Author: David Matney

Stop selling your product.  The product training you’ve had is bad.

Who cares what you sell, or how good you or your company thinks it is. Instead, I want you to focus 100% on selling the outcomes you allow your customer to achieve.  That’s what your customer is…

Instead, I want you to focus 100% on selling the outcomes you allow your customer to achieve.  That’s what your customer is looking for, they don’t need another widget, they need a solution.

Focusing on your customer is about listening first to create a level of trust and confidence. 

Your customer is never going to confide in you until they first trust you.  Building trust begins with you by not putting your objectives ahead of the customers.  Instead, it’s about serving the customer, and it starts with listening. How?  It begins with the questions you ask.

When you’re preparing for a sales call, how much time do you spend thinking about what you want to say versus the questions you want to ask? 

I contend we need to spend far more time thinking about the questions we want to ask.

If you fail to have eight questions at minimum to ask a customer anytime you meet with them, then you’re doing both you and the customer a disservice.  Eight is not a magic number, but it is the number I’ve found that requires some serious thinking. Typically on any call there’s little chance you would even get to ask all eight. The key is this, you’re prepared, plus you never want to run out of potential questions you can ask.

Asking questions is a key part of listening–the better your questions the more listening you get to do.

Sadly, many salespeople look upon listening as a passive activity, or the period of time to catch their breath before speaking again. That’s not selling, that’s manipulation!   

Listening is action oriented.

It’s listening to understand, because your job is to take their comment and ask a follow-up question about it. 

The key in building trust is allowing the other person to know you genuinely care about them and their needs.

Don’t go there by jumping into your product pitch. At this point your product is not part of the solution, it’s part of the problem!  

Our goal always has to be focused on understanding the outcomes the customer is looking for. The real prize for the customer is when we are able to help them see and achieve what they didn’t think was possible.  Chew on that last line for a minute and ask yourself what it means.  

It’s at this point where the conversation moves to a deeper level.  

When you and the customer are truly interacting and the questions and comments are flowing freely between both parties, it’s a reflection of trust and confidence as you begin helping them see an outcome they didn’t think was possible.

This is what sales is all about; it’s at this point the customer, because they trust you, is moving themselves into a different mindset.  

In my job I have this happen frequently. A customer may be wanting me to speak at their sales meeting, but through our conversation and the development of trust and confidence the customer sees an even bigger outcome they need help with.  For example, the result may include me doing a keynote at their sales meeting followed by some coaching of their sales managers.  

Sales is not as hard as people make it out to be.

It’s about having a conversation where you put the customer first.  It’s a conversation centered around the questions you ask to help understand the customer’s desired outcome clearly.  

I have a list of the top 10 questions to ask a merchant. Shoot me an email and I will send them to you. Study them, role play with them, use them. 

When you know the desired outcome, you’re now in a position to help them see what’s possible.

Happy Selling,

David

With today being Valentine’s day it seems appropriate to take a fresh look at prospecting.  After all, isn’t it sales and marketing’s constant function to ask others, “Will you be my Valentine?”

The Valentine’s Day-Prospecting love connection light bulb went off in my head a couple weeks ago when I was talking to a 

pharmaceutical sales rep at a meeting. He was using a pharmaceutical sales scenario as a backdrop for describing his thoughts on how we can get prospects interested faster.  

I don’t have any drug firm clients, Pharmacy’s as y’all know can be a headache but I can easily see how his expertise can be applied to what we do selling merchant services.

