Entrepreneurs: We'll Sleep When We Are Older

A week or so ago, I wrote a post in which I admitted that I work in retail at the moment. And that I am still in college. I know, publicly displaying those two things probably does not make me look like the most professional sales rep in the world. But it kept me honest, and I believe that honesty and integrity as a salesperson is more important how “big” you look. Full time retail does have some perks, specifically the ability to organize my schedule with some degree of flexibility. The only downside is that I am 100% location dependent in my day job.

I have to be physically at work when I am working.

So what? Well, that means that while I am trying to build up my little seed of a business idea into something remotely resembling a startup, I’ve got 47 hours (including transportation time) immediately cut from my available time each week. Factor in part-time school, and that brings the total to 54 hours that I don’t have to put towards my business.

The only thing I’ve really got time to cut out on any regular basis is sleep, so that’s what I’ve been doing. Bad idea? Probably health-wise. Yet at the same time, while I’m downing my 3rd shot of espresso during the work day, desperate for a much-needed jolt, desperate for a jolt and already anticipating another late night, I am excited. I’m excited that I’m building my network, turning a hobby I’ve loved for years into something that will be (hopefully) profitable, and working towards the future I envision for myself.

I’ll sleep when I’m older. I’ve got work to do now.

Get Your Sales Team Using Social Media: Customers Want to Deal With People, Not With Companies

I don’t understand why large companies create a single big Twitter account or blog that is named “@companyxyz” or “The Company XYZ Blog.” Usually these accounts end up just facilitating nothing but a long stream of advertisements and press releases, disguised in the form of tweets and blog entries. There is no hint whatsoever that an actual human being is behind these communications.

Customers don’t want to interact with companies. They want to interact with people.
Often companies are afraid to let individual employees publicly represent the brand, so a typical, misguided solution is to have a designated “Social Media Person” of whom nobody outside the organization ever knows the identity. Customers will not buy into this because they know that companies don’t help people. People help people.

Teach your salespeople, customer service reps, PR team, and anyone who has direct contact you’re your customers or the public the basics of social media. Invest in the digital communication skills of your team, and teach them how to use these mediums responsibly, but personably. Instead of one company blog, rotate the employees whose posts are featured on your blog page. Have several employees tweeting about everyday life at the company. Because nobody wants to hear what Big Company, Inc. thinks about *insert Next-Big-Industry-Trend here*. But they probably wouldn’t mind hearing what Bob from Sales thinks about what it means for them.

If your people truly are on board with your organization’s goals and passionate about what it does for its customers, you have nothing to worry about. But if you don’t trust your own people enough to excitedly represent your company on a personal level, then you have far bigger problems than social media.

3 Big Mistakes Businesses Make With Their Blogs

I can’t tell you how many businesses’ blogs are out there that were clearly only started because some “social media guru” told the owner, “Your company needs a blog! NOW!” While many types of businesses can benefit greatly from participating extensively in the blogging arena, lots of them get it completely wrong. Jeremy Griffin of Ignite Social Media even recently wrote a blog post giving detailing situations when social media is not the answer.
Here are some signs of doomed blogging strategies:
1. The bloggers do not respond to comments: Comments are there for a reason. They facilitate conversation and encourage discussion about the topics on the blog. They are a way for readers to give feedback, share opinions, and communicate with the blogger and other readers. Now, I understand that many blogs get a ridiculous amount of traffic and comments, so I don’t expect every single idiotic hater’s diatribe to be dignified with recognition. But if you are not responding to at least some of the relevant comments on your blog posts, readers (i.e. customers) will soon realize you really don’t give a damn what they have to say, and will go elsewhere.
2. The blog is purely an advertisement: This is the big offender. If your business has a “blog,” yet all it contains is an endless stream of updates about your website and testimonials about your products, potential customers will call “BS!” on you in a second. Successful blogs provide valuable, relevant content, and do it in a targeted, engaging way. Don’t get me wrong, I believe it is absolutely okay to occasionally tie yourself, your business, or your products into the bigger issues in your posts. But constantly talking about yourself and nothing else drives people away from your brand.
3. There is no visible person behind the blog: People want to communicate with other people, not companies. If you do not have regular bloggers with photos, short bios, and some actually personality, your readership and customer response will be lackluster.

