behind Salesmuser.

Today is post number 52 at Salesmuser. It means I hit my self imposed goal to write one post every week for one year (with a few misses along the way). But what now?

Year Two of Salesmuser

Here is the plan for the next 52 weeks at Salesmuser.com.

We always hear the stories of famous people but often they don’t connect to the level where we are in our lives. I’m convinced that everyone has a story to tell. And behind everyone’s story, is something we can learn from or at least applaud their struggle. Perhaps it’s an unmet aspiration to change jobs, to take more risk, or overcome the anxiety and fear of trying new things.

So for year two, you’ll get to listen and read the stories about your colleagues, peers, and friends. I’ll be contacting several of you to participate and share your stories. You’ll get to hear audio versions of other Salesmuser stories too and listen to how our clients view salespeople, what they’d like more of and what they’d like less of.

The other goal for year two is to grow Salesmuser to 10,000 active members. Why? More members mean more stories, more inspiration, and more opportunities to learn. Would you please share Salesmuser stories with others and encourage them to register? If you’re reading these stories on LinkedIn or Facebook, please go to Salesmuser.com and register your email. I promise you’ll never receive spam.

In these uncertain times of Covid-19, a community of professionals helping others is more important than ever.

Thank you for being a member and reading Salesmuser.

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Booms, Busts and Better Times Ahead

David Bliss — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 12:48:39 +0000

Lord grant me one more tech boom and I promise not to screw this one up

Things look pretty bleak now, no question about it. There isn’t even a baseline from history by which to measure what’s happening to our economy. We all know (or at least most of us know) that better days are ahead. While we all buckle down to ride this out, I wanted to give a glimpse into the opportunity and fortunes that lay ahead in the future by taking a quick tour through my misadventures of the past.

I’ve been blessed to be a part of four major economic booms and now four busts. The most recent boom began not long after the crash of 2008. With interest rates slashed to historic lows to help save our economy, investors were in search of better returns and the next Google. Investors are required to cover their eyes and ears to facts and financial statements while getting lured into a “free” business model.

Trust Me with Your Money

Yet the rainbow of cash keeps coming. Even the “smart money” from places like SoftBank Group make unbelievably bad and foolish bets. In one case they got duped in a monumental way by the founder and CEO of WeWork. Call me Captain Obvious, but when I read WeWork’s prospectus it smelled a lot like 1999 all over again. Somehow a commercial leasing company (which is WeWork’s business) positioned itself as a technology startup company that justified their sky-high valuation.

Softbank got so excited by the limitless potential of the dog walking market they also decided it was worth a $300 million investment in WAG. This catapulted WAG’s valuation to over $600 million in 2018. Who’d a thunk the dog walking business was ready for such a disruption. My tongue is firmly inserted in my cheek while I write and snicker at this story. Clearly, a little technology to help organize the ephemeral army of dog walkers can make a buck for a company or two. It looks like Rover will dominate this “lucrative” space of the pet market. Here’s a snippet from their About page.

Rover.com® is the world’s largest network of 5-star pet sitters and dog walkers. Rover connects dog owners with trusted pet care whenever they need it. Millions of services have been booked on Rover, including pet sitting, dog walking, in-home dog boarding, and doggy day care.

Heck, I’m even prouder of my youngest son to learn he was a 5-star dog walker while he did gig work for Rover.

Fun with Tech Startups

In case you think Softbank is the only firm chasing pink unicorns, here’s a sample of the 553 tech startups that folded in 2019 and the obscene $1.9B in investors’ money that went down in flames with them.

The whole idea of a startup excites me more than ever. In 2007, I jumped into the game myself. I’m not poking fun at the startup world but rather the giant pool of investors who seem to throw blind faith and sacks of cash at any and all wacky ideas. Ninety percent of startups fail, as is noted in the above-linked article from Medium. This boom isn’t about new technologies as much as the available technology being applied to disrupt old business models.

Here are a couple of fun ways to learn about the crazy tech startup world: Disrupted: My Misadventures into the Startup Bubble provides a hilarious insider glimpse into the world of tech startups and how people spend other people’s money. Spoiler alert: “like a drunken sailor”. In case you enjoy a good laugh, check out Silicon Valley. As stupid as the show can seem at times, it’s not too far from the truth.

My First Tech Boom

We coded on big iron computers at college in the body-odor-tinged computer science lab. The experience was so underwhelming that I couldn’t imagine a career in this industry. Of course, these were the early days of Apple and Microsoft. The personal computer revolution passed me by like just another Friday night party.

My focus at the time was getting out of college, partying, and chasing girls. The order of those priorities might not be right. I graduated college when the bottom dropped out of the oil & gas business in 1984. This wouldn’t have been a big deal except that I earned a Geology degree and I lived in Texas. The oil bust coincided with the savings and loan crisis that swept the country. Real estate of all types in the oil-producing states wasn’t just devastated, it was nuked. Texas-owned banks vanished overnight due to their overweight assets in the oil business and real estate.

I still have vivid memories of walking through what appeared to be the ghost towns of downtown Houston and Denver. I’d later find out that, in fact, at the bottom of the bust, both cities experienced unoccupied rates of 40 percent in the downtown districts.

My tenure in the oil business was brief. I experienced the embarrassment of getting fired and unemployment. After a few futile months of searching for a job, opportunity came knocking. A friend of my sister said they had an open position at a software company where she worked. The next thing you know, I transitioned into doing telephone support for oil and gas accounting software.