Here are my takeaways from this conversation,  Think of this as a roadmap to winning the hearts and minds of your prospects.
1. To build trust quicker 
– Open with a negative or a drawback of your offering. Shows you are willing to be truthful and establishes yourself as both trustworthy (giving the straight scoop) and knowledgeable.  You are willing to share data that you understand.
– Frame what your stuff does in terms of what your prospect will miss out on, rather than what they will gain. The idea of losing benefits is more powerful than the idea of gaining the benefit in minds of buyers. People would rather protect what they have than work to achieve a gain.
– Use social proof – your offering’s popularity – to show it’s worthwhile. Below the surface, people actually make judgments based on what they perceive is going on around them. “Our most chosen dessert” attracts even more buyers. This is “social proof” of what constitutes proper conduct. So, if you have popularity – USE IT.
– Feature and benefit selling is important, but it’s old school. Today, science shows that we respond to what we perceive should be a better product based on price/popularity/other externalities. We experience things based on context. Prospects stop critiquing – actually turn off that portion of the brain – when they hear statements backed up by popular assent or experts.
2. People say yes to people they trust and like. So, how do we develop relationships quickly?

• Find similarities.
• Give honest praise, genuine compliments.
• Come to like your customer, first. That’s when people feel safe, when they feel liked. They will feel their interests are protected, so they are more likely to follow your recommendations. 

Don’t try to first try to make someone like you until you’ve tried to like them.

Hmm, seems like good advice for Valentine’s Day, too!

Happy Selling,

David

Over the years, I have watched many, varied professional athletes in person. All athletes who reach the professional level have elite talent, but it’s the winning mentality that makes champions.

This applies to the business world as well. In order to be a winner, you have to think and act like a winner.
People who have a winning mindset believe in their vision, and they are mentally tough. They understand that nothing great or worth having comes easy. In order to win the Super Bowl of life, you first have to believe that you will. You have to be willing to give that 100% commitment to do what it takes to become a champion. Winners understand that they will face obstacles and difficulties, but know these challenges are only going to make them stronger. They are committed to becoming a winner, no matter what.

Talent alone is not enough.

In the business world, I have met so many people with talent, but they never come close to their potential. We are all good at something, but a winning mindset understands that the difference between making it a hobby or a successful business is the hard work and discipline that you put behind it.

Do not rely on your talent alone. Make a commitment to work on your craft. Find out what your weaknesses are and work on improving them.If you truly want to be a winner, you have to work consistently and work smart. It’s important to set a long-term goal and work at it with passion and perseverance. I have learned that it takes 10 years of working hard to be an overnight success. There are no shortcuts. There are no ‘get rich quick schemes’. If you want to become a champion, you have to grind!
Having a winning mentality also requires building momentum. The hardest part is getting started.
This is why it’s important to generate momentum with small steps. In order to ride your momentum wave, you have to build it first. While building and working towards your dreams, you must have small daily goals. Reward yourself along the way and keep charging towards the big dream.
Winners have a vision. The ultimate goal for an NFL player with a winning mentality is to win the Super Bowl. It all starts in training camp. They visualize themselves holding the trophy after winning the Super Bowl. Whatever you want out of life, you must visualize yourself achieving that goal.
You have to stick to that plan and truly believe in your dream and reinforce that belief along the way.

While working towards your dream, I can guarantee you that you will encounter naysayers along the way. A winning mentality does not allow the shortsightedness of others to deter them from being successful.

Remember that people who aren’t in life where you want to be cannot show you how to get there. Even though some feel that they’re looking out for your best interest, you must not give in to any negativity from anyone.

Make a commitment to surround yourself with people who will encourage you and lift you up along the way.

Having the winning mentality is just the first step.

You cannot just THINK your way to becoming a champion. You must take massive action. Not only do you have to take massive action, but you need to do it starting today.

No more procrastinating. Not tomorrow, not next week, not next month, not next year, not when everything lines up perfectly, do it now!
Make a commitment to develop the winning mentality. I promise you that it will be worth it. Whatever you are doing in life, be the best at it! Become a winner!

Happy Selling,

David

Valentines is just around the corner, and you know what that means: Valentine’s Day, and with it, Valentine’s Day gift shopping, date planning, romantic dinner cooking, and lots of heart-themed crafting. Amid all this hustle and bustle in the name of love, you may be wondering, why exactly do we celebrate Valentine’s Day? Quite possibly followed by, didn’t we just wrap up the holiday season?
Time to take a break from your February 14 to-do list and check out this week’s top 10 fun Valentine’s Day facts and traditions instead, including a little history of the holiday.

