Month: July 2023

It’s July 31st, How’s your EOM?

End of month mindset is often considered to be critically important for business people, especially those in sales. It’s typical for companies to have sales quotas and target goals, and employees are expected to meet them, resulting in extra pressure toward the end of the month. During that last week, business people can get pretty frantic as their deadlines loom, and they push themselves harder than usual to attain their goals. Most corporate individuals have an end of month focus.

But do we as individual sales professionals have a focus?

But might there be a better way?

What is mindset?

You know what mindset will help you achieve your end of month goals: your demeanor, focus, drive…that “eye of the tiger.” You’ve learned which activities are the most productive for you, and you focus more on those at month’s end. For many people, this means amping up the effort on around day 17, with a view to a strong close on the 31st.

But what if you could change your mindset and actually start the month amped up?

My challenge to you

Years ago, I started playing a mindset mind game with myself, and it gives me tremendous lift and momentum to kick off the month. Rather than feeling the pressure build up as the month progresses, I treat the first week like it’s the end, and I start my month in the black. I’ve even had the first day pay for the whole month!

Recently, I heard a phenomenal speaker who had the latest statistics on income: only 5% of people in America today make $100,000 or more a year, which breaks down to $8333.33 per month.

I wondered if maybe it’s because people wait until the 17th day of the month to start producing. Over the years it has become very evident how much production occurs at end of month. It’s like people kick it up a notch during those later weeks as they evaluate their business and realize they have to kick it into high gear.

Choose a different week for end of month

What could happen in your business if you begin playing the mindset mind game?

Decide what it would look like for you. Maybe you’ll shift your end of month to the 21st instead of the 31st, and actually follow through on end of month activities ten days early. You can create new habits and attitudes that cause your momentum to swing toward the beginning of the month, resulting in higher overall productivity and less fluctuation.

To implement this plan, think of five things can you do right now to facilitate it. Maybe it’s having your call lists ready to roll, or focusing on clear, effective messaging, or fine tuning your core story. Make sure you have generated enough leads to give yourself a strong start, rather than scrambling for names. Whenever you decide your “last week” will be, pack it full of meetings and other high-producing MMA activities.

Analyze your time, knowing you can only do three things with it:

spend it

waste it

invest it

Make sure that your productive time isn’t wasted with busy work, but is filled with tasks that bring in results. Change your end of month mindset to a strong focus on preparation: rather than scrambling to meet your goals, those are done and behind you. Now you’re looking ahead to attack your first week with the same intensity that you formerly attacked the last one. Figure out the strategies that work best for you, and have them in place and ready to go.

Your time is NOW!

For some crazy reason, people seem to think they’re going to live forever. A guy once said to me, “David, someday I’m going to…”

I looked at my calendar and said, “You know, I can’t find someday on here. When is it?” We aren’t guaranteed tomorrow, but we get distracted by things that are nonessential in our lives.

This causes us to lose focus on what’s truly important. Look back at the things you said you wanted to accomplish by the end of last December. Did you achieve them?

Evaluate how many days you’ve taken off, and how many days were productive. Many, many years ago when the blue laws were first repealed, business owners rejoiced at the opportunity to stay open on Sundays. Unfortunately, many modern business owners have an opposite mentality, taking advantage of every little holiday created by Hallmark. It’s commonplace for businesses to close early, close on weekends, and take holidays. But if you really want to grow, you must have that entrepreneur mindset of “whatever it takes.”

For you to change your habits, you must change your mindset.

This is not difficult, but it does take some mental re-training.

First, decide when you want your new “end of month week” to be, and make it as productive as possible. After you’ve met those targets, set your sights on preparing for your next “first week.”

You’ll be amazed at how your productivity skyrockets, and at how much momentum you’ll carry into each new month!

Happy Selling,

David

New sales people often come to us asking how some of our top producers have done so well.  We end up talking about how to work your territory, asking questions, joining networking groups, and the usual steps you need to take to succeed…but…what is often overlooked and is more important than any of these is building relationships.  This means building a strong network of clients and referral partners throughout your area.  How do you do this? 

