Tweet

960 Moments of PRIDE

Guest post by: Brian Sullivan

Article Overview: Five Essential Steps That Will Make You Famous in Your Industry

960 Moments of PRIDE

"Life is a succession of moments.

To live each one is to succeed."

Corita Kent (1918-1986)

American artist and teacher

Hey Salesperson! Do you want to have a successful day today? Well, you have about 960 opportunities (16 waking hours x 60 minutes) to make it happen. And the trick is to make sure the percentage of successful moments far outweighs the percentage of stale or unproductive moments. So what defines a successful moment at work? It is one that makes you more valuable to your customers, work associates, company or industry. And the following moments in your day, while necessary, are not necessarily increasing your value. Yet many average reps burn up countless minutes each day in these areas.

• Drive time
• Doing quotes
• Putting in orders
• Tracking down product information
• Checking email and voicemail

On the other hand, the following activities contain what I call “960 Moments of PRIDE.” And this PRIDE can raise your value…and your commission check.

• Prospecting for New Customers
• Relationship Making
• Influence Activity
• Deviation
• Educating Yourself

Prospecting for New Customers



Want to add some 960 Moments to your day? If so, you need to get out of the office and into the offense. Let me explain. Just last week a tenured salesperson told me that business wasn’t great. I then asked him if he was out looking for new accounts, and he told me he was not. When I asked him why, he said that he was afraid that if he went calling on other rep’s accounts they would come after his accounts. News Flash! In business, the best way to defend your own accounts is to make people defend theirs (by the way, this doesn’t mean by low balling on price!). It’s that whole “best defense is a good offense” thing. If you are somebody who is spending more time in the office and not enough time on offense, your value is decreasing while your 960 competitor is increasing. This is no plateauing in this business. Your value is either going up or down.

Relationships



Are you looking to trade in some of those stale low-value moments for more 960 Moments? Great…I have an idea. Make a list of the top 10 people both inside and outside of your business that can make you smarter. Then give them a call to set up a breakfast, lunch or other meeting (happy hour or golf is often a nice way to spend a 960 moment). Each moment you spend with a networking partner increases your value. Because the relationships that are made, along with the information you will receive, will make you more valuable to your company and your customers. Reach out to at least one person in your network each week and be prepared with one or two specific questions. Don’t reach out just for the sake of “reaching out!” Set a clear objective. An example might be, “My objective in meeting with Joe is to get him to tell me at least three things that he does to separate him from the competition.” By setting a specific objective for your networking meeting, you will get more out of it. And in that meeting find a way to help Joe in three ways as well. That will keep him an active member of your 960 relationship file.

Influence Your Activity

If you are interested in saying goodbye to the Poconos, and saying hello to the Bahamas, you need to be very specific about what you want to sell and how much of it you want to sell each day. Pick one or two products today that you think you could sell a ton of and plan to prospect on EVERY call you make for 20 days. But before you do, think about how many of those products you would like to sell. For instance, if you want to sell seven widgets by the end of the month, I first want you to think about how many prospecting calls you need to make and how many formal presentations you need to deliver to get to those seven sales. For example:

• To get 7 sales, I believe I will need to set up 10 live presentations (70% close ratio…not bad!). But to get to 10 presentations, I believe I need to prospect with 50 customers.

Okay 960, now that you know how many prospects you need to talk to about the widgets (That’s 50, by the way), it’s time to get to work. And take comfort in knowing that your competition, because they didn’t go through the above exercise, will stop prospecting at about 12, long before you have arrived at your number of 50.