So from the Home office in Valentine, Texas Here are the Top 10 Fun Facts about Valentine’s Day

10. A Roman fertility festival was the holiday’s precursor. 

It may be difficult to believe given how innocuous the holiday is nowadays, but the roots of Valentine’s Day stem from a bloody pagan fertility festival dating back to 6th century B.C. Every year, between February 13 and 15, Romans celebrated Lupercalia by sacrificing animals and slapping women with their hides, which was believed to make them more fertile. Later, notes Britannica.com, the women would be paired off with men “by lottery.” Definitely not the most romantic way to find that special someone.

9. One legend about St. Valentine says that, although the emperor had banned his soldiers from marriage, believing it a distraction, the priest secretly wed young couples. Another holds that while Valentine was jailed for helping Christians escape brutal Roman prisons, he wrote to a woman (depending on the version of the story, either to his love

 or to the jailor’s daughter whose blindness he had healed) and that he signed a letter to her, “From Your Valentine,” a sweet endearment we still use today.

8. The earliest known valentine has a sad love story behind it. 

The very first valentine is said to have been a poem sent in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife. Imprisoned in the Tower of London after his capture at the Battle of Agincourt, he wrote

, “I am already sick of love, My very gentle Valentine.” Unfortunately, it would be 20 more long years until the 21-year-old would be released from his cell.

7. Wearing your heart on your sleeve was a real thing.

 But not in a grisly sort of way. Back in the Middle Ages, during a festival honoring the goddess Juno, Roman men would draw the names of women they would be partnered with for the following year. (Remember, Emperor Claudius II didn’t condone marriage, only temporary couplings.) According to Smithsonian.com

, they would then show off the name of their intended by wearing it on their sleeves for the rest of the celebration.

6. Cupid was a Greek god.

Literally. Yep, that cute little chubby baby with the bow and arrow we associate with Valentine’s Day started out way back in 700 B.C. as the Greeks’ handsome, virile god, Eros. Able to make mortals fall in love (or hate) with his magical arrows, he was remade into Cupid by the Romans around 4th century BCE. But, as Time.com reports, it wasn’t until the turn of the 19th century that Cupid became the face of Valentine’s Day for his “love-creating abilities.”

5. Valentine’s Day chocolate was a stroke of marketing genius.

Next time you open a beautiful heart-shaped box of chocolates on February 14, you can thank Richard Cadbury. The son of the manufacturer of Cadbury Chocolate, he created the first known heart-shaped box of chocolates in an effort to drive up sales for the family business. From that first Valentine’s Day box sold in 1861 grew an industry that now counts some 66 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate sold annually.

4. Those little Conversation hearts had humble beginnings.

The iconic little candy hearts emblazoned with Valentine’s Day messages were first created by a machine initially invented to make medical lozenges. But it wasn’t long before the Boston-based pharmacist who originated the gadget’s design decided to switch from making cough drops to crafting candy wafers, rebranding his company as New England Confectionery Company, or Necco.

By 1866, Necco was producing candy printed with messages that included “Married in white you have chosen right” and “How long shall I have to wait? Please be considerate.” Thirty-five years later, that candy took on the familiar heart shape we know and love today. Every day, some 100,000 pounds of the chalky, talkative little candies, which have a shelf life of five years, are made. That adds up to a whopping eight billion conversation hearts annually.

3. The Victorians began the trend of giving flowers for Valentine’s Day.

Red roses as a symbol of romance dates back to ancient Rome—it was the favorite posy of Venus, the Roman goddess of love (and Cupid’s mom). But it wasn’t until the Victorian era that men really began giving the flower to women they were wooing.