What other bad blogging strategies have you seen? Is your company currently using any of these on their blog?

I Work in Retail, or Social Media Makes You As Big As You Want to Be

I work in retail.

There, I said it. I am a sales manager at the store level for a luxury home retail chain. For some reason, I excitedly tell all my friends and family what I do when they ask, but I have been very hesitant to tell complete strangers on a career website what my current industry and position actually are. Why is that?

I really like what I do. I don't plan to do it past the end of college, but it's fun and it's taught me a lot. I make pretty good money for a student. My job gives me a substantial amount of responsibility, but also gives me a lot of flexibility, too. I work a full time schedule, I have good health insurance, 2 weeks of vacation, sick pay, paid holidays and personal days, tuition reimbursement, and all the trappings of a “normal, adult” job. I have one-on-ones with my staff, biweekly management meetings, I complete sales reports and handle payroll adjustments when necessary. I do all of the things that your typical sales manager in most industries does.

So why did I not want to let this piece of my identity get out online for so long? It hit me as I was driving home from work, sipping a watered down Dr. Pepper from a Quik Trip convenience store: Retail makes me feel small. When I am participating in social media, I feel just as big as Kyle Lacy, Holly Hoffman, or Rebecca Thorman; my piece of the conversation is just as important and valued. However, when I contrast my relatively short list of credentials and accomplishments with those of the people I communicate with online, it is easy to feel dwarfed by these Gen Y giants.

As soon as I came to that realization, I was free. Free from tiptoeing around my words to sound “bigger” and “more important” than I am when I blog. Free from my own subjective self-judgment. Because that’s the beautiful part of social media: what you’ve done or haven’t done up to this point doesn’t really matter. What matters is what you are going to do now. And I’ve got big plans. Do you?

Blogging is Even More Important During Unemployment

TJ Wihera at Whys Perspective recently wrote a blog entry questioning whether Gen Y has an over sensitivity about blogging. The idea for the post was born after he witnessed a Twitter exchange in which someone scoffed at unemployed Gen Yers blogging about careers and business, and some Gen Yers then replied with offended responses. And this got me to thinking that the author of the original tweet, @AlexJMann, might not understand how blogging (and a history of it) can actually be even more important when one is unemployed. And then I thought, hey, maybe others don’t either.

So here is my short testimonial of how blogging can help you through unemployment:
· It can help you sort through your thoughts: Being unemployed, even for a short period of time, can wreak havoc on your confidence, your sense of self, and even your understanding of what your passions, strengths, and weaknesses are. Blogging provides a canvas on which you can paint your thoughts, organize them, and gain support and ideas from thousands of differing perspectives.
· It acts as a living resume: As pretty much everyone who has ever had to hunt for a job online knows, a one-page MS Word resume (and it should be ONLY one page) by itself is an incredibly tough way to impress anyone enough to call you back. However, if you have a blog to link to, recruiters can see your ideas and communication skills immediately. Additionally, regularly updated blog shows recruiters that you are actively managing your career, even in downtime. You will shine through as a superstar when compared with traditional job hunters.
· It is something consistent and positive when nothing else is: Unemployment is a scary, uncertain emotional rollercoaster. There are only so many jobs you can apply for in a day before you want to tear your hair out and scream from the lack of good news. Blogging makes you feel better because it is constructive. It exercises your critical thinking and writing skills, helps build your personal and professional networks, and is an outlet for the pent up stress inside you. Blogging during unemployment actually gives you the opportunity to publicly and honestly examine your thoughts on your work history, your industry, and your field without fear of any real backlash.

In short, I believe there is absolutely nothing wrong with blogging during periods of unemployment. I blogged through my short stint of unemployment earlier this year, and it was incredibly helpful. What are your thoughts? Does being unemployed disqualify someone from contributing to the conversation? Does a temporary lack of a job completely discredit a person’s ideas?

Is Your Weird, Stupid Business Idea Really That Weird and Stupid?

Do you have a fascinating business or project idea that you have never tried because you just know there is no audience for it? So many interesting ideas get squelched because their creators discount their value before they ever test them out. But with a little courage and curiosity, you might just find they have more value than you think.