Deviate

960 Reps don’t look, act, think or smell like the average salesperson. And they aren’t afraid to take valuable minutes each day to do something a little “deviant.” One simple way to deviate from your competition is to take 15 minutes each day to write hand written thank you notes to customers and prospects that you met with that day. Keep the notes, some envelopes and a book of stamps in your briefcase, car, or by your phone. Then after every high value call you make, take one minute to write it, seal it and stamp it. Then find the first blue mailbox you can find. Think about it. When will that prospect or customer get your note? Tomorrow or the next day? And guess what that note will say about your ability to serve them. It says you care, you pay attention to detail, you have five-star follow up skills and you have time to do the little things for that customer. And that note can say those things even better than your lips can; because it is done in the spirit of service. And if you prefer to write the notes in your office at night, no problem, just get it done. Also, for you deviants who do everything online, check out an online card creation service. It allows you to pick a card, personalize it and mail it with your handwriting all from one site.

Educate Yourself

The most successful people in any business are the ones who schedule time each week to learn something new. So grab your PDA or open up your Outlook calendar right now and set a recurring appointment with yourself. And make that appointment between 30 and 60 minutes for the same time each week. During that time you can read a trade journal, visit a competitive website, call a current customer to ask for feedback, read a sales book…or whatever! But if the ultimate goal is to be able to provide more value to your customers than the competition, you need to be smarter than them. And the 960 rep doesn’t get smarter by accident.

Lastly, remember the only difference between top performers and the average is how they look at each moment, each hour and each day. There is a sense of urgency in high achievers that has them keeping score between productivity and wasted time. And top performers simply come closer to 960 Moments of PRIDE than others. And when they roll over to set the alarm clock before bed, it is at that moment they can tell themselves, “I made my objectives, I served others, I made a difference, and I did my best. Today was a great day!”

Go make it a 960 day!

Related Articles
  Your Moments Bank Account
  Moments of Professional Happiness
  PRIDE IS AT THE BOTTOM OF LEADERSHIP:
  Take Charge of Your Wealth: Moment Investing
  How the Mighty Fall
  Magic Moments
  Dear Husband, Inspirational Article
  Have You Had a High Definition Moment Lately?
  Self Improvement Advice: Meditation
  Pride and Progress
  The Secrets of Time
  How True Leaders Execute Plans Without Fail & Celebrate Their Victories
  Are You a Master of Your Moments?
  Seven Deadly Workplace Sins. First Up: Pride
  Put Life Into Your Work And Put Work Into Your Life
  Labels for a Frontline Leader
  Interviewing Job Applicants: More Powerful with a Results-Oriented Job Description
  Secret Shoppers and Moments of Truth Build Customer Loyalty
  The Dangers and Costs of Pride and Ego
  Make a DVD Video for 2010 Winter Olympics with PowerPoint

Article Tags: insurance sales training, medical sales training, pitchmen, pride, sales process, sales training



