It’s Sunday, February 20th, and there’s less than a minute to go in an incredibly intense Olympic hockey game in Vancouver, Canada. The home Canadians, expecting no less than gold in their home Olympics in their national sport, are up against a strong Team USA. Both teams are made up of National Hockey League players, putting on the colors of their respective countries, but rarely are these players this intense.

Sidney Crosby, the poster child of Canadian talent and high hopes for Team Canada, had just made it close by netting a goal with just under four minutes to go. With the score 4-3, the Canadian coach chooses to pull the goalie to bring on a sixth attacker in the offensive end of the ice, increasing their chances of scoring a tying goal. Without a goalie, however, the Canadian net is unattended.

With six vs. five, the Canadians put even more pressure on the USA defense. But somehow, Ryan Kesler of Team USA gets the puck and gets it to teammate Zach Parise, who caroms it off the boards toward the Canadian zone and the empty net.

Kesler, seeing an opportunity, sprints toward the puck in an all-out footrace with Canada’s Corey Perry. Kesler is two steps back, and seems to have no chance at getting to the puck in time.

But somehow Kesler closes the gap, and in a desperate, athletic move, lunges his stick ahead of the surprised Perry to touch the puck.

The stick of Kesler magically redirects the puck toward the empty net. As both players get tangled up with each other and end up in a heap on the ice, sliding into the boards, the puck barely clears the inside of the right post. It’s a goal for Team USA, putting them up 5-3 and shutting the door on the Canadians.

Sometimes our efforts seem futile, as if there’s no way our hard work will possibly pay off. But if we approach our goals with the sheer will and tenacity of a Ryan Kesler, we will indeed have a shot at success, even if it is a long shot.

Here’s to the Ryan Keslers of the sales world, training hard and doing what it takes to improve, for that moment when the puck is moving in the right direction — and they’re in position to score the goal.

– Bill Guertin is CEO (Chief Enthusiasm Officer) of The 800-Pound Gorilla, a dynamic sales training and consulting company and author of the brand-new book, The 800-Pound Gorilla of Sales: How To Dominate Your Market, now available from John Wiley & Sons. Find more articles and valuable information at www.The800PoundGorilla.com, or follow Bill on Twitter atwww.twitter.com/800poundgorilla.

I’ve just witnessed a new low for humankind this week.

At O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, in the men’s restroom outside Gate G9, on Feb. 15th at approximately 7:45 pm, I witnessed a young man texting while at the urinal.

Yes, with one hand.

I didn’t stick around to witness what happened immediately after he was finished. (Urinating, I mean.)

What does it all mean?

There is an immediacy to this new norm of communication that transcends anything else we’ve ever experienced. This multitasking, multi-present generation has decided that the text is now more important than whatever else is going on in their lives — or at least equally as important. In the grand heirarchy of who’s-top-of-mind, it’s the wireless media that’s winning.

This isn’t an easy thing for me to accept. But as in most things in life, there’s another side to the story.

Ted Leonsis, the charismatic entrepreneur and owner of the Washington Capitals hockey team (NHL), was applauded at a recent conference for his embracing of new technologies. Ted blogs constantly, and encurages fans to interact with him online. He answers E-mails from fans, and encourages them to send him their thoughts about the team.

“Please don’t applaud for me,” he responded as the crowd showed their appreciation for his mentioning of his social media usage. “The data says that people are online, on their phones, on Facebook, reading blogs, and I’m responding to what’s happening by jumping into it. I see what people are doing, how they’re communicating, and what they want, and I’m just keeping up with the times. The Capitals isn’t my team; it’s the fans’ team. Why wouldn’t I embrace a medium that has 400 million users like Facebook to communicate with them and find out what they’re thinking? I’d be crazy to ignore it.”

Ted Leonsis is an 800-Pound Gorilla, a dominant player. He starts and sells companies routinely, and he’s a keen observer of trends. One of his secrets is to watch what people are doing, see where the changes are taking place, embrace them, and see where the opportunities are.

Those of us that are a bit slower to accept change are the ones that may be left behind.

I may not develop a habit of going to the bathroom with my BlackBerry in my left hand. But if I’m to be a dominant player, I had better observe others around me, and begin to think about what those observations mean.

What are you observing these days?  And more importantly, what opportunities do those observations represent for you?   The time is right to think, create, and be bold. 

