TOP SALESPEOPLE

  GO FOR THE NO!

    It really doesn’t matter who, when, where, why, or how you sell whatever you’re selling, it’s ALWAYS better to get an answer from your prospect that’s definite, even if the answer is “NO”! 

     It matters not whether it’s a hybrid vehicle, a railroad car of ketchup packets, a truckload of bananas, a knock-off Rolex, a mixed case of old vinyl records, computer programming services, Burger King’s new body spray, the Brooklyn Bridge, a seat in the U.S. Senate, a sponsorship on HARO.com, or your favorite sister. 

     When your prospect says “Maybe,” you’re in more trouble than the ancient-history tv entertainer Tennessee Ernie Ford used to describe as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs!  Oh, you say, but “Maybe” leaves the door open, and it’s halfway to “Yes.”  Well, bless you for the optimism, but reality is that it’s also halfway to “No.”

     More importantly, and here’s the hard-nosed truth: “Maybe” means that you are now going to embark on a journey of expending untold amounts of time, money and energy to try to push the “Maybe” over the edge into “Yesdom.” 

     Sure, the swing point could be just around the corner, but odds are that if there’s a “Yes” at all in the future to begin with, it may be lightyears away.  Even if it’s just weeks, converting a “Maybe” to a “Yes” is simply not worthy of such exhaustive blind pursuit! 

     The bottom line: If you’re serious about sales, your time is too valuable! 

     Yes, you say, but you don’t understand, you say . . .THIS prospect is a friend of a friend (or the family), and seems to like me and says she will make a decision soon, and when she buys in, it will open a whole new territory, you say . . . so, you say, I need to stay on top of it! 

     Good luck, I say!  Reality is that for you to “stay on top of it” means you will be missing the boat on other “Yes’s.”  Look at the other side of the coin.  If you push the “Maybe” a little and still get a “Maybe” it just might be worth giving an extra push to see if you can tip the scale into a more definite response.  If you can get a “NO” out of it, you win! 

     Why do you win if you lose the sale?  Because a “NO” means you can drop the effort and move on to make better use of your time, money and energy.  If you were intent on a long-term relationship, how long would you tolerate a “Maybe” from a serious dating partner? 

     Sure, there are movies about special people living for years with such indecision, but:  A) That’s neurotic Hollywood living in fantasyland, and B) This is your livlihood we’re talking about. 

     What did the old German Grandfather say?  “Vie getz too soon old, und too late schmart!”   

               GO FOR THE NO!                                              halalpiar

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See Nov 29th post (below) for New Year’s contest prize and rules – Then GO FOR IT!  Emails to Hal@TheWriterWorks.com with “SOUNDS OF THE SEASON” in the subject line.          # # #

Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 101 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

We are lucky, privileged,

                                                 

and grateful, but only

                                                 

respect can move us

                                                

forward.” 

     Yesterday morning, I was lucky enough to get a personal tour of a huge pickle packing plant (Yeah, kinda like “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers”) that I am evaluating for writing a magazine article.  I kept thinking about the upcoming vote. 

     Yesterday midday, an old friend and his wife arrived from out-of-state for a two-night stay over.  They hadn’t voted.  Another old friend called for some last-minute Election Day advice (I recommended Joe The Plumber).   

     Yesterday afternoon, I was privileged enough to have my marketing and branding guidance sought in a client meeting with two very engaging brothers who run a  hundred year-old business.  Driving there and back, my radio and my mind were filled with the vote.

     Yesterday evening a college I do some parttime teaching for asked for help with enrollment efforts.  I thought of a political campaign.

     This morning, I went out to breakfast with our houseguests after rain cancelled my first “winterball” softball game, then took a ride with them to visit a stormy ocean and bay, cruise a riverbank road, and stop at a few shops along the way.  The thoughts about who best to captain our nation’s ship in stormy seas dominated the sightseeing.

     Then, Kathy and I went to vote (not for Joe The Plumber, by the way).

     This afternoon, I was back to some 80+ emails, and a book editing project.  How is this vote thing doing?

     Woven through each minute of every hour – the vote.  My unconscious mind would not let go of the vote.  Now, maybe other people don’t regard the vote with such respect and anxiety, but I do. 