The Internet Boom

At the beginning of the internet boom in 1992, I’d pushed past being a grunt doing telephone support calls. I was actually able to take vacations and enjoy life a little. One of my clients set me up on a blind date that year with my future wife. All the while, the internet boom was raging onward.

Each year, everyone speculated on how high it could go. The then-Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, in a 1996 speech, famously quipped that we were experiencing irrational exuberance. As history has shown us over and over again, an obvious bubble always inflates for longer than anyone can predict. In this case, Greenspan’s warning was off by five years.

In about 10 years I went from single and no worries to married to the love of my life, three kids, and a house I couldn’t afford. Then, in 2001, the bottom dropped out of the stock market and things got shaky at my employer. Luckily, just before it happened, I was blessed to have closed the biggest deal of my life.

Later, I would discover my name was on the list of account executives to get whacked at the end of that quarter. But things kept improving and I closed more deals before August of 2001. Within six months, I went from unwittingly walking the plank of unemployment to competing for the number one sales spot at the company.

Although tech stocks were sinking lower each day, things got unimaginably worse on September 11, 2001.

The six months that followed were an awkward time for business. The three weeks after 9/11 were just a blur as we mourned the loss of so many countrymen. But the slow-moving hands of time worked their magic again. People went back to work, travel resumed, and another sinister bubble was created.

I also made a massive investment gaffe. I pushed a good portion of the money I made on my commissions into a stock called the QQQ. The Qs represented the 100 largest technology companies. It was a less risky way to invest in the technology boom, or so it seemed. The QQQ peaked in 2001. The high set in 2001 wasn’t eclipsed again until 2016.

That was how I learned what the phrase “catching a falling knife” meant and felt like.

Social Media Boom

The third tech boom, often called Web 2.0, was well underway with new social platforms exploding with millions of users and being replaced overnight by new competition. Remember MySpace before Facebook? There was also Friendster, StumbleUpon, and many others that didn’t survive. Many other companies created during this era like LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube are part of everyday life now.

While Web 2.0 was brewing, the bubble of all bubbles was inflating with the toxic gas of financial chicanery. Somehow the geniuses on Wall Street found a way to collect large batches of mortgage loans and offer them as high-quality bonds to their lemming clients. The pressure to get more of these bonds incented banks, mortgage brokers, and other firms to not just lower the bar for a mortgage but get rid of it altogether. Commonly called liar loans in the industry at the time, these loans and their derivatives almost sent our country into an economic depression in 2008.

As one major financial institution imploded, its peers followed. The stories of massive fraud and greed sickens me even as I write this now because no one went to jail. The brilliant writer Michael Lewis unravels how these crooks plied their fraud in his book, “The Big Short”. The movie of the same title is well worth the time too.

The Canary in the Coal Mine

Little did I know two deals in the mortgage industry I worked at the time were fully immersed in the fraud that would get exposed a few years later. One deal in 2005 was with a subprime mortgage company. Each visit to the client required a shower to wash away the predatory and nasty business practices I’d been exposed to that day. Fortunately, we lost that deal. It’s hard to imagine how the senior executives of that company faced themselves in the mirror each day. They knew they were ripping off their clients by hard-selling ignorant home buyers into mortgages they couldn’t qualify for even with a thumbs-up from God.

The other deal, which did close, was with a large and highly regarded mortgage company. This company focused on A paper borrowers. Translated, it means people who will very likely pay off their mortgages. The partner involved with me along with the client celebrated the deal at a fine dining establishment in Dallas. The guys in attendance from the client were the Chief Operating Officer (COO) and the Chief Information Officer (CIO). During the dinner, I asked the COO what their loan portfolio mix was today. The question was about how many of their loans are traditional 30- and 15-year loans compared to other loans.

“What percentage of non-conforming (high risk) loans do you think we process, David?” he asked me, turning to his associate to share a laugh.

Since this was supposed to be a top-tier outfit, I guessed 20 percent of their business was of the high risk. He laughed again and told me I wasn’t even close. He explained that the mix was closer to 20 percent being A paper and the rest non-conforming and subprime. I recall having a holy shit moment when he shared these facts. Little did I know that in two years the world would be on the edge of financial armageddon because of these rotten and greedy business practices.

Preparing to Make Your Fortune in the Next Business Cycle

Some of us are going through a severe shock right now. You may have lost your job, or you’re in fear of losing your job or scared of contracting Covid-19. It’s challenging to think about the future when you’re stressing out about making your mortgage payment, paying off car loans, and so forth. The story I told today was a simple reminder that economic booms and bust happen and they’ll continue to happen. A virus caused this rush for the exits, and it will certainly be something different the next time.

My story isn’t unique. What you can learn from it is to keep making progress. Our education doesn’t stop after school ends, it’s really just starting. When we grow our knowledge, try new things, expand our contacts, and seek out new opportunities, the bad times aren’t so bad. It gives us a unique ability to peek above the trees and see the real beauty of the forest.

Think about Uber and the vanishing world of retail stores. Business disruption will slow, but it won’t stop because of this pandemic. There are so many ways to participate in the coming technology booms. Whether it’s biotech companies finding a vaccine or a cure for cancer, or technology companies harnessing quantum computing, the possibilities of the world to come are endless and bright.

