Chase The Championship: Kicking Ass, Taking Names And Becoming A Dealmaker! Excerpt

CHASE THE CHAMPIONSHIP Kicking Ass, Taking Names, and Becoming a Dealmaker - The Philosophy and Principles of a Sales Champion Lawrence Rosenberg

Copyright © 2009 Lawrence Rosenberg ISBN 978-1-60145-753-0 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author. Printed in the United States of America. BookLocker.com, Inc. 2009

TABLE OF CONTENTS I FOR THOSE ABOUT TO SELL, WE SALUTE YOU! PART ONE: CONTENDER OR PRETENDER? .................................11 1. HUNTER-KILLER............................................................................11 2. TALKING THE TALK.......................................................................14 3. WALKING THE WALK ....................................................................16 4. ARE YOU A COLD CALLING COWBOY? ......................................18 5. TELESALES VS. TELEMARKETING..............................................23 PART TWO: EVERYONE HAS A SHOT AT THE TITLE ...................25 6. DEAL PUMP ...................................................................................25 7. TALENT MULTIPLIED BY ZERO STILL EQUALS ZERO...............29 8. MIRED IN THE MINUTIAE..............................................................31 9. THE HUNGER: GREED IS GOOD .................................................34

II THE MINDSET PART THREE: WINNER TAKES ALL ...............................................38 10. YOUR MISSION, SHOULD YOU CHOOSE TO ACCEPT IT ........38 11. CHASE THE CHAMPIONSHIP .....................................................39 12. IN ORDER TO WIN YOU HAVE TO COMPETE...........................42 13. IT’S A COMPETITION WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT! ..........44 PART FOUR: LIVE BY THE SWORD ................................................47 14. SPOILING FOR A FIGHT .............................................................47 15. GET IN THE RING ........................................................................50 16. PUNCHER’S CHANCE .................................................................53 17. THE CHIP ON YOUR SHOULDER THAT CHIPS AWAY AT YOUR LIFE ....................................................................................................56 18. CONFUSING FAILING WITH BEING A FAILURE ........................58 19. ZERO TO HERO...........................................................................60

III KICKING ASS AND TAKING NAMES: HOW TO CRUSH THE COMPETITION PART FIVE: PREPARE FOR BATTLE ..............................................63 20. SHOW ME THE SALES PROCESS .............................................63 21. THE APPRENTICE .......................................................................67 22. TRAINING TO GET INTO SHAPE FOR THE BIG FIGHT.............73 23. BEGIN TO WIN.............................................................................79 PART SIX: THE ART OF WAR ..........................................................82 24. FIRST ONE IN, LAST ONE OUT ..................................................82 25. PSYWAR ......................................................................................85 26. OUT-RESEARCH THEM ..............................................................88 27. OUT-CALL THEM .........................................................................94 28. OUT-PITCH THEM .......................................................................99 29. THE ROAD TO NOWHERE: CONFUSING ACTIVITY WITH ACHIEVEMENT ................................................................................103 30. A (RECORDED) WORD TO THE WISE .....................................105 31. BECOME A SALES FLOOR CELEBRITY!..................................108 PART SEVEN: BRINGING VISION TO VISIONARIES ....................112 32. PITCH THE DECISION-MAKER .................................................112 33. DECISION-MAKER OR DECISION-FAKER? .............................114 34. PEOPLE DO NOT BUY LOGICALLY, THEY BUY EMOTIONALLY ..........................................................................................................119 35. PITCH WITH PASSION ..............................................................121 36. OUT-BELIEVE THEM: DEVELOP PRODUCT KNOWLEDGE....125

PART EIGHT: UNCOMFORTABLE ANSWERS TO UNCOMFORTABLE QUESTIONS ...................................................128 37. OUT-CLOSE THEM ....................................................................128 38. MOVING BEYOND THE COMFORT ZONE ...............................131 39. NO...............................................................................................133 40. MAYBE .......................................................................................135 41. LOVE EM OR LEAVE EM: IS THE PROSPECT SOLD ON YOUR IDEA?................................................................................................139 42. PROCRASTINATION NATION ...................................................141 PART NINE: MOTIVATED TO TAKE ACTION - URGENCY AND OBLIGATION IN AN UNCERTAIN WORLD ....................................145 43. URGENCY ..................................................................................145 44. US VS. THEM: IT’S YOU AND ME AGAINST THE WORLD ......149 45. PROSPECT OR SUSPECT? ......................................................151 46. OBLIGATION ..............................................................................153 47. THREE-STAGE OBLIGATION STRATEGY................................155 PART TEN: NEGOTIATION .............................................................160 48. CUT TO THE CHASE AND LOSE THE RACE ...........................160 49. THE PRICE IS RIGHT ................................................................163 50. PREMATURE NEGOTIATION ....................................................171 51. PRE-NEGOTIATION STEPS ......................................................175 52. NEGOTIATE OR DIE ..................................................................178 53. NEGOTIATING RATE.................................................................179 54. LET’S MAKE A DEAL .................................................................181 55. DEAL OR NO DEAL....................................................................186 PART ELEVEN: DEALMAKER!.......................................................190 56. THE RIGHT TO DO WELL..........................................................190 57. OPTIMUS MAXIMUS ..................................................................192

