Tweet

Action is All

Written by: Robin Elliott

Article Overview: Think about it: How badly do you want to double your sales? What are you prepared to do? By your FRUIT you will be known.

Action is All

When he strode into the room in his thousand-dollar suit, I knew that George Choriatopoulos meant business. He was poised and very purposeful. He looked at each one of us intently. No joking around. We sat around the boardroom table in his Parktown office, each of us wondering what was going on. He ripped the Goals Program off the flipchart, calmly crumpled it up, and threw it into the bin. Then he leaned forward, resting his fists on the huge oak table. “Gentlemen”, he said softly and with great intensity, “every week we meet here to discuss our sales and plans. You’re all independent business owners. I am not your boss. But we meet to encourage each other and to mastermind. Time is valuable to all of us. From today, I don’t want to know about all the leads and deals you have ‘In the Pipeline’. I don’t want to hear about what you’re working on or whom you’ve met. I only want to know one thing, and then you can all get out of here until next week. This meeting will take just five minutes. HOW MANY SALES DID YOU EACH MAKE LAST WEEK?”

Salespeople are in the habit of making excuses and promises when they’re not delivering results. We’re all good at it. After all, we’re salespeople, right? And often we lie to ourselves about what is really going on. We talk about our plans and goals, but what really matters is results. I don’t care about schemes and dreams – I care about results. Intention and goals are important, but outcome is more important. If I say I will do something or produce a certain result on a certain date and I don’t, my excuses are of no importance to you. You can’t bank excuses or promises. Your accountant doesn’t want to know about potential and opportunities. The bottom line is real money. This is real life and every day gone is gone forever. This is not a dress rehearsal. Let’s get real serious about getting real results. Winners will allow one or two slip ups, but sooner than later they will cut bait and stop working with you if you don’t produce.

I once trained the insurance salespeople in 91 banks simultaneously on a conference call. I asked them, “Can any of you double your sales next month?” they all replied that it was impossible, given their busy schedules and past results. I then asked if it would be possible to double their sales if their families had been kidnapped by terrorists and they knew without a doubt that their families would be murdered if they didn’t double their sales in a month. Guess what? All of a sudden it was possible! I asked what they would have to change and do differently and stop doing, and we could create an action plan to accomplish 100% sales increase without calling in the terrorists. Think about it: How badly do you want to double your sales? What are you prepared to do? By your FRUIT you will be known. Talk is cheap but money buys the Jack Daniels. Action is all.

Join the Action Takers of the DollarMakers Joint Venture Forum www.jvwisdom.com

Related Articles
  A Call to Action for the Sales Force
  Action vs. Inaction
  Are You Wasting Time in Overwhelm
  Are You Upset
  Have You Ever Felt You Didn't Know How You'd Get Your Next Sale?

Article Tags: accountant, boardroom table, dollar suit, dress rehearsal, fists, five minutes, flipchart, gentlemen, goals program, habit, independent business owners, ins, intensity, mastermind, pipeline, real money, salespeople, schemes and dreams, slip ups, ups



Related Forum Posts
Re: Blog sells for up to $15 million - Action speaks louder than dream. What are we doing about GT suggestion? We can make this work in 2010
Advertisement that sales - Plan your marketing programme. It should include commitment to capital resources. If you run a small business, you aren't likely to have a generous enough advertising budget that will allow you to run costly branding or campaign ads. Every advertisement you run must convey to your prospect a solid offer and attractive reasons to act quickly, and result in increased sales and an enhanced image of your company. Good advertising always pays its own way through increased sales and profits, improved cost-effectiveness, reduced selling costs and shortened selling cycles. A useful formula that will help you increase the effectiveness of your advertising efforts is A-I-D-A, which stands for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. When creating an advertisement, always remind yourself that it should: (1) capture your prospects' Attention, (2) arouse their Interest in your offer, (3) create their Desire for your product or service, and (4) provide a powerful spur to Action, that is, turn your prospect into buyers. Remember, bad advertising is an unproductive expense, and good advertising is an investment in future profits!
Re: Watch What you Read - I agree. i believe more video's should be like Jeffery Gitomers video's under his Sales rant. They are typically not more than 3 minutes. His model seems to be; 1. Main Message (or Point) 2. Example 3. Next steps to put it into Action take away the extra "blabber" and you've got viewers that will come back.
Re: Best Internet Marketing Strategies - I think the number 1 strategy to succeed is to "Take Action". Too many start and never follow through. Get caught up in the stomach moment (having a feeling of making 1,000's and seeing others do it, but you not doing anything to achieve). To make it easier on others, you need to have a game plan as well. How much work you will put in daily, how much it will cost, what the average conversions are, how much traffic you will need, your advertising sources, and others, but just a plan.
Re: Modeling the Masters Video - Ingvar Kamprad - Hi Evan, Great idea to feature the IKEA founder... I'm listening right now and I really like "Action Item #3: "Time is your most important resource; you can do SO MUCH in ten minutes... divide your life into 10 minute units and sacrifice as few of them as possible"... Great! I "liked" and "tweeted" the youtube video.


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.

Tweet

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

Ten Things You Can Do To Be a Better Leader

Making the Most of Your Trade Show Experience

Five Ways to Show Honest Appreciation

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.