Avoid the Negative News and Speculators

The doom-and-gloom gang sees all that is bad in the world and overplay its impact. The information we consume is often slanted at best, filled with opinions and frequently just wrong. To gain a sense of how wrong our own perceptions are of the facts, I kindly suggest the book Factfulness. In a world full of opinion and conjecture, this book will illustrate the facts, build your confidence, and make you proud of the real progress our society continues to make.

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An Uncertain Road to Sales in 2020

David Bliss — Thu, 02 Apr 2020 21:47:22 +0000

Will your sales job survive the sequestering of COVID-19?

Maybe you’ve already been furloughed like so many people in the retail, restaurant, transportation, and other discretionary industries. We’re only a few weeks into this economy-crushing event in the U.S.; the current forecast is to restart business sometime in early May. It is hard to tell what that means at this time.

But if you are in sales and rely on the type of sales requiring multiple in-person interactions, when do you believe companies will allow us back on-site? Let’s say one of your client’s staff is optimistically back at their office in full by June 1, 2020. When do you think they’re going to allow nonessential people back on their campus?

My wild guess is sometime in September. Again, this assumes COVID-19 suddenly dissipates and we find some semblance of normal. So as road warrior salespeople, how will we adapt and survive, much less make money? What if we’re restricted from visiting our prospects and clients until 2021?

Every Communication Counts

Every opportunity to communicate with prospects and clients has always been important, but now these interactions are critical. Even with the shock of 9/11, planes started to fly within a few weeks after that cowardly and horrific act. Flights were more than half empty for months afterward, but commerce was happening.

What we’re experiencing now is unprecedented on a scale that’s hard to even imagine, much less experience. The actions we take may not result in closed business this year. Those same actions might find us discovering and developing relationships that catapult us in different directions in the coming months and years.

What can we do to stand out?

Many companies are pitching in to help others in need. If your prospects and clients are geographically close to you, find opportunities to safely participate in their volunteer work.

Highlight positive things your company might be doing to help others during these times. How can your company help the industries you’re calling on?

Consider starting certain meetings by sharing positive stories you’ve observed and invite others to do the same.

A handwritten letter is special and unique, but how will it find its way to your contacts’ homes? Here’s an idea to consider. Write your letter, then take a picture of it and text it to your client. In the letter, you can tell them you would have preferred to send it to their home address but you didn’t have it.

Get your head wrapped around the importance of Return on Investment (ROI). The product and/or service you’re selling must offer your customer real value during tough and uncertain times. The importance of ROI ebbs and flows during economic cycles. Those of us who lean on these calculations during good times and bad will always be more consistently successful.

How about a Virtual Happy Hour with your clients? Find a way to keep your clients engaged and create a forum for them to get introduced. Maybe you can find a fun online game to play with your clients. Maybe start a movie or book club.

What about creating a local virtual user group meeting for your clients and prospects? Make it more about education and much less about selling.

Groundhog Day

As my kids have zoomed into their teens and beyond, a recurring theme my wife and I discuss is how fast the days seem to flash by us. It seems to be a common conversation among my friends and colleagues, too. It’s as if we’re on some race with no finish line. We frantically wake up each morning and run the human maze that is our lives.

Since the full force of COVID-19 hit us about March 9th, each day has felt like a week to me. I’ve heard this comment from others in the countless conference calls I’ve attended. My daily routine has already become so regimented that it reminds me of the movie Groundhog Day. In the storyline, Bill Murry’s character, upon awakening the following day, discovers that it’s Groundhog Day again and again and again.

An Unexpected Benefit

Something I’ve pleasantly discovered is the extra time in my day to spend with my family. The angst that used to build over the weekend, thoughts about my upcoming flights, the preparation for meetings, and feeling guilty for being gone so often has subsided.

Even with all the chaos in the world, and more seemingly coming each day, I’m experiencing more inner peace and calm than I’ve felt in many, many years. There are no sports to suck away hours of my time each week. There is no pressure to visit stores and buy more stuff that wasn’t needed anyway.

In last week’s post, I mentioned the instant relaxation my wife and I feel wash over us each time we drive into the carport of our small lake cabin. It’s our place to escape the self-imposed pressures of too many options and a never-ending to-do list in the big city.

The restriction of movement and activities that we are all experiencing feels like some of our liberties have been revoked. But there’s something very special about having fewer choices. Many people seem to have rediscovered the value of simple things to enjoy. For example, my neighborhood is alive with people and especially entire families out on walks and bike rides.

Dreaming of the Road to Sales

I never thought I’d say this, but I’m kind of missing the tasteless scrambled eggs at the hotels I frequent, the delayed and canceled flights, and arriving home at 1:00 am on Thursday. Road Warriors, do you know what I mean?

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Scary Times – Simple Action

David Bliss — Thu, 26 Mar 2020 12:30:56 +0000

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing; the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way” – Victor Frankel

On Wednesday, March 13, 2020, I took a break for lunch and tuned in to CNBC. The stock market was gyrating with the speculation of Covid-19 and its impact on our economy. My wife walked by and asked if I was scared about the precipitous drop in the market. Confidently, I told her I didn’t believe it was a big deal. It was only a few months earlier that she learned just how frozen with fear I was during the financial meltdown of 2008.

Our family’s financial future is tied to stock market investments, 401(k)s, IRAs, and the like. See, one year out of college, even while I was making just enough money to pay for my apartment, I started investing $25 each month into the stock market. As my income grew, my monthly investment increased as well.

