Why It Is So Hard To Let Go

Why It Is So Hard To Let Go

The cheerful girl with bouncy golden curls was almost five. Waiting with her mother at the checkout stand, she saw them: a circle of glistening white pearls in a pink foil box.

 

"Oh please, Mommy. Can I have them? Please, Mommy, please?" Quickly the mother checked the back of the little foil box and then looked back into the pleading blue eyes of her little girl's upturned face. "A rupees ninety-five.  If you really want them, I'll think of some extra chores for you and in no time you can save enough money to buy them for yourself. Your birthday's only a week away and you might get another crisp rupee bill from Grandma."

 

As soon as Rubi got home, she emptied her penny bank and counted out 17 pennies. After dinner, she did more than her share of chores and she went to the neighbor and asked Mrs. Harry if she could pick dandelions for ten rupees.

On her birthday, Grandma did give her another new rupee bill and at last she had enough money to buy the necklace.

Rubi loved her pearls. They made her feel dressed up and grown up. She wore them everywhere - Sunday school, kindergarten, even to bed. The only time she took them off was when she went swimming or had a bubble bath. Mother said if they got wet, they might turn her neck green.

 

Rubi had a very loving daddy and every night when she was ready for bed, he would stop whatever he was doing and come upstairs to read her a story. One night when he finished the story, he asked Rubi, "Do you love me?" "Oh yes, Daddy. You know that I love you." "Then give me your pearls." "Oh, Daddy, not my pearls. But you can have Princess - the white horse from my collection. The one with the pink tail. Remember, Daddy? The one you gave me. She's my favorite." "That's okay, Honey. Daddy loves you. Good night." And he brushed her cheek with a kiss.

 

About a week later, after the story time, Rubi's daddy asked again, "Do you love me?" "Daddy, you know I love you." "Then give me your pearls." "Oh Daddy, not my pearls. But you can have my baby doll. The brand new one I got for my birthday. She is so beautiful and you can have the yellow blanket that matches her sleeper." "That's okay. Sleep well. God bless you, little one. Daddy loves you" And as always, he brushed her cheek with a gentle kiss.

 

A few nights later when her daddy came in, Rubi was sitting on her bed with her legs crossed American-style. As he came close, he noticed her chin was trembling and one silent tear rolled down her cheek. "What is it, Rubi? What's the matter?" Rubi didn't say anything but lifted her little hand up to her daddy. And when she opened it, there was her little pearl necklace. With a little quiver, she finally said, "Here, Daddy. It's for you."

 

With tears gathering in his own eyes, Rubi's kind daddy reached out with one hand to take the dime-store necklace, and with the other hand he reached into his pocket and pulled out a blue velvet case with a strand of genuine pearls and gave them to Rubi. He had them all the time. He was just waiting for her to give up the dime-store stuff so he could give her genuine treasure.

 

So it is with our Heavenly Father. He is waiting for us to give up the cheap things in our lives so that he can give us beautiful treasure. Isn't God good?

 

Are you holding onto things which God wants you to let go of. Are you holding on to harmful or unnecessary partners, relationships, habits and activities which you have come so attached to that it seems impossible to let go? Sometimes it is so hard to see what is in the other hand but do believe this one thing.............

 

God will never take away something without giving you something better in 

 

Author - Rajeev Kumar

Solid Teamwork For Success

The greatest day in your own life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes. That's the way we truly grow up --

 

Can you imagine what is daily motivation really all about? The following report includes some fascinating information about daily motivation--info you can use, not just the old stuff they used to tell you.

 

It's really a good idea to probe a little deeper into the subject of daily motivation. What you learn may extremely give you the confidence you need to venture into new areas.

 

One day, The God created the air, sun, plant, water, ground, and herbivore. Unfortunately, all of them were too proud of themselves. Each of them declared that it was the best of all until all of them were in hostility. In order to determine who the best was, they then asked their God to get the answer.