If there be no enemy there (be) no fight. If no fight, no victory and if no victory there is no crown. - Thomas Carlyle

PART FOUR: LIVE BY THE SWORD 14. SPOILING FOR A FIGHT

The full value of this life can only be got by fighting; the violent take it by storm. And if we have accepted everything, (then) we have missed something - war. This life of ours is a very enjoyable fight, but a very miserable truce - Gilbert K. Chesterton. Does your company promote competitiveness? Do they hold sales competitions? Do they recognize and reward the firm’s best sales executives, the month’s top producer, the quarter’s sales floor superhero, or the year’s undisputed heavyweight champion? If not, then walk into your Sales Manager’s office right now and either sell him on the idea of providing a platform where you and your peers can slug it out for pride and glory, or flat out quit because their myopic vision of sales as being nothing more than an assembly line endeavour is a death sentence for your career. Of course, you and your peers can always compete without the official sanction of your company, fighting it out simply for the ego trip and maybe a bit of cash as you wager on the results; but although it is a blast to compete with each other just for bragging rights, the momentary rush is all too fleeting. Without your company’s support and recognition, an unsanctioned tête a tête is nothing more than a backroom brawl in which you get the bruises and raw knuckles, but none of the glory or money that is reserved for the pros – it is all sizzle and no steak.

Unless the company you currently work for truly understands the need to promote excellence through competition, as well as the need to handsomely reward the winners, and if you cannot convince them otherwise, then don’t walk, but run from this company as fast as you can! Find yourself a sales-driven organization that will provide you with a ring to swing in and a stage on which to show off and shine. Go to as many interviews as it takes until you find a place where you can take your shot at the title and be properly rewarded for kicking ass, for becoming champion. Above all else, make sure that the environment you choose when taking on your next sales role gives you the opportunity to compete; claw, tooth, and nail.

23. BEGIN TO WIN

The love of glory gives an immense stimulus - Ovid. The day that you decide to overthrow your company’s number one sales executive is the day that you must begin to win. You may not be able to outsell your company’s current sales champ just yet, but you are going to take a piece of them and every other challenger on that sales floor from day one: not after you have had some time to get used to the idea; not a few months or quarters after you have gone head-to-head; you must start notching your victories right now, today. You must get into the habit of winning. You must take advantage of any chance to compete, no matter how trivial the victory or ground gained may initially seem. Any win that is yours and not the champ’s is an abrogation of his dominion. Losing ground in this way is a seemingly insignificant nuisance to the big dogs but, like compound interest, the cumulative effect of triumph upon triumph, no matter what the size, inures to your benefit as eventually, before they realize it, you will have accumulated so much of their territory, and your campaign will have gained so much thrust, that it will be too late for them to stop you. Before they fully awaken to what has occurred, you will be pushing up against them at the top of the mountain and causing them to wobble at its peak. Allow the champ and his challengers no room to breathe. Compete for everything and give them no quarter. In the end, they will be left wondering where the hell you came from – they will never even know what hit them. First, though, you need to know what it feels, tastes, and smells like to come out on top yourself; not once, not twice, but all the time. You have to get used to being a winner; you have to come

to expect it so much that any other result begins to feel foreign and wrong. In order to do this, you need to turn every action that can be measured, any identifiable metric of achievement, into a competition. In fact, the nuts and bolts of the job are the perfect place for you to start kicking ass. Your winning ways will begin by beating the top dogs at the very actions most of them usually take for granted – the basics. Take heart in the fact that many top salespeople, many so-called champions, are extremely vulnerable when they are perched high atop the mountain. Most are assailable because, once they have spent any length of time in the top spot, they develop a tendency to forget what got them there. A successful salesman’s memory is sometimes very short. Achieving a string of fat paychecks, buying the flash car, renting the big house, and having money to drop at the finest restaurants tends to erase the hardships most of them had to endure in their initial drive to the top of the foodchain. Many established champions come to rely on a very reckless assumption to support their belief that they will continue to dominate, a faulty supposition that will, if taken advantage of, lead to their disaster and your ascent. They begin to assume that the reason that they are sitting in the “catbird seat” is because they are simply more talented than the hoi polloi beneath them. When top salespeople fall victim to the very comforting but mistaken belief that they are innately better at selling and closing than everyone else, they lose the will and the commitment to engage in the fundamental habits that gave birth to their rise to the top. Leaving their hard work and the basics aside, they count on nothing more than luck and talent (a specious combination if ever there was one) to retain their title, which is a fatal but unfortunately all-too-common sickness that affects many sales