– Bill Guertin is CEO (Chief Enthusiasm Officer) of The 800-Pound Gorilla, a dynamic sales training and consulting company and author of the brand-new book, The 800-Pound Gorilla of Sales: How To Dominate Your Market, now available from John Wiley & Sons. Find more articles and valuable information at www.The800PoundGorilla.com, or follow Bill on Twitter at www.twitter.com/800poundgorilla.

It’s really hard to say no to our friends.

We don’t want to disappoint, let down, or otherwise make a friend of ours feel bad. In fact, we look for opportunities to make our friends feel great. That’s part of what makes good friendships; the innate ability we all have as human beings to spread niceness and good cheer to those we choose.

Wouldn’t it be easier as a salesperson if we could simply sell to our friends?

Certainly not every sale requires a close relationship. I’m not going to ask for a resume from the girl at Dairy Queen before I buy an ice cream cone. But in sales that involve a high degree of trust, all of us in the profession need to treat each person as if they’re about to be friends for a very long time.

Would you sell your product to your best friend?

If not, maybe it’s time you found another product.

– Bill Guertin is CEO (Chief Enthusiasm Officer) of The 800-Pound Gorilla, a dynamic sales training and consulting company and author of the brand-new book, The 800-Pound Gorilla of Sales: How To Dominate Your Market, now available from John Wiley & Sons. Find more articles and valuable information at www.The800PoundGorilla.com, or follow Bill on Twitter at www.twitter.com/800poundgorilla.

When I was in deep trouble as a kid, my parents would confront me by asking the most incriminating question possible, and then top it off by disarming me from any form of explanation. I would begin to answer their question, and they’d put their hand up and say, “All we want to know is: Did you do this, yes or no?”

“But Mom, there was this… ”

“YES… OR… NO?” they would insist, eyes glaring  into mine.

I hated that question. I knew they were right in asking it, because they knew I would have some wild story that would somehow justify my bone-headed mistake.

Apparently Mark McGwire’s mom and dad raised him differently.

Mr. McGwire, owner of several major league baseball records, including the iconic record of most home runs in a single season, didn’t just confess to us that he took performance-enhancing steroids during his pro career; he went into a long, drawn-out diatribe of why he did it.

“The only reason I took steroids was for health purposes,” he said in an exclusive hour-long interview with TV sports journalist Bob Costas. “I was frustrated by injuries that weren’t healing properly,” he claimed. “The pressure to perform was enormous.”

Once the 800-Pound Gorilla of baseball’s power hitters, McGwire retired under a cloud of doubt and silence in 2001 as rumors of steroid use in baseball began to surface. “It doesn’t feel good to hear teammates walk by and say, ‘Oh, he’s injured again,’ McGwire admitted to Costas in between Kleenexes. “The wear and tear of 162 ballgames a year, year in and year out, was incredibly difficult.”

But, amazingly, during the interview, McGwire insisted that his taking of the illegal substances did not enhance his performance. “It was purely medicinal,” claims the now-remorseful slugger. “I’ve always had bat speed. I just learned how to shorten my bat speed. I learned how to be a better hitter.”

And we’re supposed to believe that your transformation from skinny first-baseman to power slugger had nothing to do with your wonder drugs?

“A pill or an injection cannot help you with the hand-eye coordination it takes to hit a baseball,” he postured to Costas during the interview. “There’s not a pill in the world that can help you to hit a baseball.”

Says who? You? The one without a medical license? The one that refused to come clean in front of Congress because your lawyers couldn’t make a deal with the prosecution to let you off the hook?

Yes, Mark, we’re all curious as to why you did it. But we’ve long since figured it out; your reasons are as insincere as your attempt to come clean at this exact moment – five years to the day of the filing of charges against you, because the Statute of Limitations allows you the immunity from the law you so fervently desire for yourself.

Setting the record straight? Is that what you’re doing, Mark? Seems to me like you’re saving your own butt – and raising more questions in the process.

As business owners, entrepreneurs, and sales professionals, here’s what we can take away from the Mark McGwire debacle:  If you do something wrong, be man (woman) enough to come clean about it in the right way. Insincerity in any form leads to more damaging results than the truth will ever do. And even if the truth does hurt, the ramifications may be less severe, and you’ll still have the respect of those who forgive the honest.

