“There’s always free cheese in the mousetrap!” ~ Unknown author
Right?
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Love reality UP!
The Irreverent Sales Girl
Monthly Archives: March 2013
A Guest Post by Little Ol’ Me on Selling Fearlessly!
I am delighted to announce that Robert Terson has agreed to allow me to guest post on his site today.
While you’re over there, take a look around. Robert has some STELLAR articles with some great stories.
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What do you think of THAT?
Love it UP!
The Irreverent Sales Girl
I am going to really annoy some people here…
The more I read about sales “techniques” and “strategies”, the more I want to SCREAM!
Please (to the professional trainers) do NOT diminish my world into:
Acronyms like WHOOSH Selling and FEAR Selling and OUCH Selling (all fictitious)- as if there is a reliable formula.
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Please stop preaching. Please tell me your stories. Please start telling me what you’ve experienced. In a way that mirrors the palpable, terrifying, satisfying experience of TRULY being in sales – and gives me insights to be GREAT on my own – with my OWN techniques and ideas.
Please stop acting as if you know it all. You don’t.
Please be a humble resource to me.
Love it all UP!
The Irreverent Sales Girl
The unlikely celebrity…YOU!
Wanna be a celebrity?
(Of course you do!)
Here’s my observance….
We THINK that the people who are celebrities were somehow “meant to be” iconic celebrities.
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But, it’s not that way.
People FIND their own particular passion..and then they do it with NO reticence.
They find their own passion and then they do it with NO reticence.
They give up anything “safe” and they are ONLY them … at any cost.
And then they become fabulously famous!
Are you ready to BE ONLY YOU?
What will it cost? (Everything! It will be worth it).
Love your celebrity UP!
The Irreverent Sales Girl
The quote to sum it all up for the week – A sensational life!
“I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read on the train.”
~ Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
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I’ve always been known for a scandal or two! Those who know me will agree! It may not be pretty, but it makes for a great story!
Go create YOUR great story…
Love your life UP!
The Irreverent Sales Girl
Take the OFFER off the table…but, don’t take YOU off the table
When you take yourself away, you hurt yourself
Sitting in a sales meeting with a VIP at a company I would love to have as a client.
You know the one. The pretty big deal who would make a great addition to your core set of clients? A nice and pretty feather in your cap?
I was INVESTED in this deal
I had been working this deal like a good job.
I had traveled for hours to meet in person.
I looked my best, and I was prepared.
Things looked good
As we started to talk about how we could work together, this lovely VIP laid out the landscape. She shared with me how her systems weren’t working – how she wasn’t meeting her goals. (A-ha! I could help!)
THEN…Two really bad things happened.
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Things took a turn for the worst
First, she said to me: “We don’t have budget for another solution AND I don’t have buy-in from my senior management to make any changes. It’s just not important to them.” (In other words, I CAN’T BUY ANYTHING FROM YOU)
The second thing she said was even worse. Next she said, “OK. Pitch me.”
(HUH?)
For a moment I could barely see straight
I was SO annoyed.
When she said “PITCH ME” – I was just floored. Here she was, completely wasting my time AND forcing me to be some small person who was going to give her a spiel. UGH!
Somehow, I regained POISE and PROFESSIONALISM
I remembered what a very successful friend of mine once told me, “Sometimes you will have to take the OFFER off of the table, but NEVER take yourself away.”
So, I paused and put myself on HER side of the table. She was in pain and wanted some help. I had nothing to offer. Not her fault.
I told her. “I have nothing to sell you. If you don’t have the budget and your managers won’t agree, then we don’t really have anything to talk about just yet.”
Then I laid out the plan
“I would love to have another conversation when you have more support from your execs and they see the value in putting money behind your efforts. Is there anything I can do to help you get that?”
She agreed that there wasn’t.
I stayed with her
When all of me wanted to storm out of her office and make her realize what a waste of time our meeting was and how badly she had insulted me, instead… we talked about other things.
We spent the next 15 minutes talking about personal stuff. The sales conversation was closed, but our relationship wasn’t.
Now, I’ve never sold to this company
And neither have any of my competition, but she speaks well of me in our circles and we are friendly, and – who knows – Well, you just never know.
The moral of the story
Bring dignity to the sale.
Stand up for yourself. You are not a trained monkey with a canned approach. It would have been ridiculous and demeaning if I had given my well-prepared presentation.
Yet, love that other person UP! This VIP would NEVER have wasted her time with me if she didn’t need some help. I couldn’t help, but I could be her friend.
Take your offer away, but never take YOU away!
Love ’em UP!
The Irreverent Sales Girl
Writing the Manifesto
Hello my lovelies,
I am delighted to announce, that after three years of blogging, I am FINALLY writing my Manifesto (not the perfume shown here). I have named it:
The Irreverent Sales Girls Guide To Wild Success
I am thrilled to be doing this and it is flowing like water today.
