How to Fail in Sales and Marketing



How to Fail in Sales and Marketing image


IN THE BEGINNING
Juan the Group Manager woke up one Saturday morning. All week long he was looking forward to this day where he will do real recruiting and really start his business with his company. No other thing to do today except to focus 100% on recruiting. After finishing his breakfast, Juan looked at the clock – it’s 8:00am -  time to make those recruiting calls.


Juan hesitantly dialed the first number. Ring. Ring. Ring. No answer. Juan hangs up. They might still be sleeping. I shouldn’t probably call this early, Juan thinks to himself. “ I think the best thing to do first is to make some goal-setting for an hour.”
At 9:00am, Juan finishes his revised goal with all the clever and beautiful charts to show how much he will earn if he will have 10 people working with him who average 100,000 in monthly ICBI.  He also calculated how much he will spend in going to Paris when he reaches a superstar status in his business with Caritas.


But first, Juan has to recruit his first Sales Counselor.


At 9:01 a.m., Juan makes his second phone call. The line is busy. Relieved, Juan thinks, “He probably won’t be interested anyway.” Since Joe failed to get an appointment with his first two prospects, he decides to research his prospect list to see who else he can contact. While looking through his list, Juan takes the opportunity to divide his high-quality and low quality prospects.  Now that he has them organized, he writes all their names and pertinent data on index cards that even database experts would envy.


At 11:45, Juan begins to feel a little guilty that he has done everything but recruiting this morning.  He assures himself, “I’m not really afraid to talk to people or be rejected, I’m just setting up a foundation for a successful afternoon. As a matter of fact, I’m ready to go out now and recruit in a big way.”


As Juan gets ready to leave the house, he suddenly comes to his senses and remarks, “whoops, I’d better eat before I leave. Besides its lunch time already.”
At 1:00 p.m., Juan finally leaves the house and boarded a jeepney. But where should he go first? No appointments, no plans.

ATTEMPTING THE FACE TO FACE RECRUITMENT

Juan gets up his courage and headed to the mall to make some cold canvassing. His opportunity is good and the people he is targeting to talk to should be a perfect match for his opportunity.

 Mr. Shoemaker has a bunch of customers lining up in his stall, so Juan wisely passed him by. Mr. Handyman had only one person looking around, but if Juan would be rejected, the customer might think poorly of Juan and his opportunity. Mrs. Florist has a sour face, best not to stop and make her more upset. At the balloon store, only a young salesperson was on the floor and if Juan was to present the opportunity to him, he might be caught by the manager of the store and thrown out. Ah! Mr. Watch Repair was alone. Perfect opportunity for him! He cleared his throat and proceeded to present to Mr. Watch Repair. Immediately, Mr. Watch Repair took control by asking, “How much money is this going to cost me? How long have you been doing this? Who are the managers of the company? Can you show me your last 12 bonus checks?


Totally intimidated, Juan saved face by saying he was very busy and had another appointment. Then he quickly left.

At 2:20 p.m. Juan boarded a jeepney back home and sat at the back discouraged. He realized that his self-confidence was at zero , but he wanted to make more effort. Juan decided to drop a visit to his friend and make at least one presentation.


MAKING EXCUSES
At 3:00, Juan alighted the jeep in front of his friend’s house, careful not to disturb anything in the yard. From the street, Juan could see no activity through the front window. Since it appeared that no one was home, Juan said to himself, “Well, now is probably a good time to head home and prepare my leaflets. A successful businessman must have good marketing materials to succeed.”

Looking back, we may be like Juan in the story. After the initial excitement, we feel inadequate and sometimes afraid to recruit. In the next posts, we will be including ways on how to recruit which you may know or not know. You can go back again and again here to pick up recruitment gems along the way.

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