It’s too bad Mark McGwire’s mom wasn’t doing the interview.  I can just hear her now:

“Mark – MARK!  Shut up, Mark!  All we want to know is… Yes or No?”

– Bill Guertin is CEO (Chief Enthusiasm Officer) of The 800-Pound Gorilla, a dynamic sales training and consulting company and author of the brand-new book, The 800-Pound Gorilla of Sales: How To Dominate Your Market, now available from John Wiley & Sons. Find more articles and valuable information at www.The800PoundGorilla.com, or follow Bill on Twitter at www.twitter.com/800poundgorilla.

2009 will go down in history as the month that Tiger Woods became the 800-Pound Gorilla of the media in something other than golf. The most shocking thing about his fall from grace is that this sort of behavior from the ultra-successful has become almost predictable.

My wife once worked with very powerful developers of high-rises in the United States, mainly the Midwest. These were people who dealt in eight and nine-figure numbers daily, with huge risks on every project – and huge successes if they bet correctly. Because of Sherri’s position, I had the chance to get to know them on a level that few others did.

What I found was that these high rollers were always on the lookout for the next big challenge in every facet of their lives. Whether it was skydiving, baccarat, dangerous recreational drugs, or hitting on others’ wives just to see if they could get away with it, these were very powerful people that had to push the envelope in whatever they did. Their work lives were so borderline dangerous, their personal lives had to struggle just to keep up.

And I thought back to those days when I recognized the similarity they have to many of the celebrities, Ponzi schemers, and top sports figures that have fallen in 2009.

To them, being at the pinnacle of their game, there is a hunger to achieve something else in their personal lives that needs to be equally challenging. They’ve tasted the adrenaline rush of supreme victory in their careers, and their home lives are boring in comparison. So they spice it up – because others do it around them, because they can afford it, and most importantly, the temptation to achieve a sordid, secret personal victory on the other side of their lives is overwhelming.

“What can I get away with?” they begin to ask themselves, and start doing things that give them the same sense of danger, thrills and excitement they experience in their day jobs. They can afford to buy the necessary cloaks of secrecy they need to keep their dirty deeds under wraps. And so they go about building their skyscrapers, running their investment funds on Wall Street, and winning their green jackets in the light of day.

It’s the blessing and the curse of success.

As you contemplate the past year and look ahead to how you can be a more dominant player in 2010, I hope you’ll discover success in whatever way “success” is defined for you; that you’ll savor the joys of new accomplishment; and that you’ll recognize and resist the Big Lesson of 2009: that new temptations almost always come with the territory.

– Bill Guertin is CEO (Chief Enthusiasm Officer) of The 800-Pound Gorilla, a dynamic sales training and consulting company and author of the brand-new book, The 800-Pound Gorilla of Sales: How To Dominate Your Market, now available from John Wiley & Sons. Find more articles and valuable information at www.The800PoundGorilla.com, or follow Bill on Twitter at www.twitter.com/800poundgorilla.

(Excerpted from the new book, “The 800-Pound Gorilla of Sales: How to Dominate Your Market”)

Wal-Mart has long been the 800-Pound Gorilla of retail and has managed to attain that status using a single differentiator: price. So where can others add value in a world that screams “low prices”?

Perhaps no one does value-added—or, in its own words, “Wow!”—better than Zappos.com, an online retailer of shoes, clothing, handbags, and more. Based near Las Vegas in Henderson, Nevada, Zappos’ 2008 gross sales topped $1 billion; a 15 percent increase from 2007. Using current estimates of online footwear sales, Zappos easily commands 30 percent of the market—an 800-Pound Gorilla if there ever was one.  Zappos.com was recently purchased by Google for nearly $1 billion just a few months ago.

Founded in 1999 by Nick Swimmurn after a frustrating search for shoes in a San Francisco mall, Zappos’ entire business model is predicated on adding value in one fundamental category: customer service. The company’s value proposition? Buy from us, and our amazingly friendly people will take your order and ship it lightning-fast for free. If you don’t like what you order, send it back within a year—for free—and we’ll give you a full refund. Our selection is so big, though, that you’re almost guaranteed to find something else you like.

