What is happiness? How does one really know when the point of happiness has been reached? How does one reach that point? Well, there are a million ways of questioning happiness. As little kids, we are told accomplishments, goals can bring us happiness. Yet, we were never told how to reach emotional happiness and so we turn to books, movies and friends. Very young we associate love with happiness so we tend to start looking for love in all the wrong places and in all of the worst types of people. As a girl, love is just scarce but we always believed that every guy was our knight in shining armor until we are left with a kid in our arms by the guy who promised us forever. Although, some of us are lucky enough to realize the truth staring at our broken hearts we tend to forget to thank God for allowing us to understand that love is not all that its made up to be. We are told that Cinderella’s story will happen for us and so we sit and wait instead of working and praying. For this reason, our lives will never amount to all that it was supposed to, and for that same reason we will always have broken hearts. But some of us are fortunate enough to find that one person who can mend our hearts, our wounds, wipe our tears and is patient enough to hold our hand and walk with us although we are imperfect. That person is sometimes the one we treat faultily, the one we ignore and do all sorts of things to and yet they are still around. Although the idea of happiness is a good one and we spend most of our lives chaisng it if it did not come from the right source it will never last.

Big Thanks to:          

  Baz De Rose : Nancy T., Shirley M., Martine S.

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Texas Shooting,Fort Hood
What is this world coming to when the people who supposed to protect us are  killing  just because they are due to be deployed.
This morning gunman identified as Nidal Malik Hasan, a military psychiatrist opened fire killing about 12 people and a lot of others wounded. According to sources he was upset because he was told that he would be going to Iraq at the end of this month.

Here are some of the sites with more information:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091105/us_nm/us_texas_shooting

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE5A454F20091105

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33678801/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

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“Prospecting is the work of the weak. My business comes to me”. Who dares to proclaim this type of arrogance and confidence.  I don’t recall any one knocking on my door to give me their business. It is true that, once in a while, a product or service comes around that people do stand in line for hours to get – like World Series tickets. This is probably not true in your business.

As a sales manager, it is necessary to develop a strong routine of developing sales leads and finding prospects.  Business cycles change and new customers replace the old, regenerate the new and refresh the sales process.  Hopefully, you have a prospect list to start from. This list usually can come from listing companies, the phone book, current customers, the Internet, networks or associations or from your old dead files (past customer that have not bought in years).  I normally use all of these methods to find prospects and then I go through a qualifying process to help narrow down strong possibilities for my products or service.  To qualify these prospects I ask the who, what, how much and when questions to who ever I can get a hold of at the prospects office. Once each account is qualified I try to take the next few steps to get me in the door.

I will call the prospect and try to set up an appointment. This sounds easier then it really is. I don’t believe in masking my true intentions to get me in the door so I try to pitch the value of my visit. I prepare an argument of why the prospect should see me and how I will help his business. I try to push some type of added value for them – actual savings to their bottom line, added value to their consumers, or I try to illustrate how my service is needed in their business. This call will basically setup an appointment or a disappointment. In case of the disappointment remember that sales is a numbers game. Some of the best batters in baseball are .300+ hitters (that’s 3 out of 10) and a great sales manager could do the same. The goal of the first call is to sell the customer on getting an appointment or creating some type of need for you and your product.

If success grants you the appointment then go to prospect prepared. If you sell a product make sure you have the proper samples, appropriate deals and order sheets.  Do your homework on the competition. How does your product measure up and compare? Show the dollars and sense of a deal in black and white. It is suggested by some that visualization the sales call helps you succeed. I use this technique and run through the pro and con scenarios. Go through all of the FAQ’s in your head – anticipate the questions and have the right answers. I want to stress at this point that I never recommend making things up as you go along. The sales profession has come a long way to battle those stereotypes and I can assure you that your competitor is keeping it factual. If you don’t know the answer the typical response would be “ I will get back to you on that”. Make sure you do. I actually plan this step out and keep my Daytimer handy (yes-I still write it down). When a “..get back to you…” question comes up – I stop the presentation, take out my Daytimer and write it down. This is done to help me remember and for effect. Of course, I do get back to prospects whether the deal closes or not.

Have yourself organized. This includes the sales presentation, the samples, the process, the close and the follow-up. Organization can go a long way to combat any negative feelings that may develop during a prospecting call.  It is always difficult to build repoire with new prospects but organization, professionalism and courtesy are the building blocks.  After all is said and done and you have come to the conclusion –ask for the business. If you don’t try to close it may not happen.  If you get the objections, the brush off or the follow-up call always be grateful to the prospect. A thank you also goes a long way to help build new business relationships.  Since I still like to pen things out, I do send a thank you card or follow-up note just so that don’t forget me so soon.

Ken Ninomiya has marketed and sold products internationally for nearly 20 years. He holds an Executive MBA from the Chapman School of Business, FIU and currently is VP of Sales and Marketing for EKN Links. EKN Links is a solutions company for domestic and international businesses providing sales, marketing, Public relations and business strategies. Ken can be reached at kenninomiya@eknlinks.com or www.eknlinks.com

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A while back  at work and was having a conversation with one of my colleagues and she told me that her bank just asked her to change her password and I told her to be really careful about that.  Good thing that colleague listened and checked back it was a spam and they have gathered all her email account information. By taking my advice she was able to contact the bank and close out the account.

Well now it’s not the banks doing it but someone is using FACEBOOK asking users reset their password. Well there is really no harm in resetting your password right? Wrong, once you open that email and try to reset the password a program will be installed on your computer and it will steal financial information from your computer. So, if you receive any emails from FaceBook asking you to reset your password please be careful.  