     My Mother’s Mother was born in Ireland.  My Father was born in Armenia.  Neither lived lives worthy of public recognition, and dirt poor was the answer to how are you? questions.  But both had undying respect for the right, the privilege to vote, the vote. 

     All of my parents’ hard times and suffering existences seemed to be repaired and cleansed every four years with the vote. 

     It was as if every Presidential Election Day, they had the chance, the opportunity to wipe the slate clean and do something truly important in life that came along with the promise of being able to be champions of their own fate by the choices they would make for America’s President and Vice President. 

     And when it turned out that their choices lost, which happened more than not, they would the next day pick up the fallen mantel and march themselves forward with energy and enthusiastic support for even the winners they they found distasteful and disconcerting only the night before. 

     Because:  The Presidency represented, was the symbol of, the freedom they enjoyed in their humble existences.  Sadly, that symbolism has died in recent years through the devisive politics of the loud minority.  Let us pray for return to respect of the office.  Halalpiar

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Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 56 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

“Change the way you

look at things,

and the things you

look at change.” 

—Dr. Wayne Dyer, from The Power of Intention  

     We’ve talked here about “change” not being a leadership word because true leaders recognize that change only has value when those being affected by it can choose it for themselves.  True corporate leaders.  True healthcare leaders.  True family leaders.  True government leaders.

     True leaders know that they cannot impose change, they can only inspire and motivate those who will benefit by change to step up to the plate and make it happen.  We’ve already addressed the incompetence of those in America who proclaim themselves leaders and who naively and unrealistically think they can simply dictate change. 

     Like the iron-hand rulers of Cuba, and Iran, and Russia, like Marxists and Communists.  Forget it!  These power-crazed Americans with agendas of change haven’t a clue about free democracy.  They can look and sound like the empty Hollywood celebrities, but they lack the understanding, skill and experience to be effective leaders.  They haven’t been there.  They haven’t done it. 

     Thomas Jefferson said “Vigilence is the price of freedom.”

     Those who espouse imposing “change” as a political platform fly in the face of the stability of our nation’s vigilence that is the very fiber of freedom. 

     Change, as Dr Dyer’s quote above reminds us, is really a matter of attitude more than action, perception more than taxation, intention more than condemnation.  It is winning by teamwork, which is what great leadership inspires. 

     Great Olympic coaches talk “TEAM” as the acronym for “Together Everyone Achieves More.”  Every period of great achievement in American history has been orchestrated not by imposed change, but by leaders who inspired success through teamwork.     Halalpiar         

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Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 50 days ago (inside a coffin).  Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the top headline link.

Just go to the basement

                                       

and make more money!

                                                                      

miracle  an extraordinary and welcome event that cannot be explained by natural or scientific laws and attributed to a divine agency  

     There was a truly outstanding Broadway musical from the late 1950’s called Flower Drum Song.  A featured tom-tom drum-punctuated performance from the show was an upbeat song titled, “A Hundred Million Miracles.”

     Now some might grumble, yeah, that’s what we need now to straighten out this stinking economy.  Others might wish the song title sentiments for their favorite political candidate. 

     Those who face troubling health problems pray for just one miracle, let alone 99,999,999 more.  A hundred million.  A hundred million?  That seems a touch on the greedy side, doesn’t it?  Like winning a mega-millions lottery. 

     Maybe it’s just me, but I’d be happy to accept just one million miracles . . . or dollars!  I mean what would you do with more than that anyway?  But then what do I know?  My high school and college baseball efforts never led me to major league status  compensation package excesses.

     I wonder if it’s possible there could be more willing beneficiaries floating around than there are hard-nosed workers willing to earn opportunities?  ;<) Just wondering! 

     I’ve heard all that “work smarter not harder” crap, and it sounds great, but I can’t help, but wonder if people who get the big bucks without really putting in much effort would much appreciate what’s handed to them.  So what, you say?  Yeah, well, I guess we can overthink things like this, right?  So just go ahead and send me the money.  I promise to appreciate it.

     As for miracles, I’d take a few of those too just because I’d have fun turning lives around, helping the down-trodden back to their feet, and eliminating hunger, disease, ignorance, and violence.  Only trouble is we’d end up with a bunch of fat, healthy, smart-ass, mamby-pambies with nothing else to do except screw up our economy . . . and that would be a miracle all by itself!  Accounts overdrawn?  So you just go to the basement and make more money.  Whoops, it all gets spent?  You just go to the basement and make more money.  Can’t make it fast enough?  Just start raising taxes. 

