“Life may be full of missed opportunities, but it is the next opportunity that is the most important!” – Adrian McGinn
Overlooked opportunities are everywhere in our environment. Sometimes we don’t see them because we are not looking. Other times it is because we choose to ignore them. Heck, occasionally we fail to realize there is even an opportunity available to us until it’s too late. I’ll be the first to admit that sales opportunities have flashed before me but I failed to pursue them. These are teaching moments that help us expand our horizons as professional salespeople. Moments like these show us how to add more tools to our tool boxes. They may even cause us to hang our heads and swear we won’t let that happen again.
Sometimes opportunities are subtle but an overwhelming number of them seem to be plain old low-hanging fruit. For you blue collar readers out there, some of these may sound familiar.
-It looks strange that only one house in the cul-de-sac has no snow on its roof after yesterday’s storm.
-When I glanced up there was a trail of black ants marching up to the top of the picture window.
-I noticed the double-pane picture window on that corner house is fogged up.
-There was a cloud of flying insects hovering around that garage door after that rain shower today.
-Boy, it seems there are lots of places where water is standing at that tan-colored house.
-During that last thunderstorm I noticed water just pouring off that roof, creating a muddy mess.
-Even from the street I can easily see that bright green mildew all over their foundation vents.
Whether you sell pest control, attic insulation, gutters, moisture abatement, termite treatments or replacement windows; these are all opportunities! The ones I described above are all low hanging fruit that a teenager could notice. What do you think you might see when you really begin to LOOK for opportunities?
Once you notice them you must take action. Go knock on the door and point out what you see and attempt to have an, “I can fix that” conversation. If nobody is home, write a quick note on the back of your business card stating what you noticed and ask them to call. Since many folks won’t call, jot down the address and do a reverse lookup on whitepages.com and call them in a couple of days and chat ‘em up.
I’m sure some of you reading this will say, “That’s just not my personality to do something like that.” My answer to that kind of thinking is…CHANGE!
Photo credit-thebalance.com
How many opportunities are you missing, week in and week out? What percentage of these would become new customers if they were approached? How many of these new customers would recommend you to a friend or family member, leading to even more sales? How many of these new customers would be satisfied enough to submit a Google review and become what I call a goodwill ambassador? Opportunities are everywhere. Slow down, open your eyes and start taking advantage of them. Capiche?
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©2019 Robinson Training Solutions, LLC
From time to time, everybody puts off doing things because they “don’t feel like doing them.” Over the Christmas holidays you promised yourself you would start exercising as soon as the ball dropped. Then you committed to getting a jump on your taxes as soon as the W-2’s arrived, rather than doing an all-nighter alongside a stale pizza and a bitter pot of strong coffee in mid-April. But you didn’t do either one, along with many other chores and projects on your radar screen.
In the spring of 1967, shortly before I graduated from high school, Dad acquired the Biscayne. If that doesn’t ring a bell with you, you’re probably just too young. The Biscayne was the low-end model of the Chevrolet nameplate. This one was a 1963, stripped down, 3-speed on the column model in baby-poop brown.
possess the skills. If that’s the case, show them a picture of what it should look like; that’s what leaders do. Afterward, conduct some test driving with the rep and chances are their confidence will quickly increase, unless it doesn’t. If it doesn’t move following that, then look into the attitude side of the issue.
Victor Borge, a renowned 20th century Danish comedian (affectionately known as the “Clown Prince of Denmark”) was famous for saying, “Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.”
Every year about this time I encourage outside salespeople by discussing and reminding them of the dozens of creative selling sources and prospecting methods available to them. These are all designed to help sales folks become armed and dangerous with resources to help remain productive during the lean lead months. Today I want to look into some behind the scenes logistics to help make that happen.
Finally, if you maintain a commercial customer list it will be easy and convenient to stop by and place some flyers detailing employee discounts in the break areas or near the time clock. Do this for any commercial customers that are in the footprint of where you are working that day. Make sure to explain to the owner or manager that this is a FREE benefit for his employees, for being a customer. You will eventually get some phone calls as some of these employees develop a need for some of your services at their homes.
You know it seems like everybody grows up with the feeling they are special and different. During the 1960’s my generation watched Art Linkletter ask children what they wanted to be when they grew up on a TV show called, “Kids Say the Darndest Things.” In the 1990’s my kids watched Bill Cosby do a remake of that same show, and the answers were always zany and varied across the board, everything from President of the U.S., to Hollywood movie star, to Olympic gold medalist, to astronaut, to Super Bowl MVP quarterback.