2006 and 2007 might have been some of the best years for my family and me (like many others in the USA). We visited South Africa on a company-sponsored photo safari, which changed our view of the world and enhanced our lives in immeasurable ways. In that same period, after many years of frugal saving and searching, we bought a small lake cabin. Little did we know the lifelong experiences that awaited our family and friends there. We learned the meaning of less is more. A cabin with no internet, no T.V., and very limited mobile phone service brought my family closer together.

In addition, I left the security of a large company and joined a startup after years of dreaming of starting my own business. The strength of my financial position at the time gave me the confidence to make the leap.

Blue Skies to Storm Clouds

But, as 2008 unfolded, the sole investor in our venture encountered his own boom to bust story. One day the sky was the limit in the natural gas market and the next day it busted and busted hard. Our investor’s primary business was directly linked to the natural gas industry. Within a couple of months, he was out of business and so was our startup. Within eight months, my dream was over.

It was now May 2008.

I devoured the stories of crimes by financial firms and the ineptitude of the agencies in charge of regulating them in the Wall Street Journal. Day after day, I sat paralyzed with fear watching CNBC do a play-by-play of this slow-motion economic train wreck. The result was going to tear down the foundation of our country and bring the world to its knees.

Fortunately, I was able to land a job at Pegasystems (a truly great company), in late August 2008. One year later in 2009, I stared at the value of the investments we’d made for my family’s future. Years of diligently investing a part of my paycheck each month and now seeing it only worth 35 percent of its value compared to the previous year. It felt like we were back at the starting line of an unfair game with no chance to win. The losses were only on paper, I reminded myself again and again as I resisted the temptation to sell. My paper loss during the dot-com bust had been even larger. Thank God I had a job.

The fear spread by the experts and media in 2008 turned out to be far worse than what actually happened, but there was plenty of carnage. A friend at one of my clients recently shared her story of their house getting repossessed and having to file bankruptcy. But 12 years later, she and her husband have found a way out of their financial collapse. They helped pay for their kids’ college while working toward a dream of retiring to Mexico. Many people’s financial lives were ruined in that economic downturn, and yet others came out even better.

Looking back, the slow march of time and people taking dramatic action produced even better results in our world a dozen years later.

Facing COVID-19 Headlong

“It’s like déjà vu all over again.” Yogi Berra

A new enemy is attacking the world and threatening our future, COVID-19.

Without the aid of a microscope, the only way we can see the enemy is from the personal and economic havoc it’s wreaking across our society. The week of March 16th, 2020, turned out to be eerily similar to one particular week in the fall of 2008.

During both, with each passing day, my fear grew exponentially. I started my evening by watching Mad Money on CNBC. Normally, I watch Mad Money when there’s a guest on from a company I’d like to listen to discuss their business. But now I’m watching Jim Crammer describe the potential for a financial apocalypse much like how he did 2008.

By the end of the day Friday, March 20, 2020, I was discussing with my wife what we should do to preserve something for our future. My glasses were completely fogged over with a view of the worst-case scenario.

What to Believe During Times of Uncertainty

Our country has experienced numerous financial shocks and even horrific events like 9/11. There is always devastation. People lose their lives, their jobs, their homes, and their financial stability, but over time, we recover and we continue our march forward. I can’t forecast where we’ll be a year from now, nor can even the best economists, but history has proven time and again that things will improve.

That was the thought that finally helped me move ahead. By Saturday afternoon, I regained my composure and my fear dissipated. The havoc the virus will cause is likely going to get worse, but life will continue. Society has proven over and over again that the action and ingenuity of people over time will work its magic. I know in 2030 when we reflect on what happened to us in 2020, we’ll all be in a better place.

Finding Meaning in Work

In December of last year, I wrote a post explaining that I discovered meaning in work. Although I had a successful selling career, there was always something missing. The awards, trips, and commissions brought only ephemeral satisfaction. I constantly questioned why I was here on earth and what it was I really was supposed to be doing.

Maybe it’s my increasing age that finally made me understand that real meaning and happiness comes through helping others. I’m not sure. What I am sure of is that helping others takes the focus off me and allows me to direct my energy to assist my clients whether it results in a sale or not.

Saturday night, while sitting on the sofa, patiently waiting for my wife to join me for a movie, I trolled through trailers of shows on Amazon Prime. A documentary about Zig Ziglar popped up. The brief video clip was compelling and, since my wife hadn’t joined me yet, I started watching the show.

I used to think Ziglar was just too over the top for my taste. I hadn’t actually read any of his books or attended any of his conferences to arrive at my uninformed opinion. Not only did Ziglar positively influence and educate millions of people, but he also discovered true happiness in his mid-40s.

It took most of my life to finally find this truth too.

“You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want” Zig Ziglar

Dedicating Ourselves to Helping Others

Covid-19 isn’t going away tomorrow, but an even better future awaits us. Right now, we should be asking ourselves what steps we can take each day to pour ourselves into helping others. Those others could be your work colleagues, your clients, your family, or your neighbors.

I’d like to hear about the action you’re taking to help others. I think we’d all like to know what our peers are doing to improve life during these tough times. Here’s something simple I did for my parents this weekend: I helped them set up “WhatsApp” on their phone so they can do video calls with our family in Germany. Now the 1000s of miles separating our family will be just a little closer.

What are you doing to help others?

