It’s a difficult job and yet each day members of the world’s second oldest profession put themselves out there, braving the slings and arrows of a suspicious, cynical marketplace; providing humanity with product and service options and opportunities toward the buyers’ success. Where would our economies be without salespeople?

Salespeople would be the first to tell you that a HUG would be nice for a change. Therefore March 2012 will officially become the first ever International HUG a Salesperson Month. So new is this commemoration that Hallmark has no card, no coin of the realm has been struck, no postage stamps printed, nor tee shirts screened in its honour.  Yet postitive recognition of and reaction to salespeople is long overdue.

During March salespeople the world over will become the targets of positive attention. An armistice between buyer and seller will pervade and used car salesmen, the dubious icons of professional selling, shall be revered. International HUG a Salesperson Month shall usher in a new era of evolved selling, globally … an era of mutual respect and admiration between buyer and seller that proudly replaces the outdated, timeworn selling stereotypes with the image of  ‘trusted advisor’  in a true spirit of alliance.

Copy his logo. Request a j-peg or tiff file from Tangent Strategies and promote International HUG a Salesperson Month to your target audiences, to your local media. Include the logo it in all your corresponence. Host networking events in its honour and make it an even bigger event in your town, city and country every March therafter.

To salespeople and employers of salespeople the world over I leave you with this one caveat. The HUG  you receive should not be received lightly nor taken for granted. You are encouraged to live up to its intention and to earn it over the succeeding 365 days. The time for SELLING to evolve to a much higher standard has arrived.   

While an element of International HUG a Salesperson Month may be tongue-in-cheek it heralds in and promotes a more positive interaction between salespeople and their employers and most certainly between salespeople their prospects and buyers, those who receive their e-mails, telephone calls and visits each day.                   March is International HUG a Salesperson Month.

HUG one HUG all.                                                                                                                                                                                                      Long live the salesperson.

Some years ago I purchased a car from Bill at Jim Gauthier Chevrolet/Oldsmobile in Winnipeg. Bill greeted me graciously as I stepped through the glass doors of the dealership that morning. He asked me a lot of questions to get a sense of who I was, what I needed in a car and whether I was in the mood to buy. He answered all my questions. He didn’t push, pitch or promote he just patiently stuck with me offering advice as I requested it. We bargained good naturedly and I jokingly said that if he promised to have a bottle of my favourite single malt on the front seat of my new, black Impala when I picked it up, we had a deal.

On pick-up day my car was waiting for me, polished and resplendent in the showroom illumination, and there on the front seat was Bill’s kept promise.

One Saturday afternoon about a week later there was a knock at the front door of my home. It was Bill. He had come to inquire if all was well with my Impala. In his hand he held out a small box I recognized. It contained a Jeannie’s Cake the most famous cake brand in town and, coincidentally, my favourite. He thanked me for my business.

Every step of the way Bill had earned my respect and admiration. Over the year’s Bill would move between dealerships. He stayed in touch and I followed him.

Blair Singer, motivation speaker and coach had this to say in this quarter’s Motivated magazine. “I remember my first sales position. I was terrified to get out of my car and make a sales call. I was told that if I didn’t sell something soon, I would be fired. The next day I made 68 cold calls and sold nothing. But I won the biggest sale of all – selling me to me. I overcame my fear and re-established confidence through shear immersion and repetition, going on to become number one in sales within months.”  

“There’s nothing like the thrill of the hunt; the cold-call, a righteous pitch, lining up objections in the cross-hairs of my rifle and picking them off one by one; the close, the kill … the taste of blood.” The must-use line in your next interview for a sales job. You have to admit there is a certain romance to SELLING when you see it portrayed in these contexts. Like pirates on the high seas, these quotations stir the appetite for plunder. Don’t have the belly for it … you’ll be walking the plank.

The secret to selling BIG … to outselling your competitors in the twenty-first century is hidden deep in the wisdom of the words above. They are as telling in what they say as in what they don’t say … the treasure map for Evolved Selling.