Related Forum Posts
Re: Did you reach your goal this year? - I love the honesty in this thread. There is so much power in that! It's reassuring to remember that entrepreneurship is TOUGH. But I find that very motivating. But to know that we all CAN do it, if we only stay the course. Sometimes I can compare myself with the worlds most famous whoever, and then feel discouraged. But that's not really realistic now is it? I've had a lot of ups and downs since I moved to Manhattan 3 years ago, and last year was no exception. I've been really surprised by some happy developments though -- just when you think everything is going to fail, something good happens! Last year, I'm most proud of being invited to speak at 3 different events, getting 6 new clients, and having a magazine article published about my coaching. A few years ago I never would have thought I could do any of that -- I had some really frustrating times where I was seeming to get nowhere. So for me, dealing w/ disappointment,frustration, and having realistic expectations has improved over the last 5 years, and now it's helped me to become a better coach for others going through the same thing. I really do understand what it's like to move to NYC alone w/ a suitcase, not have an apartment,and meanwhile try to start a business w/o support. It was sort of a right of passage for me. Side note story, but sort of represents some of the feelings I'm talking about here -- I used to make paintings. I'd sell them online. I made one called "idealism" which was basically showing how there is no place for idealism, art, or new ideas is a society of grids and stop lights and cubicles. It was an extremely low time for me, and I wanted to take all of my paintings to the dumpster -- I almost did! My mom called me and insisted that I not throw them out. Within a month, a stranger in NYC (I was still in AZ at the time), bought my idealism painting. This buyer must have felt the same way I did, and that alone proved to me that there WAS a place for what I had to offer in the world -- even if I couldn't see it at the time. I then moved to NYC where there was much more of a place for what I had to offer. Moments like that drive me forward, past whatever doesn't seem to be working.
Meet Mary Sue Milliken - chef and restaurant owner - Mary Sue Milliken will be at our "Launching an Edible Life" event February 4 in Los Angeles ... come join us! Contact aswift@ladieswholaunch.com for registration details. If there's just one thing you need to open a restaurant, it would have to be a stove, right? Think again. When Mary Sue Milliken and her best friend/fellow chef/business partner Susan Feniger opened City Cafe in Los Angeles in 1981, they had no stove or oven, only a hot plate and a hibachi out back in the alley. Humble digs, especially for two professionally trained chefs-Milliken had attended Washburne Culinary Institute, while Feniger studied at the Culinary Institute of America. Their resumes included stints at three-star restaurants in France, Spago in Los Angeles, and Le Perroquet in Chicago, where they met in 1978-the first women working in that restaurant's all-male kitchen. Rich in experience and vision, but not in funds, they were happy to have a restaurant to call their own and quickly began perfecting a unique, multicultural fare, which incorporated recipes from Greek, Indian, and Thai cultures, as well as their own mothers' recipes. Once they expanded to City Restaurant in 1985, they became culinary icons, recognized for their fresh mix of refined culinary technique and exotic Third World flavors, all dished up with down-home charm and playful enthusiasm. Now overseeing 375 employees between the Border Grill restaurants in Santa Monica and Las Vegas and Ciudad in downtown Los Angeles, the partners have also found time to write five cookbooks, including the recent Mexican Cooking Essentials for Dummies; host the popular Food Network shows "Too Hot Tamales" and "Tamales World Tour"; and launch the Border Girls brand at Whole Foods Market. What we learned from Mary Sue: Not every venture will be successful, but every experience will be worthwhile. "You've got to bounce back and just keep going. They're all great lessons to learn." Words of Wisdom "I think we both subconsciously were willing to start in a really meager setting, just because it was an opportunity not to work for a man." Penniless But Passionate "We had come home [from France] with the intent to open a restaurant together, and we didn't have a penny to our names. I was 23 years old. I had not been to college. I had no idea how to launch a business. None. Susan had a degree in economics and had been to chef's school. She's five years older than me. But she also didn't have any idea how to launch a business." Cook What You Know "First of all, you just copy things. But then, it starts to be a very personal cuisine, which is what we basically used those three-and-half years at City Cafe for-to create our own personal style of food. And it was so well-received. It started out as country French food, and it kept expanding all the time." Eclecticism, Not Fusion "We did some really groundbreaking stuff. This was in 1984, and still, when our City Cuisine cookbook came out in '87, people said there's nowhere to put this book on the shelves of the cookbook aisles, because you guys are all over the map. And there just wasn't that kind of integration of different culinary ideas. We never called what we did "fusion." We always felt like we stayed very true to the Greek cuisine, or the Indian, or the Thai, or the Mexican, or the Scandinavian, or whatever it was." On-the-Job Training We slowly started learning about business, so when we launched City