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Small Business Sales Fundamentals

David Bliss — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 11:29:54 +0000

Three new salespeople hired to accelerate a local company’s growth; two years later, no new sales, and a company barely hanging on.

This was the immediate finding of a consultant brought in to help a small local business get back on its feet. My jaw dropped and my eyes popped forward hearing this story. This isn’t an outlier, nor is it fake news. The ineffectiveness of salespeople and sales management is a staggering problem for many small and large organizations.

I’d like to tell you the story was an isolated event, but it’s not. A common thread across companies of all sizes is a lack of understanding of what sales organizations should be doing. Selling and all that it entails seems to be a mystery to many. That mystery is a fundamental misunderstanding of the qualities that define an effective salesperson. My favorite anecdote is equating someone who is a talker to likely being a good candidate for sales.

Small Business Sales Versus Large Business Sales

Any size company could suffer the impact of poor-performing salespeople. In large companies with a significant number of sellers, the good sellers will carry the day for underperformers. Pareto’s principle is in full effect in these sales organizations when analyzing who is making quota and who is not. In fact, in my experience, the number of sellers carrying the day for these companies is closer to 10 percent than 20.

A small business can’t have this kind of massive miss with their sales staff. But that’s exactly what happened with the local company when three sales guys sold nothing in two years. When the consultant advised the company owner to fire the guys, he immediately defended them. He explained how their pipeline was full of opportunities and, of course, these were good people.

The result was still zero sales.

If you’re a small-business owner, here are a few ideas to help educate yourself and take control of your sales future.

Before You Hire a Salesperson

Being prepared to hire your salespeople means more than just knowing who to interview. You need to be ready for them in every aspect of the word. Here are a few things to consider:

How are you tracking your sales today? Are you using a spreadsheet or customer relationship management software (CRM)? The CRM software won’t make more sales for you, but if you use it daily to track your next steps and evaluate your pipeline, this tool can be extremely helpful. As always, keep it really, really simple. There are hundreds of CRM tools in the market. Here’s a basic CRM to consider for your business. Start with the Essential package. Avoid chasing new features.
Is it easy to understand the value of your product or service and how it benefits your customers and prospects? If not, are you expecting your new salesperson to figure this out for you? Don’t defer this obligation to someone else.
How are you getting your sales today? Strong relationships and word of mouth are how so many companies start and continue to survive. But this approach is fragile at best and too dependent on others. How will your new salesperson get you beyond your network of referrals?
Do you have a compensation plan for your new salesperson? Remember, selling is a high risk, high reward job. Talk with your peers to learn how they’re doing it. Set aside a budget for sales commissions. Oh, and don’t get your feelings hurt if your sales folks are making more than you when they’re blowing out their numbers. Instead, celebrate and reset their goals for the next year.

Hiring a New Salesperson

“The best sales job a salesman does is during his interview,” was how one of my sales VPs framed the interview process involved in hiring salespeople. Time has proved him to be right over and over again.

As a small-business owner, the effort you put into finding a high-caliber salesperson will help tip the scale in your favor. Remember:

Referrals are the ideal way to find any good employee.
Cut through the bullshit bingo words in their resume and the interview. Here are some of my favorite bullshit bingo words and phrases: maximized, leveraged, on the same page, and synergy.
A couple of years of success in sales isn’t a track record. It’s difficult to speak with former employers and have a candid conversation these days. So, instead, ask to speak with three of their clients and learn what they have to say about your candidate.
Don’t wait a year to make a change. It will be very clear within 90 to 120 days if you’ve got someone who will get the job done.

It’s critical to remember that sales are the lifeblood of your organization. One of the key signs things aren’t going well in sales is when you hear excuses instead of hearing answers and seeing results. This topic could go on for pages and pages, but in brief, any good strategy is simple and constantly evolving.

An Amazing Story of Success

Recently I listened to a podcast where Tony Robbins interviewed Sara Blakely, the CEO and founder of Spanx. Spanx is a billion-dollar business she built from the ground up with $5,000 of her own money and without outside investors. And she did it in the women’s clothing business, which is one of the most ruthless and toughest segments in the world.

In a one hour and fifteen-minute podcast, Sara fills a giant sales sack full of gold nuggets to help others be successful. Whether you’re a small-business owner, or you have a large staff of salespeople, or if you’re an individual contributor, her story will educate and inspire.

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Getting Your Sales Message Right

David Bliss — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 11:38:34 +0000

Early Sales Advice

After an unexpected promotion to a sales role at one of my early employers, I was frozen with fear about what to do as a salesman. I didn’t ask to be in sales, and for certain, I had no idea what a sales guy was supposed to do. The full story of my entry into sales is detailed in this post.

One odd piece of advice my boss gave me on my first official day in sales was never hang out in movie theater or he’d fire me on the spot. He suggested hanging out in a bar all day was okay though. Time seemed to stop while I pondered why anyone would go to a movie during work hours. And what in the world did hanging out in a bar have to do with sales. Quietly hyperventilating while standing in front of my boss, he hit me with a question. He asked me, what does our company do? My mind was stuck in an odd slow-motion video watching myself sipping a beer at a local pub and looking totally out of place. He spared me further embarrassment and answered the question for me.

“You’ve got one shot to get this right and about 20 seconds or less to say it,” he explained. Later, I learned what an elevator pitch was and how to quickly articulate what our company did.