Not too long ago, I tried a little experiment to test my writing skills and also my ability to think outside the box. I started a blog called GoblinStop.com, which married topics related to social media (one of my newer interests) with Dungeons and Dragons (something I’ve been doing for most of the last half of my life). This was purely meant to be an amusing diversion, as I thought there surely would be no audience for such an odd combination of subjects.

After the first blog entry gained me exactly 3 page hits, probably all of which were accidental, I started writing notes in Facebook with sample text and links to the site, and I even started adding images to each. I had also begun playing around with Reddit some recently, so in addition to forwarding others’ blog posts and articles, I placed links to my own entries on the RPG board. I even used Twitter a couple of times to link to posts. Within a month, I was consistently getting between 150 and 200 hits a day, and I even got offered a full time blogging job for a copy-writing company (unfortunately they couldn’t work with me quite enough on my school schedule, so I had to decline). I know this is small potatoes for many bloggers, but it impressed me that such a niche topic would gain that much of a following in just a month.

That little taste of success has caused me to seriously reconsider GoblinStop.com’s viability, and I have taken a little hiatus from the site to regroup and consider if and how I might be able to really turn this into something. It still might be a stretch, but now I have tested the waters a bit and I know there is a bigger audience than I thought.

And that’s what this post is all about. We tend to beat our own ideas to death before we ever test them out, coming up with seemingly endless reasons why they wouldn’t work. I’ll bet you can think of 50 reasons why your business idea would fail miserably, but how will you ever know unless you try it, even just on a small scale? The truth is that you don’t know if a market exists for your ideas until you share them with some people.

What business ideas have you had that seem kind of crazy/weird? What advice would you offer someone who is tiptoeing to the edge, getting ready to take the entrepreneurial plunge?

Learning from Other Sales People

A couple of weeks ago I was mentally brainstorming topics for posts as I meandered about Guitar Center (I know this sounds like an odd place to think about business writing subject matter, but trust me, I do some of my best thinking in Guitar Center). In doing so, I stumbled upon an interesting opportunity for eavesdropping. A 40-something man approached a seemingly time-killing sales person and began asking questions about a particular guitar that his teenage son was fiddling around with a few feet away. I immediately began keeping one eye and two ears on this exchange, breaking down the sales guy’s entire game, from product knowledge, to communication skills, to how long he paused to think before answering questions (unfortunately for him my analysis was not very favorable, but that’s neither here nor there). The point is that listening in on this situation caused me to project his selling behaviors against my own so that I was thinking about my own skills in relation to those of another sales person.

I think using one’s experiences with other salespeople to improve their own abilities is an excellent tool for success, and we all already go halfway there without even thinking about it. Much the same way that an actor cannot simply watch a film for the fun of it without subconsciously breaking it down and critiquing the acting, cinematography, musical score, use of light, etc., we sales people cannot be given a pitch without analyzing seller’s confidence, knowledge, body language, etc.

The trick is going that extra step, and actually taking our analyses and applying them to our own selling behaviors. Now that you know what you liked and didn’t like about another sales person, what can you learn from them to improve your own abilities?

Salespeople: Thinking Like Marketers Will Help You Qualify Leads

Target Audience is a concept which with marketers are intimately familiar. Recognizing which demographics make the best potential customers for your product or service is important if you intend to drive brand awareness. However, salespeople often are not always as savvy as the marketing department when it comes to knowing who is the best target for their efforts.

Oftentimes, we in sales will relentlessly chase anyone and everyone who even remotely looks like a prospect, just to find out after many months that they really never had any interest in our product anyway. In some cases, business owners and managers will let salespeople court them for a long while, just because they don’t want to be rude and just outright say “no.” Needless to say, this is a big waste of everyone’s time, and could be avoided if the salesperson had done a bit of preliminary planning on the types of prospects they were going to approach.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself before contacting decision makers about your widget/service:
1. What common traits do your current clients share? Organize a diverse sampling of your clients into different groups and classes that each have different characteristics. What common themes exist? What distinctions are clear?
2. Is this business experiencing enough growth to have a real, foreseeable need for what you offer? The need for different products and services depends upon the health and growth rate of the prospect. Is a doctor’s office seeing tons of referrals, and in need of a new automated phone system? Is the comic store on the corner expanding its volume so much that it could seriously use your inventory management software?
3. What is the most common client profile with which you see success? With what size company do you do the most business? What industries?