Jeanine Wicker has dibs on the FIRST copy of the book. The first nine people who post “ME” on this article will get free copies, too, when it is complete! (Be patient).
Wondering how to go from 5 to 6 figures in sales? Check out this Free eBook: http://ebook.solidsixblueprint.com/solid-six-ebook/
What is this book I speak of?
The book is, well, Irreverent. It is designed to break up all of the myths that hold me back and to STOP WASTING MY TIME. It might just do the same for you. It is short and fun and Irreverent (we said that already).
A sneak peek
Here is the Introduction:
“I hate introductions. I just want to get into it. Yet, I see the value for setting the context.
Here is the book that I wish someone had written for me.
I hope you love it.
The Irreverent Sales Girl”
Who wants in?
Love ’em UP!
The Irreverent Sales Girl
Dear Irreverent Sales Girl – The Big Fish in the Small Pond is Killing Me!
I got this note today:
“Dear Irreverent Sales Girl,
I am selling to a BIG fish in a SMALL pond. They are asking for the world – pushing our every limit.
I’d really like to sell this deal, but I’m getting exhausted and starting to worry about every call and every email they send. They just want MORE and MORE and MORE, but are unwilling to commit to the sale and seem ungrateful for the concessions we have made on their behalf.
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How should I continue with them?
~ Tired of fishing”
Dear Tired of Fishing,
Congratulations for reaching out and getting help! That’s an excellent step to ensuring that many great deals will come your way, possibly even this one.
BUT, beware the pitfall of three important things:
1) When chasing a big fish, we tend to obsess and forget all else (remember Moby Dick?) – keep working ALL of your activity. This is only one deal.
2) If you compromise the way you do business for this one fish – you will set the tone for your entire relationship – and it will always be this way. Remember that YOU have something that THEY want, too. Go only as far now as you’re willing to go forever.
3) Keep giving love to the deals that are closing who LOVE what you offer NOW. If you focus on the one that is difficult, you are compromising your mental attitude and confidence. Keep working your plan and have this deal be one of many. This one will cut itself loose if it’s not a good fit. Close the ones who will LOVE you forever.
Love your sales UP!
The Irreverent Sales Girl
P.S. I WELCOME questions like this. If you have a question about your sales or building your business, stop suffering. Email me at salesgirl@irreverentsalesgirl.com. You might even appear here and on our popular Facebook page!
If you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse!
Sadly, as much as we’d like to believe it….there is no such thing as STATUS QUO.
You are either improving, or you are not keeping up!
Make getting better a fun game, play it like a kid on the playground. It’s a game, but play it like your life depends on it! That’s where the miracles open up.
If you think you’ve made it, you’re cooked!
Wondering how to go from 5 to 6 figures in sales? Check out this Free eBook: http://ebook.solidsixblueprint.com/solid-six-ebook/
Love your growth UP!
The Irreverent Sales Girl
Guard your systems like your success depends on it!
Because it does!
The story of how a broken vacuum cleaner single-handedly wrecked my garage
Sounds dramatic, doesn’t it? But it’s the solid gold truth.
I worked for days, slaved really to get my garage in pristine order – so that we could park both cars within the warm caverns during the bracing cold and ice of the winter-time.
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There was a place for everything and everything in it’s place
The system
Every single-dingle time I took something from the garage, I replaced it EXACTLY where it belonged. Every single-dingle time I put something new into the garage, I found a new place for it to go that was orderly and obvious.
IT WAS WORKING. Both cars hummed smoothly and efficiently into the garage. We could find anything we wanted at a moment’s notice.
Then, the Vacuum!
In a hurry one day, I was cleaning out a closet and found our vacuum cleaner that hadn’t worked in years. I wasn’t sure if I was going to toss it, donate it, or get it fixed. So, what did I do?
You may have guessed. I put it in the garage! Just set it there, right in the middle.
POOF!
The garage suddenly became the old and cluttered place it had become. Seemed like it happened overnight.
One car squeezes into our garage now and it is a monumental effort to find anything. The vacuum is gone, but the legacy it left behind remains.
A System is Powerful, but it is also FRAGILE
The vacuum cleaner debacle is EXACTLY how our lives work.
If you are Stephen King, you keep your system. You sit down and write your appropriated words every single-dingle day. It is the difference between being someone whose tomes occupy an entire section of my book shelf and being, well, whatever else he would have been.
It is the difference between an Olympic Athlete and a Weekend Warrior.
Wanna be great? Wanna meet your goals? Put a system in place and guard it like everything depends on it. It does. One slip and it can be a monumental effort to restore the discipline and the results. No slip equals monumental results.
Love your systems UP!
The Irreverent Sales Girl