“Eventually, we want to be selling anything and everything with overnight shipping,” says Zappos’ CEO Tony Hseih. “We’re listening to our customers and finding out what it is they’d like us to sell; that’s what has led us to begin selling electronics and housewares. If our customers asked us to start an airline—which a few already have—we might seriously consider that in the future.”

What has developed is a “product-agnostic” business model, according to Zappos’ VP of Business Development Aaron Magness. “We consider ourselves a service company, first and foremost. We just happen to drive our service model with shoes, but it could be anything; and at some point down the road, it will be anything and everything that makes sense for us to sell. Our customers will dictate that for us.”

On any given day, 75 percent of Zappos’ orders are from repeat customers. “We encourage all of our Customer Loyalty Team members to form personal connections with our customers,” says Magness. “That builds word-of-mouth marketing, which we think is much better than traditional media advertising to build our business.”

During a recent phone order, a Zappos rep learned that the customer was nursing a badly sprained ankle. After the order was placed, the rep grabbed a blank Zappos note card, wrote a little get well message, had 10 others around her sign it, and sent it in the mail to the customer. “The customer was blown away,” says Magness. “Nobody else does that kind of thing—especially not as big a company as we are.” That customer blogged about her Zappos experience—and even scanned the get well card to show others what she had received. “You can’t buy word-of-mouth like that. That’s why we do what we do. Yes, it’s more time-consuming, and it’s a leap of faith on our part, but it’s so rare in business today, the end result is almost predictable.” Magness estimates that 10 percent of the orders that go out are accompanied by a little note card sent separately through the U.S. mail.

Each team member is rated on a much different scale than that used by most call centers. “We don’t measure number of calls, call times, average order size, cross-sell, up-sell, or any of those things,” Magness beams. “We measure our people on one thing: Did you WOW! the customer? If they each do that, we’ve done our job; everything else will flow from there.”

Zappos does spend money on traditional advertising, but it’s minimal. The company’s media buy for 2009 was a grand total of $3 million—a paltry sum compared to its sales figures. “We consider the money spent on note cards and postage part of our marketing budget,” says Magness. “The free shipping we offer, the generous return policy, the extra time we spend with people on the phones—all these things take time and money, which we consider part of our marketing effort.”

But does the company give their customers low prices and great deals? Isn’t that what consumers are begging for?

Zappos has taken a decidedly different stand. “We charge nearly full price for most of the items we sell,” says Magness. “Price-sensitive customers are not the most loyal customers. What we’ve found matters to our customers is not the final price tag, but the brand of service we provide. They’re actually willing to pay the price for what they know they’ll receive.”

In the beginning, Zappos drop-shipped much of its inventory through other vendors. However, that led to a lack of management oversight. “If one of our vendors had a computer problem or had a truck that broke down, we couldn’t control that, and it made us look bad,” explains Magness. “We had a team-wide meeting in 2003 to figure out what our company was going to be when it grows up. We had a lot of discussion, and we decided that we didn’t necessarily want to be the biggest shoe retailer in the world. Instead, we wanted to continue to build a company culture that put customers first. It then became obvious that we needed to control all of the aspects of the service our customers received. Once we made that decision, all the other decisions were a lot easier.”

After that meeting, Zappos set out to build its own warehouse distribution center in Kentucky so that it could control the shipping itself. “It’s a much more expensive route to take than simply acting as a third-party seller and letting someone else do the fulfillment, but it’s absolutely the best option for the customer,” says Magness. “We run our center in Kentucky 24 hours a day, so if someone in New York orders a pair of shoes online at midnight, we can literally have those shoes at her doorstep at 8 A.M.”

Wow.

– Bill Guertin is CEO (Chief Enthusiasm Officer) of The 800-Pound Gorilla, a dynamic sales training and consulting company and author of the brand-new book, The 800-Pound Gorilla of Sales: How To Dominate Your Market, now available from John Wiley & Sons. Find more articles and valuable information at www.The800PoundGorilla.com, or follow Bill on Twitter at www.twitter.com/800poundgorilla.

It was almost 20 years ago when Jim Rohn opened my eyes. 

I was the Sales Manager of a Joliet, IL radio station, blessed with a talented group of sales reps and a need to train them.  A touring troupe of nationally-known sales “gurus” was passing through Chicago, which was a chance to see many of the best-known speakers and authors of the selling field.  I arranged to have my entire staff and I make the trek to the big city to see them speak. 