Just a little legwork can go a very long way when qualifying leads. If you take some time to determine who your best customer demographic is, you can more effectively manage your time by going after only likely candidates. What other steps/questions have you used in determining who your most qualified leads are?

So I'm a little over one week in to Operation Productivity, and things seem to be according to plan. I am writing to you from the darkness of 4:30 AM in Dallas; this morning is a little earlier than "normal" because I have a 7:45 meeting. I've been getting so much more done than I used to just by shifting my schedule back. I wake up in the morning and the first thing I do is either write or read, followed by going for either a jog or a hike. Then I take a shower and get cleaned up, and then take a bit of extra time for breakfast and catch up on my blog feed.

In addition to extra productivity in the morning, I have seen that I am enjoying a few other unintended advantages as well:

1. Energy All Day: I have just had a ridiculous amount of energy all day after waking up by 5:00 everyday. I hardly ever turn things down now out of a lack of energy.

2. Healthy Habits: I have been naturally eating better and getting more exercise as a result of my new habit. I didn't plan to do this; I just find that now that my body is on a more comfortable, consistent sleep schedule, I am not craving the junkfood I have come to know so well over the years.

So far, so good. We'll see where this habit takes me. I'm starting to think I don't want to end this after 30 days like I initially thought I would. This started as an experiment, but it's quickly becoming a life-changing experience.

Does Waking Up Early Actually Promote Success?

Are you a night owl? Do you wonder how someone else can possibly look so awake and full of energy in the early morning, when you are doing your best to drag yourself out of bed? Getting up early has long been extolled as a huge contributor to career and fitness success, so I'm taking 30 days of waking up at 5 AM to change my hibernating ways.

Turns out lots of people have been pushing the 5 AM wakeup time as a catalyst for success for quite awhile. Common-sense financial advisor Dave Ramsey has been saying for years that if a person can make themselves get up by 5 AM every day for a decade or more, they will very likely be highly successful. Lifehack provides tips to help you get into an early-rising routine, as well as some of the benefits of doing so.

On the uncommon occasions that I have to get up before 8 AM to head into work, I notice these people. Over-achievers. The extremely motivated. The "Highly Effective," as Stephen Covey would refer to them. Their clothes send a message of both influence and affluence. They are in fantastic shape. They are bursting with energy and ambition at 7 o'clock. Everything about them screams "I'm in control of my whole world." And I have often wondered, what are they doing that I am not?

Turns out it's pretty simple. Basically, it seems to be an exercise in discipline. In the rare instances that I get the idiot I stare at in the mirror to go to bed at a decent hour, and wake up by 5 AM, I find that I am super-ultra-mega productive all day long. And then that night, I am actually sleepy around 10 PM, which is great, because if I stick to it, it creates this never-ending engine of daily productivity. Based on my experiences with this, I am starting to believe there is less of a distinction between morning people and night owls, and the real difference lies between people with self control, and those without it.

And then I think, "I want to be a person with self control all the time, not just once every couple of weeks." So yesterday morning was day 1 of my 5 AM 30-Day Challenge. Every morning, I am going to get up at the same, dark-and-early hour, and make sure that use that early time productively, either with a workout, writing, budgeting, or something else useful. I hypothesize that this consistency will be very good for me.

Have you made a change to an earlier schedule? How has it affected your career success/fitness/life? Do you think this theory is full of it?

Being Careful What You Wish For Is Not Just A Saying

Ever made a career decision that didn't turn out for the better? Sometimes we think we know exactly what we want, until we get it, and then we realize that it's not at all what we expected. With frequent situational evaluation, you can make sure that you discover these mistakes when they happen, instead of months or years down the line.