2. Valentine’s Day is florists’ busiest day of the year.

That’s according to the Society of American Florists, putting the holiday ahead of even Christmas/Chanukah and Mother’s Day in terms of number of purchases. Most of those flowers are (you guessed it) roses. About 250 million roses are grown for Valentine’s Day, and more than half are red.

And the #1 Top 10 Fun Fact about Valentine’s day is……

1.  Valentine’s Day is expensive.

At least if you go by statistics released by the National Retail Federation, which found that Americans spent more than $23.9 billion (about 175 smackers per consumer) on the holiday in 2022. Much of that money goes toward jewelry (an estimated $6.2 billion!) and that includes a whole lot of diamond rings. As many as six million couples get engaged on Valentine’s Day.

There is this week’s Top 10 list about Valentine’s Day. So if you’re looking for a vertical to go after, candy shops, jewelry stores and flower shops are great to have in your portfolio.

have an awesome weekend, 

David 

If someone is successful, often the reason is attributed to their ability to “think outside the box.”  This adage seems to me to be greatly misunderstood!  What IS the true meaning of this saying?  today article contains three powerful truths to impact the way you think about your merchant services business.  Learn how to build a strong foundation for success.  And live the dream of every business owner – force yourself to make good decisions and protect yourself from making stupid ones. I’ve learned this by making stupid decisions myself.  

Often, I have heard this statement, “Oh, that person is so successful because he/she really thinks outside the box.”  Therefore, we are encouraged to follow that example to ensure our success.

 Are successful people just living a life outside of all boundaries, rules, and constraints?  Is that the meaning of “thinking outside the box?”  

Nothing could be further from the truth!

In reality, the life of no rules or constraints, doing whatever you want whenever you want is the definition of an unsuccessful, frustrated, and unhappy person.  Successful people do not think outside the box. 

Successful people just make a bigger box.  

The most important ingredient to your success is the rules and constraints you place upon yourself.  Those boundaries will force you to make good decisions and protect you from making stupid ones.

 Here are three boundaries which I think are vital for any business to be successful.

#1.  Make a conscious decision that your business is going to be profitable every single month, with one exception.  To be profitable every month means:

>You are going to make profitable decisions and give up a little bit of long-term value to get short-term profit.

>You aren’t going to spend more money than you make.

>You won’t get investors who share your profit because they’re putting in equity.  That will dilute your profit.

>You hire people who are gong to make you money.

>You sell people who are going to be profitable clients.

>Make profitable decisions every single day.

Then you will be profitable every single month.  This is not necessarily the way big businesses are built.  But it is the way you build a profitable business where your personal income is heavy six figures.

We read or hear stories of someone building a billion-dollar business.  The stories relate going into big debt to get capital and investors and money to build the mega-business.  However, the stories often fail to relate that the mega-business owner was making $200,000 a year at his job or built a business making $300,000 a year as a consultant or was in sales making $150,000 a year before building the billion-dollar business.  Most success stories were preceded by somebody making a heavy six-figure income.  That’s why they had the money and connections to build that mega-business.

The one exception I mentioned is borrowing money to spend more than you make IF using that money directly to purchase more recurring revenue with a proven marketing system.  Consider this example:  Reinvest the money into a Facebook marketing campaign.  Pay $1000 to someone like Fiverr or Modeo Media to make a nice video and $300 – $400 on the video.  Then run the math.  Perhaps for every $160 spent, you get a lead.  For every five leads, you get a sale.  Thus, you pay $500 per sale.  Repeat this often enough to be confident with the model.  Then borrow $10,000 so you can buy forty customers.  So, the exception is only if you borrow money to buy customers using a proven marketing system.  In this example, the money will come in right away to pay that debt.  However, don’t borrow money to pay for payroll, some new internet service you want, or new software that is cool.

#2.  Work a certain number of hours every week.  Work on certain things a certain number of hours every week.   This is a constraint that must be in place!  If I ask what hours you work tomorrow or next week, you should be able to answer that right away.  There are times when you may adjust your schedule.  Some need to take that a step further and designate the number of hours spent on each activity which is crucial to your business.  For example, “I work these hours in the field.  I spend this amount of time on the phone prospecting.  I work 25 hours a week walking into businesses I’ve never walked into before.”