 

The God answered their question wisely, There is no need to self-state to be the best. All of you are great. You all are created to help each other, not to knock each other down. You are created to cooperate so you can live harmoniously and each of you needs help from others, you cannot live alone. The air was produce by the plant, so without the help of plant, there will be no air. If there is no air on the earth, the herbivore will die quickly in just minutes. The plant needs the water and herbivore dirt as fertilizer to grow up and also need the sun to run the process of photosynthesis to produce air. The herbivore must need the plant to eat and water to drink for living and surviving. The plants and herbivore need the ground as the place to stand and grow. The ground cannot be fertile without the help of water and fertilizer from herbivore dirt. So each of you are so useful to others. From now on, live peacefully and help each other. Then The God disappeared. Listening to the wise answer, they were aware the benefits of helping each other and live harmoniously.

 

Message for readers:

 

The story above is telling you about the power of building solid teamwork. You must have known that the power of a solid teamwork is much stronger and powerful than that of an individual and the most important is that working in a team can achieve the best expected results for the entire member of a team.

 

Do you ever see a flock of birds flying in the sky that form the V-shape formation? Do you think that it is accidental? No, its not accidental. They form that shape because of the benefits they can get. By flying in the formation, they can fly 70% further than the distance of one bird flying alone. In this formation, the leader of the birds is in the front. When the leader is tired, another bird will take the place in the front to be a leader. And if it is tired, it will be replaced by another bird. The bird that flies in the front is tired more quickly than those who fly behind.

 

Another example is to take an experiment. Take a sheet of paper and then tear it off. It is easy thing to do, isnt it? Then take 30 sheets of paper and tear them off. It will become more difficult. Then take 100 sheets of paper and then do the same. I think you cannot do that. What about you are hit on your head by a sheet of paper? It will not be absolutely painful. But if you are hit strongly on the head by 500 sheets of paper, you must be painful and dizzy.

 

So the conclusion we can make is that the effort of teamwork can defeat the single effort. Successful people realize that the teamwork can increase their power tremendously. Each of members in a team has the same goals and visions like you do. They can support and help you achieving your goals and together everyone achieves great results. They not only can motivate you, but also fill your weakness.

 

Tips: find people that have the same visions and can cooperate or collaborate with you to achieve bigger success.

 

Now you can understand why there's a growing interest in daily motivation. When people really begin to start looking for more valuable information about daily motivation, you'll be in a position to meet their needs.

 

If you enjoy my content, find more excellent motivational articles at

Read more at http://changeforgrowth.blogspot.com/

Lets Win Together!

From Rajeev Kumar.

How to over Come Sales Call Reluctance

How to over Come Sales Call Reluctance?

What's the number one killer of sales years and sales careers? Hint: it's not price or the economy. It's not even competition or unwilling customers and prospects. It is, believe it or not, simply the unwillingness of the sales professional to go and sell.

Sales call reluctance® researchers George Dudley and Shannon Goodson report that "as many as 80% of all salespeople who fail within their first year do so because of insufficient prospecting activity."

Oversimplified? Consider these:

1. Sales is a numbers game – If you contact enough prospects or suspects, you're bound to get results and learn from your mistakes. Of course, the more you can pre-qualify your target list of potential contacts, the greater your chances of success.

2. A better mousetrap, by itself, doesn't win sales – The activities of contacting prospects, asking good questions, presenting solutions and asking for the decision do win sales. Success is often based on how frequently you reach out to people who are willing and able to buy from you.

3. Referrals have to start somewhere - The top sales professionals, those who seem to live almost exclusively from current customers and referrals, had to initiate those contacts to start the process. They paid their dues along the way.

The hidden enemy

The fear of self-promotion is a condition in which even highly competent people receive far less in position, compensation and recognition than they feel they deserve. Doing the best job doesn't always get the best rewards. Those rewards tend to go to people who promote themselves, what they've done and what they can do.

