The highlight of the PTDA Industry Summit in Palm Desert, Calif., last week—at least for me—was the presentation by Jeffrey Gitomer, who spoke to the audience about sales and how the changing world is forcing sales professionals to adapt. He had the roughly 300 attendees alternately laughing and stopping to think.
He summed up his feelings about change by talking about the Yellow Pages and how that model has died over the years. He pointed out how his apartment building has had copies of the Yellow Pages sitting in the entryway for weeks and no one has touched them. And he mused about the people who work on the advertising portion of the big yellow books.
“The people who used to sell yellow pages advertisements are now servers at Shoney’s,” Gitomer said.
Gitomer implored attendees to pay attention to the small things, such as putting company logos on everything to having a real person answer the phones (and not an automated voice mail) to building better business cards. And he gave a long list of why salespeople should focus on power—including:
The power of positive attitude. The way you dedicate yourself is how your whole life will go. Start with yourself. Watching negative and violent things, especially on TV, wastes the power. Change your focus from other people’s drama to your own success.
The power of your language. If you’re a leader of your company, you set the tone for the whole company. People are watching you. Do people want to listen to you or do they have to listen to you? Wake up doing positive things, go to bed doing positive things and do positive things in the middle. Read and take notes on things. Your people need to see your dedication in order to become dedicated. They need to see your hard work in order to maximize their hard work.
The power of belief. You have to believe you work for the best company in the world. You have the best products in the world. You can differentiate yourself from the competition, not compare yourself to the competition. You have to believe the customer is better off in purchasing from you. Your people need to see your belief in order to believe.
The power of self confidence. Shake, smile, stare, stand straight. Your customers don’t want your stuff, they want to get back to efficiency. They want an outcome, not a product.
The power of preparation. Don’t just prepare yourself, prepare for them—they want ideas and answers. This requires creativity. The obvious is still waiting to be invented. Your job is to be thinking about it.
The power of being memorable. What are you doing that’s memorable? Find something personable and then make it memorable.
The power of value. How valued do you make your people feel? Do you feed your people? Praise in public, reprimand in private. What is important to your people? Customers want productivity, safety, efficiency, morale, profit.
The power of relatable example. Paint the picture then show the picture. Ask people where people grew up. If they grew up in a small town, they are often more trusting that in the big city. Facts and figures are forgettable, stories are retold.
The power of truth. Truth leads to trust and trust is the killer app. Trust is built slowly over time but you can lose it in one second. Are you a trusted advisor? The person who needs your stuff also needs your advice. The key is first trust yourself.
The power of service. Remember your mom’s lessons. Play nice, be friendly. Remember to thank. Memorable service requires collaborative creativity. Service is a person, not a company or a policy.
The power of a relationship. The key word is relate. Relationship trumps bidding. Bidding is the scourge of your business.
PTDA
www.ptda.org