A few months ago, I took a job that I thought was going to be near perfect for me. I was doing IT sales for a small, independent firm here in Dallas, and I was excited to finally be in outside sales rather than inside. However I quickly discovered that, while I have a passion for sales, my new industry was not for me. Here's the problem: 98% of the prospects I was chasing either already had sufficient systems in place or operated on such a small scale that they had no need for the products I was selling. I don't like to hard-sell or use pressuring tactics to get people to cave in and buy things they have no legitimate use for, and it was clear to me that this is what I'd have to resort to if I wanted to see any level of success. I knew within 3 days that this role was not for me, and I parted with my company amicably less than 3 weeks later.

Never in my life did I think I would leave a job so fast. I pretty much always give everyone a fair shake. Heck, I even give girls 2 dates to catch my genuine interest, because, hey, everyone has an off night. But ultimately I had to be honest with myself about my long-term career goals, and how spending my time in this position would contribute to them. And the reality was that it wouldn't.

Fast forward to today, 3 months later. I am now working in my previous industry, retail sales of high-performance kitchen equipment and cookware, as a sales manager and culinary coordinator of my store. I am having a blast in my new job, making as much money as I would have in the short-lived position, and gaining a ton of transferrable sales and management training in the process.

There is nothing wrong with second-guessing yourself. Frequent evaluation of the fruits of your decisions is the best way to help you make better ones in the future. Sometimes

Prioritization for the Hyper-Connected

Recently I made the decision to become very digitally connected. This was mainly a career decision, and I have treated it as such. I have been spending much more time with my blog, People Sales. I edited my Facebook profile to be a business networking tool, and to focus attention on the blog as well. I joined Twitter and have been building relationships with my contacts on it as well. I am currently building my LinkedIn profile, too. I even finally broke down and bought an iPhone, which has tied all my other efforts together into one big powerhouse of constant networking connectivity.

So far, my efforts are doing exactly what I want them to. My blog actually comes up on the front page of Google when I search David J. Dotson now (awesome!). I have had 2 job interviews in the past week when I previously went 2 months with only 1. My name and my ideas are getting out there to people I haven’t yet met personally. In short, a lot of things seem to be falling into place now that my networking engine is picking up speed. But is it possible to fuel the fire too much?

I’m very new to the hyper-connected lifestyle, so maybe I’m just in cell shock. But I already find myself constantly hearing my phone beep at me because someone’s tweeting, I have a new email, I have a new blog or Facebook comment, or (in a few instances) an actual missed call. I try to respond to everything relevant as quickly as I can, but the time adds up, and I can already start to feel as if I’m a little removed from what’s going on around me.

The biggest 3 questions I have been using to prioritize my responses are:
· Does it require my attention? Is this a comment, message, or opportunity to which I should respond, but is not urgent?
· Does it require my IMMEDIATE attention? Am I going to miss out on a chance to build a relationship or participate in something time-sensitive by postponing this?
· Is it relevant to me whatsoever? Is it just a tweet of an article or URL that, while it may be interesting, really doesn’t affect me or mine one way or the other?

So far, using these as a guideline for allocating time and responses to my contacts has seemed to help some, however I am still it out. Do you have any opinions or tips on how to achieve a good balance in one’s connectivity? Or should the Gen Y professional just accept that they need to be able to be reached at all times? Any other thoughts on the subject?

Do You Want to Believe?

What is it that you want to do? Whatever it is, you have to want it. Do you have grandiose hopes to change the world? Or maybe you just have a small goal you hope to achieve by 2 weeks from now. No matter what your goals are, and no matter what plans you put in motion to realize them, you have to believe with every fiber of your being that they are possible.

We often confuse dreams with goals. A dream is something that you wish would happen. A goal is an achievement that you are actively working toward. There is a lot of great writing out there about goal-setting (this post by Silvana Avinami is a fantastic example), but you aren’t going to achieve anything unless you honestly know deep within your soul that you can make it happen.
Here are some ways to determine how convinced you are of the viability of your goals:

· Write about it: It is easy for all of our thoughts to get jumbled into one big ball of Yes-I-Can attitude before you have really considered the ins and outs of your plan. If you simply start free-writing your thoughts and feelings about it, you will start to see some recurring themes that will tell you if some things may need to be addressed before you charge in full steam ahead.
· Talk to a friend: A close friend will tell you if your plans are viable or not. They know you well and can tell how much you really believe in what you intend to do. If you are being unreasonable, or are unprepared, you will certainly hear about it.
· Research, research, research: Find personal accounts from people who have set the same or similar goals and achieved them. How did they do it? What sacrifices and special plans did they have to make? What obstacles did they run into? How long did it take them? After finding all this out, measure your own tolerances and time tables against their experiences. Is it something you still want to put the effort into?

