goals

A Process for Achieving Your Sales Goals with Jim Brown

January 4, 2018 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

As 2018 kicks off, what is your process for achieving your sales goals? If you don’t follow a process, you going to find it tough to meet your sales objectives. And, that’s the topic for today’s episode with Jim Brown of Salestuners.

Jim and I discussed:

The steps to set and achieve your sales goals.
How to build rapport with prospects quickly.
Tips and strategies for overcoming objections.
The best ways to identify and reach the right prospects.
Overcoming rejection in the sales process.

If you don’t have your process nailed down, do it now before you find yourself staring at an empty funnel.

Enjoy the interview!

About Jim:

Jim Brown has led two companies from $1 million to more than $10 million, and one from $1 million to $0. He now trains entrepreneurs who don’t realize they’re the VP of Sales and individual salespeople how to 10X their revenue using a step-by-step sales formula.

Previously, Jim’s sales performance led Slingshot SEO from $1.2 million to $11 million in revenue within two years. He was then recruited to Compendium to build and lead the sales function, which he took from $2 million in sales to an eight-figure acquisition by Oracle. After the Oracle acquisition, Jim left the well paying job and comfort of success that he’d known and raised $1 million for a B2C app startup. They had some initial traction but failed to execute the vision. This resulted in a 100% loss for himself and the investors.

Today, Jim hosts the SalesTuners podcast where he talks with world-class sales performers about the techniques, behaviors, and attitudes that listeners can use to close more deals and make more money.

Connect on LinkedIn and Twitter
www.salestuners.com

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No is a Complete Sentence

January 28, 2014 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

For a long time, I’ve struggled with saying no to people. Hard to say if it is simply my natural inclination to want to help out, or my ego feeling puffed up because someone wants my help. It could be a little of both. Either way, saying yes to the wrong activities has very often gotten me in trouble.

The curious thing is that I’m not alone. I ran a quick web search on the phrase “hard time saying no” and in .85 seconds, I receive 450,000,000 results. Clearly, I’m not the only one with a problem.

For years I have pondered why I have difficulty saying no. After all, I have friends and colleagues who are masters of no, never giving it a second thought. Not me. Uttering the word used to eat at me. I felt guilty. I felt like a jerk. It stressed me out to cancel something when I should never have agreed to it in the first place. Worse is when I’d honor the commitment but then be completely ticked off at myself for wasting my time.

Without learning to say “no”, here are just a few of the things that are likely to happen:

Your priorities become secondary and you may end up never getting to them.
Acquaintances burn time you can spend on your goals, your hobbies or with friends and family.
Burn out.
Lack of focus by allowing yourself to be pulled in competing directions.
There is no time left to say “yes” to the really important opportunities that come along.

I don’t remember exactly where I heard it, but it is said that, “No is a complete sentence.” As simple as that sounds, it still feels a little harsh to me. What I’ve done instead is thought about the various requests I’ve received through the years and have a plan for what I’ll say when the next ask comes along.

Here are three examples…

If you want a “pick your brain” meeting with me, be prepared to send me a written agenda and the clear purpose for the meeting. NOTE: this stops about 99% of all requests. Should I agree to meet in person, it will cost you more than a cheap lunch. Dinner at an upscale restaurant and a really nice bottle of red will get you in the neighborhood of my typical consulting fee.

Want to meet to talk about how we might “partner”? A first meeting in person isn’t in the cards, but I may agree to a 15-minute exploratory call. You’ll need to give me a compelling reason why 15-minutes is worth it. You can start with the agenda.

If you want me to speak at your conference, you need to pay my fee. I’ve racked up plenty of “visibility” thank you very much. When I do say yes, don’t make ridiculous demands on my time. I don’t send my presentations weeks in advance.

Going forward…

At the start of the year, I blogged about going big, big, big, which will be tough to do unless I remain selfishly focused on what matters most to me. I want to encourage you to be selfish too.

Looking back on the first month of 2014, I’m pleased to say that I’ve done a great job turning down requests that don’t fit my purpose and plan. Go Barb! It isn’t all perfect though. I have some egg on my face for agreeing to at least one project that sounded great at first, but ultimately wasn’t a fit for me. It is embarrassing to back out.

Simon Sinek asks, “What’s your why?” I’m asking, “What’s your no?”

