Could You be Making Things Harder Than They Really Are?
In business, there are endless opportunities to learn from the successes and mistakes of others who have ventured into the entrepreneurial waters before us. So, why is it that we often ignore the lessons we can learn from others’ mistakes and doom ourselves to making the same bad decisions? People in business and sales do this all the time. For example, there are tried-and-true sales techniques that are so simplistic it doesn’t seem as though they can really be effective so we write them off and try to reinvent the wheel.
Many times, we try to re-evaluate, improve upon, and complicate these simple yet proven techniques and all we’re really succeeding in doing is making things harder than they really are! One of the biggest mistakes that people in business (and especially in sales) make is not listening to the people who have experience. For some reason, they assume that they have to know better . . . and the truth is, they don’t. There is nothing like experience–it beats education every day of the week. The only thing better is a combination of education and experience . . . or a willingness to learn from other people’s experience.
There are many basic sales techniques that any good salesperson knows to be effective. They don’t look for something more complicated or involved because they know from their own experience, as well as from the experience of others, what works in sales and what doesn’t work in sales. If you’ve read my book, Masters of Sales, you may have read things that seemed to simple to be effective or you may have seen ideas that you’ve heard before. The fact is, instead of being dismissed, these tactics and ideas should be embraced. True Masters of Sales learn from other people’s success and remember that sometimes the simplest ideas can have the biggest impact.
Is there a simple lesson you learned from another business owner/entrepreneur which has helped you achieve success in your business? I’d love to get a conversation going about this in order to share simple tactics for success and important lessons learned so we can all lessen our risk of making things harder than they really are. Please share your thoughts in the comment forum below. Thanks!
The key really is to humble yourself so as to not ignore valuable advice from those who have experienced a similar path. As passionate and intelligent as people may be, we are never so ahead of the pack that we don’t need guidance here and there. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Find where you can add or improve and make your mark there.
The best advice I received was to take action – Its good to plan but when the plan gets in the way of taking action then you need to create smaller plans that are more manageable that allow you to take action.
Along with this I was told to create a To Do list everyday making sure your daily activity is full of profile generating activities rather than time vampires.
I was advised to do the opposite of your competition.
Don’t be a follower, turn in the other direction, for if your plan has credence, others will follow you.
In the ’60’s A successful Frozen Food salesman acquired more orders quickly by asking existing businesses where their competition lay.
The competition was often a new business, with new ideas and money to get ahead of the ‘old campaigners’.
He supplied a Free Freezer with the Frozen Food order and the sales flowed!
Without reservation, the single most influential lesson I learned as a Strategic Marketeer over 25 years ago has served my business and my client’s enterprises effectively ever since! Simply start from the intended resolution or result of your promotion, business pitch of marketing communications strategy. What specifically is it that you intend to happen next and as a result of your efforts. Then ensure that everything you then do contributes to that end – that’s it!
The best advice that I have received is to “stop selling and focus instead on building relationships.” “When you have an excellent product or service, properly build relationships and educate people, when they have a want or need, they will buy from you, and no one else.” “The ‘sales process’ was created by men, to short-circuit the Credibility phase of building relationships.”