This post is not to discourage anyone from going after something they want. Just make sure that you really do want it before you put the blood, sweat, and tears into it. Because if you don’t want it, you won’t get it. Do you believe?

Don't Be A Sales D-Bag

Have you ever had the misfortune of meeting that sales guy? You know the one. That sales guy. The one who is always on his cell phone. The one who never gives you his full attention. The one who is loud, boisterous, obnoxious, and even rude. The one you don’t want to do business with. To be accurate, we can call him The Sales D-Bag. If you are in sales, don’t ever be the one I am talking about. Here are some typical behaviors of the sales D-Bag, and why you should avoid them at all costs.

• Making your private conversations public: I understand that we salespeople are trained to project, to be clear in our vocal communication, and to command the attention of our prospects. However, it can be easy to forget that, in a public setting, we must adjust our conversational habits. If you are in the middle of an office, or in public, you are not in the position to be making an effective sales pitch, so be considerate of those around you.
o Why you should avoid this: You are interrupting the work and conversations of those around you, and they will immediately be turned off by your lack of consideration. Disrupting your customer’s employees’ ability to work is not a way to keep their business.
• Name Dropping: When you walk into a customer’s branch office to visit and check on how your products are working out for them, the cute receptionist does not care that you were invited to her CEO’s luncheon. She likely doesn’t readily know the name of said CEO. You are not impressing anyone by knowing the names of the so-called “movers and shakers.”
o Why you should avoid this: Many of the people you are likely to meet or interact with on a client visit are not high-powered career types. Recognize that most employees of most organizations just want to do their jobs and bring home a decent paycheck. They don’t care about corporate politics in the slightest. So stop name-dropping and start providing value.
• Flirting with the staff: I had a Sales D-Bag from one of our suppliers come into my location the other day, and he shamelessly attempted to flirt with one of my directs. She was absolutely disgusted that he would try to turn on the charm in a business setting. Save it for the bar, jackass.
o Why you should avoid this: You will look like a jackass. The end.

Why is this all this so important? Sales D-Bags are one of the major reasons that the sales profession has such a negative reputation. We, as sales reps, are the constant butts of jokes on TV, in comic strips, and in many other media outlets, and we are widely distrusted by end consumers and business owners alike. My main mission here at People Sales is to improve that perception, and getting the Sales D-Bag out of sales is a great start to doing so.

Do you have any particularly inconsiderate, rude, or obnoxious sales people at your company, or companies you do business with? How about rude and obnoxious people in other departments?

Twitter For Sales Reps: Not Just For the Marketing Team Anymore!

The biggest social networking tool that people seem to be talking about these days is Twitter. Bloggers, business owners, and marketing teams everywhere seem to be jumping on the Twitter bandwagon, hoping to use the mini-blogging/text messaging service to connect with consumers, business customers, and coworkers. But what if your company is behind the times, and doesn’t have any desire to use Twitter in any official capacity? How can you, as a sales rep, utilize this unique tool to your best advantage?

While Twitter’s potential as a marketing tool is yet to be decided, there are a number of ways sales reps can use it to drum up business.
• Advertise Special Deals: Offering 10% off tomorrow on orders of a certain size? If you have any special deals or discounts coming up, you can make sure that your best customers are the first ones to know by tweeting about them. As long as your tweets provide lasting value to your followers, you will likely see increased orders almost immediately simply by being able to communicate with your customers.
• Quickly Take Repeat Orders: Your frequent repeat customers, who often have a regular order that doesn’t change much, can initiate the ordering process by tweeting you a short request message. This is an efficient way to take and fill orders that typically stay pretty static. Keep in mind that this approach is not going to be as effective if your products or services are highly customizable, as many of your customers’ orders may change each time they buy from you.
• Customer Referrals: Happy customers are some of your greatest marketing tools. Business owners who are very pleased with your service will tell other business owners who they know. Since Twitter is a potential breeding ground for viral marketing, you can use this to get organic, social network-based recommendations from your current customers.