The fourth principle he shared was that you must realize that you can change. Your friends, relatives and maybe even spouse may not believe in you, but if you believe in you, nothing else matters. Ever heard of these “losers?”…
7 – Tinkering – 20% of salespeople produce 80% of the sales. Therefore, be very careful who you listen to and insulate yourself from the non-producers. Do you really think the losers in your office want you to succeed? Stop tinkering with the turkeys in the barnyard and start flying with the eagles overhead.
Questions are your best friends – When your prospect says they really want to buy, but can’t because of (whatever), simply verify it by responding with some version of “If that wasn’t an issue would you proceed?” If that is truthful they will simply agree. If there is something else, they will bring up the additional objection. Either way you have isolated an honest concern you can respond to.
Now before you dis the above suggestion, let me explain how I came up with these numbers. I’m visualizing a rep who receives one company lead per day and generates another lead per day personally. That would generate 10 points. Secondly I’m expecting this rep will complete two proposals per day, generating another 20 points. And finally, since “Selling is like shaving; if you don’t do a little every day you will soon become a bum,” let’s say this rep closes one sale per day, for an additional 15 points, totaling 45 points for the week.
In today’s post, I want to remind salespeople to never give up, by sharing some ideas to ensure that never happens. Anybody can quit, and frankly most people do. If this were not so, the winners circle would be a lot bigger, and far more crowded. Therefore by simply hanging on and refusing to give up, you dramatically increase your chances of winning.
A friend of mine, who is also involved in sales training in the Midwest, told me that recently she and her husband were shopping for a graduation gift for their favorite niece. They found an attractive ladies’ sport watch and decided to buy it. After telling the store salesperson they wanted the watch, the clerk violated a selling no-no. He volunteered a 30% discount although they didn’t ask for one, and had already told him they wanted the item.
As an example of what I’m talking about, here’s a response I’ll bet you hear a lot: 
So that is the first and main thing. But there are requirements for your work to be a career:
Instinct – Wayne Gretzky often said, “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” A salesperson must possess that level of anticipation and drive and always operate by “the little bit more” principle so they don’t have to be told every move to make, because business moves too quickly to try to teach that skill.
Let me first share this short yarn about “trust” and then I’ll get back into this important topic and discuss the final two types of objections.
No ($) Money
No Urgency
Art Sobczak, a renowned phone sales trainer for the last 35 years, says people often assume that where there’s a pitch, there’s a catch. “If you say, ‘Here is my pitch,’ people will look for something to object to,” he says. “You really shouldn’t even use the word ‘pitch’ outside of baseball. Instead, call it a recommendation. That sends the message to prospects that you want to engage in a conversation and help them.”
At that point, regardless what you are thinking, stop talking and listen to what Glockenspiel says next.
The last bit of advice I’ll give you is very simple, but I think it could make a big difference in your life. Once a week, you should write a note to someone. Not an email. A note on a piece of paper. It will take you exactly 10 minutes. Talk to an adult, let them tell you what a stamp is. You can put the stamp on the envelope. Again, 10 minutes, once a week. I will help you right now by dictating for you the first note you should write. It will say:
A few years ago my wife wanted and needed a new car. She had been talking about a full size SUV rather than another sedan. The good news was that it was early fall and time for the change of model year, meaning a good chance for a deep discount. The bad news was that for the first time in history gasoline was over $4 per gallon. We discussed it and decided a perfect storm had been created for us to go ahead and purchase the vehicle, because we felt that gas prices would come back down to reasonable levels within a few months.
Several months ago I wrote a post about technician selling and received many favorable comments, telling me a lot of subscribers are either service managers or business owners who realize how critical tech sales are in blue collar businesses. This week I’m going to broach that topic again, primarily from the perspective that techs know they are expected to sell, but often they aren’t getting the traction, and results that are expected, even when they work hard at the selling part of their job. If this sounds familiar, take the load off, prop up your feet for a few minutes and look through this list of possible reasons you aren’t hanging “W’s” on the scoreboard. Following each of these suggestions are some comments describing what might possibly be happening:
Are you likable to people? For the 1,000th time, people buy from those they trust and like.
If you didn’t get a chance to read Part I of this post from last week, go read it right now 
After completing your comparison, you might consider putting an exclamation point on your discussion by making a bold statement like one of these; “We charge more because we do more, in every area of the package.” Another attention-getter statement is this one;
I was once told about a very unusual place in Solingen, Germany called Museum Plagiarius. This site supposedly only showcases knockoffs of various items by exhibiting the fakes alongside their authentic counterparts.
