I find it ironic that after doing a post less than a month ago on how to avoid business scams our company was the victim of a scam not described in my recent post. I share the details with you to perhaps save your company from a similar fate.

The scam began back in March when one of our outside salespeople received a fax from a company in a state in which we do not do business, asking for a quotation. Our salesperson faxed back pricing and, low and behold, received a purchase order without ever talking to the “customer” or negotiating the price. I was not informed of this as I would have definitely smelled a rat. No contractor buys something without at least a little haggling about the price. And no one I know does business with a new company solely via fax. Had I been informed of this at that time I would have killed the deal immediately. However, the downside of having nine locations is that I don’t know everything that is going on at each of our branches.

Our salesperson got this new “customer” to fax in a completed credit application. Our credit manager faxed out credit reference forms to the three companies they listed as references and promptly got an extremely positive response from all three. This was warning sign number two. It normally takes several attempts to get a credit reference to complete our credit check form. When all three companies responded quickly, and with glowing reports on this prospective new customer, another red flag should have gone up. Again, I wasn’t informed of this. (It now appears all three “credit references” were fake companies with fax numbers set up by the scammer.)

Our credit manager also pulled a D&B report on this company and, while it only had sparse information on this company, there was nothing negative about them and the D&B report said that they average paying their bills only two days past the due date. Based on their credit references and the D&B report our credit manager set them up with a $5000 credit line and this new “customer” made a $3000 purchase at a much higher than average gross margin. Red flag number three.

Less than a month later, and before the initial purchase was due, the customer faxed in another request for quotation. Our salesperson, thinking he had lucked into a sheep he could fleece, put an even higher gross margin on his second quote and, to his surprise, he received another PO via fax. His quotation was for almost $20,000 this time, at a 44% gross margin, in an industry where gross margins in the 20’s are the norm. As this purchase would be over the customer’s $5000 credit line, our salesperson spoke with our credit manager who, based on the previous false information obtained during the initial credit check, increased their credit line, and approved the sale.

When the initial purchase wasn’t paid in 30 days our automated system sent a nice letter asking if the payment had been overlooked. At 45 days, our automated system sent a slightly more pointed letter asking for payment. At 60 days, our credit manager called this customer only to find that the phone line had been disconnected. At that point she did a Google search on their company name and found multiple companies complaining about having been scammed by this company. At that point her stomach sank and she informed me that it looked like we had been the victim of a scam.

We have since filed a complaint with the police department in the town listed on their credit application.  The police told us that the FBI is involved as this company scammed over 30 companies out of over $3 million in merchandise. Our cost of the merchandise we lost in this scam is almost $13,000. Yes, there is some chance that the FBI will find these people and recover our merchandise, but I’m not very hopeful of that.

We now have a new policy in our policy and procedures manual. It basically states that no one is to sell an out-of-town company unless we receive payment via wire transfer or a certified check, prior to our shipping the materials. I hope that by sharing this embarrassing episode it will save even one of you from the same painful experience.

Are you aware of any other scams that I can share with my readers?

Copyright 2013 by Jim Sobeck. All rights reserved. This information may be reproduced as long as full credit is given to the author.

How to Hire, Manage, and Retain Millennials
“Millennials” are employees of aged 18 to 34 years old. For us baby boomers managers many of us have a hard time relating to millennials. I hear managers my age (58) constantly lament that, “they don’t make them like they used to”. Well, of course they don’t, times change and so do people. I have had an easier time relating to millennials than most people my age because I was CEO of a software company for 15 years.
When I was first entering the job market in the late 70s it wasn’t unusual to work for one company your entire career. That is no longer the case. Research has shown that millennials’ average stay a company is two to five years. Company loyalty is not the strong suit of most millennials. Why is that? Well, it’s my observation that millennials aren’t loyal to their companies because their companies aren’t loyal to them. The turbulent economy of the last several years has resulted in mass layoffs, restructurings, pay cuts, benefit cuts, and other things that don’t engender loyalty in employees.
So, how do you motivate and retain millennials so that your investment in their training isn’t wasted? Here are some things that have worked for me:

* Training and conferences. Millennials are more loyal to their profession than to their employer. However, if you help your millennial employees stay on top of their profession by sending them to conferences and training classes it will help you retain them.