Restaurant, which was really the thing that put us on the map, it was a 125-seat restaurant with a full-on kitchen. It was on La Brea. We raised the $660,000, and had to do a whole prospectus. I'll never forget, my net worth was $12,000, and Susan's wasn't much more. But we were able to learn by the seat of our pants, and we've been learning ever since." How Much Is Enough? "We were just making educated guesses-or uneducated guesses. In the end, $660,000 was not enough money at all. We were completely short, and we had to get an angel to come in and sign a guarantee on a bank line of credit for us. Really, it was a stressful opening, because we only had like two-and-a-half days in the kitchen with food before we had to open the doors to the public because we were so broke." Hindsight Is 20/20 "If I knew then what I know now, I would have somehow found some financial bridge so that we could have had a little more practice before we opened. I mean, literally, the first couple weeks, there were nights that we didn't even go home, and we were really burning the candle down to zero." It's a Man's World "I think we were both ready to be on our own. And the prospect of working under men, and working our way up, and trying to fight through all of the barriers, looked less fulfilling than just starting out [on our own]. Even though we didn't even have a stove, we still opted to start out calling our own shots." Know When to Grow "The growth ... it's a really personal thing. It depends on how equipped you are for the challenge and stress of growth, and how your business is doing. I mean, we've grown where things worked out really well, and we've grown where it's created a big strain on the existing businesses, and the new businesses didn't work." On Losing Money "When I look back on it, I think, 'Well, I didn't go to college. That's about how much college might cost me. I'll just chalk it up to experience.' Now I have an even better understanding, and luckily, it didn't happen at a time when I really couldn't afford it. But I'll tell you, being an entrepreneur and being in business is a real roller coaster." A Thankless Job Has Its Rewards "When the Food Network came asking for us to come and promote our second book, and they noticed we were funny and how we finished each other's sentences, they said, 'You girls should have a TV show.' The reason we should have had a TV show was that we did all of this really thankless teaching before that, and I'm not even sure it brought bodies into the restaurant. A lot of people might have looked at it as a waste of time. But I think you never know what skill you're going to develop, [and our teaching gave us the skills we needed to do the Food Network show.]" Be a Great Boss "We learn a lot from our colleagues, and from other companies that we want to be like. We're always looking for innovative ways to really make our workplace so phenomenally attractive that we can't lose good people, and we can attract the best. Those are big goals for us all the time." My Most Rewarding Business Moments... "... are when one of our past employees mentions how working for us made a difference in their lives. It's the best feeling in the world!" Be Good at Everything "You have to be a great leader, as well as a great cook, as well as organized, because it's a business of so many details. I think there are a lot of restaurants that fall through the cracks because they're missing the boat on something, and customers just don't come back." All Work and No Play "You have to be willing to walk away when you have a pile of work on your desk and stuff that you really should get done. You've got to be willing to walk away and clear your mind and be in the moment with your children or your husband, or whoever. You have to convince yourself that it's equally, or more, important than your job." This Featured Lady was profiled by Sarah Tomlinson, a Los Angeles-based freelance writer.
Meet Kim Kleeman - Shakespeare Squared: Named one of Inc.'s - THIS IS PRETTY INTERESTING. WISH I'D THOUGHT OF IT FIRST!!!! Meet Kim Kleeman: Shakespeare Squared: Named one of Inc.'s 500 Fastest Growing Private Companies in America. Recognized as one of Working Mother magazine's 25 Best Small Companies. Awarded the title of Illinois Family Business of the Year. Lofty accomplishments for company founder Kim Kleeman, a woman who just a few short years ago swore she would never own her own business! Having grown up the child of business-owner parents, Kleeman knew well the stresses and demands that entrepreneurial life can place upon a family. She met her husband, Jay, on the first day of college, and together they earned their teaching degrees and started making plans for a modest but happy life. When Jay's stint as a student teacher strained the family budget, though, they both started doing subcontract work proofing elementary school textbooks. Before long, they were taking on bigger jobs and hiring other teachers to freelance on various projects, and from that point on, they never looked back. In 2003, the couple founded Shakespeare Squared, an educational development company that employs an army of freelancers to write and edit materials such as textbooks, lesson plans, teacher guides, activity workbooks, and test-preparation materials. Initially a home-based business managed by Kim while Jay continued his work as a high school teacher, the company now has a full-time staff of 20 and is branching out in new directions, publishing its own materials and offering an educational editing certification process. In three years' time, the company has grown by an incredible 815 percent, bringing in $2.3 million in revenue last year. What we learned from Kim: That the most