You must know how to quickly and surgically point out the crucial differences between companies. Don’t be afraid to state that, “We charge more because we do more, in every area of the package.” 
My (Doug) favorite fast food place to eat is Chick-fil-A. Their food and their service consistently beat the pants off all their competitors. When I’m whizzing down an Interstate highway and it’s lunch time, I’ll go out of my way, passing a dozen of other fast food places to find one of their stores (although they are usually close by major exits). A few weeks ago I stumbled on the article below, which was written by John Eades, CEO of LearnLoft in Charlotte, N.C., and I thought Selling Point readers could glean something from the “leadership lessons” Eades discusses. Here is his article in its entirety.
Do Common Things in an Uncommon Way
Be Driven by Purpose
If you’re familiar with any of my work you know I’m big on advocating for salespeople to perform pre-call preparation before every sales appointment. Today I want to go one step further and discuss crafting a backup plan, because circumstances often change. Football quarterbacks are always prepared with an “audible,” every time they approach the line of scrimmage and see a change in the defense that spoils the play they called in the huddle. And I don’t know anybody that hasn’t heard the line from the Robert Burns’ poem that states, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”
My PLAN B was to ask my wife to grab a blanket as I told her and the kids we would open the doors, toss the blanket over the critter, and grab the blanket bundle and head for the front door, where we would shake the flying squirrel from the blanket and back into the wild. The kids excitedly said, “Awesome,” and my wife, who is an RN, warned me to be very careful because this animal could have rabies. So as my kids each opened one of the glass doors, I lunged forward with the blanket in hand, only to get a blurry glimpse of the creature sailing over my shoulder into the family room. I’m pretty sure the rodent was the only one in the room who didn’t let out a squeal! For the next several minutes we chased this little fellow unsuccessfully through both the family and dining rooms of our house, trying to bag him with the blanket. Finally we got him, but as my wife opened the front door for me to throw the blanket containing this intruder into the front yard, I felt a sharp stick on my left hand. That little joker bit me just as I was evicting him, and BTW the next morning I got a tetanus shot to ensure I wouldn’t morph into a werewolf.
That last night we gathered in a huddle and committed, “Tonight for sure.” We staked out and waited…and waited…and waited. About 2:30am he finally ambled around the corner of our house, scratching and tearing away at the turf, feeding his nasty face with insects from below the sod. When he reached the agreed-upon spot we exercised the PLAN B I described earlier and, believe it or not, the six of us corralled him so that his only “exit” was to duck into the culvert. We knew then it was just a matter of time. We positioned the trash can as described earlier and about a half hour later our “Jericho shout” sent him running through the culvert, out the other end and into the trash can with a dull thud. My son immediately stood the can upright and we immediately began to fill the can with water from the garden hose. When the can became half-full we took turns holding him down underwater with a broom, waiting for him to breathe his last. Seven minutes later he finally stopped moving around and the Robinson’s celebrated.
How many times have we all heard that “timing is everything?” I can certainly attest to that and will give you an example from my past. In 1980 I made a career change into a sales field totally foreign to any of my past employment experience. The reason I did this was due to a personal encounter I had that completely changed my outlook about how I viewed the way I, and most other Americans, purchased their insurance and savings-related products. I was so enamored with how much these concepts improved my financial situation that after aligning my finances this way I decided to go to work for the company that was offering this radical financial approach.
When you answer objections that have yet to surface, since you won’t be put on the spot to address them, you are actually taking them away from the buyer. You should be aware that if you choose to conduct a pre-emptive strike with a particular objection, you’ll need to introduce it into evidence, something like this:
The vast majority of you who are blue collar salespeople in the services industry are in the midst of your busiest season of the year, working like one-armed wallpaper hangers! No one can possibly accuse you of not working hard, as you “swarm” around your sales territory trying to beat the clock and check every box on your schedule. But, as you erratically bounce from one task to the next, are you keeping the main thing the main thing?
In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Stephen Covey says that every task falls into one of four categories or “quadrants.” An urgent matter is usually visible; a ringing phone, your manager standing next to your station in the sales room, or a posted deadline. Urgent matters create pressure on you but may not be important to your big picture. But since importance relates to results, by contributing to your mission, values, and goals, it’s easier to identify.
most important to you look where the sticky notes are posted, which is also where you are spending the most time (which may surprise you). So just like learning to make better eating choices for meals, if given the choice of spending time on a wasteful Quadrant 4 activity, why not choose something from Quadrant 2? If someone asks you to continually solve their Quadrant 3 problems, why not decline and move on to a task in Quadrant 1?