* The latest technology. If you allow your millennial employees to upgrade the computer hardware and software they use when working for you to the latest and greatest it will improve your ability to retain them. Nothing turns a millennial off more than to make them use outdated technology. Conversely, if you allow them to constantly upgrade and work with the latest technology your chances of retaining them are increased significantly.

* Flexible work hours. Unless absolutely necessary, don’t hold millennials to rigid work hours. Manage results, not technique. If they want to come in late and stay late, as long as it doesn’t inconvenience coworkers or customers, why not?

* Working from home. If your millennials have tasks they can be done from home, let them work from home occasionally. Married millennials generally are in marriages were both the husband and wife work and if you allow your employees to work from home on occasion so they can watch a sick child or be there to let the cable repair man in, that will help endear them to you.

* Dress code. Don’t require millennials to adhere to a 1950s dress code. That doesn’t mean that they should be allowed to come to work slovenly but if you allow them to dress casually and comfortably not only will they stay with you longer but you will probably get more productivity from them.

* Bringing pets to work. This may not work in a doctor’s office but our daughter works at an advertising agency where employees are allowed to bring their pets to work on Fridays. When our oldest son was first out of college he worked at a software company that allowed their employees to bring pets to work every day. If it won’t disrupt your workplace too much, consider allowing pets to be brought to work.

* Fun work environment. A lot of companies now have foosball machines, pool tables, Ping-Pong tables, and the like available for employees to use on breaks or as stress relievers. Again, if your business is a law firm, this may not be right for you but it may work for many other types of companies.

* Drinks, snacks, and meals. A lot of software companies on the West Coast started the trend of providing free drinks, snacks, and meals as a way to keep employees at work instead of going out for lunch or leaving early for dinner. If you can afford it, this is a great way to retain millennials.
These are just a few ideas to help you attract and retain millennials. What else has worked for you?

Business Scams to Watch Out For

One thing I have learned from 40 years of being in the business world is that there are a lot of scammers out there who try to separate a business owner from his or her money on a daily basis. Just as people continue to fall for these letters from Kenya and other countries offering to share millions with you if you will help them get the money out of their country, or emails stating that you have inherited millions from an uncle you never met or heard of, there are plenty of business scams as well. Obviously a lot of people continue to take the bait or these criminals wouldn’t continue to perpetrate these frauds.

Because of the prevalence of these scams, as well as for many other reasons, I learned long ago to sign all of our Accounts Payable checks. Over the years I have stopped more payments than I can count that had fooled our Accounts Payable department to the point where they had issued a check to the scammers and sent it to me for my signature. As I look carefully through the payables each week I pull these fraudulent invoices out and tear up the checks we have issued to these companies. One of the biggest pieces of advice I can give a small to medium business owner is not to delegate the signing of the checks to someone else. No one will scrutinize the payables as closely as the owner will. Plus, it discourages your employees from trying to issue checks to fraudulent companies they may have set up if they know that the owner looks at every invoice and check.

When I was in my 30s I was CEO of a computer systems company that sold both nationally and internationally. Right after taking over as CEO I started double checking behind our controller who had signed all of the checks (without the CEO reviewing them) for many years. Just in reviewing the first check run I pulled out four fraudulent invoices that were about to be paid. By reviewing all of our payables and signing the checks I have stopped more than fraud. I have also found invoices that were being paid too soon (as well as too late where we had missed the prompt pay discount), expense account abuse (I once saw where one of my employees gave a 100% tip to a waitress. He was obviously trying to impress her on my nickel.), and non-adherence to company handbook rules.  I have found subscriptions to nonbusiness related magazines, payments to relatives for work done at outrageous rates, and much, much more.

There also are a lot of other scams that escape the scrutiny of some Accounts Payable personnel. Here are just a few of them:

·         Copier paper invoices. This is one of the oldest business scams out there. A con artist creates a legitimate looking invoice for copier paper and sends it to thousands of companies whose addresses they get from list brokers. Just like lottery tickets, only a few of them hit, but it only takes a few to make thousands of dollars a month.

·         Printer cartridge invoices. This is similar to the copier paper scam accept that sometimes these companies actually do provide cartridges. However, invariably, they are of inferior quality and many of them will actually destroy your printer and render your warranty invalid. They send the cartridges with an invoice so some accounts payable people figure the invoice is legitimate as the cartridges were received so someone there must have ordered them.