The Importance of Sales Pitches

“What does your company do?” It’s a simple question. It often comes up in social settings like kids’ events, neighborhood gatherings, or church. There’s one thing I’ve learned over the years; you never know who you’ll meet or who could change the course of your career.

Whether you’re a business owner, a salesperson, or anyone else, you’ve got one fleeting shot to hit the ball out of the park with your message. Yet, this simple question often causes us to stumble and fumble through a meandering blah blah blah of an answer.

You know you’ve bombed the opportunity when the inquirer responds with a “huh, that’s interesting.” Let me interpret this response. It means “I’m confused, I don’t care, and please stop talking.” Sure, we can chalk up this failure to being just idle chitchat or just say who cares? Well, you’ll never know since the rotten egg you just laid fouled the air and any desire the person might have to learn more about your company or what you do. And yes, I’ve whiffed at these softballs many times.

Where Elevator Pitches Go to Die

Mission statements, elevator pitches, and other company marketing schtick often get developed or restated when companies hire a new CEO or a new marketing leader. Significant time, money, and well-intended effort are put forth by all those involved. Some companies do effective education activities to trumpet the new direction and craft clever verbiage to describe the company through internal campaigns. But often, all this effort to define more precisely what an organization does dies a lonely death by neglect.

No One-Size-Fits-All Sales Messaging

As salespeople, we’re granted a quasi-franchise to sell the company’s products and/or services. The firm may have an elegant way to describe what it does, or maybe it’s dreadful.

None of this matters.

We need a strong organization supporting us, but what we say and how we say it is up to us. Consider the expression, “all politics is local” as it relates to your message, your territory, and your relationships.

How does your company’s generic message relate to the VP of Operations at a discrete manufacturer? It likely doesn’t. Whether the chance to exercise your message comes through a meeting you set up or an impromptu encounter, you have to be ready.

The internet is filled with creative ways to develop the perfect sales pitch, so there’s no need to repeat these methods. But there are a few things to consider about tuning your sales message and being prepared to let it flow effortlessly from your lips.

A Sports Comparison

We all have our picture of what confidence looks like. For me, it’s watching my favorite pro basketball players like Stephen Curry during crushing pressure-filled situations. Imagine it’s the NBA finals and the game is on the line. Two free throws will win the game. If Curry is shooting the free throws and you’re the other team, you know you’re done. Everything about Curry exudes confidence. His body posture is relaxed while he chomps on his mouthguard. It’s not just about the countless hours of practice that developed his mountain high confidence. He’s performed this routine at an exceptional level in every game he’s played.

Performing at a superior level whether it’s a game or selling requires constant practice. Shooting 500 free throws a day could be a way to improve your shooting technique. But what if you couldn’t leave the gym until you made 25 free throws in a row? The pressure is not the same as a real game but it gets you focused and it’s a better way to practice. It helps you fight through the tension that creeps into your shoulders. Muscle tension is a reaction caused by the doubt permeating in our brain.

In the World of Selling

The real test of our ability to execute happens in front of clients. These repetitions are 100 times the value of practicing. No amount of practice can recreate the sting of failing in front of our clients. Sometimes our clients may not know we’ve failed but we know we didn’t get our message right.

Here are a few tips to consider when developing your message and to continually improve.

Start with a simple draft. Trying to get it right in one session won’t happen.
The ideal duration should be 15 to 20 seconds.
Write it on your daily to-do list and say it out loud (every day).
Edit and edit some more.
Try it out on your coworkers, spouse, friends, and family. Yes, this is always uncomfortable. Welcome to sales.
How about a little peer pressure? Tell your colleagues or boss about your challenge. Ask them to surprise you with “the question.”
Ask for candid feedback.

When you deliver your message for the first several times in a real-world situation it still won’t feel just right. But each time you do it, the message will morph a little and flow with less and less effort. You’ll notice your eyes connect with your client more often and you’ll feel the relaxed comfort in your body.

Back at the Bar

In case you’re wondering, I did finally learn what my first sales boss was trying to tell me about being in a bar rather than at a movie theater. It turns out he was a great salesman. What I learned from him had a profound impact on my career.

If you’re holed up in an office, your house, or God forbid, a movie theater, it’s almost a certainty that you aren’t selling anything. The need for face to face meetings is critical to taking that first step forward. Getting your message right will ensure you have a second conversation.

The post Getting Your Sales Message Right appeared first on Salesmuser.

The Right Work The Right Work Environment

David Bliss — Thu, 27 Feb 2020 12:51:54 +0000

Does your office environment stimulate your highest level of productivity? Is there a place that you know you’re likely to be more focused and get more stuff done by just being there? Do you feel like you get more done in 90 minutes at this location than an entire day somewhere else? Maybe it’s not the location but the environment that puts you into a state of flow.

Commit to Nothing, Be Distracted by Everything

How does finding a place to zero in on your work translate into improving your sales?

To-Do List: #1 Prospecting

Does prospecting get you excited when you see it on your to-do list? It means unwelcome phone calls to prospects and email replies to remove them from my list. Prospecting is one of my strengths, but getting to the starting line to run the race is another story.

These are just a few techniques I use to avoid stepping up to the prospecting starting line:

Bouncing from one call to the next
Getting interrupted and interrupting others with instant messaging
Responding to my phone buzzing and dinging with texts
Checking email throughout the day

These days of futility happen for a few different reasons. Not planning my work the previous day is the biggest culprit. But not blocking times on my calendar dedicated to complete a task or not defending my calendar and letting it get hijacked with other people’s priorities are also to blame. Maybe the most important contributing factor to the futility is not defining when, where, what, and how long to perform a task, especially unenjoyable ones like prospecting.