     That’s called spreading the wealth.  Not so bad, right?    halalpiar    

    Check out and contribute to the daily growing 7-Word Story started 45 days ago (inside a coffin) that previously appeared at the end of each daily post, that now has it’s own home: Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, then to the lead headline link!

I’m tellin’ you, ball:

                                            

next pitch,

                                              

you gotta be a strike!  

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Hooray!  Now the daily growing 7-Word Story (that started 42 days ago inside a coffin) that I’ve been carrying at the end of each daily post has it’s own home on a separate page (Click on the link to the right, or go to the “BOOKS” tab at the top of this page, and then to the lead headline link!).  Special thanks to Michael Infusino for making it happen.

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     Much to my disdain, my second favorite team, the Boston Red Sox, after a valiant effort, lost last night.  Thanks, Red Sox, for a great battle.  You certainly outshined my Mets!

     And now it’s on to the big World Series stage for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays (They dropped the “Devil” part–maybe why they won?–but I like the way the name sounds better when the Devil is in there. 

     Tampa Bay Devil Rays just sounds better, don’t you think?  The Devil adds more of a lilt to the pronounciation, not to mention a dose of intrigue to what goes on in the clubhouse and the hallway that leads to the dugout. 

     So, with apologies to the Tampa Bay marketing genius who decided to kill the Devil, I will continue to use the full birth certificate name.  I know, I know, I’m the same guy who clings to “Garden State Arts Center” in spite of a certain NJ Governor who uncouthly sold out the name to a bank!   

     Where was this headed?  Oh, right!  There’s this pitcher on the Tampa Bay Devil Rays that you absolutely must see.  If you’re a baseball fan, you already know of whom I speak. 

     But let’s say you HATE baseball and think nothing in the world can posssibly match the excitement level of, oh, for example, synchronized archery or a good Texas Hold ‘Em game.  Well, I can tell you, you’ve got another thing coming. 

     You haven’t yet experienced veteran pitcher Daniel Michael Wheeler, and you MUST watch a couple of World Series games just to see this squirrely little teddybear-looking guy (not actually so little, just looks it before each pitch) who bends over like a kid sticking his face into a bag of candy, puts his nose to his raised glove and talks to the ball as he swooshes it around in his glove, then stands up and pitches to the batter. 

     Yes, I did say “talks to the ball.”  It’s quite a sight, not to mention how long it takes batters to get past the distraction of this quirky pitch delivery process.  We’ve all seen players –Tug McGraw, who used to slap his legs to death with his glove when he got excited, comes to mind– act quirky, but I gotta tell you that THIS Wheeler guy is beyond weird. 

     Of course I suppose I could think he’s a walk on the wild side ta-dum, ta-dum, because I don’t know what it is he’s talking about to the ball, or if the ball is talking back.

     But you will thank me for making you tune in to Mr. Wheeler.  it’s worth a timeout to see this happening occur with EVERY single pitch he throws. 

     You’ll either come away dumfounded, and shaking your head, giggling because you figured out what the conversation with the ball is all about, or afraid to bet on the Phillies. 

     I mean, I talk to my pen and my keyboard sometimes, but on every pitch?  Hey!  Enjoy the games.                    halalpiar 

In the end, you will win.   

New England’s abuzz, and well it should be: the Red Sox rose up from the dead last night and forced a game six in the American League playoffs! 

     If you’re not a baseball fan, you may think this event was small potatoes.  And it may not end up having any earth-shattering meaning in the big scheme of life, unless of course the Red Sox continue to rise and win game six, and force a game seven playoff, and then win that too! 

     Unlikely?  Well how unlikely was it that they would be getting clobbered for seven innings and be losing 7-0, and come back to win?  When you know the teams and the situation and the injuries involved and the track-records of the pitching staffs, the Red Sox recovery and ultimate win is definitely in the miraculous category.

     How many times have you pulled off a business or personal or career miracle by your standards?  How did you do it?  Odds are you simply convinced yourself that you were going to succeed and managed to somehow fill your heart with the fire to win.