Make your box and stay inside it!  To redefine the box is okay.  To get outside the box is NOT okay.  Learn to understand the difference.  The rules and constraints protect you from making stupid decisions, losing tons of money, and ruining your relationships.  Don’t think for a minute that successful people tear down all the walls and constraints in life.  They just make their own rules.  They create their own box.

#3.  Pay yourself as an employee.   Even if you are the only person in your company, create a company and pay yourself as an employee.  You will be amazed what this does to your attitude! 

This is also one key element in knowing if your business is profitable.  Some of you think, “This year I’m going to make $50,000.00 – $100,000.”  That’s a great dream, but make it a goal by deciding how to accomplish it.  Pick an amount of money and make that amount.  Then you can pay yourself a monthly profit distribution if you have extra.  If your business is very profitable, you can make the decision to pay yourself more money!  Talk to your CPA about the best way to structure that for tax advantage.  If you are not an employee of your own company, you are making a huge mistake and are not believing in yourself enough.  Eventually if you want to hire more people and build a larger company, you’ve got to be set up to employ people.  Get a payroll processing service.  Have them pay your taxes.  To be an employee is so nice!

Work a certain number of hours and decide to be profitable every single month.  These are a sample of my rules which may benefit you.  Perhaps you say, “ David, I don’t know about those rules of yours.”  That’s fine; make your own!  Just be sure you have rules, constraints, boundaries.  That, my friends, is the key to your success.

Happy Selling,

David

I want to talk to you about a very important skill.  Do you know how to be broke?  Yes, I’m going to talk about how to be broke!

I’ve had people ask why I would go from making 6 figures a year to $30,000 a year?  I’d rather make 30K working for myself than make 100K for someone else. Always bet on yourself. After all, you are your greatest asset.

Making sacrifices is part of the building phase of building your own business.

I have been reading and studying about business for 15 years at least.  I have not found any material that talks about being broke in business.  

Most successful business people want to focus on their achievements which presents an illusion of a smooth ride to success! This is not the case for most of us. What do we do? Let’s talk about some specific tips I have for you today.

1. Always make a plan.

• Learn to live on less by trimming unnecessary expenses.
• Understand that things may not be as bad as they seem. Good things can come from difficult times.
• Know that this is a sacrifice being made for a specific purpose with a goal in sight.

2. Communicate your plan.

• Explain your goals to your family. Help them understand the sacrifices you plan to make.
• Communicate with your creditors. Ask how they can work with you in time of crisis.
• Know your breaking point. A successful business is not worth more than a happy marriage or a close family relationship.

I’m here to tell you, “I have not had a smooth ride to success.” Success is hard! Going through difficult times will help you know that you can make it no matter what you go through!

Have a plan and work your plan and success will come. 

Happy Selling,

David

Is your pipeline a water tap or a sewer line?

Too many salespeople have a pipeline that is really nothing more than a sewer line because stuff is just plugging it up. I’m talking about prospects that are sitting there, but not going anywhere.

So how do I keep this from happening?

I want to ask you five questions to keep you on track, and help you choose prospects that don’t slow down your workflow.

1. What firm evidence do I have that this opportunity is going to materialize?
   The key word is firm. It’s not your belief, nor is it your gut hunch or simply “a feeling.” What are the facts that the customer shared with you? Without evidence, your moving forward with the prospect is baseless.

I see too many salespeople chase deals and then they can’t close them. They get so close to the finish line, but they can’t get them across it because they never got the facts up front. Of course, the prospect was a nice idea, but they never had any intention to buy.

2. Is the opportunity sizable enough to warrant my time? I see salespeople putting a lot of deals into their pipeline just to make themselves feel busy, but they’re so tiny.