1. Take care of your clients and build trust.  One of the biggest issues new sales people have is that they sign a deal and then they rarely or never talk to the client after setting them up.  This is a huge mistake.  In the first 6 months after signing a client up you should check in with them often.  This could be walking in the door to say hello, calling  them, or even a friendly email to see how everything is going.  The client needs to know that someone is looking out for them and cares about their business.    When another sales person walks in the door you want that client to say”   I don’t care what you say – I’m not leaving my person.”  I am sure you have heard this from potential clients before – this is 100% due to their salesperson taking care of them and creating a solid relationship. 
2. Talk to people who work in similar businesses.   Think about the type of businesses you want to work with…whether its restaurants, auto repair, or any of the hundreds of business types we work with, someone else is selling something to them.  Who are their suppliers?  Who is their accountant?  Who do they turn to for financial help?  These are the people you need to meet and start to work with.  Call on them.  Invite them out to lunch or drinks.  One accountant or restaurant sales person could ending up sending you dozens of leads.  You need to send them back to them as well – but that’s how a good mutually beneficial relationship works.  Treat people the way you want to be treated by sending business their way and what you send will come back to you tenfold.

Remember  – working in credit card processing is a marathon – not a sprint.  You make your money over a long period of time.  The longer your clients are with you and the more of them you have then the more money you will make.  The stronger your relationships are with your clients then the longer they will stay with you and the more referrals they will give you.  The more you work with other people in similar industries then the more you will have the opportunity to help grow each other’s businesses.

Happy Selling,

David

The majority of sales people in merchant services work outside in door to door sales.  This is hands down one of the hardest and most rewarding ways you can build a book of business in any industry.  It is time consuming, exhausting, and the negativity that comes with being told “NO” many times daily can lead a person to look for a new career.  BUT  – The “YES’s” you get are what make it all worth while.

If you are a rookie in sales I’m going to give you some bad news right now – you WILL need to start off with a lot cold calling in order to build up a pipeline 25-30 door pulls per day- but you won’t have to forever. So – what is the magic plan to grow your business and sell more deals than your local competitors.  Its all about scheduling and time management. I

Traditionally sales people have been taught that they need to leave their office and go grind.  Spend 8 hours walking door to door.  Hit every door and every floor.  Talk to everyone.  This is not the answer though – working hard is not always enough to make someone successful  – you need to work smart as well.

You need to set up your day so part of it is spent cold calling (This part will get smaller and smaller as you grow your database of potential clients), part of it is spent at appointments, and part of it is spent on referrals.  This is what a typical day should look like for any outside sales person.

1.  8AM – 10AM Spend the morning reaching out to potential customers that you have not had a chance to sit down with yet via the phone.  You have spent time collecting their information  – most likely cold calling and pulling their business card or just their name and when the best time is to contact them.  Now you are going to reach out to them to try to set up an appointment to sit down with them.  A typical script would be: ” I was in the other day to speak to you about X.  I helped some of your neighbors with X and I would like to come in and speak with you for 5 minutes on Tuesday at 3pm.”  Then handle any rejections or rebuttals that come your way.  Always offer them a time when you are going to be near them – NEVER ask them what time is good.  They will always say they have no time.  You are going to suggest either 11 am or 3pm.  Hit those calls for 2 hours and start setting as many appointments as you can.

2.  11AM  You are going to have your first of 2 -4 daily appointments at this time.  Hit the area before and after in any spare time you have to do some cold calling/collecting of information so you can reach out to people the next day during you phone session.

3.  1PM.  The middle of the day – lunch – a great time to sit down with an existing client and ask for referrals. Bring them something to eat  – and most importantly – ask for referrals!  The most important part of your day will be getting those referrals and then calling them to set up a meeting.  Nothing is more powerful than calling someone up and saying that their friend told you to call.  People will give you their attention twice as often on a referral than they will on a cold call.  Once you have enough clients you should be constantly going to these lunch meetings and working on referrals.  Just to be clear – his does not mean asking who they know – ask for a very specific type of person or business that you are trying to work with. For example: “I am looking to work with people in the medical field, who is your doctor or dentist, and can I reach out to them”

4.  3PM  This will be another appointment you have set. Spend time after cold calling around this appointment and information gathering.

5.  5PMish .  Get out of the field.  Go home and wrap up your day and start organizing and preparing for the next day.  In sales your day does not truly end at 5pm.  