·         Yellow Pages scams. We get several invoices a month that look like legitimate invoices for Yellow Page ads. Some of them are so realistic that I have to spend several minutes studying the invoice closely until I finally see some fine print that says, “This is not an invoice. This is a solicitation.” Be on the lookout for these because most of them are extremely realistic looking.

·         Renewal of trademark invoices. We have trademarked our logo and tagline and it is now time to renew the trademarks and I have gotten several invoices warning me that we will lose the rights to our trademarks if I don’t remit to them ASAP. Scam artists search the Federal Register and find the names of companies whose trademarks are expiring and send out extremely realistic and official looking invoices that lead you to believe they are from the federal trademark office. Again, if you look at these very closely you will generally find a statement similar to the one on the fake Yellow Pages invoices stating that it is a solicitation, not an invoice. Trust me, whichever law firm did your trademark filing will be certain to send you a renewal notice. Don’t pay an invoice from anyone else.

·         Overseas orders. Now that email is ubiquitous I, and others in my company, receive emails almost daily from scam artists purporting to be overseas contractors who are having a hard time finding the products we sell in some third world country. They list a large number of products that they need immediately and they even offer to have someone pick up the materials as they will take care of the overseas shipment. They always offer to pay with a credit card. When I first bought my current company the Internet was still in its infancy and a couple of my employees fell for this. The credit cards were initially approved but after the materials left our premises we would hear several days later that the card was fraudulent and the credit card company was not going to be paying us. A lot of business owners think that as long as a credit card is approved at the time of purchase they are out of the woods. This is not the case. Credit card companies reserve the right to reverse the charge if it turns out to be fraudulent. When I get an email asking us to provide materials for overseas jobs I respond that we only do so with payment in advance, via wire transfer. As you might imagine, I never hear back from them.

·         Better Business Bureau complaints. We also get a fair number of emails purporting to be from the Better Business Bureau stating that a complaint has been made against our company and that we need to click on the attached link to read the complaint. If you click on the link, a virus infects your computer network and can do untold damage to your hardware, your software, and your data. Some hackers even gain access your bank account and write checks from it or wire transfer money to their untraceable overseas accounts. If anyone ever files a complaint against you with the Better Business Bureau you will get a letter from them, not an email. I have verified this with the head of our local Better Business Bureau.

·         Patent trolling. This is one of the newer scams. How it works is you get a very realistic and official looking notice from a software company stating that your company is using software that violates one of their patents. The letter demands that you purchase a license for their software or they will lock down your computer system. Believe it or not, some of these scammers (most of them based overseas) actually have the ability to lock down your computer system so none of your employees can use it. They gain access to your computer system when someone in your company clicks on a link in a spam email and opens up a Trojan horse that invades your computer system. This is another thing that, despite the numerous warnings, some people continue to do. Do not click on a link in any email from a person you do not know very well! If you get a letter alleging a patent violation turn it over to your local police department immediately.

As I said, this is not a complete list of all of the scams out there. New scams pop up every day. Whenever you’re not sure about whether something is a scam go to www.scamwatch.com and search for information about the possible scam. This can save you a lot of time, money, and aggravation.

If you know of other scams you would like to share with my readers, please click on the comment link below.

Copyright 2013 by Jim Sobeck. All rights reserved. This information may be reproduced as long as full credit is given to the author.

Is Your Website Helping or Hurting Your Business?

When the World Wide Web took off after the IPO of Netscape in 1995 most (but even today) not all companies had a website created or did it themselves in the next few years following their IPO. Unfortunately, some of these first-generation websites are still in existence today and I think they are hurting the companies behind them because they give an old-fashioned or low-tech look to the company. When I was starting out in business in the 70’s I would tell a prospective new supplier to send me some of their literature to review. Now everyone just asks for a link to the supplier’s website and/or does a Google search on the company. When people look at your company’s website does it portray your company in the best possible light? Or, do you look like a late 20^th century dinosaur?

Here are a few things to check about your website to ensure that you are getting maximum effectiveness from it:

1.       Does your homepage clearly communicate what your company does and how to contact you?

2.       Do you list the USP’s (unique selling propositions) for your company on your site so that prospective customers can see why you are better than your competition?