Exercise Your Sales Muscles

Consider how well some of us avoid exercise. We know it’s good for us. We know it’ll make us feel better and that when it’s performed regularly over time, it produces great results. But we find endless excuses to skip exercising. Motivation or the lack of it is often praised or blamed as the reason exercise happens or not.

Here’s some good news. Motivation is not what’s needed to perform exercise consistently. This article by James Clear references scientific research that dispels the value of motivation to consistently exercise. Most importantly, the research identifies what actually works to routinely meet exercise goals.

The study above showed that simply writing down when and where you plan to exercise dramatically improves the chances of following through. It is easy to see that this same approach can be applied to addressing onerous, yet critical, sales work.

It feels effortless to start and complete a task without interruption, including even mundane administrative work like clearing your inbox or completing your expenses. For me, somehow the dust cloud of thoughts and ideas swirling through my brain dissipates for a brief time now and again, allowing me to focus. Finishing can feel exhilarating. Maybe it’s the sense of relief that the work is finally done. Being a habitually late filer of my expenses, that could certainly be my situation. But there’s more to this answer.

Can the Right Work Environment Improve Sales?

The type of work you’re performing can provide a heightened sense of satisfaction, for example, completing your prospecting goal for the day. Finding the right environment to conduct certain work seems to put us in the proper frame of mind, too. Here are the environments where I’m at my best. Maybe these locations and others are where you’re at your best too.

Places that produce focus or a state of flow:

A coffee shop
A hotel lobby
A plane trip

How can a coffee shop with all the conversations and squelching of the espresso machine create an island of productive tranquility? The common thread across these locations is limited options. There is no refrigerator to mill through, dog barking, or about a million other things that are at my home office diverting my attention.

Get the Right Stuff Done More Often

First, we’re not robots, so thinking that we need to fill our calendar with eight hours of selling activities is a fool’s errand. Having been the fool chasing the errand, I know all too well about the negative implications. The constant sense of failure that I couldn’t complete what I planned was crushing. In David Allen’s book Getting Things Done, he describes how to plan your personal, family, and work life. It made me realize I was doing my planning completely wrong, but it gave me permission to see that three undistracted hours of work done most days is a successful workday.

A Better Work Formula

Here’s what we learned today about doing more fundamental selling work more often:

Define when and where you’re going to do the task
Block it on your calendar
Limit the amount of time you plan to work on the task
Pick the right environment
Make the environment right

Applying the Formula to a Sales Function

Let’s apply this guide to a fan favorite selling function, cold calling.

Over the years, we know that calling at certain times like before 8:30 a.m. or after 5:00 p.m. may yield better results. Block your calendar to do these lovely calls at the time that works best for you. Let’s say the time and date are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 5:00 p.m. for 30 minutes.

Doing calls requires a quiet location, so it looks like the home office is where it will happen.

Finally, preparing the environment to be a distraction-free zone is critical. Let your spouse know you can’t be disturbed (let me know if this actually works for you, as it doesn’t seem to make two shits of difference at my home office). Next, either turn off the internet to your laptop or close down email and instant messaging. Have the list of people you want to contact in front of you and then get it done.

Fundamentals or a Hail Mary

None of this is going to make cold calling enticing or exciting for you. Along with the harsh treatment we often receive while doing cold calls, we occasionally find that gold nugget that helps us discover a new opportunity or push a deal forward.

Everyone remembers the Hail Mary play that won a game. No one remembers all the failed attempts to come back and win a game with a Hail Mary play. The percentages of winning with this play are below five percent.

Absolutely no one remembers or cares about all the practice that leads up to a win. You know, the overused cliche of practicing the fundamentals. It not only wins sports championships, but it’s also what delineates between good salespeople and lucky salespeople.

The post The Right Work The Right Work Environment appeared first on Salesmuser.

Wacky Sales Stories

David Bliss — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 11:58:20 +0000

My first meeting with this client was memorable. They spent most of the meeting expressing their disdain for the previous Account Executive and sharing some of the truly stupid stuff he did. In this particular case, the AE showed up with a Coke to sip on during his meeting.

Somehow, his synapses didn’t connect that he was meeting with Dr Pepper/Snapple. The elegant sign at the entrance of the company’s campus and the one prominently displayed on the front entrance weren’t tip-offs either. But surely, the giant clear glass cooler in the lobby full of the client’s drinks inviting visitors to take one didn’t click the light on in his cavernous brain, either.

Sales – Negative Moniker

Selling is challenging on a good day. It seems like most people look down on salespeople. Heck, comedians have made a career out of poking fun at the profession. There’s also no doubt that I’ve made plenty of contributions to an Everest-high mountain of stupid stuff salespeople do.

The aura surrounding the salesman title conjures up all kinds of negative thoughts for most people. Truth be told, being a sales guy bothers me some days, sometimes a lot. Everyone likes a sale, not many people like a salesman, or so it seems.

Have you ever been introduced to someone at your client in this way: Oh yeah, David is the sales guy. Let me translate: Beware, he can’t be trusted and he might sell you something. It’s actually a little comical. Even with all my experience, I get backhanded remarks from clients, as well as people at my employer. Comments about trust and motive are always swirling around, whether they’re overtly stated or subtly noted in a passive-aggressive way.

