Chapter 1 - Page 4

Chapter 1 - Introduction

Page 4 of 4

Adopt or Perish

We need to face the fact that there are people working smarter and more efficiently than we are. In fact, I’m sorry it took me so long to make this book available because we’re now that much further behind. If we don’t start to recognize that the business climate has changed and start using the powerful tools available to us, someone else will. Your competition might be three chapters ahead of you in this very book. Start today and stop letting someone else steal your commission!

My Story

I’m not an established author, sales coach, or motivational speaker. What I am is a top performing Enterprise Sales Professional with a knack for technology, writing, and a creative mind. I am a student of sales, a believer in helping my clients succeed and an observer of human nature. One more...I have been able to remain at the top of the sales board for nearly my entire career by defying tradition and finding new ways to excel.

When I first entered the sales profession, I pounded the phones to make contacts and attempt to secure clients because that’s the way I was taught. I was in a competitive industry at the time (I still am) and I quickly realized I was going to need a more effective way to build my pipeline and get a head start on my better known and more seasoned competitors. My natural curiosity, computer savvy, and desire to excel began forming the ideas that evolved into this book. This was only nine years ago but it may as well have been a million years the way technology advances.

As I began learning and applying the strategies I will be discussing in this book, I presented a problem for my employers. I was at the top of the sales board (usually by a good margin), but I didn’t employ many of the practices they were teaching and measuring. In some cases, they stopped posting certain metrics because they didn’t want the rest of the sales staff to see that I had the highest sales and the lowest “metrics” of anyone on the sales floor. I was very much the opposite of what was taught and required of salespeople.

Luckily, some managers were accepting of my “alternative” ideas and some converted, but this was not always the case. I’ve been called un-teachable, difficult and lazy (though my sales record begs to differ). Yet I’ve had former employers later request I teach them the methods I used to succeed.

Technology has provided advantages that weren’t available when the “legendary” sales books were written, or when your supervisor entered sales or when your company’s founders established their “tried and true” sales system. It’s time to embrace today’s tools and take our profession to a new level.

My Motivation

I absolutely love what I do and hold a 110% conviction that we maintain one of the most noble, challenging and respectable jobs that exists. It breaks my heart to see salespeople who are perpetuating the false notion we are to be feared, avoided and mistrusted.

As I developed the practices I will be sharing with you, I had no intention of writing a book. I didn’t really think what I was doing was that uncommon. I was simply trying to discover a better way to succeed in my profession. If I was going to be doing sales for the long haul, then I was determined to make the most of it.

Over the last couple of years, I really started to develop a system for my approach to business. Technology became integral and allowed me to do my work even more efficiently. When I finally stopped long enough to evaluate my evolving business approach, I came to an unexpected conclusion: my techniques really were unique. I began to look around for other resources: books, seminars, workshops; any means to help me expand my skills. I rapidly came to the conclusion this type of support didn’t exist. I I had to rely on books and seminars for Internet entrepreneurs and online marketing experts to learn more. It was frustrating because no educational opportunities were put into a context that spoke to sales professionals. The great authors and speakers and coaches in the sales world had either missed it or chose to ignore it. I think it was simply because it was unfamiliar ground and widely unadopted.

There are hundreds of books published every year about the human and psychological aspects of sales, selling style, how to ask questions, negotiating and creating rapport, the way that business is evolving and how we must adapt. To date, there is little about how technology can be used in sales to do our jobs more effectively. There is not a single book targeted at sales professionals regarding the effective use of a CRM system, online personal business networking or targeted email campaigns at the sales representative level.

No one will argue that the greatest impact in the last 50 years of business evolution is technology. However, when was the last time you read anything about using technology in a sales book? You may have read how to manage your time using a PDA or the “do’s and don’ts” of email marketing, but tell me about something that can really make a difference in your sales potential. There are some phenomenal sales tools available and they play an important role in the Passive Pipeline.

Continue to Chapter 2