Shifts you must make if you want to score in this century
You don't always have to win, but you must score to stay in the game. In sales, scoring is getting more difficult. The defense (competition) is getting faster, smarter, shrewder. And the cost of playing the game not to mention the equipment is getting so severe that several teams have dropped out of the league (gone bankrupt).
Enter the millennium. The first day of the 21st century exploded with more new thoughts, concepts, visions, strategies and philosophies, and products than the mind can fathom. Every big company has been think tanking and product creating like mad to prepare for the new century. How are you preparing? What are you doing?
Look around, things are beginning to change from what was the "norm." All of a sudden, everyone is in everyone else's business. You can't tell the phone companies from the computer companies from the cable companies from the long-distance companies they're all selling each other's stuff and going for each other's throats. Cool. (Banks, stock brokerage firms and insurance companies are in the same bucket of glue.)
Your company, your products, and your co-workers are all in transition at the same time your competition is trying to bury you meanwhile, you are trying to succeed. It isn't easy.
How are you preparing to blast into the 21st century? How are you developing and keeping the winning edge? Well, if you've ever heard someone say, "Shift into high gear," you're close. Shift is the operative word. Transitioning from one way of doing things to another. Transitioning and shifting are very close.
Don't think of this opportunity as change people hate to change. It's not a new paradigm. I hate that word. It's so trendy kind of like balsamic vinaigrette. The word just sort of popped up, and now everyone needs a new paradigm or they're not in the groove. Be different don't worry about paradimes (sic) strive for paradollars.
The only thing you need to do is shift. Not new, not change, not paradigm, just shift. Just shift (transition) from one method of operation or philosophy to a better one. Not all at once just identify what needs to be shifted, and go for it little by little, day by day.
George Halas of the Chicago Bears was the first professional football coach to employ the "shift." He did it in the championship game against the Washington Redskins and won 62-0. It started a revolution. It wasn't a complicated shift just a few steps in unison to the left or right. Just enough to throw off the opponent (the competition, if you get my metaphor). Once one team started shifting successfully, others followed, until soon all kinds of shifts started taking place.
Now, once something starts to work everyone gets on the bandwagon, until one day K-mart starts to shift and you have to create a whole new standard, but it's still a variation of the shift.
Ten years ago there was a shift from typewriters to personal computers. Everybody had an opinion about what would happen, and there was a big hullabaloo about "this won't happen," and "personal computers aren't for the home" and now it's 10 years later. The "nay-sayers" are now either power PC users or penniless in the gutter. Or now they're nay-saying the internet.
How do shifts affect you? Well, if you didn't make the shift to computer, you probably can't operate your business.
Now, I'm not saying that you have to employ all these shifts. I am saying others are. You have a choice make the shift, or get the shaft. I have identified the minimum shifts to enter the 21st century flying, rather than dying.
What kind of shifts? All kinds. How many? Lots. Where's the list? Next week ...
O.K., O.K. here's a few to whet your appetite:
Shift from narrow vision to wide vision.
Shift from complacent to urgent.
Shift from not on the internet to everyone in your company on the internet.
Shift from getting business to giving business.
Shift from traditional to creative.
Shift from competing to positioning.
Shift from technique-driven sales to philosophically and relationship-driven sales.
Shift from satisfied customers to loyal customers.
Shift from the way you perceive you to the way the customer perceives you.
Shift from solicited referrals to unsolicited referrals.
Shift from "Have a nice day" to anything that's sincere.
Stay tuned...
Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of "The Sales Bible," and "Customer Satisfaction is Worthless, Customer Loyalty is Priceless." President of Charlotte-based Buy Gitomer, he gives seminars, runs annual sales meetings, and conducts training programs on selling and customer service. Inquiries should be faxed to the WBJ at (48-22) 646-0576 or
e-mailed to salesman@gitomer.com
