I’m tired of hearing people say why their numbers are soft. When people start whining this to me, they always mask it in the context that the industry is down or there is something else outside their control causing sales to slow.
I hate this type of conversation. The only thing it leads to is salespeople having skinny, whinny kids, because all their parent does is complain that the reason there is a lack of food is because the “industry is down.” Get over it and get on with it. If you find yourself whining about “soft” numbers, you’ve been believing the media way too much and you’re simply not strong enough in your sales motivation to go make a difference.
When you say an industry is “soft,” what you are really saying is that the easy sales aren’t coming your way, and if that’s the case, then you’re not a salesperson. You’re an order-taker. And if your market is going under, then you’ve just become an under-taker!
I don’t care what is going on in the marketplace; there are opportunities out there. I love to use the example of a few friends of mine in the financial sector. They find ways to make money in both “good” and “bad” markets. They don’t allow markets to impact them negatively, rather they find ways to leverage their expertise and their selling ability to create opportunities.
2010 is a great year. I am bullish on the opportunities that are out there. Sure, they aren’t going to fall from the sky and land at your feet, but they will appear if you’re willing to try different things, allow yourself to explore new avenues and associate only with those people who have the same positive outlook as you do.
2 Responses
I’ve got over 40 years of sales experience and I’ve been through a lot of industry ups and downs, good and bad times.
When time are good almost anyone can stand there and have prospects put money in their hands. People who lived in those times got used to not working and just standing around with their hand out. When times get bad, or a Mark says, the industry goes soft, these people are still standing there with their hands out but now they’re whining about it instead of working for a change.
If you want to stand there with your hand out, make sure you’re holding a cup full of pens for people to buy.