They’re so small that they’re never going to really materialize any level of business. And as a result, it’s just not going to happen. In your pipeline, you need a mixture of deals.

You need large opportunities that are going to take longer, but they’re continually moving–not plugging up your pipeline. Then, any smaller ones that pop through on a regular basis, those keep you fed. This keeps you motivated, and keeps you in the game. But if all you have is small deals, you’ll be working your tail off and not really making any money.

3. Do I know the barriers I need to remove in order to close this opportunity?

I see a lot of customers who are very enthused. They’re gushing, “We want to buy this!” But then you present the offer and they say, “Oh, well I need to take it to management.” And it doesn’t go anywhere because management, or whoever is the decision maker, was never brought into the mix. This is a big issue here with salespeople! You must consider the possible barriers early on.

The question I love to ask is, “How have you made decisions like this in the past?” I asked that early on, because I want to find out their methodology. What’s the process? Who are the people they talked to? How long does it take? Once I understand all those little nuances, I can be aware of those barriers and get them out of the way early.

4. Is this an opportunity that will generate sales for me at a later date?

Top salespeople value their time, and they want deals to be closing in the current period. They’re not willing to sit there and spend tremendous amounts of effort on a deal that won’t close for several years. Now, I have closed big deals that have taken months. I’ve also got some deals that are not going to happen for three, four years. That’s fine. I stay in touch with them. We continue to nurture, but I don’t waste selling cycles on them until we get closer.

Well, what’s the definition of “closer”? It’s going to vary depending on the type of deal, and the size of the deal.

5. Do I have a plan to maximize this opportunity without negatively impacting other opportunities?

Here’s what I find happening: Salespeople will get this piece of business, and it’s a great piece of business, but it winds up sucking up so much time and energy they don’t have time to do other things. In fact, that customer’s relationship in the industry can block them from being able to do business with other potential merchants . This is a much bigger issue than people realize.

I see this with solopreneurs like us. Solopreneurs are really guilty of this. We wind up with a bad mix of business. We have business that looks great today, but because it’s so difficult to execute and implement, it takes us forever. And as a result, it holds us back.

Let’s work our pipeline and prioritize our prospecting and make the smart decisions.

Happy Selling,

David

Good Friday morning everyone, 

A part from the Bill Murray film  we discussed yesterday, what does that mean? In fact, the spring celebration  has nothing to do with  living the same day on repeat.  What is Groundhog Day all about? 

Today I’ve brought together all you need to know about Groundhog Day in this Friday’s Top 10.

Here we go from the home office in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania The Top 10 facts about Groundhog Day, 

and there’s no Bill Murray in sight…

10. Groundhogs, otherwise known as woodchucks, are rodents. They are one of the few animals that do truly hibernate throughout the winter, often building special winter burrows for their winter sleep. 

9. The legend goes that when the groundhog comes out of his burrow from hibernation, he will look for his own shadow. 

If it is sunny and he sees it, he will take fright and go back into his hole. Winter will then carry on for another six weeks. If it is cloudy and he doesn’t see his shadow, then spring will arrive early. 

8. The tradition began in Pennsylvania in 18th and 19th centuries. Based in ancient European weather lore where badgers were used to predict the length of winter. 

7. The legend of Groundhog Day has been spotted in two old British songs. In a Scottish couplet, it says: “If Candlemas Day is bright and clear, there’ll be two winters in the year.” 

In an English song: “If Candlemas be fair and bright, come, Winter, have another flight; If Candlemas brings clouds and rain, go Winter, and come not again” 

6. Every year on February 2, all across Pennsylvania there are early morning festivals to watch the groundhogs emerge from their burrows. Punxsutawney holds the biggest Groundhog Day celebration in America, where over 20,000 people attend each year. 

5. In some areas there are German-Pennsylvanian Groundhog Lodges that hold big parties with traditional German food and skits. Pennsylvanian-German dialect is the only language allowed – if you speak in English you have to pay a small fine as punishment. 