     Some will claim they accomplished the impossible because they’re Christians.  Some will say it was because they had a rescuer.  Others will claim luck.  Some will credit skill or experience.  But the bottom line is that miraculous events occur (and have occurred in history) because the person or persons involved believed –heart and soul– that she/he/they would succeed, no matter what.

     This (success) is a choice!

     It may not seem like a choice at the time, and it may feel ridiculously overwhelming to even think in those terms.  Believing in seeing yourself as a winner, however, is a choice.  And it’s one you are free to make every passing second of every passing minute every day. 

     You must be willing to commit yourself fully to achieving your goal . . . with no exceptions. 

     There cannot be times when you decide it’s okay to slack off because things have been going well (or because they haven’t and you think you deserve a break); those are the moments of weak-willed collapse, the moments of trial, the moments when you must keep faith in yourself and what you’re doing, the moments when you must keep pushing, rise to the occasion. 

     They are the hardest of times.  They are the times when others give up.  They are the times when you must push yourself to persevere.  And, in the end, you will win.                halalpiar      

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BE A CO-AUTHOR!  ENTER YOUR OWN 7-WORDS OR LESS TACK-ON to the “billboard discipline” story started 39 posts ago. The next 7 words could be yours! 

Sorry, Dear Agent, I’m Too

Swamped To Write This

To You Personally . . .

     Well now, if you’re a serious writer, you know what I’m talking about here. 

But, if you’re a literary agent, you probably don’t because:

A) If you communicate clearly and honestly and with some sense of cultivating a positive reputation –if not a relationship– then you already communicate clearly and honestly with some sense of cultivating a positive reputation, if not a relationship, OR

B) If you are and you don’t (a literary agent who doesn’t communicate . . .), which unfortunately seems to me to constitute the vast majority, maybe no one has put it in your face that Communication Deficit Disorder (CDD) is an affliction common to –and rampaging through– your profession.

     It’s one thing, for instance (and extraordinarily rare I might add), for a writer to receive a pleasant, thoughtful rejection notice from an agent you’ve queried or submitted material requested for review, and quite another still (the “rule” it appears to me and scores of other writers I’ve asked) to get back a snotty, arrogant, auto-formatted reply that’s about as personal as used cardboard . . . or the other extreme: one that’s over-the-top patronizing.

     It’s especially demeaning to get the same nonsense wording returned in response to three separate submissions over a long time period –each noting that the agent has been “too swamped lately with work to give proper attention” to a submission.  Actually, the guy I’m referring to has been “too swamped” for four years.  Somebody should send him a towel and dry clothes!

     Did all literary agents take the same “How To Reject and Dismiss Writer Submissions” course?  Did all of them hire the same lifecoach to give them all the same sets of words to use?  I have read over and over how literary agent “decisions are very subjective ones, and what doesn’t work for one may work for another.”  How helpful and empathetic.  Then there’s “It might be useful to review agent listings in the Guide to Literary Agents or . . .”  Duh!  No kidding?  How does this genius think I found her or him to start with?

     Oh, and ten agents have found my work “intriguing” but all ten were “afraid it’s not interesting enough for me, and good luck . . .”  Thanks all!  I’m simply thrilled to know you’re intrigued but not interested.  I never realized it was possible to be both of those things at the same time.  Aaaah, what we can learn when we subject ourselves to experts!

     Well, probably all the wrong folks are reading this.  Serious writers are probably still with me, and odds are most of them are in agreement about at least parts of what I’ve said.  Agents though who need to read this and have their cages rattled, have no doubt disconnected back up front at the first suggestion that they might be subjected to the same subjectivity they dispense.

     Oh, well.  I got it off my chest.  Now it’s time to move on . . . have you been following my 7-words-or-less-sentence story?                         halalpiar 

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‘Going Green’

                                           

has only one meaning

                                                                               

that has meaning. 

                                                                                                      

      You can talk “going green” for your business until St. Patrick’s Day shamrocks come out, but reality is that “going green” has only one meaning that has meaning:

BREAKING THE CYCLE OF INVASIVE TOXINS

THAT COME FROM PRODUCT MANUFACTURING

PROCESSES, PRODUCT USE AND PRODUCT DISPOSAL.