Who are some of the top self-promoters of our day? When you look across all professions, those most famous in the public eye aren't necessarily the best at what they do. Dennis Rodman, Madonna and Bill Clinton are all very capable people. There are also, arguably, others in their respective professions who are more skilled and earn far less in both notoriety and compensation for their efforts. Rodman's willingness to paint his hair different colors draws attention to him, not necessarily to his skills or his results.

This fear of self-promotion manifests itself in professional selling as sales call reluctance®. It appears in several types and works in varying degrees of damage to the sales professional's results.

The symptoms

Sally is a steady, but never stellar, sales performer. She has a proposal she'll be presenting in two days to a new prospect. She has worked over the proposal a dozen times and is checking it again for any typographical errors. Next she'll review her presentation of the proposal and write her key points on note cards for further practice and rehearsal. All of this is done during the sales day, the only time of day when she can contact new prospects. This tendency of always getting ready and rarely getting it done is a symptom of the form of call reluctance® known as over-preparation.

Ryan works hard to project the right image to his customers and prospects. He always looks good and professional, as do his materials and his vehicle. Today, as he goes out to prospect for the afternoon, he'll stop and have his car washed inside and out to maintain that image. This is done at the expense of his prospecting activity, a tendency of sale call reluctance® known as hyper-pro.

The nature and pricing of Judy's product requires that she make her first contact with the CEO of her target prospects. She's uneasy with the idea, so she creatively works her way through organizations by starting with purchasing agents, human resource managers and anyone else who will speak with her. She builds rapport with these people easily, yet somehow she fails to get in front of the owner or boss. Unfortunately, except in rare instances, only that person at the top can decide to buy what she sells. Judy has a tendency toward social self-consciousness, another form of sales call reluctance, marked by an unwillingness to contact people in higher socioeconomic levels and positions of authority.

Jack knows that his financial products sell best by educating his prospective buyers through free seminars. He watches the sales numbers of his peers climb as they present seminar after seminar. Despite the evidence, he continues to contact one prospect at a time to present his products one-on-one. His tendency to shy away from group presentations is the form of call reluctance® known as stage fright.

How to identify sales call reluctance

Fortunately, there are several specific steps you can take to address sales call reluctance® in yourself and/or your sales team. Use these tips first to find where call reluctance® may be hurting you most:

1. Look closely at activities for trends and tendencies – It's fairly simple to see an overall lack of activity. That could indicate any of several forms of call reluctance®. Check for specifics such as follow up on referrals. Lack in this area may reveal referral aversion, the avoidance of asking for and following through on referral opportunities. Some will often try to mask this condition by vigorously defending the position with statements such as, "Referrals don't work in my business/with my customers/in this industry."
2. Observe during the sales call – What happened when it was time to ask for the business? Did you or your team member shy away? Did you as sales manager have to close the sale? Avoidance of asking for the order is common, known in sales call reluctance® as the yielder tendency.
3. Check telephone prospecting activity – If "dialing for dollars" is important to you or your sales representatives, check on the frequency and quantity of calling. When you find low levels here, the telephobia tendency of sales call reluctance® is likely at work and will sabotage even the top professional with the most proven approach.
4. Use a sales preference assessment – A validated instrument can quantify specific challenges and suggest appropriate steps to address sales call reluctance® issues. It also provides a proof source to show members of your sales team, in an objective way, a comprehensive picture of those areas of improvement.

 

Overcoming the enemy

Once you've identified and assessed the problem, you're ready to take the appropriate steps to reduce and eliminate some of the sales call reluctance® present in yourself or your sales team. The steps you take depend on the specific areas requiring the most attention. Here are a few examples:

1. Over-preparation – One client using this instrument had a simple method to address this. He simply chased the sales representative in question out of the office after a certain hour of the morning. That prevented the seemingly endless preparation, which was taking the place of prospecting and selling activities.
2. Stage fright – Another client has made participation in Toastmasters International a requirement for members of his sales force. Practice in speaking to a group whose purpose is to help the speaker improve has helped even the most fearful become competent enough to look forward to group presentation opportunities. Overcoming this fear has, in many cases, led to breakthroughs in other areas of sales call reluctance®.
3. Yielder – Role playing, albeit one of the sales professional's least favorite activities, is often indicated as practice in asking the prospect or customer to buy. This practice can make it easier to repeat the behaviors when the real-world opportunities come.
4. Hyper-pro – Often the simple knowledge that this tendency hurts one's chances to increase sales results is enough in and of itself. In many cases, this is a good example where the understanding of the problem comprises more than half of the solution. The sales professional can take simple and immediate steps to minimize or eliminate the activities which take away from solid prospecting and selling opportunities.

Lets Win Together!

Rajeev Kumar | Head (EPM) - IT Solution Consultant.

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Are you using the 80/20 principle when measuring sales productivity?

Are you using the 80/20 principle when measuring sales productivity?

I  am a numbers gal. When I look at a report or request an online query and can see measurable results, I get a warm and fuzzy feeling.  When data is involved in decision making, I feel more confident.  But sometimes, even number driven folks like us, have to take a step back and consider activities and qualitative information- and feel just as good.

I was reminded of this important fact when I recently read the thought provoking, entertaining book, "The 4 Hour Workweek: Escape the 9-5, live anywhere and join the new rich" written by Tim Ferris, in 2007 (before the economy tanked). Tim walks us through his personal adventures of success & failure and financial ups & downs- adding his blunt, sometimes hilarious commentary.

One of the things Tom discusses is the 80/20 rule, also called the Pareto principle. The concept, which most of you know, is that 20% of activities drive 80% of your results. In some cases even 10%, drive 90%. (For Tim, if you can achieve 80% of results in 20% of your time, you can use the remaining 80% to focus on what you enjoy.)

Let's apply the 80/20 rule to your sales organization.

• 20% of your team members drive 80% of your top line revenue
• 20% of your customers drive 80% of your profit
• 20% of your sales activities drive 80% of your results

My guess is that most of you agree with these concepts. The 80/20 rule can apply to most situations. Then, why do we ignore this when it comes to measuring sales productivity?

Do More Calls = Higher Quota Achievement?

At one of my prior companies, we had one employee who consistently blew away his sales quota. Did he make the most calls? No. Did he have the highest phone time? No. In fact, he had some of the lowest, measurable productivity stats out there.

When asked about the reasons for his success, this employee shared that he spent a good part of his day completing research, creating his strategy and refining his approach. He also found that starting his contact with a well crafted email, worked better than a telephone call.

Although he was far exceeding his quota, his very low productivity stats, brought down the team average and the Regional Manager was questioned about why the team stats were so low. When upper management heard about this employee, their response was something like "if X employee made even more calls and spent more time on the phone, he would bring in even more sales for the business. That's why we pay him an hourly rate in addition to his bonus. He is a telesales rep- by golly. He should be on the phone!"

Ok.. does this make sense? If this employee begins making calls, just to make calls, he will spend less time on the activities that are currently driving his success. Ultimately, he may drive fewer sales and hurt the business and his own achievement of quota.

Conversely, I have seen many employees with the lowest achievement of quota, have the highest productivity stats. How can this happen? Usually for one of two reasons. The employees are trying hard, but not using the right approach or strategy. Perhaps they need more training or coaching.

The other reason, simply put, is if you ask for stats and reps can control them via a CRM system, you will see stats go up. Numbers like calls and phone time can be manipulated very easily.  (I remember one situation where a rep was dialing 1-800 numbers for retail businesses, then waited on hold, just to make her phone time look better. Thank goodness for database analysis and cross-referencing.)

Are All Selling Days Created Equal?

One other point I want to make is.. sales success is not the same by day of week or by hour of day. Every business, depending on their customer base, has more success at certain times and less success at others. You could probably say that 80% of your closed sales, come from 20% of your selling time within a particular week.

