Turning on the Light…in Sales

It was early in the morning and I just needed to grab one thing in my closet.  The thing is, I had everything ready to go.  The bag was packed to head into the office.  The lights were off.  But I just needed to grab a sweatshirt.   I knew basically where it was because I just saw it when I picked out my shirt.  So I headed back into my closet to “quickly grab” this last piece of clothing.

In the dark, I felt around for the piece where I thought I remembered it.  It was a full zip, so I felt for the zipper.  Found it!  I began to unzip the sweatshirt in order to take it off the hanger…and it stopped.  This was only a quarter zip!  Damn…this was the wrong piece!

And there are I stood…in the dark.

Finally, I took two steps and turned on the light.  It’s amazing how fast I was able to find the sweatshirt I wanted!  I was just too consumed with doing it “really quick” so I was not using the tools that were right in front of me.

It’s absurd.  It’s stupid.  And those of us in the sales profession do it all the time.

We thrash around in a world where time is literally money.  We try to do it “our way” or the “old way” for entirely too long.  Meanwhile, our organizations arm us with CRM’s, blogs, websites, order management, email systems, and more.  They spend endless time and dollars to help us increase our efficiency and, ultimately, our sales.

And much like me, looking for my sweatshirt in the dark, we stubbornly keep thrashing.  We believe we are right.  We think it “will take too long to learn” and keep trying “one more time.” Folks…turn on the light.  Use the tools.  Take the time on the front to save the time on the back.  The tools are there to shine a light on your business.  All you have to do is flip the switch.

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Written by: Kirby Hasseman

Kirby Hasseman is the CEO of Hasseman Marketing & Communications. Kirby hosts a weekly Web show called Delivering Marketing Joy where he interviews business leaders from around the country. Kirby has published four books. His most recent is “Fan of Happy.” His book, called "Delivering Marketing Joy" is about doing “promo right” and is perfect for people in the industry and customers. He also wrote “Think Big For Small Business” and “Give Your Way to Success. All are available on Amazon.