The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
-Albert Einstein

“I’ve been in this business for over 25 years. I have run out of things to learn,” was one of the saddest comments I have ever heard from one of my recent seminar attendees. Stop learning? Don’t we need to learn from our customers so we can effectively serve them? Don’t we need to learn what our competition is doing? Don’t we need to learn how our peers and employees feel about working with us? Don’t we need to learn how much we DON’T know? Once you lose your hunger to learn, you lose the ability to positively affect everybody around you. And who would choose that? And it’s not enough to be open to learning; you have to aggressively seek opportunities to learn.

For example, this week try these three questions with your current customers…and family members:

•    What am I doing I should keep doing?
•    What am I doing I should stop doing?
•    What aren’t I doing that I should begin doing?

Because customers, peers, employees and family members won’t often seek you out to tell you how you can be more valuable to them, you have to ask. And when you ask, you show a willingness to learn. And once you create a habit of LEARNING, you will create a habit that creates some of the world’s top performers.

Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends.
-WALT DISNEY

Spring Break is here and a ton of folks will be heading to Disney World for the “experience.” In fact, about 44,000 people each day or about 16 million people each year will trek to Orlando. An even more impressive number is that almost 80% are REPEAT customers. So what did Walt Disney create that that we too can create in our own businesses? The two words that come to mind are FUN and REFERRALS. And what can those two words do for your business?

• Fun is innovation, creativity, and adrenaline. It produces productivity, loyalty and morale. Fun creates communication, teamwork and reduces conflict. Fun creates a profitable culture, increased sales and retained customers and employees. And fun fulfills our basic human need to be happy. So with all these benefits of FUN, why don’t more salespeople and companies use it? Some have.

Companies like Disney and Southwest airlines have harnessed the power of FUN to create loyal and repeat customers, and so can you.  But you have to schedule time to think of ways to add fun to your job. For 15 minutes each week, step away from email, get off the voicemail, and put your creative energy to work by thinking of innovative ways to create a customer experience. Then go do it. Do it just for the fun of it, or do it only because it works! Either way, a company or a salesperson that doesn’t “bring it” better be prepared to lose business to the competitors that do.

• Referrals- Surprise people with a fun customer experience (internal and external) and they will tell their friends. But don’t just stop at fun. If you are making your customers smile while providing big value, you need to ASK them for referrals. It’s a nice little game of give and take. I make you smile…you give me the name of three friends who would also like positively outrageous service.

So this week, find ways to add fun to your customer’s day. By doing so, you will have earned the right to ask for referrals. Make it a habit, and you will learn just how fun it is to cash your commission check, build a top performing team, and bury the competition. Let the fun begin!

This week, Brian interviewed author T Scott Gross on his weekly radio show. Scott wrote the book “Positively Outrageous Customer Service,” and shares tips on how you can use FUN to get to the TOP.   Go to www.preciseselling.com/Radioaccess.htm to listen to the interview. To find out more about Brian’s sales and leadership programs, visit him at www.preciseselling.com or email Brian at bsullivan@preciseselling.com.

“Diamonds are only lumps of coal that stuck to their jobs.”

B.C. Forbes (1880–1954)
Scottish journalist and founder of Forbes Magazine

There are only three ways to become a diamond in your career. If you are a professional salesperson, the formula is easy:

1. Become smarter and more skilled than the average rep

2. Make more prospecting calls than the competition

3. Be smarter, more skilled AND outwork the competition

And you know what is so great about this formula? You have total control over it. So if you are unhappy with your sales results at this point in the year, take a close look at that list above and decide which one you are going to work on. If you chose option #1, then here is your mission. Buy a business book, sign up for a sales seminar, or schedule time each week to get on the phone with a respected mentor. If you are the option #2 type, increase the number of prospecting calls you make by at least 20% this quarter. And these 20% don’t all need to be cold calls. In fact, just by turning a portion of your current account “order-taking,” follow-up, and service calls into SALES calls, you will find it easy to get to that 20% number.

And lastly, if you are looking to become a 5 Star Quota Busting Diamond, choose option #3 and do both! Because if you dedicate yourself to both mastering your great profession through consistent education as well as increase your activity level, the only thing that will be lumpy at the end of the year will be the wad of extra cash in your wallet!

To learn more lessons about getting to the TOP, listen to Brian interview some of the nation’s premier business and motivational minds on his weekly radio show by going to www.preciseselling.com/Radioaccess.htm. President of Kansas City-based PRECISE Selling, Brian delivers seminars and internet training programs on sales, customer service, leadership and presentation skills to companies of all sizes. To find out more, visit him at www.preciseselling.com or email Brian at bsullivan@preciseselling.com.

“All people know the same truth; our lives consist of how we choose to distort them.” -Woody Allen

How do customers and peers see you? Or a better question may be, “Do they see you?” Well if you feel as if your talents, efforts and ideas are going unnoticed and it is driving you crazy, it’s time to do something about it! It’s time to distort any vanilla image that your customers and peers may have of you. It’s time to create a brand built on PRIDE that will distinguish you. So let’s get to work with these five simple branding steps:

1. P- ick a brand. Take 30 minutes this week in your office and make a list of what makes you so special. If you aren’t quite sure, ask family and friends. Chances are they know your brand better than you do.

2. R- eal Imagination creates memorable brands. Once you have identified your special talents, think of something BIG to do with them. Because by dreaming bigger than everybody around you, you brand yourself as somebody with BIG plans. Who would you rather hang out with…a bore or a dreamer? By the way, a dreamer and a great brander named MLK changed the world. But he had to get noticed first!

3. I will listen. There is no brand better than that of a “listener.” Become the person famous for listening and learning both in and out of the office and watch how quickly you get noticed.

4. D-eviate. Jazz up your emails with an image representing your brand. Bake a cake, write your tagline in frosting and deliver it to a customer. Make your brand part of your voicemail greeting. Whatever! Just create a brand that makes people smile and you will not be forgotten.

5. E-nthusiasm. Branding is about getting noticed. And people with enthusiasm get noticed. Once you determine your talents, set goals built on imagination, become a better listener and find ways to deviate, you must then sell your brand with enthusiasm. Which means you can’t be shy about it. Is there a risk it will be perceived as self-promotion? Maybe. But if you aren’t willing to promote the special qualities in you, who is?

So good luck! And if you need help, drop me an email at bsullivan@preciseselling.com. Because I specialize in “Creating Top Sales Performers in 20 Days or Less.” Hey, I told you I believe in branding!

To listen to Brian teach the five steps of branding with PRIDE on his weekly radio show, go to http://www.preciseselling.com/Radioaccess.htm. To find out more Brian’s corporate presentations, visit him at www.preciseselling.com or email Brian at bsullivan@preciseselling.com.