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Selling Your Services |
Gotcha! Attitude is Everything in Salesby Ranger Kidwell-Ross
Guy Gruenberg is sales manager for Brewer Company, a 70-year-old coal tar and emulsions company that is a predominant supplier in its marketplace.This article was written as a result of seeing one of Guy's seminars. Although his seminar revolves around his registered slogan "Attitude Is Everything In Sales," Guy offers a host of down-to-earth steps to amplify the gains that can be made via the use of positive enthusiasm alone. This is an entertaining seminar, involving music and video, in addition to the standard PowerPointsm pages. Still, Gruenberg tailors his presentation to his audience members, and invites participation through pairing up audience members to work through real-world scenarios with each other. More on that a little further on. "Whether we realize it or not, we're all in sales," is Gruenberg's philosophy. He then proceeds to give examples using instances from "the best salesperson I know, my 10-year old stepdaughter." His point is that when his daughter wants to get agreement, she uses all the skills at her disposal, from body language to earnest, dogged communication to any other aspects of her personality and knowledge she can think of. He also cites yellow pages ad salespeople as having the type of training that gets them the results they want. When he pairs up audience members into 'selling scenarios,' he does it in a way to make sure people can realize that they're in sales situations all the time, whether their job description happens to include sales or not. Gruenberg does so by using topics such as the selling that takes place when a teenager wants to take your car and go somewhere, or when you try to return a camera to Best Buy when it's past the 30-day deadline for returns and the item originally came from another of their stores. With such real-world situations, it's difficult not to become engaged in Gruenberg's message when he moves on to relating it to increasing the sales in your business. One goal we all need, he tells us, is to attain a balance between our own physical, mental and spiritual aspects. That's an important grounding from the get-go. After that, he provides techniques to assist in actually attaining the goals we set, using precise examples intermixed liberally with quotes from such sources as Vince Lombardi ("The spirit, the will to win, and the will to excel are things that endure. These qualities are so much more important than the events that occur."), Wayne Gretsky ("You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take."), and Robert Schuller ("Spectacular achievement is always preceded by spectacular preparation") and others. 
There are three types of people in the world, Gruenberg told us: "the people who make things happen, the people who watch others make things happen, and people who don't know what's happening." The latter, in particular, is a place where no one in business can afford to be. For example, you don't want to ever receive news that one of your best customers has left you. Instead, you should have the follow-up and customer support in your company organized such that you know well ahead of time there's a level of dissatisfaction brewing. That's the only way you can be pro-active in retaining them. Many business people don't realize how much more expensive it is to go get new customers than it is to keep the ones you have happy with you. Gruenberg advocates taking action on your goals by turning your problems into manageable action items that are realistic and achievable. He does this by turning what he calls 'hate statements' into 'love statements,' and then developing an action plan designed to turn the love statement into a reality. A real-world example many of us can relate to is the negative statement he cited of "I hate being fat." Corresponding love statements, he said, might be "I love it when I get on the scale and I've lost 30 lbs." or "I love it when I can fit into my old pants." Simply wishing for change doesn't make it so, however. From there, you need to turn your goal into an action plan -- one that's realistic -- and then break your plan down into manageable pieces. "All too often," Gruenberg told us, "people decide they have an extra half hour per day they can allocate to go running. What they don't take into account is that for half the year it's too cold to run outside, so they may need to invest in a treadmill. Also, after you've gone for your run it'll take an additional half-hour, minimum, to shower and get back to work. That may not be time they can budget, in which case the whole effort ends up going down the drain." "Many people make the same mistake when they develop a sales action plan for their business. They're unrealistic about the amount of time it will take, or are unwilling to commit the capital necessary to design their fliers, or do the mailouts needed, or train and then follow-up with the telemarketer they hire. Anyone can write an action plan, but the people who couple their action plan with continual follow-through designed to reach the goals they set are the ones who will end up being successful." "You don't necessarily have to make huge changes in order to see some significant advances in your company. If you can find a way to improve your business by just 1% a week, for example, just look at what you'll have accomplished by the end of the year!" Gruenberg also stresses doing all the 'little things right' when you are out there selling your company and its capabilities. "It's amazing the positive impact even items like greeting people with a warm smile and having a business-like handshake can have. Those types of things also assist you, the salesperson, in having the right kind of positive attitude throughout your work day, and your career." Guy Gruenberg is available for seminars for groups around the country, and is especially affordable for non-profit membership groups of all kinds. Other popular speaking topics include The ABC's of Being The Best You Can Be, Taking Care of Business, and Whatever It Takes. He also has clients he consults with both at their locations and via the telephone. For more information, you may visit his website at: www. attitudeinstitute.tripod.com. You may reach Guy online via email sent to asphaltguy@excite.com, or by telephone at 219-462-3253. No matter what job you do, Gruenberg counsels to keep updating yourself with material designed to keep you motivated about the life you're leading and how you're leading it, both on and off the work clock. "Positive motivation in and of itself can be similar to showering: the results may not last that long. That's why we take showers pretty often. By the same token, keep finding ways to improve on all levels the work in progress that is, uniquely, you." |
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