Put a wrap on the week

Day 7 - February 18, 2012

For those of you not in touch with Jeff Snyder, he is the man behind SecurityRecruiter.com and one of the most interesting guys in my industry.  I've only talked with Jeff two or three times, ever.  Each conversation has generally started with us talking about candidates for a particular position he's trying to fill then evolves into at least one hour of general business and life stuff.  He's quickly becoming a person that I'd like to have at my fantasy dinner party with Bill Clinton, Thomas Jefferson, Frank Cano and Ted Nugent.  He's that interesting.  You need to check out his blogs, musings and speaking engagements.  I guarantee you'll learn something.

When starting this blog I wanted to wrap up each week with a few things that I learned.  So we'll see if I can keep this commitment:
1.  Know your product cold - Learned this from the guy who sold me suits
2. Continual self assessment is a must for anyone in sales - Courtesy of Jeff Snyder
3. Even the most stubborn prospect can still be a customer - Fortune 500 Sourcing Manager
4. Persistence again is a constant in the equation of sales (preparation/effort) x persistence = quota
5. Cold calling will always suck and a great lesson in humility

Moving back to sales from sales management has been exhilarating at times and good old fashioned boring at others.  It's been 45 days now and I feel the sales juices flowing.  Should pick up a couple of new Fortune 500 logos by the end of the month and will increase my company's F500 penetration in my region by 20% by the end of the quarter.  Progress is being made.

I will close this blog referring back to item #2 in the what I learned this week and a couple of nuggets from Jeff Snyder's Blog (http://blog.securityrecruiter.com/).  Heady stuff if you allow yourself to stew on it for a bit.  How are you Mr. or Ms. Salesman going to help yourself and your clients?  How are you hard wired?  What behavioral changes have you made or need to make?  I don't know the answers but I do know that I'll be tuning into Jeff's blog and doing some soul searching to figure it out.

"Your Hard Wiring

Seriously, have you ever invested the time to slow down to determine just how you’ve been put together?  Do you know why you do what you do?  Do you know why you react to certain situations the way you do?" 

"Do you think positive behavioral change just might improve your personal stock value?  I do!"