Over the years I have bought and sold several rental properties. One of my recent houses needed some work done since the yard sloped toward the house and caused a water problem.
I was going to build a deck but first I needed to work on solving the water problem.
I started with a shovel. That lasted about 15 minutes. I knew there had to be a better way so I headed to the equipment rental company.
After I arrived and looked over the options, I decided on a Bobcat. A Bobcat is a small tractor with a bucket on the front that scoops up the dirt. The person renting me the equipment asked if I knew how to operate it. I said “of course,” thinking to myself: “how hard can it be?” I hooked it up to my truck and headed home.
I pulled up behind my house, sat in the bobcat seat and prepared to pull it off the trailer. I started the engine, let out the clutch and lost control.
It jerked ahead and by the time I figured how to stop it I had run into the gas meter and caused a gas leak. I immediately called the gas company and they were there in a matter of minutes to fix it.
I got back on the Bobcat and, as I was turning around, I lost control again and destroyed two sections of my fence.
As soon as I started digging my wife opened the door and said the TV cable was out. I told her to call the cable company and she said the phone didn’t work. The only thing I didn’t damage was the water main.
Twice during the day my neighbor, who is about 85 years old, walked over, looked at what I was doing, shook his head and walked away. At this point I really didn’t need any criticism.
At the end of the day – after eight hours - my yard sloped the right way. I was putting the Bobcat back on the trailer when my neighbor came over. I was expecting him to tell me I was crazy. Instead he said something that turned out to be the best compliment I have ever received. He said there are two kinds of people in the world. There are “spectators” and there are “doers.”
And then he walked away.
I have been selling my whole life and I know hundreds of selling techniques. But there is only one thing that will make you any money in the selling profession: you have to take action.
In a recent study about why ceos fail (based on researching about 30 ceos who had failed in the past 10 years), one of the most interesting things discovered was that once a failed ceo resigned, many of the organizations quickly rebounded under a new ceo. It would seem the ceo was the difference.
However, the study came to a fairly simple conclusion. ceo s don’t fail due to lack of strategy or a grand vision. They fail in execution: They simply don’t take action.
The same is true of sales professionals and their account relationships. A colleague of mine was recently doing interviews for a client to determine why some customers switched to the competition and others hadn’t. Many of the sales people who lost the accounts made reference to problems with the product, delivery, service, etc. My colleague’s investigation showed the only common denominator was not the problems, but whether or not the sales person took action to solve the problems.
5 ACTION STEPS TO SUCCESS
- Under promise over deliver
- Don’t put it off – get it done now
- Attack with a sense of urgency
- Always be selling – always be closing
- Go the extra mile for every customer
The bottom line question is: Are you a spectator or a doer?
-Bob Oros, CSP, CMC, is president and founder of More Gross Profit Institute. A long-time contributor of sales training articles to ID Access (and ID). Would you like to know how to cut two years off the learning curve of your newest rep and save $25,000 on your investment? Visit his website. The Institute’s website is located at: http://www.MoreGrossProfit.com , where more details can be found.
By Bob Oros