New Year, New Questions

January 7, 2013 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

I’ve spent a substantial amount of time over the last few weeks reflecting. Personally and professionally, 2012 was another pivotal year that included, among other things, the loss of my beloved shepherd/retriever Shorty, and the closing out of a business partnership that didn’t quite turn out as I had hoped.

Though tough for me to admit, I was feeling a little defeated at the end of the year. After all, I worked hard. I gave my all. But there I stood at the end of the year, feeling as if I’d taken two steps backward, and I wasn’t happy about it.

What to do?

For me, the choices were pretty simple. I could choose to focus on what went wrong and spend time entertaining myself at my own private little pity party. Or, I could choose to ask for the help that I needed to get myself back on track. I chose the latter.

Help came in the form of a book called Awaken the Giant Within. A long-time fan of Tony Robbins, I’d read the book twice before. At least I thought that I did. This time around I must have been more open and receptive to doing the work, because I found myself saying many times…How did I miss that before? The insights I’ve gained have been invaluable.

And I want to share one with you today:
Ask better questions. Questions that empower you and inspire you to take action.

For some of you, your sales year begins anew. For others, you are at the mid-way point in your fiscal year and may have just gone through some grueling reviews of your sales performance. In either case, what you choose to do next, where you decide to focus your attention will chart your course.

When things don’t work out, it can be easy to default to Why me? If you focus on that question, you are sure to come up with a list of all the reasons why life just isn’t fair. All that does for you is to create more negative energy, which can never lead to a positive outcome.

Regarding any challenges you may be facing, I want to you to use these 6 questions as you think about them.

How can I turn things around?
What is positive about the problem?
What am I willing to do to create the outcome that I want?
What can I learn so that I never have to repeat the situation again?
How can I improve my product or service?
How can I enjoy the process of turning things around to get what I want?

Working through questions such as these leads to a more empowering and positive state of mind. And that’s when miracles occur!

Want better results, a better outcome? Ask better questions.

Resurrecting 3 Words

February 10, 2010 By Barbara Giamanco 8 Comments

At the first of this year, I blogged about my respect for the approach that Chris Brogan takes with setting new goals. Tried his approach myself in 2009…I was pretty pleased with the results. Naturally, I wanted to challenge myself with Chris’ process again in 2010, which I did (and have), but I also said that I would be back in a few days to share with you my three words for the new year with you on my blog. I missed my deadline. I’m back now, and I’ll share my “key 3” in just a minute.

Before I do…

As I climbed the sales ranks while still working in corporate America, I was conditioned to keep business and personal separate. Don’t discuss things like politics or religion or any other controversial subject for that matter. Don’t want to risk offending your buyer. It’s that same conditioning that leads companies to fear social networking, blogs and the like. Understandable. You don’t want your employees to “blurt” anything and everything out there on the world wide web. It stays there. Forever. That’s why guidelines must be established, training given and appropriate management oversight put in place to ensure that employees don’t go to far off the corporate reservation.

And…

If 2009 taught us anything, it’s that we must bring transparency, openness and trust back into our working relationships. In short, we need to be more human with each other. It’s OK to share what motivates you or knocks you down in life. That’s all part of being human. And that leads me to the reason why I disappeared for just a bit.

You see, nine months after her Alzheimer’s diagnosis, my mother died on January 12, 2010. Though I knew it was coming, I was still knocked down. I had no clue what Alzheimer’s was really about before this happened. Perhaps, you don’t either. What I know now (and really wish that I didn’t!) is that the disease afflicts everyone involved. Frustrating, confusing and agonizing for the patient. About the same for the family members involved. The health and quality of life of many Alzheimer’s patients deteriorates over a period of years – not months. In that way, Mom was lucky. She isn’t suffering any longer.

The Alzheimer’s Association, which envisions a world without the disease shares a few statistics on their website, which might give you some sense of the disease’s magnitude:

As many as 5.3 million people in the United States are living with Alzheimer’s.
Alzheimer’s and dementia triple healthcare costs for Americans age 65 and older.
Every 70 seconds, someone develops Alzheimer’s.
Alzheimer’s is the seventh-leading cause of death.
The direct and indirect costs of Alzheimer’s and other dementias to Medicare, Medicaid and businesses amount to more than $148 billion each year.

I pondered whether I would share this personal side of my life with you. In the end, I decided that it was OK. Tough things happen in our lives, which can sometimes knock the wind right out of our sails. People around us cannot help us or support us if they don’t know we need the help!