These are just a few of the reasons I can think of for salespeople to be using Twitter to communicate with customers. How have you used Twitter to expand your business? Have you seen much success with any of these strategies, or others perhaps?

How to Avoid the Multi-Layered Hell of Multi-Level Marketing

Any young person who has ever conducted a job search in the sales and marketing fields has undoubtedly run into some (more like “thousands of”) ads for multi-level marketing schemes. For the love of all that is sacred and holy in this world, do NOT respond to these.

Multi-level marketing is by and large a get-nowhere scam that can destroy your resume for years after you remain duped by this idiocy. A stint in multilevel marketing looks absolutely horrible to future employers, mostly because it proves that you were naïve enough to believe you could actually get rich quick by recruiting other people, who recruit other people, who recruit other people, and so on, and so on.

So what is multilevel marketing? Where is the money made? Supposedly at some point an end user will buy the products the company manufactures, but the vast majority is made when one salesperson sells them to another salesperson, who then turns around and sells them to more new salespeople. The further up the chain you are, the more residual income you will supposedly get. In the past this has also been called a “pyramid scheme,” emphasis on scheme. Some of the big offenders on this list include Amway, Shaklee, and a host of other companies.
Here are a few things to look out for in order to steer clear of this scourge on the business world:
· Gratuitous use of the phrase “entry-level.” I understand a lot of you who are either students or fresh out of college might look at this phrase as a sign of a job posting for you. 9 times out of 10 what this really means is, “Dead End,” which is a proper descriptor for the multilevel marketing universe.
· Promises that are too good to be true. “Want to make $90-120K your first year?!! Be your own boss!! We give all-expense paid vacations to the Bahamas to our top reps twice a year!!” These phrases typically follow the aforementioned “entry level” phrase in the offending job descriptions. Don’t believe a word. Do you really think that someone is going to treat you this well during your first couple of years selling multilevel green health products? Don’t fall for this.
· Serious Inquiries Only!!! Most people think they are above average at their jobs, which is statistically impossible. This phrase plays on this anomaly, making everyone gullible enough to even give the ad 3 seconds of their attention the idea that they must be a “serious” candidate.

Does anyone have any personal experiences with the multi-level marketing world? I’d love to hear some horror stories? Or perhaps maybe you actually had a good experience? I’d certainly love to hear about those.

The All-Too-Often Forgotten Art of the Handshake

Manager Tools has an excellent podcast about the importance of the introduction part of an interview, which typically lasts for about the first 5 minutes of the meeting. I recommend this podcast to anyone who will ever go on a job interview (which is the vast majority of us) because it discusses real, actionable behaviors that you can address and incorporate into your interview tactics. While the entire episode is worth at least one listen, one of the most critical aspects of the interview that I think gets overlooked is the all-important handshake, and I think this is just as applicable to a sales call as it is an interview.
The handshake is the universal greeting of the American business world, and as such, you have an infinite number of reasons to want to develop a good one. Many handshakes are too flimsy, too overpowering, or just plain weird, and this is an immediate turn-off to a prospect. However, if you follow a few simple guidelines, you can start any sales call or meeting off on the right foot by delivering a fantastic handshake.
· Approach from the front: People don’t like to be surprised. While this is generally not an issue in a sales call, it is extremely important to remember at a networking event, a party, or just out on the street. If you are going to introduce yourself and go for the handshake, make certain that they see you coming. If you take care to do this correctly, they are much more likely to see your introduction as such, and not as an intrusion.
· Firm, but not bone-crushing: This is the most commonly flubbed-up part of a handshake. Grip their hand firmly; let them know you are there, but also ensure that your handshake doesn’t warrant a trip to the emergency room. The flipside of this is the flimsy handshake, which is what many people have a natural tendency to give. A handshake is a crucial part of your first impression. If your handshake is weak or timid, your prospect will assume that you are, too.
· Nothing weird or too casual: You know what this means. No coming into the handshake with a slap, no gang handshakes, no post-handshake bro-hugs, etc. I feel that if you even have to hear this one, you should seriously address your overall professional image, but I say it nonetheless. In short, don’t shake your prospect’s hand like you would shake your college buddies’ hands.
What other tips do you have for a great handshake? Do you have any experiences with particularly bad ones? What other advice would you give for someone to make the best first impression in an interview or sales call?