superstars. This is often the Achilles heel of many a fallen champion, and it is to your advantage. Be especially wary of this fatal character flaw, this malaise, and inoculate yourself against it. Never forget where you come from or what got you to your new position as sales executive number one. Stay hungry, be diligent, and persevere. Never get so comfortable that you rely on your abilities rather than your actions to deliver the results you desire. It is the determination to win, persistence, and a keen adherence to the fundamentals that will take you to the top and the same will keep you there. Our first battle will thus be for supremacy of the basics, the gruntwork, the heavy lifting. You will create a state of perpetual victory and make winning a daily experience by working to conquer the statistics that make up the guts and mechanics of the job. Deal making is dependent on a number of skills that, as a rookie salesman, you quite possibly haven’t learned yet, or, as an experienced veteran but heretofore non-challenger, have not yet mastered. But anyone, regardless of their experience, can learn and perform the basics of our profession; the acts of prospecting, calling, and pitching. First aim to beat the champ and his challengers at these actions, the ones that build the foundation of a great salesman, and then, as your experience and knowledge base grows, you will have developed the chops to crush them at the only thing that will be left to defeat them at, the thing that matters most – the money, the deal making! Small victories first, great triumphs later.

25. PSYWAR

One need not destroy one's enemy. One need only destroy his willingness to engage – Sun Tzu. In the minds of your competition, your conquest of the sales floor must seem like an inevitability; like a force of nature, your rise to the top must appear to be unavoidable. Ultimately, these competitors should come to fear that the light at the end of their tunnel is you behind the wheel of a freight train, headed right for them! From day one of your commitment to compete, you must project an unstoppable image – that of an unflinching, unwavering IronMan. You must do everything possible to ensure that your competitors see you as an unrelenting powerhouse of energy, enthusiasm, and diligence. The subtle psychology of defeating your adversaries on the sales floor begins with the prompting of seemingly jocular praise and off-hand remarks about your unstoppable nature. Your effort and intensity must be such that your competition begins to throw around phrases like “he’s an animal” or “he’s a machine” when referring to you and your drive; references such as this hint at something more than human, something inexorable. It speaks as much to the ferocity of your effort as it does to your opposition’s inability to match you. If you are “more than human” then how can they hope to defeat you? By showing you this deference, they are unconsciously and, at times, knowingly admitting to their own inability to stand up to you, to compete with you. They are, after all, only human.

The key element that you will use to construct this armour-plated, super-human persona will be a work ethic that can best be described as not of this world. You must produce an effort that no one else will be capable of matching. You will outrun them, outwork them, and exhaust them. Then, you will defeat them. It is your formidable dedication and unrelenting work-ethic that will cause your competition to fear you and, moreover, to doubt in their ability to stop your seemingly predestined rise to the top. This uncertainty will be the first crack that you render in their supposedly impermeable championship wall, the fissure in the dam that precipitates their collapse. And when you finally do gain the advantage? When your numbers begin to rise above those of your adversaries? You do not gloat, you do not coast, you do not take the time to admire your handiwork. Rather, you “double down” and multiply your momentum. You work even harder than you did in your initial run through the gauntlet, piling on deal after deal, victory after victory, until you demoralize your enemy and take away their will to fight. The point will come where you will win, most of the time, because your opponent simply gives up. They begin to think, “why bother, he can’t be beaten now – he’s just too far ahead”. I remember once winning a “Salesman of the Quarter” contest against a particularly good salesman – very talented in fact, and far more experienced than I was in our product specialty. Chatting a few days after my victory, he confided in me and admitted that I had simply “taken his heart out of the game”, that our business used to be fun for him but that I had “killed his joy for it”. What I did, in reality, was make the business of beating me

appear to be so much grinding hard work, the prospect of having to keep pace with my output so distressing, that he checked out mentally long before the game was over. Winning was no longer worth it for him, not at the price I was charging. In the end nothing can surmount the unrelenting fight to win; not genius or money; not brute strength or political clout. When starved and stripped bare, when every last drop of sweat and blood has been wrung from the body and mind, the man who is willing to take one last swing, one final stab at victory, will be history’s favorite son.