3.       Do you offer useful content to those viewing your site or is it just blabber about how great you are?

4.       Does your site list who your suppliers are and do you have active links to your supplier’s websites?

5.       Are the suppliers listed on your website still your main suppliers? Do you have any new suppliers you haven’t added to your website?

6.       Is your website optimized for top ranking in the various search engines that are used today? If you haven’t had a professional do SEO (search engine optimization) you should have this done. It doesn’t cost much and it can significantly increase your ranking when customers search on the products and services you provide.

7.       Do you update the content on your website frequently? I’m always amused when I see content on some of my competitor’s websites from three or four years ago. If you want people to go to your website frequently make sure that you refresh the content on a regular basis and that you make it valuable to your customers.

8.       Is there a way for your customers to contact you from your website and is it easy to find? (Our toll-free number is in bold on our homepage.) Also, nothing runs a customer off faster than a contact form that requires 10 minutes to fill out.

9.       Do you have a process in place to ensure that inquiries from your website are responded to within 24 hours, preferably sooner?

10.   Do you have an employment section so that people looking for a job at your company can easily contact you?

11.   Do you have the address/phone number of your location and a link to a map so customers can see where you are located? If you have more than one location do you have all of your locations listed, including map links?

12.   If you’re a business-to-business company that offers house credit is there a link to your credit application on your website?

13.   If you are participating in social media (and you should be) do you have links to your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media sites?

14.   Do you use a service such as Google analytics to see how many people are visiting your site, your “bounce rate” (what percent of the visitors to your site only view the home page before moving on – a sure sign that your site is boring), and the average time a visitor spends on your site? There’s also a wealth of other data available via Google analytics, and the best part is it’s all free!

Remember the old adage, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression”. These days your website is generally the first impression a prospective customer gets of your company. What kind of impression are you making?

Copyright 2013 by Jim Sobeck. All rights reserved. This information may be reproduced as long as full credit is given to the author.

How NOT to Sell On Price

One of the biggest challenges for any business is dealing with customers who are price shoppers. The other big challenge is educating your salespeople on how to respond to requests for lower prices from their customers. Most salespeople who have not received the proper education in dealing with price objections take the path of least resistance and cut the price to get an order. My salespeople are no different. Yes, I have some unbelievable salespeople who know how to fend off requests for lower prices. However, I also have plenty of salespeople who cave in and give a lower price the first time a customer asks for it. Now, if you do not give your salespeople pricing authority they can’t cut the price, but in today’s fast-paced world I’ve found that we get a lot of orders because our salespeople don’t have to request a price variance from one or two levels above them as with our largest competitor. I was on one sales call where the customer told me that we got the order because our salesperson responded to a price request immediately and our competitor took three days to respond after he got pricing approved by both his district manager and his regional manager.

There is no one correct way to handle pricing. You have to decide what works best for your business. However, if you do give pricing authority to your salespeople you need to ensure that they are properly educated and how to respond to requests for a lower price. One of the best books I’ve ever read on dealing with price objections was written in 1992 by Lawrence L. Steinmetz, Ph.D., a former professor of management at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Colorado The title of this book is, How to Make Your Prices Stick. I’ve read many books on selling and, specifically, on handling price objections but Larry’s book, in my opinion, is the best.

Below is a review of Larry’s book that I found on Amazon. I share it with you as I think the unnamed writer of the review really captured the essence and key lessons of this important book.

The title of this book is somewhat misleading because it does not indicate the full scope of what Steinmetz provides…and achieves. True, he suggests all manner of strategies and tactics to overcome sales resistance based almost entirely on price. (He correctly suggests that those who buy ONLY on price be avoided. More about that later.) However, I think this book’s greater value is derived from Steinmetz’s systematic and convincing repudiation of various self-defeating mindsets. For example, those who are so desperate to sell (and earn some money) that they make all manner of unnecessary concessions. In effect, they negotiate against themselves. (Steinmetz: “Business is a game of margins, not volume.”) Here’s another example. Those who fulfill what I call the “Self-Fulfilling Negative Prophecy”:

