As you already know, I was lucky enough to attend MIT’s commencement exercises yesterday. Kimberley Wu addressed the crowd as the President of the Class of 2006. She was great and she related a story that I would like to share with you.

There was a farmer who grew corn. Every year his county held a contest to determine which farmer grew the best corn. Every year he won. Year after year this farmer grew the best corn in the county and he won the award. One day, a visitor noticed that this farmer gave some of his best seed to one of his neighbors. The visitor asked why he was sharing his best seed with his neighbor. Wasn’t he concerned that their corn would be better than his? Wasn’t he concerned that they would eventually win the contest for having the best corn in the county? The farmer explained that the winds in the county pick up the corn pollen from all of the neighboring farms and deposit it to all of the other neighbors, so some of his corn pollen ends up on his neighbors’ farm and some of his neighbors’ corn pollen ends up on his farm. If his neighbors’ corn was very inferior and it was deposited on his award winning corn, wouldn’t his own corn become less superior. By sharing his best seed with his neighbors, the pollen that was deposited on his farm was better than it would have been had he not shared and his corn wasn’t degraded by the blown in pollen.

What a great story to share with the best of the best! I had never heard anyone express this sentiment so well, but it’s one of the reasons that I blog. I’m hoping that you will get something from what I share, get better than you are and raise the bar for me. I never want to win because my competition failed or had a bad day. I want to win against the best on their best day. If I lose, no problem. I’ll keep coming. If I win, I hope my competition keeps coming. If I’m better and you’re better, then the world has to be better.

Thank you Kimberley!

As you may know, I was at MIT today to attend commencement and watch my son, Mark, receive his MBA. What a couple of days. Thursday night reception on the Skywalk at the Prudential Center. A reception today immediately following commencement and another smaller (hand-picked) reception hosted by Ken Morse, the “Entrepreneurship Guru” at MIT, Sloan School of Management. You can’t imagine how in awe I am at the talent, drive, confidence and creativity that I saw in these new graduates.

I met a surgeon (that’s right, a surgeon) who now has an MBA and wants to ease off being a surgeon to chase his dream of being an entrepreneur.

I met and attorney who now has an MBA and is weighing her options.

I met a new graduate who’s interested in energy. He held a conference that attracted industry leaders and raised over $80,000. His new company is based in Boston.

One of these graduates turned down an offer from Johnson & Johnson.

Getting to interact with these new graduates on their special day is going to go down as being one of my special days, but the coup de gras was a high five from Ken Morse. In talking with his students, I learned that his philosophy and mine ran parallel. He teaches his entrepreneurs that it’s all about the customer. The way I’ve been saying that to you is that it’s not about the features and benefits of what you have but your customer’s compelling need and urgency to fix a problem that they have. He was easy to talk to and that combined with the total alignment in basic philosophy left me understanding why his students were so impressive.

Thank you, Ken Morse, for what you do at MIT and especially with my son, Mark.

CORRIDOR NINE DOES IT AGAIN!!

If you weren’t there, you missed it! 100’s of people meeting, talking business, making connections. Neil Anastas (New Look Auto Detail never knew that so many people with dirty cars could be in one place. His wife, Lisa, watched and probably started planning for a bigger house. Congratulations and Kudos to Barbara, Karen, Chris (the closer) and Joelle. You guys (and Larry) know how to throw a party!

OK, now for the crowd. Have you guys watched Linda Cohan lately? Her metamorphosis from not wanting to go to these events to the master networker that she is today has been fun to watch. I’ve known Marshall Katz for over 30 years. I’ve always invited him, he’s always been busy. I think he’ll be back. I think he had fun. We were joined again by Bob Johnson. You can’t imagine how easy it is to introduce him. He can find something in common with anybody. He talked motorcycles with Marshall, Paul LaFlamme, and Mike Brady. He bragged about his 2 daughters and 2 sons, I bragged about my 2 sons and maybe we found a job for Marshall’s son Joel. But, I am most pleased with the conversation between Bob and Deborah Penta. They are gonna do great things together! Mary Moynihan is an interesting case. She’s been a nurse for a long time. She’s well respected, good at what she does and at the top of her game. She develops a passion for her friend’s business and now, in addition to working full time as a nurse, she’s attending sales seminars, learning about the industry, and networking at Corridor Nine. Keep your eye on this one!