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Hey everyone, happy sabbath! Today I had the opportunity to be blessed with a story about an African Christian who wanted to live out loud for Jesus Christ and died for what it is he believed in. How many of us are willing to do that. What you are about to read is something that I hope can change your life as I believe it has changed mine. I pray in my heart that we all can learn to live out loud for Christ.

I am a part of the fellowship of the Unashamed. I have the Holy Spirit
Power. The die has been cast. I have stepped over the line. The decision has
been made. I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. I won’t look back, let up, slow
down, back away, or be still. My past is redeemed, my present makes sense,
and my future is secure. I am finished and done with low living, sight
walking, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tame visions,
mundane talking, chintzy giving, and dwarfed goals.

I no longer need preeminence, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudits, or
popularity. I don’t have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised,
regarded, or rewarded. I now live by presence, learn by faith, love by
patience, lift by prayer, and labor by power.

My pace is set, my gait is fast, my goal is Heaven, my road is narrow, my
way is rough, my companions few, my Guide is reliable, my mission is clear.
I cannot be bought, compromised, deterred, lured away, turned back, diluted,
or delayed. I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the
presence of adversity, negotiate at the table of the enemy, ponder at the
pool of popularity, or meander in the maze of
mediocrity.

I won’t give up, back up, let up, or shut up until I’ve preached up, prayed
up, paid up, stored up, and stayed up for the cause of Christ. I am a
disciple of Jesus Christ. I must go until He returns, give until I drop,
preach until all know, and work until He comes.

And when He comes to get His own, He will have no problem recognizing me. My
colors will be clear for “I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the
power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes..” (Romans 1:16)

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Prospecting for new business from your desktop.

Business is grown in just three ways – grow your existing account base, develop new revenue streams with new products or ideas or get new business.  All three options have their own positive and negative effects on a business but all three have to be considered in a slow economic times or when your business has reached a certain level of market maturity.

This article will focus on gaining new business through prospecting.  Each company has a set of key elements that bring its product or service to the market. These key elements are presented to a targeted group of prospects who have the need for your product.  Locating this targeted group can sometimes be elusive and the lack of new prospects will deter the growth of your business.  So how does a company look for new prospects?

The internet allows us an affordable way to do our own searching for prospects.  I have worked with a sales person lately who needed to open up 16 new accounts a year selling a high end hair treatment and shampoo line. The opening order cost for any new account was a minimum investment of $3,000.00.  After understanding who will use the product and I turned to the internet for some quick searching.  Sometimes entering a key word or description of the product will turn up hundreds of potential customers. In my first online search I came up with thousands of hits. I used a drill down technique for each search. By simply adding the word “Florida” after the key words and a comma, I was able to narrow the list down just to the specific targeted territory.

Another internet strategy I use is to enter a key word for who would use the products. In this case I entered “high end hair salons, Florida” and “hair salons and spas, Florida”. This resulted in another list slightly different then the first but added several hundred additional more prospects.  I also looked for competitive websites. There are times that a competitor will post their entire account list on the web – yours for the taking.

Now that we have some new prospect names – what do we do with them?  Here is where most companies, sales managers and sales reps fail.  It can be a daunting task to have 43 pages of new prospects. Where does one start? My first suggestion would be to go through the entire list and read the name, location and type of account they are if this information is available.  Often times it would be a good idea to share this list with your controller or “accounts receivable” person within your company to see if you can eliminate any deadbeat accounts. If you have a sales manager it might be a good idea to share this list with them also to see if there is any history there.  I would not suggest eliminating any names because you don’t like the area they are in or the name of their business. Remember, a good sales person does not make the decision for the buyer and one should never be quick to discount new business.

Qualifying the prospect is the next most important thing to do.  It’s time to make sure that they fit your customer type and that they will have a need for your product or service.  Go to their website and look around – you may find out that they already buy your competition or have a missing need to fill with your product. You can learn a lot about a company from an on-line search. I would also call them up. The first call is an exploratory call. If it’s a large company and you get the receptionist see if you can ask some qualifying questions to that first screener. Questions I have used are “Do you currently sell or use (enter your product or service hear)? If you get a yes, dig some more on the who, what and how much? If you get a “no”, find out if they ever tried to sell or use your products? If it sounds like a possibility for a customer, ask the screener for the person who is in charge of making that buying decision. If they can set up an appointment for that person do so on the call. There are times when you make one call and get to the decision maker immediately. In this case, I would recommend a conversation that starts off with “I hope that you can offer me your opinion about my product or service” and then get into some qualifying questions.

Close the deal. Not the door!

Contact us to

help your sales

team makes the numbers.

www.EKNLinks.com

Phone 1.954.558.9599

Don’t forget while we are prospecting to ask for referrals and leads to new business. Sometimes the next big contract comes from your last source of business. If you provide a valuable product or service and maintain a professional and courteous relationship with your customers-they will refer you to others.

Ken Ninomiya has marketed and sold products internationally for nearly 20 years. He holds an Executive MBA from the Chapman School of Business, FIU and currently is VP of Sales and Marketing for EKN Links. EKN Links is a solutions company for domestic and international businesses providing sales, marketing, Public relations and business strategies. Ken can be reached at kenninomiya@eknlinks.com or www.eknlinks.com.

By Ken Ninomiya, MBA, Professor

VP Sales and Marketing of EKN Links

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