I was personally most interested in the nuts-and-bolts speakers, and was turned off by everyone else.  One young sales rep of mine, however, was intrigued by an older fellow from the platform who spoke more in parables than in ‘useable’ information, in my opinion.  He spoke in generalities, not in the ‘real world’, or so I thought.  He wasn’t the charismatic type like everyone else that had been on the stage.  His words just didn’t connect with me, and so as the ‘boss’, I wrongly assumed that he wouldn’t connect with any of my staff.

Not wanting to be caught in Chicago rush-hour traffic, I took the opportunity at the break to muster everyone together to leave a little bit early. 

“But Jim Rohn’s not done yet!” Eric said emphatically.  A young, enthusiastic rep with loads of natural talent, Eric was obviously enjoying Rohn’s segment of the day, but I had my own agenda.

“It’s all right.  He’s not any good anyway,” I said rather callously.  “He’s old, he’s boring, and he talks in the clouds.  We’ve already heard the best speakers today.  Let’s get out of here while we can.”

And so I packed everyone up in the radio station’s minivan and headed back to the suburbs, not thinking twice about what I denied a young sales rep hungry for additional information from someone with whom he had forged a strong connection.

Not long afterward, Eric was hired as an account rep at the local cable company as an ad sales rep, and made a substantial jump in income by making the move.  Several years later, Eric and I saw each other at another similar sales-guru event, and as we talked, he brought up the event several years earlier.

“Do you remember leaving early from that Jim Rohn event?” he asked.

“Sure, I remember it,” I said.  “I thought he was as dry as dust, and I spared everyone the boredom.”

“I was so upset that you didn’t let us stay for the rest of that session, but I couldn’t tell you that because you were my boss, and you were so hell-bent on leaving that nothing I would’ve said would’ve changed your mind.  Jim Rohn changed my life and my attitude toward selling.  He spoke to me like no one else ever had.  He’s one of the reasons I’m doing so well at the company I’m at today.” 

I felt two inches tall. 

What I learned in that instant was that my initial judgment on what resonates with people may or may not be on line with everyone else.  I learned that Jim Rohn was successful at what he did BECAUSE he could reach millions of people with his message and make it stick.  Just because he didn’t connect with me didn’t mean that his message didn’t have value for someone else.  I selfishly believed that my own assessment that day was the only one that mattered.

I now know better.  In fact, I revisited Jim Rohn’s material, and can say that today it’s some of my favorite reading.

Jim Rohn, known by millions as America’s Foremost Business Philosopher, passed away on Saturday (12/5/09) after a long battle with pulmonary fibrosis, positive and upbeat right up to the end.  He challenged many people to stand up and live their dreams.  Some of the many Jim Rohn quotes are these:

“Economic disaster begins with a philosophy of doing less and wanting more.”

“Don’t say, ‘If I could, I would.’  Say, ‘If I can, I will.’”

“The goal of effective communication is for the listener to respond, “Me Too!”, and not “So what?”

Modest, unasuming Jim Rohn affected the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in his 46 years on the platform… including this eventual fan. 

May your spirit rest in peace, you 800-Pound Gorilla of motivation.

– Bill Guertin is CEO (Chief Enthusiasm Officer) of The 800-Pound Gorilla, a dynamic sales training and consulting company whose list of clients includes the ticket sales departments of professional sports teams in the NBA, NFL, NHL, Major League Baseball, and Major League Soccer. He is the author of the Gold Medal-award-winning book Reality Sells, and his brand-new second book, The 800-Pound Gorilla of Sales: How To Dominate Your Market, is now available from John Wiley & Sons. Find more articles and valuable information at www.The800PoundGorilla.com, or follow Bill on Twitter at www.twitter.com/800poundgorilla.

I’m a fan of piano pop.

You’d know what it is if you heard it. It’s taking the piano and bringing it to the foreground of a pop song so that it’s a primary instrument, almost always with a catchy, repeated hook.  Elton John and Billy Joel are two good examples of artists that use the piano as their primary foreground instrument.

A young singer/songwriter named Sara Bareilles came out with a debut album of her original music in the summer of 2007. It was called “Little Voice”, and the lead track from that work, called “Love Song”, captivated the nation and the world.  Her “Love Song” was featured as the theme music on a TV commercial promoting the Comcast cable company’s Rhapsody music service, and from that exposure, her single instantly shot up the charts in the fall of ‘07. “Little Voice” was certified Gold (500,000 copies sold) shortly afterward, and her career has been shooting up ever since.

