LAWS OF SUCCESS CONT ...
5 . PUT A SALES SYSTEM IN PLACE .
Business owners who don ’ t have a sales system in place will not be able to scale their business and are at risk of going out of business . When looking to invest in a company , Robert takes the business owner out to dinner and asks them questions to see how good their business is . “ One of the questions I always ask is , How do you guys get customers ? How do you guys find new business ?” Robert said . “ And if the answer is anything along the line of word of mouth , I ’ m like , yeah , these guys aren ’ t going anywhere . Because , you know who uses word of mouth or thinks that ’ s how sales are done ? It ’ s people that don ’ t know sales . Word of mouth is very difficult to scale and it ’ s not in your control . Sales is not a foreign object that controls you . Sales is an extension of what you do .”
6 . REJECT MEDIOCRITY .
To make a lasting impact in your field , the most important decision you can make , according to Robert , is to reject mediocrity . Robert says “ the road of mediocrity leads to failure ,” and “ In the long run , ‘ good enough ’ is never good enough , whether in our personal lives or in our careers .”
7 . OUTSOURCE WHAT YOU ’ RE NOT GOOD AT .
If you ’ re not good at making phone calls , outsource someone to do that . If you ’ re not good at follow up , outsource it . Do the things you are good at and outsource the rest .
8 . GET SALES COACHING .
As the owner or CEO of the company , you must understand sales so you don ’ t get taken advantage of by someone . The way to get better at sales is by getting a coach . “ I used to race cars , and I was an okay race car driver , but I never won a race ,” Robert said . “ I noticed that everybody who was winning races had a coach . How can you get somewhere if you don ’ t know what ‘ good ’ looks like ? As soon as I got a coach , he got in the car with me and he said , ‘ Don ’ t do that . That ’ s bad .’ And I ’ m like , ‘ But it feels good .’ And he said , ‘ Well , do you want to feel good ? Or do you want to win races ? My job is not to make you comfortable . My job is to coach you .’ And I started winning races . You ’ ve got to have a coach . You must get better at it . You can never outsource the knowledge of sales . You can outsource salespeople , you can outsource calling or campaigns , but you ’ ve got to know it to the degree that somebody can ’ t con you .”
9 . STAY HUNGRY .
As you become more successful , it ’ s easy to fall into the trap of feeling comfortable and becoming complacent . Always remember that there is another company looking to take business away from you . “ One of the hardest things about becoming more successful is success ,” Robert said . “ Because you know what happens when you have a little bit of success ? You ’ re not that hungry young person looking to take on the world . You get to a point where you look around , and say , ‘ I love my Tesla . I love my house . My significant other loves me most of the time . Life is really good .’ Don ’ t forget , there is somebody out there like you were many years ago that wants to take it away from you . . . The bigger you are , the bigger bullseye is on your back .”
To remind him to stay hungry , Robert has a granite sign in his office that he sees every day which reads “ Every day , somebody wakes up with the sole intention of kicking your ass .”
10 . ALWAYS BE SELLING .
One of the best ways to avoid becoming complacent is to make it a goal to sell something every day . “ You can have the best accounting system ,” Robert said . “ You can have the best CRM . You can have the best tools , but nothing happens until you sell something . . . so if one of your top three tasks every day isn ’ t to sell something , you ’ re going to fail . You may not fail tomorrow . You may not fail next year . But inevitably , you will .”
11 . CREATE A SALES CULTURE IN YOUR ORGANIZATION .
While quality and customer service are important , too much emphasis on these and not enough emphasis on sales can be a problem . Robert tells his entire company that every employee is a salesperson and continually repeats this message to keep it top of mind . “ We seem to have permeated this culture where as long as we do a great job for our customers , it is just going to work out ,” Robert said . “ And I ’ m like , WHOA , it ’ s all about sales . Everybody in this room is a salesperson .”
12 . WHEN STARTING OUT , PUT ALL YOUR ENERGY INTO SALES .
When Robert started his company , he made the rookie mistake of thinking his reputation would bring in business . If he were starting out today , his approach would be to make selling his # 1 priority . “ Our first year forecast was $ 5 million in sales ,” Robert said . “ And that was because I had sold the biggest security company in Canada and was a big guy in the security business . My head was this big . I figured I ’ ll put a shingle on the door and people will beat a path to us . We won ’ t have to sell because people know who I am . It will be easy . We sold $ 400,000 our first year . It took us five years to get to $ 6.2 million . In the next five years , we got to $ 100 million . In the next three years , we got to $ 200 million . If I was starting out today from zero , I would put all my energy on sales . I would try to really differentiate what I am , how I go to market . And I would have the confidence that once I got the customer , I ’ ll take care of them .”
13 . LET BAD EXPERIENCES BE YOUR INSPIRATION , NOT AN EXCUSE .
It ’ s not uncommon for people to shy away from something after having a bad experience . For example , some people say they hate sales or dislike selling because of a bad experience with
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