This is NOT a sales manual. Rather, an extended dialogue between Steinmetz and those readers who are reasonably intelligent, very ambitious, highly energetic, eager to learn what they think they know but don’t, not easily discouraged, and — most important of all — willing to consider vary carefully what Steinmetz suggests. He requires each reader to set aside their (probably cherished) assumptions about “salesmanship,” most of them based on received wisdom that is either obsolete or never true in the first place. Is selling always a “numbers game”? No and Yes. No if the percentage is based on the number of sales made as a result of cold calls to everyone in the telephone directory whose last name begins with “J.” Yes if the percentage is based on the number of sales made to carefully selected, pre-qualified prospects. True, there are differences between walk-in sales (e.g. at vehicle dealerships and department stores) and offsite sales (e.g. at the prospect’s location). Even so, Steinmetz cites five “cases” (price, quality, service, competence of salesperson, and error-free delivery) which apply to both. I agree completely that “business is a game of margins, not volume.” I am also convinced that re-orders (i.e. repeat customers), not merely orders, should be a primary objective. As Steinmetz explains, price may result in one order but quality, service, competence of salesperson, and error-free delivery create and then sustain long-term customer relationships.

Why avoid those who buy only on price? Steinmetz offers nine reasons:

1. Price-buyers take all of your sales time.

2. They do all the complaining.

3. They “forget” to pay you.

4. They tell your other customers how little they paid you.

5. They drive off your good customers.

6. There’s not going to buy from you again anyhow.

7. They’ll require you to “invest up” to supply their needs — and then they’ll blackmail you for a better price.

8. They’ll destroy the credibility of your price and your product in the eyes of your customers.

9. They will steal any ideas, designs, drawings, information, and knowledge they can get their hands on.

There are dozens of such checklists, step-by-step processes, reminders, dos and don’ts, cautions, and value affirmations throughout the book as well as hundreds of examples of real-world sales situations. Problems and complications are inevitable. Steinmetz identifies the most recurrent ones and explains how to resolve them. Implicit is Steinmetz’s pride in what he views as the profession of sales. He is wholeheartedly committed to quality of product and service. He understands the importance of making prudent promises and then keeping every one of them. He has little (if any) patience with whiners, chiselers, corner cutters, liars, and hypocrites. He views providing service to customers as a privilege, indeed as a moral obligation.

Here in a single volume is a wealth of information and wisdom which Steinmetz has accumulated over a period of many years, presented with a non-nonsense writing style enlivened by his wry sense of humor. All of his advice is eminently practical and easily applicable to most sales situation. However, I presume to offer some advice of my own. Read and then re-read the book, highlighting or underlining whatever seems most relevant to your own situation. Then focus on your most urgent needs. That is to say, do not attempt to apply immediately everything you have learned. Experiment. Take a few prudent chances. Over time, I think you will achieve significant improvement of your skills and a stronger sense of pride in how you earn a living. One final point. Not all prospective customers are worthy of your attention and effort. Concentrate only on the ones who are.

If you are a salesperson, sales manager, or owner and you haven’t read this book I urge you to order it (or the audio version) from Larry’s website (http://www.pricingexpert.com/). I guarantee you won’t regret it.

Copyright 2013 by Jim Sobeck. All rights reserved. This information may be reproduced as long as full credit is given to the author.

Learning from Bad Examples

In several past blog posts I mentioned many of the great bosses and mentors that I’ve had over the years. I’ve been very fortunate to have had some fantastic mentors who taught me a lot of things the easy way instead of my learning most things the hard way. Yes, I still made plenty of mistakes, but nowhere near as many as I would’ve made if I hadn’t been fortunate enough to have had some great bosses and mentors along the way.

I’m also fortunate that I have only had two “jerk” bosses during my working years. One of my jerk bosses was a guy I reported to while I was working as a welder in a mobile home plant for one year during college. This boss was a total tyrant to everyone who reported to him but turned into an exemplary manager every time the owner of the mobile home plant came around. He was the most two-faced person I’ve ever reported to.

My other bad boss came later in my career, after college. He is now deceased, so in deference to the dead I won’t give too many details about him as I know that some of my blog readers knew him. I will, however say, that he was an alcoholic who was drunk by noon every day and who was a total dictator. If you reported to him you soon learned to schedule a morning appointment through his secretary so that you could talk with him before he got drunk. All the people who reported to him begged his secretary for morning appointments because they all knew what it was like dealing with him in the afternoon.

The point of all this is I believe I learned more from these bad examples than I did from the great bosses I worked for. I vowed that I would never be like either of these bosses and that I would treat people with dignity and respect, unlike them.

