11-13-2013
Last week, a friend of mine asked me, ?To what do you attribute your success?? First, I was flattered that he considered me a "success," but more importantly, he caught me off guard.
I thought for a few seconds, and mentally scanned all of the usual clich?s in my mind?.being customer focused, working hard, delivering value, luck, and so on.
But to my surprise, I blurted out a one-word answer: ?Longevity,? I said.
The conversation quickly moved on to other topics, but the next day I began to ponder how profound that answer was.
Does your sales culture and remuneration structure sustain longevity, or do you have an "eat what you kill" culture that starves your new recruits to death?
It was longevity that allowed me to build my business, and success certainly didn?t come overnight. There were many years when I had to go into debt or dip into my savings just to stay in the game.
And there were many times when I almost packed it in for other career opportunities.
I was fortunate enough to have a savings account, a wife with a good income, and good credit to carry me through the "unsuccessful" days. Do you have a remuneration structure that allows new recruits to stay in the game?
Upon further reflection, here is what longevity did for me, and can do for you:
1.) Experience. You can?t expect a rookie with 90 days experience to compete with and outsell a competitor with years of experience.
2.) Confidence. Given time to get a few successes under your belt gives you the confidence to pursue more business.
3.) Learning. With time, if you make an effort to learn something new every day, eventually your skills and expertise will be second to none.
4.) Awareness and familiarity. We all know that reach and frequency sell?.and longevity simply builds more reach and more frequency for every sales person.
5.) Trust. It takes time to build trust, and over time, your prospects and customers simply trust you more if you appear to be in it for the long haul.
6.) Referrals. Proving yourself over time, you?ll have enough referrals and build a strong enough reputation that you seldom need to prospect?.referred prospects will be calling you!
7.) Timing. Timing itself plays a role. I have contacts I made five years ago who are just now becoming clients. They just didn?t have a need when we first met.
We have all seen eager new recruits who "failed" in our business, only to become successful in their next career. Creating a culture of longevity could help you keep some of those successes in your camp!
Wayne Ens is the president of ENS media Inc. The stations ENS Media works with consistently increase their revenue beyond the flat or meager increases our industry as a whole achieves. You can reach him at wayne@wensmedia.com
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