The snow’s almost gone. Spring is here. Time to come out of hibernation and get some new business.

Yawn. S t r e t c h. Get up. Get going. Need a kick start? Check this out.<A href="/files/12509-12009/SalesDevProg.pdf”>

Sales Development Program Details

Wednesday, March 9th, 5:30 til I’m done.

This is Networked Events regular monthly event with a twist.

Ten of you will be my wing men (unless you’re a girl, then you’ll be a wing girl).

I’ll do everything that I can to introduce you to everybody who’s anybody.

We’ll have fun.

You’ll see the way that I work a room.

And it’s all free. You don’t even have to pay to attend. Click here to register . Enter “rickroberge” as the discount code. Show up. Bring a smile and a pile of business cards and if you’re in the mood, buy me a drink.

BTW, I think that it’s free parking too!

See you there! Twwet this.Post it on Facebook. Fill the room.

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Do you follow my other blog? Did you see these posts? 

Kai and Zane stayed over last weekend. This is the way most days start. We went to the Higgins Armory Museum on Friday. It was fun (mostly). So, after they woke up Saturday, Mark called and we met him at Nashoba Valley Ski Area and they had their very first ski lesson. While we were waiting in line for their lesson, I recognized an old friend, Noel Metcalf. I met Noel when he and I were in sales training with Dave Kurlan in the 80’s. He and I were two of the first salespeople that Dave selected to be in his first Black Belt Group. We reminisced about those years and Noel reflected on the fact that he used some of the lessons from our Black Belt Group days in his practice as a ski instructor.

He made comments on Bob’s technique with Kai as we watched and I thought back on that morning, 20 years ago, that Noel taught me how to ski. He taught me how to relax and go with the mountain and although I wasn’t scouted for the Olympics, I could get down the hill.

So, here’s what prompted this post. Noel asked, “So, are you still with Dave, or are you off on your own?” I asked, “What?” He told me that he follows my blog on LinkedIn and he got the feeling that we weren’t getting along. I told him that I definitely was working with Dave, but that Dave really gave me a lot of latitude so that I only worked with clients that I wanted to work with.

But that got me thinking. A lot of bloggers spend a lot of time bashing people. I’ve done it! We write about what somebody’s doing wrong, or how bad a class of people can be, yada, yada, yada. Frankly, it’s negative and I for one am sick of negative. So, here’s the idea.

I am only interested in one kind of salesperson. RainMakers. The kind of person that wants to carry the whole company on their back. The kind of person that builds business relationships to do business, not to have coffee and trade worthless leads. RainMakers are a different breed of cat. You don’t need to make them responsible. They are responsible. They don’t need to be managed. They manage their managers. Marketing for them is Smarketing.

So, let’s make this blog an “idea exchange” for RainMakers and those who want to be RainMakers. Ask how. We’ll answer. Share a technique, a strategy or a mindset that works for you. Let’s share back and forth. If you need more space and want to write a guest post, write it up and send it . If you want to talk about it first, send me an email  and we’ll do that. Who’s first?

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Yesterday, I was talking with a business owner about his business and an apparent slump that he was experiencing. After a bit of digging, he told me about a health issue that he was dealing with at the same time that he was dealing with potentially life-threatening issues with his mother. I consoled him by saying that anybody dealing with that kind of stuff would be distracted and I shared a couple of personal experiences. He told me that he’s a private person and doesn’t let business contacts know what’s going on in his personal life. I asked him why and he replied that he’s always been private and kept his personal life separate from his professional life. I asked him why again and he really didn’t have anything else. So, I asked whether he thought that his customers might like to know a little about the man. While he thought, I asked him if he knew anything about my sons. Yes and he told me where they lived and what they did. He knew some stuff about Elaine. He knew about Maine. He knew about Kai and Zane. I asked him if he thought that knowing that stuff made our relationship stronger or not.

Then last evening, I went to a chamber of commerce meet and greet and had a glass of wine with Maria Hopkins. Maria founded her company 24 years ago. She is THE appraisal company in this market. She is also the rainmaker at her company. She knows everybody and knows her. When I shared the story above and asked what she thought, she replied with “Everybody knows everything about us. We wear our hearts on our sleeves.” Then we started talking about other rainmakers that we know and realized we know their kids, spouses, health issues, favorite (and least favorite) customers.

So, we kind of think that rainmakers share personal information fairly easily and routinely and that it makes them better rainmakers.

What do you think? What do you do?

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