The Phrase That Pays Part 3 – I
I
Here is the third article in our series The Phrase That Pays – “How Can I Help You?” The word I. Boy, has as my mentor Jeffrey Gitomer schooled me on this one. Please allow me to share his wisdom.
Who is the most important person in the sales process? Is it you or is it your customer? Now, most people would say it’s your customer, right? Your customer is WAY more important than you because without your customer you don’t have a business, right? Let’s try this a different way. Let’s say you and your client were both on a deserted island and one of you isn’t going to make it home. Who’s it going to be? You or your client? That’s pretty much a direct quote from Jeffrey and I don’t want to take credit for his work. You know it has to be your client right? All you want to do is to live to see another day. So now we’ve established that YOU are the most important person.
What are you currently doing to serve “I” (or you in this case)?
There’s a lot of things you should be doing for yourself that can also, in turn, help you to serve your clients. I carry Mike Walter’s book “Ten Things You Can Do To Have A Better Day” around with me in my computer bag and read a section on a plane or Uber when I’m traveling. I’d encourage you to pick it up at his website DJMikeWalter.com. One little nugget I picked up from Mike’s book is to take a vacation once a year. Do you take a vacation once a year?
I don’t know about you but I love to travel. I believe my love for travel goes back to working for Carnival Cruise Lines and not traveling a lot as a child growing up. Taking a once a year vacation allows you to mentally recharge your batteries and also allows you to see the world (and your business and how you serve clients) from a whole new perspective. I highly recommend it.
How about a physical break? What if you just stopped in your office and literally just banged out 10 push-ups. Physical activity fires up the blood, which in turn fires up your mind because you’re creating a different physical shift in your body versus staying in your office chair or standing up.
How else can you improve your “I”? Here are four quick things to help yourself improve.
The first one is I would encourage you to read the best-selling sales book of all time here in America, Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Red Book Of Selling. Here are two other books to definitely get your hands on to sharpen your sales skills, #2 The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes and #3 Selling The Invisible by Harry Beckwith. Reading by esteemed authors who are experts in their field can help you immensely, but only if you apply the principles laid out by them.
The second thing to improve your “I” is writing. Writing has led to a major, major shift for me, and it helps you get your thoughts on paper (or these days notes on your phone or computer). Before you go to bed at night, write down your thoughts from the day and your plan for the next day. It’s important to clear your head so you can sleep well and wake up well-rested to take on the next day.
The third way is to think. Think of how you can better your process or better your service for your clients. A fourth way to improve yourself is to “DO”. Put those things you wrote down into action that you read write and think about. Finally, the fourth way to improve your “I” is BE. Be authentic about your process, and about yourself. You must follow through on your service and your promises to your clientele. Create reminders if necessary in your favorite CRM of choice, but do not falter in this area. Your clients WILL hold you accountable.