Many years ago I heard the phrase, “No one is totally worthless; you can always serve as a bad example.” These bosses sure proved the truth of this axiom. If you have a “jerk” boss ask yourself what things about this boss will you commit to never doing? Make a list and refer to it occasionally. If you’re like me, you’ll find that you learned a lot of great lessons about what not to do from a bad boss. Avoiding doing these things will help you be a good boss more than you can imagine.

What kind of boss are you? Are you a positive example or negative example? I hope you’re a positive role model but if not, take solace in the fact that, “No one is totally worthless; you can always serve as a bad example.”

Did you have any “bad bosses” whose bad example you were able to benefit from? If so, I know that my readers and I would like to hear from you.

Copyright 2013 by Jim Sobeck. All rights reserved. This information may be reproduced as long as full credit is given to the author.

Calendar Integrity

One of the people I reported to early in my career was a former IBM executive who taught me the phrase, “calendar integrity”. By this he meant that when you had an appointment at a certain time, a report due on a particular date, etc., then you needed to be on time for the appointment/turn in the report on time. Yes, this is a fancy phrase for “being on time” but I have always liked this phrase because of the implication that being on time has to do with your integrity.

Over the last several years I have found that the vast majority of people with whom I come in contact are late to meetings, late with reports, late to dinners, etc. To make matters worse, rarely do I ever get an apology from the person who is late. When I do mention that a person was late they look at me like it is wrong of me to expect them to be on time.

When I speak to college students I point out that one of the ways they can separate themselves from other college graduates is to have calendar integrity. I point out that it’s so rare that it’s a way they can stand out from the hordes of other college students trying to get jobs. I mention that I frequently have people show up late for job interviews and that if I see that someone can’t even be on time for job interview, how can they possibly be on time to meetings and with reports after they are hired?

As we are living in the age of cell phones and smartphones there is no excuse for not calling to say that you are going to be late to a meeting or sending an email to ask for an extension on a due date for a report. Yes, there are unavoidable things that happen that legitimately cause one to be late to a meeting but there is no legitimate excuse for not calling to say you will be late. Also, as most of us are doing multiple jobs due to the weak economy it isn’t always possible to be on time with a report. However, as soon as you see that you aren’t going to be able to hit a due date you should contact the person to whom you report, and ask for an extension. When I am asked for an extension I almost never fail to grant.

As you seek to differentiate yourself from others throughout your career, practice calendar integrity. I bet it will help you get ahead.

Copyright 2013 by Jim Sobeck. All rights reserved. This information may be reproduced as long as full credit is given to the author.

The Key to Success for Managers

In my last post I stated that the key to success is follow-up because, simple as it may sound, it has been my experience that the majority of people don’t follow up most of the time. The same is true with most managers. I was lucky enough that one of my first mentors, when I was just 23, told me, “People do what you inspect, not what you expect”. He felt so strongly about it that he even had a sign with that statement on it in his office.

I have found this to be true. In fact, I spend over two hours first thing every morning sending reminder emails to reports of mine who didn’t respond by the due date I gave them. I do this via the Task function in Outlook. When I send an email to one of my associates I always blind copy myself and when I get my copy back in my inbox I transfer it to the Tasks function in Outlook. I generally set a follow-up date seven days hence unless I need a response sooner than that.

Another one of the secrets of effective managers is to never assign a task without also giving a due date. I learned the hard way that when I didn’t give a due date and I followed up after a week or so I regularly heard, “You didn’t tell me when you needed this”. It has been my experience that I have to follow-up much less when I have given a due date and also, when someone doesn’t respond by the due date, I have taken away their excuse that they didn’t know the task was due. Also, once the people who respond to you learn that you are going to follow up 100% of the time if they don’t respond by the due date you will find that the majority will start to respond by the due date. However, If one of my reports chronically misses due dates I terminate him or her. I don’t have the time or temperament to be an adult babysitter.  I also let it be known why he or she was terminated as the remainder of my associates get a strong message when I do this.

Yes, modern management theory states that Theory X managers follow up with their employees but that Theory Y managers realize that this makes their employees look like they aren’t trusted and demoralizes them. I have tried both theories and I have found that with college-educated, white-collar workers, Theory Y works most of the time. However, with high school educated (or even lesser educated) blue-collar workers, Theory X is necessary.

