Growing Sales in Uncertain Times
In January of 2002 with the country and our economy reeling from 9/11, I chose to go out on my own as an entrepreneur. By “chose” I mean I got fired and needed a way to feed my family. But there was one big problem: I had no idea how to get clients. After a few weeks of practicing my sales pitch on my dog and sending emails that didn’t get returned, I turned to my mentor (the same guy that had fired me) for advice, and he changed the trajectory of my career with four words: “call everyone you know.” Within
90 days I had built a book of consulting business that carried me for three years until I started my healthcare company.
That healthcare company was also built on the telephone and grew consistently through the Great Recession and drastic Medicare reform. And then in 2015 I became a one-man show again and built my EOS™ business with, you guessed it, the telephone. The result has been the most fun and lucrative 10 years of my career.
I’m not trying to impress you with my sales ability. Quite the opposite; I’m not a trained salesperson. I’m just a guy that found himself in challenging situations and grew revenue by calling people, developing relationships, and asking for sales and referrals. It worked, but it was really hard. I’ve been ghosted more times than a high schooler on Instagram and the repeated failures made it hard to do what I knew I needed to do: pick up the phone. That all changed earlier this year when I read Pick Up the Phone and Sell by Alex Goldfayn and then his most recent book, Outgrow. I learned three critical things from those books:
1. Nothing is as powerful as proactive phone calls to grow sales, especially in a tough market.
2. The phone discipline doesn’t have to be painful (like it was for me) if you employ a few simple techniques. Those techniques make the work highly productive, and when the work is productive, it’s fun and positive.
3. That positivity fuels more calls, and the flywheel keeps getting bigger and turning faster.
If you’re as old as me, you might remember Victor Kiam, in his Remington electric shaver commercials, saying “I liked it so much, I bought the company.” My version of that is “I liked it so much I bet my company.” Last month I became a Certified Outgrow Advisor, and in a sense, I bet my company. You see, the only thing my business has of value is the relationships with the 100+ leadership teams I’ve taken through EOS and the people in my network. Those people trust me to bring them solid, proven coaching, so I’m betting my reputation by bringing them something new. But it doesn’t feel like a bet; it feels like it would be an enormous disservice if I didn’t share it. And that’s how I know I’m on the right track.
If you’d like to learn about Outgrow and how to increase your sales by 15% - 30% per year in a predictable, systematic manner, give me a call. I’d love to hear from you!