DesertStandard

thanks electrospray

It never ceases to amaze me how bad salespeople are at their jobs. To be fair the vast majority of them are setup for failure due to a number of things: improper training, a terrible product, poor pricing for their market, and unreasonable expectations created by their marketing people.

Recently I was shopping around for a service to help one of my clients. I called 3 companies and had a great experience with all of them. I was given the information I was looking for and made sure I could follow up with that same person once my client made their decision before getting off the phone.

When I called the 3rd company everything changed. The first thing the representative told me was that before they gave me any pricing I would have to give them something. In this case that something was my clients information. I was told that this would prevent them from getting ‘shopped’. I was taken quite aback by this for a few reasons:

1. I don’t give out my clients information until ready to purchase.
2. I am already giving you something: my time to call you about your service.
3. I could easily give you false information and still get what I want.
4. They already had some prices listed on their website.
5. This product is an off the shelf service so you should be able to quote me right away.

Normally I would proceed with the 3rd step but the attitude that this salesperson gave me told me something else:

• I don’t do business with people I don’t like.

So for all salespeople out there and all your super duper training and neat presentations you should remember a few things:

1. People buy from people they like.
2. The customer isn’t always right, but the customer always pays.
3. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
4. People don’t buy on price.

Guess what? You are going to be shopped, thats why they call it shopping. Get used to it. If your service is legit then you should be fine with giving out information. Within 4 sentences with this salesperson every aspect of relationship building was gone and I was fuming, so I hung up the phone and recommended their competitors. Oh and this wasn’t a $50 sale it was for $5000.

Be nice.

GigaOM has a great article about how Skype, the hugely successful and popular Internet voice and video service, may be shut down. This is because when Ebay bought Skype a few years ago they did not purchase the underlying technology that allows Skype to work, and now the owners of that technology are talking about revoking Ebay’s license/franchise.

Just this April the Skype Founders were making big moves to buy Skype back from Ebay. It sounds to me like the Skype Founders are playing hardball to get the whole thing back. This probably has to do with the fact that their current project, Joost, is a bust, and they are realizing that Skype is a money tree.

All of this info came to light because Ebay is trying to spin Skype off into its own IPO. The reason for this move is that Ebay has been unable to sync Skype with its core services and already wrote the business down close to $1 Billion, ouch.

I love Skype and use it for business everyday. I cold call businesses and make sales. Yes the call quality is not the best but its passable and thats all the matters. I pay $90 a year for a phone number and unlimited calls to phones in the US and Canada. it syncs with my address book and salesforce and it ports to my iPhone and any computer in the world.

Stay tuned to this one.

Just sat through the presentations at AZ Tech Council Partnering Conference. It was a short/micro presentation format with 14 speakers in just under 2 hours. Very similar to how Ignite Phoenix is going to be done.

The speakers were all businesses and some were more interesting than others. I tumblr’d them here. Overall it was a good time and its good to see more tech stuff happening here in PHX.

Just read a great post over at Real Estate Investing Brain » Why Almost Everyone Struggles More Than They Should in REI. He goes over a number of ideas about why we struggle with our business and financial lives and how to take stock of things so that we can focus on the future in a positive and productive way.

There are 5 quesitons that he wants us to ask ourselves:

1. What were your greatest accomplishments in 2007?
2. What were your biggest disappointments in 2007?
3. How did you limit yourself last year, and how can you stop?
4. What did you learn from the last three questions?
5. How can I (you) use this information to make 2008 the best year yet?

Here are my answers:

1. What were your greatest accomplishments in 2007?
   Made number one salesman at my company. My third month in, and it was the best month the company had ever seen!
   Got to go to Vegas for a convention with my old company after being there for just three months.
   Remembered how much fun a relationship can be and that I need to stay focused on having fun in one.
   Made all of my mortgage payments!
2. What were your biggest disappointments in 2007?
   Left my current company in Feb when I had 3 deals in the pipeline. Definitly a big mistake there leaving just as I was getting started and letting other peoples attitude about the job influence me enough to leave it.
   My old company was a dissapointment overall because I went there for the wrong reason: a salary. I didn’t leave soon enough, the place was just not a good fit for me, nothing against the people there I just cant work like that.
   Stayed in a relationship that shouldn’t have gone past a few weeks because it just wasn’t a good fit. I had to work too hard at it from the start and that is not what a relationship should be about.
3. How did you limit yourself last year, and how can you stop?
   Listening too much to other peoples opinions and not listening to myself. I knew that my current company was a great opportunity but let other peoples experience influence me to thinking that it wasn’t a great opportunity. I need to listen to myself and trust myself. I have done pretty well doing that so far why stop now?
   Focusing on other peoples problems more than my own, or letting their problems become mine and influence my outlook. While it is important to help my friends and care for them I have to always put myself first and make sure that I am okay. As long as I do that I will be able to help even more people.
4. What did you learn from the last three questions?
   I have learned that 2007 was a year where I let myself feel sorry for myself. In 2006 I was let go from a six figure income and really let that hang over my head for too long. That debacle is over and there is nothing I can do about it but get up and move on. Unfortunately I let it carry over into 2007 and keep me from making a firm decision on my career and relationships. These last three questions gave me the insight to see what was working for me and what wasn’t.
5. How can I (you) use this information to make 2008 the best year yet?
   For 2008 I need to stay positive. I have a great house, the best family, and cool friends. I am good at sales and enjoy it very much. I forget this fact a lot and let myself drift into wanting to do other things. This year I am doing 2 things right now to fix this. The first one is that I am going to start coaching at a youth soccer league in my city. This is going to be great for a few reasons: The first one is that I am going to be able to enjoy giving kids my enthusiasm for soccer and this will help me with my leadership skills. The second activity I am going to start is finding a business group to work on my networking and speaking skills.

Good post on the Presidential Elections and how personality is what most people consider when voting. The title is a bit misleading though as I thought he was going to talk about who the best candidate for business is going to be. Instead he talks about how important your personality is for your business and ways to work on it.

There is also an exercise where you put in what you feel the various candidates personalities are. Here is what I came up with:
Democrats Dominant Personality Trait
Hillary Clinton __Regal / Entitled___
Barack Obama __Confident __
John Edwards __Light Hearted___

Republicans Dominant Personality Trait
John McCain ___Condicending__
Mitt Romney ____Fake___
Rudy Giuliani ____Mean_____
Mike Huckabee ____Aloof_____

If you cant tell I am an Obama fan.

The Best Presidential Candidate For Your Business | Business Coaching For Internet Marketing Entrepreneurs