Updates Galore!

Good evening, folks! I made some updates to the site, some of which are immediately noticeable, some of which might not be. Here is a quick rundown.

Welcome to DavidJDotson.com!
The first thing you may notice is that you are no longer at peoplesales.blogspot.com. I decided it was time to move on up to the proverbial "East Side" of the Interhighway, so I purchased my own domain name. If you've been getting here from the old URL, you may have noticed you have been redirected. DavidJDotson.com will continue to be your resource for advice to steer you towards business excellence, with a focus in the sales field.

Twitter Updates
To your right, you will now see current updates from my Twitter account. I encourage you to follow me for insightful blurbs about business, sales, life, and anything else interesting I feel like sharing. I am determined to mine every bit of social media value out of this interesting little microblogging program, so if you are on Twitter, I would love to follow you as well!

Links to Blogs I Like
There are a lot of fantastic and relevant career blogs out there that I am a huge fan of. This section on the sidebar to the right is where you will find links to some of my favorites. Occasionally, you will even find non-career oriented links here as well, so long as I deem the content fascinating enough.

I do have plans for expansion of the site in the future, but for now, enjoy People Sales as you previously have, only now with these few minor upgrades.

Why You Can't Close a Sale, and What You Can Do About It

Do you know a salesperson who never seems able to close a deal, no matter how hard they try? They may be very outgoing, they may have more product knowledge than the engineers, and they may be tossing around discounts left and right, but they are missing out on some of the keys of selling in a modern market. Inc. Magazine recently had a good article that detailed a few critical mistakes that young salespeople often make. Here are a few more tips from my personal experience.

1. Shut up. Your prospect is the important one in any sales call. They should do most of the talking. Most communications experts agree that one key to building trust in any relationship is to listen before you talk. Asking open-ended questions and keeping a lid on it allows the prospect to share information with you, which a) creates a bond, and b) helps you figure out how you are best able to help this person.

2. Sell a relationship, not a product. The goal is to sell yourself and your company, not your product. If you engage your prospect as a human being, learn things about them (not in a psycho-stalker way though) and make realistic promises and always over-deliver (as a friend would), you will have a repeat customer for life.

3. Most great sales are a marathon. Sales are not a sprint. Strong business relationships, like strong personal relationships, are not made overnight. I find the most effective strategy is to start out small with a new customer, especially one who is timid about switching suppliers. Sell them something great and inexpensive, then call them after they’ve had time to use it and ask them how it’s working out for them. Inform them that, if there is anything they need, you are only a phone call away.

What habits and tips do you find useful when trying to make sales? Can you name any other mistakes people make when courting a prospect?

Pay Attention to Which Career Doors are Opening and Closing

So much of the career/money/business advice out there focuses on unwavering persistence and determination in the face of seemingly impossible odds. However, if you always seem to be swimming upstream when it comes to goals on one particular career path, maybe it is time to reexamine your priorities and your likelihood for success.

Last weekend I had a very relaxing getaway in Dallas’s friendly neighbor to the south, Austin, where my main purpose was to visit a couple of very close friends of mine. I was asking one of my friends about her current career interest (which she pursues very adamantly), because it is so completely different from the field in which she initially studied and worked. She told me that, in a heart-to-heart with her dad a few years ago, he advised her to pay close attention to not only the doors that seem to open easily, but also the ones that always seem to close. No matter how hard she tried, she never seemed to get anywhere with her first vocational choice.

This situation would seem unfortunate, but it actually made her reexamine her talents and interests (in addition to a number of other areas of her life), and ultimately led her to her current career, which she loves and excels in. I learned a lot from speaking with her last weekend. Most importantly, I realized that, while hard work, determination, and a drive for success are very important virtues, so are self-knowledge, humility, and having realistic aspirations.

When you are young and career-minded it can be so easy to get stuck in a one-track mind and not pay attention to the clues that life is subtly (or not so subtly) sending your way. Have you had a wake-up call that made you reexamine your career choices? Or do you think it is more important to pick a dream, go after it full-throttle, do-or-die?