     There is really only one way to accomplish this cycle-breaking, to phase out and eliminate product ingredients like Chlorine and Bromine and Lead and Mercury and PBDE and PVC and Melamine and all the rest:

     CHECK THE INGREDIENTS OF PRODUCTS YOU PURCHASE —INCLUDING THOSE YOU MIGHT LEAST LIKELY SUSPECT (LIKE MATTRESSES, BABY CAR SEATS, PAINT, SHOWER CURTAINS, FURNITURE, CARPETING, ROOM DEODORIZERS, ETC.)– AND SPECIFY NON-TOXIC INGREDIENTS FOR PRODUCTS THAT YOU PURCHASE FOR OTHERS. 

     MAKE SURE THE GOODS AND SERVICES (LIKE CLEANING) THAT YOU PURCHASE SPECIFICALLY DO NOT INCLUDE POISON TOXINS IN THE MANUFACTURING PROCESS AND THAT THE PRODUCTS DO NOT RELEASE POISON TOXINS INTO THE AIR AND LANDFILLS WHEN THEY ARE USED OR WHEN THEY ARE INCINERATED OR DISGARDED.  

     Don’t know what all these toxic chemicals are?  Take a few minutes to pull them up on search engines and force yourself, if that’s what it takes, to learn which ones are the worst, which are most common, and what they do to you, and your pets, and the land, and our water and food supplies. 

     The few minutes you spend now to teach yourself can literally save your corner of the planet in the days, months and years ahead . . . for you and your grandchildren!                           halalpiar 

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If you’re not “thinking blog”

. . . you should be. 

     Business startup people used to march around saying:

“I remember when I coont even spelt

entrepreneur, and now I are one!” 

Today, it’s more like:

“Blog ain’t even in my dictionary, and

now I post to one every night!” 

     If you’re not thinking about a blog, you should be.  It is what’s happening, and (aside for professional writing services and minimal tech maintenance) it’s essentially free.  But, when you’re thinking about doing a blog to support your business or professional practice marketing, or customer (client/patient) service, or internal corporate interactive HR training program, be careful! 

     If it’s not strategically planned and written to reflect the right attitude, if it’s not engaging fromn the git-go, it can be as devastating as saying the absolute wrong thing the first time you meet your prospective new in-laws!  In other words, recovery from a bad first impression can be an extraordinary uphill journey!

     A poorly-written, unprovocative, ho-hum blog (especially one that is nothing more than a thinly disguised advertisement) will send visitors scrambling off into cyberspace quicker than a kitchen footstomp scatters mice to the baseboards!

     If it’s your business or professional practice, you are the absolute wrong person to write the blog.  You also can’t afford to be spending your time doing anything less than running the show. 

     Hire a professional business blog writer who understands your business or the business part of your practice, who has a sense of marketing and a flair for public relations . . . someone who can make your blog site come alive, who can provoke interaction, whose posts will ring with integrity but keep people talking.  Pay for that.  It’s worth it. 

     Looking for the right person?  Let’s talk blog.  Call me 302.933.0116      halalpiar 

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Beginning with today’s post, I am going to explore a new dimension in writing by starting a fictional story of 7-words-or-less sentences and phrases, and building it as we go each day, one seven-word sentence/phrase at a time. 

     It will always appear in blue, with the newest of each daily sentence/phrase added in green. 

     I decided to do this as both a creative challenge and because I have taught a lifetime of thinking that the best communication effort –commercial or literary– begins with writing a billboard. 

     Yup, I did say “a billboard.”  This most creatively challenging of all media stands alone because passing speeds require seven words or less, because within those seven words the message must have a beginning, a middle and an ending . . . AND be persuasive! 

     So, this venture I’ve dreamed up will be something like writing a speech that is all sound-bites, or doing a photo essay of 100% photo-ops.  You get the idea. 

     This does NOT mean that I will in any way be abandoning or short-shrifting my (close to) daily blog posts.  They will continue.  It’s just that now we will have an undercurrent story that builds every day — and YOU are invited to contribute to it anytime you are so inclined.

     The working title:            S  T  A  R    S  T  R  E  T  C  H

(or * ** *** **** ***** ****** *******)

     Today’s sentence:         She squiggles her arm above her head.

     See you tomorrow with a new blog post . . . and a new 7-words-or-less sentence/phrase (yours or mine — whatever works!)  Have a great night!   halalpiar