Colleen’s Blog

Not all clients are created equal. Nor should you be compelled to treat them equally. There’s no law stating you must sell to everyone, or keep servicing clients that are the wrong fit for your business. It’s as fair to say that your business has outgrown some types of customers as it is to say that you have some customers that you should have never brought on in the first place. You know who they are!

After a week of touring ancient cities on the Rhine including visiting a good selection of castles, fortresses and churches, I discovered that I most enjoy them! They offer a complete glimpse into the way entire towns lived, the ways families came together and went about their daily lives, and how they protected their lives. One thing that came as a surprise was this: All castles have a single weak spot. There was only one penetrable opening in the castle that put the inhabitants at risk of enemy takeover. And, it’s the one spot with direct and open access to the ground below. Any guesses where it is? The toilet! Because the toilet was a simple hole in the floor with direct access to the outside, usually on the second floor and located over a hill, it created a vulnerable spot for the fortress. For this reason, the toilet only locked on the outside so you could escape quickly and lock the enemy out, and, was located in a highly trafficked room such as a dining hall so that if the enemy came up, there were lots of knights waiting to attack them! As I was learning about all the attempted attacks on the Marksburg Castle (the most well-restored castle on the Rhine), I got to thinking about sales teams. It struck me that all sales teams have a weak spot too. And while all teams might not have the exact same weak spot, identifying yours is the key to accelerating performance. In my experience, a sales team weak spot falls into 1 of 5 categories:

"Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits" - Thomas A. Edison When professional athletes are practicing, the word "hustle" gets yelled out by many coaches who want to get the most out of their players. It's true. Hustle can make the difference between an average player and a top producer. The same concept is applicable to salespeople. The word hustle reminds me of a salesperson I met a few years ago who had his sales go up 200% in a slow year for his industry. While his competitors were barely surviving, he was thriving. He attests his success to his hustle and outworking the rest of his industry. I decided to come up with a list of things YOU can do, regardless of your market, industry, or how poor the economy is.