There were many other conversations and introductions and I’m glad for whatever part I was able to play in them. But, the most rewarding event happened after I was there for three hours. Pete Caputa brings Paul over and says something like, Paul’s thinking about coming to Dave Kurlan’s seminar. So, I ask Paul a question, and another, and a third and I watch Doug Foster move behind Paul over near Pete and he says to Paul, “Just pretend we’re not here. We want to hear Rick sell.” I asked a couple of more questions and told Paul that I’d see him at the seminar and we could talk (privately) after that if he wanted. Pete, Doug and Eric (who wasn’t there tonight) are THE three guys that I want in Dave Kurlan’s program. These guys are very smart. Very technical. Very driven and the reason that they relate to me is that they see themselves in me. They know that deep down I’m a geek, a techie, and shy. Like them, I have an organized mind. I understand and appreciate systems. Like them, I know how to mirror. Like them, I’m hungry. Eventually, they will say, “Rick, I don’t know how to pay for this, but let’s find a way.” Thank you Pete and Doug. Most people watch me work and assume that it’s magic, luck, art, or the right hair tonic. You guys watch and you see the systematic process. When you commit, you’re gonna be great!

Incidentally, I heard some buzz tonight about the CORRIDOR NINE SUMMER SIZZLE! A word to the wise….Put it on your schedule NOW!

I subscribe to a service from www.justsell.com that sends a quote to my inbox every weekday. This was today’s.

“The distance isn’t important; it is only the first step that is difficult.”

Marie de Vichy-Chamrond, the Marquise du Deffand (1697-1780)
French woman of letters, patron of the arts

It took me almost 45 minutes of “getting ready” this morning before I made my first sales call. Once I made the first one, I kept going, one after the other, and before I knew it, I had 15 calls behind me and I was cooking.

Unfortunately, I have to deal with this every day. Just like you.

I remember once, years ago, walking into an after hours networking event, paying the admission fee, scanned the room, decided that there was no one worth talking to,…………..and left the event without ever talking to one person.

I’m going to an after hours networking event tomorrow. How do I know that I won’t leave without talking to anybody?  Because I’ve arranged for about 20 people to be there, expecting to work with me. If they weren’t gonna be there, I might try to convince myself that there’s nobody worth talking to, but with them there, I’ll have to work.

I almost never visit a BNI group, but I substitute for members often. I’m just not excited about getting up and getting going to a 7 am meeting unless somebody other than me asks me to do it. Once there, I usually do OK.

This evening, after dinner, I sat for 25 minutes trying to convince myself to go for a brisk walk for a little exercise. After 25 minutes, I put my sneakers on and went fo a 30 minute walk. I feel better, physically and due to the fact that I did it.

Don’t worry about how much you have to do, do whatever it takes to take the first step. The rest will take care of itself.

I’ve known Steve for 15+ years. He’s always been trying new stuff. $500 here for marketing. $1,000/year for a networking membership. Occasionally he had a collection issue, so we’ve kept in touch. He was very loyal. Thank you, Steve.

So, lately we’ve been talking about his current salesman, a past salesman, his customers, his best year, his goals, his business plans. Long story short, Steve signed on with David Kurlan & Associates last week and in doing so, has agreed to invest more money into the development of his business than he’s ever done before.

Here’s the rub. He’s worried that I’m gonna be a pain in the ___. He’s worried that I’m not gonna cut him any slack. He’s worried that I’m gonna drag him outside his comfort zone. He’s worried that I’m gonna insist on excellence in everything. He’s worried that he’s gonna work harder and care more than he ever has before. He’s worried that I’m not gonna be happy until he starts setting new records every month and he’s worried that I’m gonna want it to happen faster than he’s gonna want it to happen. He’s worried that he’s right…………………….He is!

I’m blogging about him for three reasons. I want him to know that he’s right. I want him to know that I believe that finally, he’s doing the right thing. I want him to know that he might give up, but I won’t.

On May 18^th, one of my clients told me that one of his clients was having a problem collecting some money from some of her customers and asked if I would try to help her. He introduced us in a mutual email that day. I called shortly thereafter, caught her at a bad time and we scheduled a 45 minute phone call. I called at the appointed time, she apologized and asked if she could call back in 10 minutes. She called back 45 minutes later and was put out that I wouldn’t talk to her then.

Here it is two weeks later and she still hasn’t called.

Somebody should suggest that she read about Low Hanging Fruit.

Somebody should also suggest that she read Baseline Selling. If she read the book, she’d realize that she doesn’t appear to have any compelling reason to talk to me nor exhibit any urgency to make it happen.

She’s probably hoping that I’ll chase her. She’s probably hoping that I need her business. I’m hoping that her problem isn’t serious. I’m hoping that it gets to be a priority before it gets serious. But, I only hope tangentially because I don’t know her personally and therefore don’t really care. Until she says, “Rick please help me.” and I reply, “OK, I will.” We have no deal, no relationship, no responsibility.