If you aren’t assigning due dates when you assign a task, and if you aren’t following up 100% of the time, try it for a while and see if you and your associates don’t become more effective and productive.

Copyright 2012 by Jim Sobeck. All rights reserved. This information may be reproduced as long as full credit is given to the author.

The Key to Success

There have been hundreds, if not thousands, of books written about success and how to achieve it. I know this because I have read more than 100 myself. In the almost 40 years I have been in the business world full-time since graduating from college I have learned that the key to success is very simple: follow-up.

Over the years I have had hundreds of salespeople try to sell me something for one of my businesses, or personally, only to never hear from that person again. Not even once. That always amazes me. I recently needed a small home improvement job done at our home and called five companies that had half page or larger ads in the Yellow Pages in my hometown. In all five cases I got an answering machine or voicemail. (This is beside the point, but all of the recorded messages were amateurish, at best. Another tip: make sure that your company’s answering machine or voicemail messages are professional.) Of the five messages that I left, exactly one company called me back. Why spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars a month on a Yellow Pages ad and then not return calls left on your answering machine? I can’t fathom why people spend the money on a Yellow Pages ad and don’t track the inquiries left on their answering machine to ensure that they are followed up on and to see their closing percentage.

Even though I have been a CEO for a long time I’m still very involved in selling. In fact, I once read that the job description of a CEO is, “best salesperson in the company”. There are other definitions but I agree that this is the best job description for a CEO. If you can’t sell your company to other people, and you are the CEO, you have a huge problem. But I digress. My point is that I’m involved in major accounts selling, selling banks on loaning us money, selling property owners on giving me a lower price on their property than the asking price, selling people on joining our company, etc. I’m sure you get my point. When I am “selling” I find that the vast majority of the people I’m contacting ignore my first call or email. However, when I follow-up I get to the person I’m trying to reach over 75% of the time. Why is that? My theory is that people are extremely busy these days and simply can’t talk to every person who calls them or respond to every email they receive. However, when they are followed up with they can see that the person trying to reach them is a pro, not an amateur, and they respond. Unless it’s a very large deal I don’t follow up more than three times because then I think you’re just being a pest. When you have contacted someone three times and they still won’t respond to you they actually are responding to you through their silence.

My friend, Dan Adams, says it best: “The key to success is consistent persistence”. If you want to be successful be consistent in your persistence. You will find that the following up will improve your closing rate no matter what you’re trying to sell. Try it and let me know what you find.

Copyright 2012 by Jim Sobeck. All rights reserved. This information may be reproduced as long as full credit is given to the author.

My Greatest Lesson  From Zig Ziglar

The recent passing of Zig Ziglar, noted motivational speaker and sales trainer has caused me to reflect on a great man who influenced my life in a huge way. Early in my selling career Bill Lee gave me some cassette tapes of Zig on the selling process. I found his ideas to be enlightening and his voice mesmerizing. Zig used his voice like a musical instrument and I could listen for hours even if he was reading the phone book. I quickly listened to every tape he ever made, read several of his books, and saw him live many times. However, one of the highlights of my life was spending five days with Zig and his family when he spoke to the family meeting of a business group of which I’m a member. He spoke every day of our meeting, on many topics. Even the young children were enthralled by his speaking style and his message. I fondly remember our son Thomas (who was 15 at the time) patiently waiting in line after one of Zig’s presentations so Zig could autograph Thomas’ copy of perhaps Zig’s  greatest book, See You at the Top.

While I learned many things from Zig that still benefit me today, the one that helped me the most is the tip he gave us about marriage. Zig, like me, was a workaholic by choice. He loved what he did and so work was fun for him.  He said that he and his wife Jean (“the red head”) would eat dinner and he would retreat to his study and work some more. Jean wasn’t happy about that. After some discussion Zig suggested that after dinner he and Jean would leave the dishes sit and they would talk for a half hour or so and once they had talked about their days and any pressing issues, Zig would do the dishes while Jean relaxed and then, and only then, did Zig go to his study. He said this solved a long standing problem at home and he recommended it.

We started doing this in our home and we still do to this day. It has made Cindy much happier and I enjoy the chats after dinner as well. Try it in your home and let me know if it works for you. I bet it does.