incredible resource for launching might very well be your own friends and family. Kim started this business with her husband; her best friend since high school is her director of human resources; her sister is a remote project coordinator; her lawyer brother weighs in on various matters; her mom is a managing editor; and her parents are her de facto advisory board, with whom she meets every morning to share a cup of tea and conversation in their backyard. Words of Wisdom "Trust your instincts and empower your people." From Teacher to Tycoon "I don't know if I had a big 'aha' moment about starting a business; our growth was really organic. After my second child I immediately got pregnant with my third and there was no turning back, because we weren't going to be able to afford day care for two babies on two teachers' salaries. I had been working from home and continuously had one or two projects going, and I set a goal of having 10 projects running simultaneously. So after my son was born, I enacted my own guerilla marketing plan and e-mailed every editorial director at the big publishing companies, looking for projects. We soon landed our first big client, HarperCollins Children's Books." Not About the Money "I just wanted to make the best company that I could and be happy doing it. If that included millions of dollars, great, but that wasn't really the goal. I didn't know at first how much work we would end up getting, but I think the extensive classroom experience of our people sets us apart in this field. As teachers ourselves, we understand the needs of our clients and we deliver on that." It Takes a Village "We employ over 400 freelance writers. Most are former teachers but we pull from publishing, journalism, and other fields as well. We developed a writing test that covers everything from copyrighting to educational taboos, and prospective freelancers must earn at least a B+. A nice plus with our business is the opportunity we can offer teachers for life beyond teaching. I really promote teachers in the classroom, but if the classroom just isn't your thing and you're still passionate about education, there is a place for you here." Those Who Can, Teach "Educators in this country are getting a bad rap. We ask them to perform many roles and yet we're not supporting them as a society. Prospective teachers must student teach to become certified and are expected to not work while doing so, but there are so many people from diverse backgrounds who would love to teach-and who would be great teachers-who can't afford to do that. The Shakespeare Squared Foundation helps pay for prospective teachers to student teach. My passion is to get the right teachers in place, because that makes all the difference for students." The Best and the Brightest "It is definitely a challenge to find and retain the best talent, because I am up against large publishers. I have to provide a different culture and be creative in the way I offer benefits. We really believe in the work/life balance and offer such things as flex hours, remote work capabilities, and a working-parents room in the office. We've been recognized for these efforts, and because of them, our turnover is very low." Networking 101 "You have to go into a networking situation with the idea in mind that there will be one person in the crowd who can make a difference to you, and you have to find that person. You may be talking to someone who makes shoelaces and has nothing in common with your business, but she may know someone in your field or know about an interesting business practice that could translate to your own. But the bottom line is that if it's not the right conversation, you politely cut it short and move on." Strength in Numbers "There is so much value in the process of incubating an idea with other women. I am always looking for women who are coming together creatively and collaboratively because things flow from it that you would never dream. When women support other women, we empower each other to take charge of our lives, whether by owning our own businesses or making a career change or making decisions about our families." Best Advice "I read in Working Mother magazine that women CEOs need to take the ability that they have in their work life to delegate responsibility and create a management team and apply that to their home life as well. So I really try to think of running my household the same way I run my business; whether it's cleaning ladies or repairmen, I find people I trust and have them take care of tasks that I don't need to spend time on. This has relieved a lot of guilt and allowed me to focus on the things that are really important." Most Rewarding Moments "Winning the Working Mother award as one of the 25 Best Small Companies felt pretty great because it showed that having a unique workplace does pay off. But even better is realizing that your message is getting across to your people. I love seeing quotes at my team's desks about goals and achieving your dreams, all of the exact things I say to empower them. It's cool to realize that there isn't a lot of cynicism, and that people are really buying into these ideas and making them their own." Parting Thoughts ... "My secret weapon is the news articles that I send to my team." "I will retire when I have no more dreams to accomplish." "I will always think of myself as a teacher." "My greatest strength is my enthusiasm." This featured lady was profiled by Noelle Pechar Hale, a freelance writer living in Los Angeles.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Maximum Impact Restaurant Greening

Time management for DIY PR

Email Marketing Made Easy #11 - Avoiding Spam

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.