Enter Michael Buble.

Buble has also enjoyed stellar success recently, but in a very different way. The canadian-born crooner pays tribute to the old masters in much of his material, drawing on the big-band sound to recreate the styles of the velvety voices of artists like Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. He puts new spins on familiar standards, and occasionally writes a new song or two just for good measure.

Have you heard his latest “new” song?

Listen to “Haven’t Met You Yet”, Buble’s latest original single, next to Sara Bareilles’ “Love Song”, and tell me you don’t notice an eerie similarity.

Bareilles created an ‘original’ sound, and made it popular. Buble took that sound and made it his — something he’s become a master at doing.

Oh, and by the way — there’s nothing wrong with this kind of flattery. Indeed, it’s what 800-Pound Gorillas do very well; read the marketplace, identify what works, and put their unique spin on their own product.

Now… let’s apply that to you. 

The dominant players in your marketplace may have come out with something amazing recently. But that doesn’t mean you can’t take that idea and create something similar that fits the marketplace with your own unique fingerprint.

It’s what the Michael Bubles of the marketplace do all the time. Read what’s happening, find a way to adopt it without copying it altogether, and making it uniquely theirs.

Take a look at what’s going on in your market.  Identify it, re-work it, and become your own 800-Pound Gorilla in that arena.

And for some help in getting you started, why not pick up The 800-Pound Gorilla of Sales?  It’s brand-new on Amazon this week, and has several ideas on how you can become the one everyone looks to as the dominant player.  Check it out.

– Bill Guertin is CEO (Chief Enthusiasm Officer) of The 800-Pound Gorilla, a dynamic sales training and consulting company whose list of clients includes the ticket sales departments of professional sports teams in the NBA, NFL, NHL, Major League Baseball, and Major League Soccer. He is the author of the Gold Medal-award-winning book Reality Sells, and his brand-new second book, The 800-Pound Gorilla of Sales: How To Dominate Your Market, is now available from John Wiley & Sons. Find more articles and valuable information at www.The800PoundGorilla.com, or follow Bill on Twitter at www.twitter.com/800poundgorilla.

There’s a chain of quick-service, sports-themed restaurants in America that specializes in chicken wings and good-looking servers in orange short shorts. I don’t want to use their name because — well, you just never know when you’ll get in trouble for using names in things like this.

When I think about that place, great customer service is NOT generally the first thing that comes to mind, if you know what I mean.

When I learned what sort of training that their servers receive, however, I was impressed at how simple and effective it is. It’s Repeatability at its very best, which is one of the Laws of Authenticity as outlined in my book, Reality Sells.

They have four brand Cornerstones:

- The waitstaff
- Quality food, cold beer, great service
- Music and ambiance
- Neighborhood restaurant feel.

This is who they are. They don’t want to be all things to all people. They only want to be the very best for those who enjoy and appreciate their brand. Each server knows that, and it’s clear to them that they’re in charge of maintaining that brand each time they serve a guest.

When guests arrive, they know to engage them in what they call the “Four P’s”, which are:

- Position yourself – make sure people know you’re their server;

- Pay attention – always know what their needs might be at any time;

- Put on a smile – you are the brand, so give it your best; and

- Put down a bevnap – get their table ready for the drinks they’re about to order.

They’re trained to use the ‘Lifeboat Theory’ of service — make sure that all the women and children at the table are served first.

There are 12 Steps of Service that their servers use, and each is easy to understand and follow. They include greeting each guest with a personal “Hello”, acknowledging everyone in the party within 30 seconds of sitting down, deliver drinks within two minutes, and cashing out their check within two minutes of the customer displaying their method of payment.

It’s simple, easy to follow, and just in case the servers forget a step or two, it’s printed right on their order pad.

Too simple, you say? Not at all. That’s where the beauty lies. No forty-step processes that are open to interpretation. No guessing if they’re doing it right or not. Simple to learn, simple to teach, and simple to correct if there’s a problem. Every employee knows the system, and they know how to execute it, adding their own personality and pizzazz along the way.

This chain is an “800-Pound Gorilla” because of its branding on the outside, AND its systems on the inside.

