NOTE: This post will always appear at the top of the page as an introduction to new readers. The newest post in this blog will appear immediately below this one.
Welcome to the DROP DEAD Sales blog, and thank you for your interest. My name is Jerry Kennedy, and I am the owner of Inside Out Business Solutions, a sales and customer service training organization based in Northern California.
What is DROP DEAD Sales? DROP DEAD Sales is a technique that can radically change the direction of your sales career; more than that, though, my mission is for DROP DEAD Sales to revolutionize the way we do business! For too long, we have been acclimatizing ourselves to poor service in many facets of our lives: from rude customer service people to sales professionals(?) who won't return phone calls, it seems that the old wisdom that "the customer is always right" has fallen by the wayside. I, for one, have had enough! The time has come for the bad service to stop, and you can be part of the revolution!
Why do I call this method DROP DEAD Sales? People often question why I would use a phrase with such a seemingly negative connotation to describe this approach to selling; after all, who wants to have their sales career “drop dead”? Allow me to explain.
The idea for DROP DEAD Sales developed from an experience I often had, first as a customer service representative in the food service and banking industries, and later as a salesperson and manager in the petroleum industry. When I would encounter a particularly difficult customer, I would envision myself telling him or her to “Drop dead!” Of course, I would never vocalize this sentiment; I would merely play the scenario in my head as a way to purge the memory of having had to deal with that person. It was an effective way for me to just let the experience roll off my back and move on with my day.
As I matured, though, and began to undertake the work of improving myself as a person, I realized that picturing a customer interaction in such a negative way didn’t do much to improve my overall attitude toward my customers. I recognized that I was becoming quite a cynic, and I saw the need for a better way to relate to difficult customers. In fact, as this cynicism began to creep into other areas of my life, I saw a need for a better way to relate to everyone I encountered.
At the same time, I knew that many of my colleagues dealt with customer frustrations in a similar way: biting their tongues in front of the customer, then venting their anger once the customer was gone. While the specific words they used may have been different, the sentiment was the same: they wished they could tell those customers to “Drop dead”! Of course, this kind of reaction would often have a negative impact on their entire day, especially affecting the way they interacted with subsequent customers, co-workers and even family members.
I happened to be reading Anthony Robbins’ Unlimited Power at the time, and I was particularly intrigued by what it said about disrupting negative thought patterns. I wondered, “How could a person who really feels like telling a customer (or anyone else for that matter) to ‘Drop dead!’ disrupt that thought pattern and replace it with a new, more empowering one?” Then it hit me: why not use the words themselves and change their association from something negative to something positive?
Thus was born DROP DEAD Sales, a group of eight fundamental qualities that, once internalized, can help you to become the kind of salesperson you want to be. Specifically, DROP DEAD Sales says that when you feel like telling a customer to “Drop dead!”, you must immediately remember to treat him with Dignity, Respect, Optimism and Professionalism and at the same time work on developing within yourself the Desire, Enthusiasm, Awareness and Discipline required to do so.
While this approach to sales was inspired by a desire to improve my attitude toward my customers, I soon realized that these eight qualities go far beyond interactions with difficult customers and even beyond just customer interactions. In fact, this formula can change every interaction you have with every person you encounter for the rest of your life!
I hope you enjoy reading this blog, and I look forward to your feedback, comments and questions. For more information, you can also visit my website at http://www.inside-out-solutions.com/. Until next time, happy selling!
DROP DEAD Sales - An Introduction
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