Guilty until proven innocent is how these client relationships start. Rather than focusing on that, though, let’s set aside the unscrupulous stuff some salespeople do that tarnishes every salesperson and instead enjoy a few simply boneheaded acts.

The Dumb Stuff Salespeople Do

Here’s a story I got to hear firsthand at my initial meeting with a customer. My predecessor had just been fired, and I was left to pick up the pieces. The first meeting was with the VP who sponsored the project and purchaser of over a million dollars in software and double that amount in services. This customer was a major car rental company. You may know them by their gold membership cards.

Car Rental Malfunction

One day, the sales guy schedules a meeting with the VP and his direct reports. He lands at the airport and discovers the client’s rental car facility is out of cars. So, he decides to rent a car from the client’s chief rival. The sales guy then shows up at the client’s facility to pick up the client’s staff for a lunch meeting in their primary competitor’s vehicle. The client approaches the car, opens the passenger door and immediately notices the paperwork from their competitor lying on the car seat. They refuse to get in the car for obvious reasons. Then, some very embarrassing conversation ensues, which ends the meeting and any chance of a relationship with the VP.

The client only knew part of the foolishness. The previous AE shared the real story with most of the guys in the office over beers one night after work. He didn’t even consider where he was going and booked the competitor’s car instead. The reality of his careless decision didn’t hit him until the client called him out. It was knee-slapping fun hearing the AE recount the story.

Wrong Computer

Another colleague managed to get an important meeting with some key people at a global computer manufacturer. Our company’s product was a perfect solution for the client’s needs. It really doesn’t matter how good your product or service is when you lead with the stupid sales card. The AE and the System Consultant (SC, a technical expert) were ready to do an A+ presentation and demonstration for the client.

Their fate was sealed when they pulled out their chief rival’s laptop to do their presentation(the SC had tried unsuccessfully to get the AE to rent a client-branded laptop in the two weeks leading up to the meeting). Four of the five client’s staff attending the meeting unceremoniously left the room. The only person left was a new guy who just joined the company the week before.

Toyota, Cadillac, Mercedes – Who Cares?

Wacky stories aren’t limited to the individual salesperson. Here’s one for the hall of shame delivered by the SVP of Sales for a $500 million dollar company. The AE spent months forging a strong relationship with the client’s business and technology group. A deal was queued to close for the end of the quarter. There was no more selling left to do, but the SVP of Sales insisted on meeting with the client. Reluctantly, the AE got a brief meeting scheduled with the client’s Chief Information Officer (CIO). The SVP had a reputation at client meetings — and it wasn’t an endearing one. He was known for being unnecessarily arrogant, instantly offensive, and uninformed with clients.

Introducing the right executive to your client at the right time and to the right person can help propel your deal forward. Introducing your client to an unaware knucklehead executive from your company can create all kinds of risk and chaos. You only get out of it what you put into it, or so the old adage goes. Proper preparation of the executive you plan to bring into your client is crucial.

This AE was particularly controlling and obsessive when it came to any and everyone working with his client. He wrote a summary of the deal and created a biography on the CIO. He sent the information to the SVP days before their meeting. Not taking any chances, the AE spent an hour with the SVP the morning of their meeting, thoroughly briefing him.

They immediately drove over to meet with the CIO. How much could go wrong in 30 minutes anyway? According to the AE, the SVP clearly didn’t listen to anything he had been told. The first question instantly revealed the hour of preparation was a total waste of time.

After the introduction and some awkward pleasantries, the SVP asked the CIO about his work history prior to joining Toyota. After an intense stare by the CIO, who was probably wondering why he accepted this meeting, he shot back a terse reply. The SVP, not sensing the climate in the room had just turned frigid, decided that was an ideal moment to fling out one more question.

“Tell me about your project,” the SVP said casually, as if they had a few hours to spare. Things got really quiet, like the calm before a hurricane, as the CIO shifted his teeth-grinding gaze to the AE.

”Did you not prepare this guy?” he barked at the AE. And then things got really weird. Even the clueless SVP of Sales realized this had turned into a shitshow. After more ridiculous drivel exiting the SVP’s mouth, he decided to reassure the CIO of Toyota that the project would be a great success.

His reassurance came by way of an insanely inept comparison to one of Toyota’s competitors. He assured the CIO the project would run like a Cadillac. The AE didn’t think he could slide lower in his chair, but he did.

The CIO’s face held a stunned look of disbelief. He was probably wondering if this was really happening to him. The SVP had absolutely no clue what was wrong. The unamused CIO asked him if he’d like to change that comparison. In an apparent epiphany, the SVP realized his mistake. It’s hard to top stupid, but what came next was beyond ludicrous and idiotic.

“Oh, oh yeah, we’ll make this project run like a Mercedes,” came from the ingenious mouth of the SVP.

“We’re done,” the CIO said as he left the office. The CIO called the AE back into his office and instructed him to never bring the SVP back to his company, ever.

The AE assured me the SVP still didn’t recognize his blunder until he told him on the walk back to his car.

Avoiding the Hall of Sales Shame

These misadventures in sales foolishness are fun to recount. But they also are one of many reasons that selling is harder than it should be. The next time you’re struggling to get that key executive meeting, remember all of those who have come before you. We all want to avoid being the centerpiece of a wacky sales story, but when we fail, it resonates through the profession.

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