If your “system” suddenly seems loosey-goosey and open to interpretation by whoever’s working that day, think about how you can simplify it for your staff. When everyone on the team understands their company’s Cornerstones and knows the system, they can consistently deliver on them. Customers can then experience your brand in the same way each time they visit or call, without surprises or disappointment.

And that’s good for business no matter what’s on the menu.

– Bill Guertin is CEO (Chief Enthusiasm Officer) of The 800-Pound Gorilla, a dynamic sales training and consulting company whose list of clients includes the ticket sales departments of professional sports teams in the NBA, NFL, NHL, Major League Baseball, and Major League Soccer. He is the author of the Gold Medal-award-winning book Reality Sells, and his second book, The 800-Pound Gorilla of Sales, is due this fall from John Wiley & Sons. Find more articles and valuable information at www.The800PoundGorilla.com, or follow Bill on Twitter at www.twitter.com/800poundgorilla.

In the last post, I went over 50 of the 100 pieces of advice for Sales Reps.  Here’s Part Two of that list:

51. Get a mentor that isn’t afraid to tell you what you need to hear, rather than what you want to hear.

52. If you need a reason to get out of bed, make it for someone else other than you: the child that will benefit by their parents owning your product because of your sales call, the business that will find a way to keep their best client because of a suggestion you made, etc.

53. If you’re not prepared with at least five solid answers to the “It’s not in the budget” objection, you’ll sell less than you’re capable of selling.

54. Best open-ended answer: “Does that mean you wouldn’t be open to a new idea?”

55. Second-best answer: “Which budget do you mean? Most companies have several.”

56. Thought-provoking answer: “Put the budget aside for a moment. If my product were free, how would you choose to use it?”

57. Smart answer: “Most companies I work with are re-evaluating all their expenses, and figuring out what kind of REAL return they’re getting. What do you do for things like (chalenges that your product solves) right now?”

58. Best reason to keep going: People make snap judgments, and sometimes all it takes is to keep them learning about you and your benefits a little bit longer.

59. If a company just laid off people, they’re still a candidate for your product. Don’t give up too soon!

60. Always acknowledge their painful choice to lay off people before you get into the reasons why it may be the perfect time to get involved in a cost-effective product like yours.

61. Most companies still need to operate and do business, even if they’ve had layoffs recently. Ask if they plan on keeping the doors open, and if so, what their plans are going forward.

62. Get wishy-washy people to tell you Yes or No sooner rather than later!

63. Suggest that phone tag is hard to play, and politely suggest that you’d rather have a Yes or No now, for the benefit of both of you.

64. It’s OK to get a No, because then you can move on – and so can your prospect!

65. Don’t criticize someone’s choice of a competitor.

66. Learn what makes each competitor’s product appealing, and ask questions that revolve around what others like about it — and how it might come up short compared to your solution.

67. If someone asks, ‘Are you trying to sell me something?’, they’re playing with you, and they probably expect you to play back if you’re to sell them anything.

68. Have at least 2-3 good responses to this objection. #1 suggestion: “Only if you’re buying!”

69. #2 suggestion: “Only if it makes sense for you.”

70. Warm and fuzzy response: “If you have a good reason to buy, then yes, I can set you up… but I promise not to sell you something you won’t absolutely love. Fair enough?”

71. Quick response: “Yes. Are you in sales too?”

72. Fun suggestion: “Only if you’re buying!”

73. Honest suggestion: “Selling you something is the LAST thing I’ll want to do in our conversation!”

74. If you have a less-than-leading-edge product, get to know the benefits of your company beyond the technology.

75. Ask the prospect, “Besides the technology, what’s the most important thing to you when you consider something like this?” Make 2-3 suggestions as to what it might be, and engage in THAT conversation.

76. Best short response to the ‘Low-Tech’ objection: “Not every user needs the latest and the greatest.  Sometimes the lowest-tech solution is the best solution!”

77. Regardless of the prospect, remind yourself that every sales call is an unwritten script. No one can predict the outcome!

78. If someone already has a different solution to what your product provides that’s NOT one of your competitors, be sure to compliment them on what they’re doing, whatever it is.

79. Remember that your value of money should be left at the door when you’re selling your product or service. You may not ever be in the market for what you sell personally, but the decision to buy is not yours! Lay it out for the customer, and allow him or her to make that decision for themselves.

