The Business Fixer Blog by Wes Schaeffer, The Sales Whisperer®

Are You Selling or Praying For Sales?

Written by Wes Schaeffer | Apr 18, 2017
Praying For Sales Is Fine, As Long As You're Working For Sales, Too.

 

On the first of every month those of us in sales hear

"You had a great month / quarter / year. But that was YESTERDAY! What are you going to do THIS TIME, starting now?"

(Reminds me of the Navy SEALs motto, "The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday.")

How you kick things off this week and this month sets the tone for your year.

Are you licking your wounds from a bad year? Are you licking your wounds because you had a great year and now your company has assigned you a higher quota this year. (Don't they ALWAYS?!) Are you grousing around, mumbling that

  • Google isn't fair with their latest Penguin / Panda / Godzilla / Zeus SEO changes,
  • PPC is too hard,
  • social media keeps changing,
  • email open rates are down,
  • direct mail marketing is expensive and has low open rates,
  • caller ID makes it impossible to get through on the phone,
  • gas is too expensive so it's not worth driving to a prospect's location,
  • podcasts are too complicated to learn,
  • there are too many blogs,
  • 3D mailings are too expensive,
  • there are too many regulations in your industry,
  • your boss is a jerk,
  • your staff is lazy,
  • your contractors are bozo's,
  • Obamacare makes things too uncertain,...
  • Did I leave anything out?

As you can see, that list above covers pretty much everything you can do in sales.

It's all hard.

It will always be hard.

As soon as anything gets easy, everyone will do it, which will make it ineffective, which means you'll have to master something else.

So the sales prize goes to those with initiative, with effort, that produce great content and put it into great context.

You can pray for sales and for good luck, but I believe God answers those prayers not by giving you the sales and the income, but by giving you the drive and determination and curiosity and fortitude to seek out ways in which to make the sale and the stamina to see it through to the end to earn that sale.

So what are you doing now to stay ahead of the pack and earn more sales this year than last year?

I always ask entrepreneurs

If you were convicted of being a salesman and a marketer, would there be enough evidence to convict you?

This can be a great year with focused effort.

If you need more help growing your sales, consider the following resources:

Or just contact me and we'll set a time to speak.

Good Selling,