Ask the Coach and a book review: Is .9999 repeating the sames as 1?

It is interesting how things sync up in life if you are just paying attention. The receiving of this question paralleled a potential client giving me an amazing little book titled: 212 The Extra Degree by S.L. Parker. For the review, if you are familiar with my format, I give it 10’s across the board. If you do not know my format, when you are done reading this, click on the book review category to see from other posts how I rate books. This little tome took me less than an hour to read, and in that hour I was again transformed by a simple concept spelled out clearly. Now, to the question:

Question:

Is .9999 repeating the same as 1?

Answer: 

While I am quite certain that this week’s question was sent to me as a joke, the sender could not have known the significance in their timing. In Parker’s boo, he shares some statistics from sporting events and other activities. One of these is close finishes at the Olympics and there is one event that is so close that the difference between gold and fourth place is .o7 seconds. I want you to imagine four people passing you in .07 seconds. Actually, I want you to try and register .o7 seconds.

Now, think about the question again. If the person in fourth place had done one more push up a day, ten more feet of running daily, focused one iota harder at the beginning of the race, they could have transformed from unknown to a medal winner. The answer to your question is yes, and the difference is tremendous! Now let’s translate this difference to sales. In sales, what is the reward for finishing second. Last time I checked it was nothing. If it happens often enough, perhaps a pink slip. In sales that infinitesimal point zero ad infinitum one is enough to cost you a client, a commission,  and all that comes with success. If you cannot see the difference and you are in sales, in my opinion you will not be in sales for long. If you cannot see the difference and want to, buy Parker’s book (There is a link to your left). It will open your eyes… it reopened mine.

BEW: Business Expert Webinars – Web 2.0, Sales 2.0… now Education 2.0

A new section on my blog, a new medium for educating professionals globally and perhaps a new trademark: Education 2.0

E-learning has become a quickly exploding phenomenon and when I decided to make my consulting practice a full time endeavor, it was apparent that I would need a medium to offer my trainings through the WWW. Well, thanks to Jeb Blount over at SalesGravy.com, I found Lee Salz the founder and CEO of Business Expert Webinars (BEW). He has connected hundreds of thought leaders in every aspect of business and development to give 1 hour trainings via webinar. One thing that is unique is that all PERSONAL PROMOTION IS FORBIDDEN. These are not advertisements but practical lessons in a skill. I will be offering to training sets:

1. My championship training series that has made my sales teams and my clients sales teams to stop selling and instead align with how to get people to buy.
2. My startup sales mentor series on the sales evangelist. This is for anyone who needs to get from $0 to profitability and lacks the strategy, people, and process to get there.

BEW launched today and to see the curriculum CLICK HERE. You can find the first 6 trainings I am offering starting in June. Believe me, you will be hearing more about them as we get closer to the official date.

So Karl, this is great, but why are you creating an entire category about BEW. Great question, um, Karl, and the answer is that I intend to share other great webinars that I think would be a benefit to the group. I also intend to take some courses afterwards will post a review. There are probably a few other reasons to have an entire section dedicated to Education 2.0, and if you have any ideas, comment comment comment!

For now remember, go to,

http://www.businessexpertwebinars.com?afflink=bewkarlgoldfield051008

to see the courses, and get your learn on.

Coffee Break: Why is alltop now my home page?

 So Guy Kawasaki, and his cronies have come up with another Web 2.0ish idea. They call their creation alltop, and what it is is (I love when I can say is is, even if it is not grammatically correct), an aggregator of all of the top blogs and article websites on the net. They list them in categories by relevance and popularity. You get to see the last 5 articles posted and man is this cool! Why, well let me give you some reasons:

As a sales person always wanting to grow:

I have instant access to some of the best blogs on the net. All of my favorite writers are slowly but surely there. No scanning RSS or long lines of e-mail. I get my data on demand.

As an Entrepreneur:

He has all of my startup sites that I like to peruse in one page. Saves me so much time in finding article that help me grow.

 As a blogger:

Again, the people I want to read are right there! Now let me add, I can comment articles of relevance and gain more traffic.

As a person who likes to stay informed:

Talk about news! I love political commentary, I know I am a sicko, but hey alltop feeds me articles from over 50 news sites. I get my fix baby, I get my fix!

Now there are many other cat’s job boards, sectioned by career, rumours and gossip, entertainment. They really have all walks of life covered, and if that is not enough, they keep adding more categories and content. Now the only question is, how are they going to monetize and make another billion dollars. Guy, can I buy some stock?

Sales Training: Commitment selling, it’s about opening not closing!

It is so hard for me to talk to sales people about process. While they would never know it, I cringe inside every time I hear someone talk about closing. I understand that the concept is about closing a deal, a completion of a process, but in this day and age, is any sale the end of your relationship with the buyer?

In our times, the snake oil salesman, or door to door vacuum dealer is almost non-existent. These are the only people that have no commitment to a customer after a sale. What we should be teaching our sales people in our selling world is OPENING, not closing. With a mindset of opening, getting someone to sign on the dotted line is the beginning of something, not the end result. Yes, it is a milestone, yes it has ended a cycle, but it your team is not looking beyond that moment in time, you are leaving opportunity after opportunity on the table.

The doors you can open after completing a sale:

1. The obvious, referrals to other departments in a company.
2. Referrals to colleagues in other companies.
3. More business through up sell opportunities.
4. Reference materials, from case studies to reference calls and quotes.
5. And finally, you may change companies and have something new to sell. Once a buyer is comfortable with you as a business partner, this relationship provides a lifetime of value.

Now, before you start adjusting your pipeline because you have a customer base, I have to admit this takes some work from the onset. First, you have to maintain a relationship with your customers after they have made a purchase. This means service oriented calls where you provide some value. If you ask for more business it provides no value. Instead, give them some information about their industry, or share with them some results of using your product. These are the things that get people excited to hear from you. If you do this properly, they will provide referrals, references, and always take a hard look at your offerings. If you give them value at the beginning, during, and after you sell them something, you will always find more opportunities…and you will not have to look too hard.

Coffee break: New look for the site part 2

Well the code I through up yesterday kept breaking and sending my site to the default view. Then I had some real fun and deleted default, thinking that would solve the problem. Much to my dismay, I found this just turned my blog into white space when it crashed.

 So back to the drawing board and now I have a new theme. Still, I am in dire need o a touch up, but all of this makes me think of two things:

1. In the midst of this, I managed to have an incredible productive day for one of my clients. I also had three great prospecting calls and am getting close to closing another big client.
2. Coming at problems from many different angles is something inherent in the best sales people. We do not quit or run away, we take challenges head on. That is why we earn, this is not a habit inherent in everyone. Most people cannot stand failure after failure.

Anyway, thank you all for your patience. I look forward to getting the new look completed and enjoying the new digs.