For example, if you are targeting IT middle managers, calling them at 4PM on a Friday is very unlikely to yield positive results. Many IT middle managers come in very early and leave before 5PM, especially on Fridays. But, calling them at 7AM on Thursdays may be very fruitful.

With this in mind, are you holding salespeople to the same levels of productivity, for all hours and days of week? Are you asking them to make calls on Friday afternoons just to make your stats look good OR are you investing that time in more fruitful activities, like sales training or team meetings?

And…

The moral of this story, is that anything taken to an extreme can go from good to bad.. asset to liability. Measuring sales productivity is important and expected in any well-run sales organization. But, as leaders, we need to consider the 80/20 principle and add some common sense and flexibility into our measurement processes. All Reps, like all Leaders, do not achieve results the same way.

Lets Win Together!

Rajeev Kumar | Head (EPM) - IT Solution Consultant.
...........................................................................................................................................................................

Disclaimer: 

This email may be confidential. Any distribution, use or copying of this email or the information it contains by anyone other than an intended recipient is unauthorized. If you received this email in error, please advise me (by return email or otherwise) immediately.

Ce courriel est confidentiel. Toute diffusion, utilisation ou copie de ce message ou des renseignements qu'il contient par une personne autre que les destinataires désignés est interdite. Si vous recevez ce courriel par erreur, veuillez m'en aviser immédiatement, par retour de courriel ou par un autre moyen. 

Este mensaje es confidencial. Cualquier distribución, uso o copia del mensaje o de la información en el contenido por otras personas distintas de los destinatarios esta prohibida. Si usted recibe este mensaje por error, por favor comuníquemelo inmediatamente mediante reenvío del mensaje o por otro medio.

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Your pre-call & post-call checklist

How well did your last sales call go? Did you achieve what you set out to achieve? Do you know what your next course of action will be with that customer/prospect? Do you have evidence that a real sales opportunity exists? 

Using a pre-call and post-call checklist is a very useful process when assessing the effectiveness of your sales calls. 

Too many sales people, however, invest too little time thinking about and planning their approach to developing prospective sales opportunities. Many sales opportunities involve a range of variables that need to be accounted for and acted upon if they are to achieve a successful sales outcome. 

Most of us do not work in businesses where you can get an immediate sales result from one contact only. There are often several steps to achieving a successful sale, and like a good chess player you need to think several steps ahead. 

So why leave your sales opportunities to chance? 

Showing up with little or no plan leaves you looking unprofessional in the eyes of the customer. And you can't afford that in today's tough and competitive market place. 

I suggest You you to use the following checklist to maximise your sales efforts. 

Pre-call checklist: 

Questions to consider before calling / Approaching on a new prospect or an existing customer: 

• What is my call objective?
• Who do I need to speak to in this business/division/partnership/family?
• Who is the key decision maker(s)?
• Who is a main influence(s)?
• What potential obstacles exist that will threaten the sale?
• What stage am I at in the sales cycle?
• How will I open the call?
• What information do I have?
• What information do I need to find out?
• What sort of objections emerge out and how will I handle them?
• What's my fall back position?

Post-call checklist: 

Questions to consider when reviewing your customer sales interaction: 

• Did I achieve my objective?
• What went right?
• What went wrong?
• What information did I gather?
• What evidence do I have that this is still a viable sales opportunity?
• Did I advance the sale to the next stage?
• What will be my next move?
• Who else needs to be involved in the process?
• What else do I need to do to progress the sale to the next stage?
• When am I next going to see or speak to this customer?
• What will be my next call objective?

It is important that you review each of your calls to determine how you went and how you could improve. This tracking process is important for two reasons: 

1. It allows you to determine where you are at in the sales process with that particular customer, paving the way for key action items.
2. It results in a process of continuous improvement, allowing you to continuously improve upon your prospecting skills as you review what worked well and what did not work well.

Remember everybody lives by selling something and only telling is not selling!

Lets Win Together!

Rajeev Kumar | Head (EPM) - IT Solution Consultant.
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