The long days of summer are over and soon children of all ages will be back in class. For the first time in nearly ten years the old Head Ball Coach, Steve Spurrier will not stalking the sidelines of Williams-Brice Stadium.
Perhaps I will be able to make the trip to Columbia – nothing like hearing Sandstorm in Williams-Brice – and see the new Will Muschamp version of South Carolina Football.
Personally, I hated September and going back to college. The only justification was that, as an athletic trainer, I got to be on the sidelines at all of the football games. I was able to travel with the team to Georgia, Tennessee, Maryland, Raleigh, Chapel Hill, Tallahassee, and many other great college football towns.
The annual ritual of standing in long registration lines and fighting crowds in the bookstore was a hassle. These days the ritual is more complicated because of increased student enrollments and the buying of technology gadgets of all kinds.
Life goes on, and not much has changed since I went to college forty years ago.
The outrageous antics, stupidity or criminality in Washington, D.C., or your state capital, whatever new techno-stuff is obsoleting its predecessor. However much the globe warms, gas prices bounce up and down, or whatever Kim Kardashian does or who even dies, life goes on.
It has only really been seriously disrupted a few times in America – the Depression, World War II – when some 16 million citizens were conscripted and consumed by the war. Entire industries’ factories set aside making things to sell to make weapons and supplies for troops, for about a month after the 9/11 attacks.
But by and large, life goes on. And that means people still need stuff. All kinds of stuff. People get married and have babies. They buy houses and furniture – maybe not as much today as a few years ago, but they still buy over 2 trillion dollars of stuff per year.
They still have the same problems today that they had last week, last year, last decade. People still get pregnant. The dog still pees on the carpet. The sprinkler system still breaks. The pool liner still rips and needs to be replaced. The cat still needs to get rabies shots, etc.
Life goes on as it has always gone on. This is the ebb and flow that you want to tap into.
If you want to tap into this ebb and flow and exploit the mindset of the customer my best sales advice is…
find out what their needs are and satisfy those needs with what it is you sell.
A piece of sales advice you should never forget is…
It is so easy to get caught up in what you sell and forget that it is not about what you sell, as much as it about what they – the customer – need. It is easy to get tunnel vision about your product or service and get caught in that little box where all you can see is your own perspective. Easy to forget that your customer, client or patient does not care about you or what you sell.
When I wrote my first book, I thought people would ooh and aah over it because I had spent so much time and effort producing a really top notch sales book choked full of great sales advice. Other than my Mom and a few close friends, no one really cares that I wrote a sales book. So, I get it: the existence of my book, no matter how “good” means nothing to anyone unless I make it mean something to someone based on their own self-interest, not mine. Selling insurance, HVAC services, consulting services, security services or anything else puts you in exactly the same space as your neighbor who is not in sales – namely that nobody gives a damn about either one of you.
Everyone in this world have their own interests which, for the most part, does not include you. That may sound harsh, but hey I am the guy who gives sales advice and tells it like it is not the way people want to hear it. And that’s the “Sales Psychologist” Big Lesson for Back to School Month. Get over you! And get into them.