You should spend time after the “work” day getting ready for the next day.  This is what makes the difference between someone earning $30,000 a year and someone earning $100,000 a year.

If you follow this simple plan you will effectively cut your time cold calling down from 8 hours a day to maybe 3-4 hours max. There will be days where you wont even be doing any.  You will eventually hit a point where almost all of your business will be coming from appointments and referrals.  Stick to this schedule and keep track of your daily activity and sales will be much less stressful, you will be happier, and you will make a ton more money.

Happy Selling,

David

When you are out in the field to sell credit card processing you most likely are running in to the same 2 or 3 merchant services companies at almost every business you walk in to.  This typically happens for 2 reasons 

1:  A sales rep worked the territory for a long time and either quit or is still going strong in the area. 

2.  There is a local bank who contracted out processing to a national credit card processor.    

So you keep seeing the same companies processing credit cards for your potential clients.  What do you do to combat this? 

How do you convince all of these people to start working with you? 

Sun Tzu in the art of war said:  ( paraphrasing here…)   Know thy self, know thy enemy.  Essentially you need to know all about who you are selling against if you are going to succeed in flipping over their clients. 

How do you do this?  Start off with the easy stuff.  Look them up on the BBB and rip-off reports.  Find out about complaints against them.  Have they caused issues for their clients?  Do they overcharge their clients?  If you can get your hands on even one of the statements from a client near you then you can get an idea of what they are charging people and where they are overcharging people.  If you are going up against a local sales person start with the obvious question:  Are they still working?  When is the last time your local sales person even walked in the door? 

 Use all the information available to you. Let them your local, you offer support locally, paper and supplies, Offer referrals, and that you are always a phone call away.  Then go close those deals!

How do your competitors stack up in your area? Let me know.

Happy Selling,

David

If you really want true success in your life, you have to be willing to take some major risks. The most successful people in life have dared to be risk takers

Life is very short, and you have wonderful visions and dreams inside of you. You have to ask yourself what is stopping you from going after those dreams. A big part of it could just be fear. If you’re afraid, that’s good. We don’t grow when we stay inside our comfort zone. Be afraid, but do it anyway. If you want something in your life that you’ve never had, you will have to do something that you’ve never done.

Most people, when presented with an incredible opportunity in which they have the potential to achieve great things, would rather choose something different which may provide so-called security. Sadly, they settle for something less rather than taking a risk and going after their dream.

There is more to life than just getting by or living by the status quo. You can have a life filled with abundance. You have been presented with great opportunities. You have a choice. You can play it safe and not achieve your full potential or you can take that risk and just go for it. I want to encourage you to stop playing it safe with your dreams and your goals. Instead of just testing the waters, dive in!

Go all out 100% and trust that all your dreams will come true.

Do not allow the fear to stop you. Fear is a liar.

Fear can stop you right in your tracks if you allow it to. Fear will remind you of all the things that will happen if you do not succeed. However, fear always forgets to mention how miserable you could be if you don’t even try to follow your dreams. Do not live with the pain of regret. Take advantage of your opportunities and go out and make it happen.

Keep in mind, you will have struggles, especially in the beginning. You will fail. If you didn’t have failure, it would be a sign that you’re playing it too safe. The closest people to you in life will question you and some will think you are crazy. You have a choice. You can listen to them and not chase after your dream or you can make that commitment and grind forward. You will have crossroad moments when you feel like throwing in the towel. That’s when you have to remind yourself why you began in the first place. No matter what, do not quit! Your dream is worth it. I promise you that your future self will thank you for never giving up.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to surround yourself with some great mentors. Take a look at your circle of influence. If you are the smartest person in that circle, you are in the wrong circle. Surround yourself with those who will lift you up, inspire you and help you to get to the life you desire.It’s time to stop playing it safe. So many people have the misconception that if you play it safe, you will have security. However, playing it safe means you have basically decided that you don’t want to grow anymore. Nobody has achieved anything great by playing it safe.

The great philosopher Ferris Bueller once said “Life moves pretty fast.” You have some incredible dreams and goals inside of you. You are designed for greatness. It’s time to stop playing it safe. Step out of your comfort zone. Take that risk and don’t look back. Celebrate your success, and celebrate the life that you desire.

Your future looks incredible! Jump on the Success train, and go out and make it happen!

Happy Selling,

David