4. The most famous groundhog is Punxsutawney Phil, who has apparently been making predictions in Punxsutawney for over 125 years. Residents say that Phil is given a magical potion every year to give him long life. 

3. The chosen groundhogs are kept in electric-heated burrows, and are said to utter their prediction in ‘groundhogese’ which is then ‘translated’ by a representative. 

2. The groundhogs are looked after by the Inner Circle, which is a group of local dignitaries who are responsible for carrying out all of the Groundhog Day celebrations. They traditionally wear formal dress, including top hats, on Groundhog Day. 

And the # 1  facts about Groundhog Day is…

1. The accuracy of the groundhog predictions is a matter of dispute – some Pennsylvania residents say that the rodents are accurate up to 90% of the time, whereas some studies say they are accurate only 35% of the time.There you have this week’s Friday’s Top 10. Let’s sit back, recharge and enjoy the weekend. 

Have a great weekend,

David 

Happy Groundhog day everyone, 

Today is Thursday February 2nd, a most peculiar American holiday.

If you’re reading this with a feeling of déjà vu, then you may be thinking about Bill Murray’s1993 comedy ” Groundhog Day .” And for us  as sales people,  perhaps there’s something you can learn from this unique film.

For the handful of those who haven’t seen the film, the Bill Murray character relives the same day over and over again-aware of everything that has happened each time. All those around him experience the day normally, while he’s trapped in an endless loop. Between you and me, I would sorta like the time loop at least for a while.

Back to the article. If there’s a teachable moment in the film, it’s when Murray avoids a slush-filled pothole-having stepped in it on several previous versions of February 2nd. From that moment, he changes his behavior on a grand, comic scale, based on knowledge of “preordained” events.

Predictability – Of course sales professionals cannot literally re-live a particular day-even if they urgently want to. (Who hasn’t experienced a disastrous call and wished for a do-over?) However, one thing we can do is observe predictable human behavior. In the movie, we can easily see the behavior patterns of characters-aided by the time-loop storyline, but not necessarily dependent on it. In particular, we can observe and predict the cringeworthy behavior of the film’s only sales rep, “Ned the Head.”In real life, we don’t need time travel to predict what someone will say or do. Behavior patterns are often shared. An astute observer can learn from others’ cues as well as their own experience, anticipating what someone’s response is likely to be. This is a crucial sales skill. Good salespeople are usually students of human needs, and the outward signs that reveal them.

Repetition – The film’s primary plot device is constant, seemingly meaningless repetition. A humorously poignant moment for Murray is the lament by a despondent, working-class character that “every day is the same, and nothing you do matters.” While literally true in the movie, repetition in real life can serve a different purpose. 
We can choose to make repetition a positive experience.The next time a sales call feels like déjà vu, take the time consciously to note the patterns. Write them down. What was said? How did you respond? Does a particular objection keep recurring? You get the idea. And be sure to discuss these repeating patterns with your sales colleagues. If they’re experiencing the same thing, you can be halfway to a better approach.

There’s also a literal way to apply the repetition principle: rehearsal and role playing. Whether you do so live or with online sales training, learning by repetition and feedback is a key to success. Practice what works, by watching what your coach and successful colleagues do, and repeat until it sticks.

Habits and Insights – In his award winning 2011 book,  The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg (available on Audible) points out that our habitual actions are not inevitable destiny. They can be changed and reinvented to avoid failure and foster success. The Bill Murray character did not succeed by remembering the same events of February 2nd, and planning a rote response. He succeeded in changing his habitually destructive behavior when he (eventually) gained new insights into himself, and responded genuinely to outside cues.

We as a salespeople succeed when we are genuine, engaged, and perceptive-not when we follow a rote set of procedures. By developing the habit of genuine connection, we will instinctively know how to meet our customer’s needs, and wake up on February 3rd,  and perhaps have a Top 10 list from the movie GroundHog Day….. 

What movies do you learn a particular sales skill from? 
happy Selling,

David