I wish her well as a friend of a friend.

Anybody who’s ever been in a slump can tell you, “It ain’t fun!” The self doubt. The product doubt. The company doubt. The economy doubt. The system doubt. The ‘whatever else’ doubt. Having been in my share of slumps, I can tell you that every slump is a downward spiral with increasing slope and increasing speed until near the end, you’re actually swirling, you feel like Willie Loman, put your hands in front of your face and prepare to crash and burn. You see your income and savings dwindling, your bills not getting paid, your kids starving, your spouse leaving you and you think about giving up on your dream, getting a ‘regular job’, settling for mediocrity and ‘normalcy’, then you’re out of it. The seas are calm. Your clients love you. Nobody’s slapping you on the back saying, “Keep at it!” The sky is blue again. You’re dreaming again. You’re wondering if your goals are high enough.

Pick your favorite baseball slugger and think about how you worried about him (or very sensitively called him a bum) when he was in a slump. Or how about gold glovers that all of a sudden can’t catch or throw. Everybody has a slump sometime. Recognize it. Acknowledge it. Handle it.

Handle it how? Let’s hear from you. Tell us about your slump horror. Tell us how it started. Tell us how you got out.

Most professional service providers, small business owners and entrepreneurs understand the difference between billable time and non-billable time. Billable time is the time that your customer pays for when you’re meeting his needs and non-billable is when you’re doing “work” stuff that you have to do, but can’t charge for, like billing, cleaning your office, making prospecting calls, selling to new customers, getting supplies, ordering stock, paying the business bills or employees.

Today I read a great article on clutter and was reminded of another time concept. Pay time vs non-pay time. Obviously, Ariane is dealing with personal clutter, so it’s not billable, not pay time, it’s personal time. But, if she were dealing with business clutter, whether she was dealing with it on Sunday, a holiday, or the middle of a business day it would be non-pay time. Pay time in my mind is time that is put to activities that are or lead to being billable. Non-pay time activities may be necessary, but should usually be done secondarily.

Here are some examples.

1.) Calling or meeting with prospects, customers, clients, referrals looking to increase sales, good will, or check on service is a pay time activity and gets primary placement in your schedule.

2.) Billable time is a pay time activity and gets primary placement on your schedule.

3.) Working on your website, placing a help wanted ad, doing payroll, cleaning your desk space, picking paint for your office, meeting with a disgruntled employee or your employer are non-pay time activities and should not happen during pay time.

4.) Golf with prospects or clients is pay time. A lesson so you won’t embarass yourself is not.

5.) Lunch with a client is pay time. Lunch at your desk reading a trade magazine is not.

You may need a website, but if your business is a breakfast restaurant, it’s pretty easy to see that you don’t won’t to work on your website while your customers are waiting for their pancakes. Nor would you want your pancake batter salesperson to be bothering you while the place is full of hungry customers.

Sometimes billable time can be moved around. If a lawyer needs to depose a witness from 9-11 am, that needs to take priority over calling prospective clients. However, if a web designer is getting paid to design a website, he may very well be able to be billable between 11 pm and 2 am which turns the overnight into pay time. Obviously, the more billable time you have, the more money you’re gonna make, and the more pay time you have, the more money making activities you’ll be able to perform.

These are some specific personal examples for me.

Notice that I typically write in my blog early morning or late evening. It’s a non-paytime activity for me.

My #1 pay-time is talking to people. So, from 7 am to 7 pm I’m on the phone, in a meeting, at an event where there’s people for me to talk with. Yesterday, I had a staff meeting at Burkinshaw Law. Absolutely important…non pay time activity. I’d prefer to teleconference at 9 pm. My associates won’t go for it. So, I have to give up pay time to do non-pay time stuff (meet with them). Today, I’ll be meeting with the guys at DKA to start the development project for Steve. Absolutely essential, but I’ll have to give up “talking to people” time because the guys at DKA want to see their families tonight. One other example. You know I use email a lot. Mostly early morning or late evening, because from 7 am to 7 pm, I want to be talking to people. Rainmakers do the stuff that grows their business first and email, letters, research, etc. happens when pay time can’t happen.

If you have specific activities that you’d like to ask about, feel free to use the comment link to ask.

“Low hanging fruit”. I had heard the term, but hadn’t really tried to apply it to my life until recently. I’ve told the following story to many people, and I knew that it describes an event that changed my life, but I had never put the story and the term together. Here goes.