80. #1 answer to ‘You’re Too Expensive’: “Too expensive as compared to what?”

81. Thinking man’s response: “It’s only expensive if it’s not considered an investment. I have clients that say that if advertising works, it’s an investment. If it doesn’t, it’s very expensive. Wouldn’t you agree?”

82. Once they have agreement to that statement, help them to see how you as their Account Executive can help them realize all the benefits of buying from you.

83. If someone says they need to talk it over with someone, ask if you can talk to them on a 3-way call right then and there.

84. If you hear, ‘I’m not interested’ right away, have 2-3 immediate questions ready to go in an attempt to continue the conversation. Most people are just making snap decisions, and really don’t know enough about what you have to offer to be ‘not interested’ yet!

85. Immediate Question Option #1 for ‘I’m Not Interested’: “I’m not sure if you were aware of this, but…” – and then fill in with something that’s positive that many people wouldn’t know about the product you’re selling.

86. Immediate Question Option #2: “If you don’t mind me asking…” – and then ask something that gets them talking, like “Are you worried about what it might cost?” or “Is there something about our product that you don’t like?”

87. Option #3: “Before you go, can I ask you one more thing?”

88. If you’re lucky enough to get onto the rotation for incoming calls, understand that these are leads the company has spent a great deal of marketing dollars to attract. You must be at your BEST when answering these calls!

89. Look to gain some sort of commitment from your prospect on every call you make. Examples: a firm date and time to talk again, an agreement to do certain things in a period of time, the names and phone numbers of the other persons in the party, etc.

90. Remember that for outbound sales, most salespeople give up after the first two attempts to sell someone. If you stick with it after the second attempt and go on to a third, fourth, and so on, you’ve outlasted almost 75% of your competitors.

91. All top salespeople have goals beyond their current job that allows them to be their very best at the job they’re in today. Have a good number of your goals written out, and have them where you can refer to them often and measure your progress.

92. The best time to sell is between 8am and noon. Decide that you’ll devote as much time as possible to selling in the morning hours; your odds are far greater at that time of day.

93. Stay away from words and phrases like “Honestly”, “To tell you the truth”, “To be honest with you,” and others; it may leave the subconscious impression with your prospect that you’ve been dishonest with them up until that point.

94. In a challenging economy, Return On Investment (ROI) is king. Don’t present any proposal of yours until you find out what ROI means to your prospect, and how it’s being measured.

95. Get a few back issues of a trade publication of your best prospects’ industry; you’ll learn the language of their industry quickly, what their current concerns are, and the potential solutions that are being talked about among their peers.

96. Understand that people will be judging you, but you don’t have the right to judge them. This is the challenge of serving others greatly. Accept it with reverence, and do your best to be AT your best, regardless of what your opinion of your customer might be.

97. People will be judging you in many ways; by your physical appearance, your personal hygiene, your eye contact, the way you carry yourself, your tone of voice, and a dozen other measures. Do your best to represent your organization by paying close attention to the “basics”.

98. In today’s selling, there is no substitute for doing that needs to be done in order to succeed. Your good looks, your Ivy League Phi Beta Kappa, your charming wit, even your blue-chip Rolodex won’t bail you out. Do The Work.

99. Continually ask yourself this question throughout the day: “What’s the best use of my time right now to put myself in a position to succeed?”

100. When you get to the management level – and you WILL if you follow the 99 pieces of advice above — sales training experts from the outside can help your sales team accomplish more than you could ever do on your own. I consider it a privilege to help those in professional selling to succeed, and you’re welcome to call or E-mail me anytime and ask about how I can help you… at (815) 932-5878 or bill@The800PoundGorilla.com.

– Bill Guertin is CEO (Chief Enthusiasm Officer) of The 800-Pound Gorilla, a dynamic sales training and consulting company whose list of clients includes the ticket sales departments of professional sports teams in the NBA, NFL, NHL, Major League Baseball, and Major League Soccer. He is the author of the Gold Medal-award-winning book Reality Sells, and his second book, The 800-Pound Gorilla of Sales, is due this fall from John Wiley & Sons. Find more articles and valuable information at www.The800PoundGorilla.com, or follow Bill on Twitter at www.twitter.com/800poundgorilla.