Finally, about those 3 words. My key 3 in 2010 are: Charioteer, Marksman and Physical.

Charioteer– like the Charioteer at Delphi, I holds the reins of success in my own 2 hands.
Marksman – this is about precision, practice, patience and teamwork.
Physical – reminds me to get outside to connect with mother earth and exercise daily. Good health is a gift!

Are You Taking Right Action?

March 14, 2009 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

Conversation continues about the economy, the economic stimulus package, people losing jobs, higher taxes and on and on and on. Frankly, it’s depressing, and I don’t want to engage in the discussion.

I am a huge fan of Wallace Wattles and his landmark work –The Science of Getting Rich. He reminds us that “We must guard our speech. We must never speak of ourselves, our affairs or anything else in a discouraged or discouraging way.” The starting point for success begins with minding our attitude. Are you aware of what you are thinking and saying? You need to be! Energy flows where attention goes and negative thoughts and behavior will draw those same results to you.

So what can you do, in addition to keeping a lock on your thoughts? Take right action.

Right action is an essential ingredient to achieving what you want. It starts with a clear vision of where you are headed, faith that you can achieve your goals, gratitude for knowing you’ve already achieved them coupled with taking action NOW.

Far too many people sit around wishing and dreaming but they do absolutely nothing. I’m a Law of Attraction believer. I believe that we create our own reality, but notice that the last 5 letters of attraction are ACTION. Even if we don’t know “exactly” what action to take, it is important to do something.

I often encounter people who stop themselves from achieving success because they don’t know HOW it will happen. But our job isn’t to necessarily know HOW something will unfold. We just have to get moving. As we do, more will be revealed.

Moving forward in faith that you will achieve success leads to a chance meeting, a phone call from someone you’ve lost touch with, an article shows up that is related to your desire…you just never know what will come your way when you get into action.

Get out of the “gloom and doom” mindset! Remember that taking action will lead you in the direction of our goals. Stay open to new possibilities, have faith that success will happen and stay out of your own way. If you do, success takes care of itself.

You Are CEO of You, Inc.

January 7, 2009 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

Chris Brogan is President of New Marketing Labs. I love following his blog posts. On Monday, his post talked about how each of us is the president of our own career. I couldn’t agree more. It’s an excellent piece. You really should read it!

140140 I have believed for some time now that we are the architect of our own lives. We must be accountable for the doing whatever we need too to achieve our career goals. What do you think?

Here is my response to Chris’ post:

Right on! Last year I gave a talk at Verizon titled Whose Career is it Anyway? I lack patience for people who cry the blues about how their company doesn’t do anything for their career. Of course, I believe they should, but who said they were obligated too? The investment that a company is willing to make in their people will vary, but one thing holds true. It’s up to each individual to manage their own career success.

Back in my corporate America days, my employers didn’t always pay for the classes I took to improve my communication, management skills, coaching skills, etc. Books are cheap and these days there are so many great FREE webinars on every topic imaginable. Or, read blogs – like this one!

There just isn’t any excuse. I worked to remain lay-off proof then and now as a business owner. People are buying. We just might have to work a bit harder or pay more attention to the opportunities that at first glance might not seem like they will lead to something. I keep my attitude straight and stay on my priorities and coach others to do the same!

So? What’s your plan?

1. Do you have clearly defined goals written down?

If you need to sell products and services, you better! I challenge you to focus on the 3 things – nothing more – the 3 most critical things you need to do to create value for your clients and soon to be clients. Learn new technology? Learn a new skill? Broaden your network?

**If you work for someone else, what’s your plan to take charge of your career? What do you need to learn? Who do you need to know? Do you need to seek out a mentor?

2. Is your attitude in check?

Now is NOT the time to focus on the negative or worrying about a “down” economy. Of course, focusing on what we don’t want is never a good idea. Soooo – be positive. See in your mind what you want success to look like and it will manifest in your reality.

3. How will you innovate in your business or career this year?

Now is the perfect time to be creative. Looks for what’s needed. Where is there a gap – either in your company or in the your customer market – that you can fill with what you have to offer?

Get going. Take charge!

A Process for Achieving Your Sales Goals with Jim Brown

No is a Complete Sentence

Resurrecting 3 Words

Are You Taking Right Action?

You Are CEO of You, Inc.

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