About 30 years ago, I had a mentor named Bob Jiguere. He taught me a lot of important things, but on this one day, I learned something that he wasn’t really intending to teach. I was in a classroom with several other salespeople and he started by writing the numbers “1” through “10” down the left side of the blackboard. Then he put a check mark by the number “1” and said, “1 out of 10 people will buy anything from anybody.” Then he put a check mark by the number “10” and said, “1 out of 10 people won’t buy anything from anybody.” Then he made a big bracket from #2 to #9 and said, “How many of the eight in between you get will depend on how good a salesperson you are.” Then he proceeded to teach the rest of the people in the class how to be a better salesperson. Everybody but me. I had already learned my lesson and was off in my mind figuring out how to do it. This is what happened in my head. “If 1 out of 10 people will buy anything from anybody, I’m gonna get good at finding them.” I’ve spent the rest of my life looking for easy sales….“Low hanging fruit”.

Think about what that did to my approach. I expected 90% of the people that I talk to, to be more difficult than easy. I disqualified them. My approach was, “Give me a reason to move on.” I didn’t fear rejection, I wanted it. Consequently, it takes me no time to recover from rejection. I may even congratulate them on the originality of their put down before I thank them for their time and move on in my search of a buyer.

Another thing that it did was made me practice, correctly. Many salespeople struggle with call reluctance because they’re trying to close from the first word. If they’re listening (Some don’t. They talk.), they’re listening for buying signals. Too much pressure. Too little chance of success. Listen for reasons NOT to do business. There’s so many more of them. You’ll get your way more often. I have used, “I don’t see any reason that we can’t work together. Do you?” as a close. If they give me a reason, I’ll typically say something like, “You’re right! I missed that.” and prepare to move on. Often enough the buyer tries to come up with a way to handle their own objection and if they do a really good job, “I let them buy from me.”

About the same time that I was in that classroom with Bob, I read a book by Frank Bettger. He noted that if you made 10 calls and earned $X, you could figure that if you made 20 calls, you’d make twice as much, 30 calls…three times as much, and so on……………EVEN IF YOU NEVER GOT ANY BETTER THAN YOU ARE TODAY!

This is not reverse psychology. This is not a move or a trick. This is my way of life. I still talk to more people in a day than most because I’m looking for “the one” and I know that it’s more likely that the person that I’m talking to is NOT “the one”, than is “the one”.

In closing let me point out that with all that practice, I eventually did develop better skills.

Remember that I said these were in no particular order? I don’t know where this one ranks, but it amazes me how many otherwise decent salespeople don’t call at the top of an organization. It’s OK to be nice to the receptionist. It’s acceptable to get information from a middle manager. I don’t pitch until I’m at the top.

I was at a Business Expo on Wednesday. I was totally amazed when I overheard the following exchange after I introduced Dan to Mr. Jones, (the company president).

Dan: “Mr. Jones, I don’t do business with your company, but I’ve been trying to.”

Mr. Jones: “Who’ve you been talking to.”

Dan: “So and so, they’ve got my proposal, but they’re not returning my calls.”

Mr. Jones: “Here’s my personal card. Call me personally. I’m at the top of operations and I’ll move this along”

How hard is it to figure out that the person that Dan gave the proposal to isn’t the decision maker? They have to ask permission. In this case, I am especially perturbed. Dan does a lot of things right. Why is he not calling on the company president? Call on the person that can write the check or tell somebody, “Write the check and bring it to me so I can sign it.” That’s my test.

If I’m talking (not pitching) to someone and they ask how I do what I do, I ask something like, “Before we do that, can I ask what do you do about it now?” We have a conversation where we talk about the problems that they have related to the stuff that I do. Eventually I get to ask, “So, pretend we talk some more and you decide, ‘Wow, this is awesome. How much?’ I tell you. You write a check and we do business?” As soon as I hear, “Not exactly.” I am done until I get in front of the right person. I am done. I am done. I am done.

They might say something like show me and I’ll tell the decision maker.  I am done.

They might say something like I make all those decisions.  I am done.

They might say something like we have a committee. I am done.

Nobody can sell my stuff like me. There are dozens of ways to get to the right person and my finger is getting tired, but I will walk away before I will pitch the wrong person. I never hear, “I have to ask somebody else.” and I never want to.

Remember Dan? One of the things that he doesn’t know is that in an earlier conversation, I overheard Mr. Jones telling somebody else that it was his job to say, “No.” If you’re gonna get a no, don’t you want it sooner rather than later? Do you see that if you get a yes from Mr. Jones, it’s probably a done deal.

Don’t pitch, propose, close or even care until you’re at the top and if you can’t get to the top, go prospecting.