Frequent tunover of sales staff … A dislike or fear of propsecting … Sluggish or diminishing sales … Long sell-cycles … Pursuing prospects for proposal decisions … High selling costs … Chronic discomfort with selling in general … the fun having gone out of selling.

Tangent’s relaxed ‘qualification-to-close’ selling model, known as Selfless Selling, eliminates stress, saves time and money, and increases sales, respect and admiration between buyer and seller. 

Tangent’s revolutionary selling concepts are taught at the SKAKUM  SCHOOL  OF  SELLING … through customized corporate classes … One-on-One Coaching. 

A TANGENT YouTube video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHosbHEdtGE&feature=youtu.be

Both share a need for better numbers … more robust bottom lines and each decides to hire one new ‘seller’. Both sellers have MBAs, ten years of selling experience, confidence squirting out of every pour, and their sell-skills and sell-numbers exceed both employers’ expectations. However both bosses while pleased, are blissfully ignorant of one fact. Both sellers’ numbers, as good as they are, could have easily doubled were it not for fear.

Virtually every salesperson fears selling. Many male sellers mask their fear with hubris, but masked or not, fear hobbles the most stellar performer. The Internet, populated with articles documenting selling fear, offers flawed remedies which consistantly miss the fundamental reason for this business handicap. Fear is caused by the self-serving INTENTION of traditional selling.

Few would argue that the reputed intention of our North American selling profession continues to be self-indulgence. Whether voluntary or enforced, sellers are reviled for their self-serving intention, which exists in stark contrast to the way most salespeople see themselves or wish to be seen. Worse yet, the most well-intention sellers are branded by the same unflattering, devisive reputation. The contrast between, and the misalignment of, a seller’s self-image and his/her public image generates fear … fear of intrusion and rejection on the seller’s part and fear of manipulation, confrontation and having to say “No” on the buyer’s part. None of these fears could take root were traditional self-serving  intentions replaced with selfless intention. Selfless intention places the needs and the welfare of prospects and customers first.  Sales close easier and faster.     

The indoctrination of Selfless Selling would ignite seller self-respect in ways that would immediately mitigate fear. Removing the obstruction of fear would revolutionize selling by rebranding it as a strategic ally to business rather than a necessary evil. Sell-cycle time would plumet and sales would skyrocket.

The best news … you do not have to wait for the revolution. You and your company can differentiate from your competitors, increase sales, respect & admiration today by adopting Selfless Selling.  www.skakumschoolofselling.com .

NOTE: There is a faction of professionals who do practice Selfless Selling. They are small in numbers but growing and they are almost entirely women selling to women in house-party settings. Jewellery, cosmetics, clothing. They are sympatico with their clients and none of the traditional fear exists in either camp. Learn from them.

“To create a learning centre of selling excellence … twenty-first century selling principles that recognize the most potent selling catalyst of all … the business executive … the men and the women who employ or manage professional sellers.”

“To teach the long awaited selling model that not only increases sales for the companies who adopt it, but does so in a way that earns a legacy of respect and admiration for the selling profession throughout North America.” 

The SKAKUM SCHOOL OF SELLING has introduced its revolutionary top-down approach to selling instruction and deportment because new selling principles are best adopted, supported and encouraged from the top down, yet business leaders rarely include themselves in sales training. Because it is so important that business executives learn these new principles first I have created an environment in which they will feel welcome, comfortable and inspired … a learning environment where they will be in the company of other business executives like themselves … exclusively a peer-centred environment.  

SKAKUM SCHOOL OF SELLING teaches Business Owners, Presidents, CEO’s, Sales Managers, HR Professionals and even Post Secondary Educators. It introduces a revolutionary selling model called ISRA, which increases sales, reduces field costs and increases seller morale. ISRA replaces today’s traditional, outdated ‘hunter/prey’ selling model, which savv, time-starved buyers reject  … with selling model that appeals to Twenty-First Century buyers. I call the model ISRA  … (Increase Sales, Respect & Admiration).

SKAKUM SCHOOL OF SELLING welcomes self-employed business owners and managers of the most modest companies to the CEO’s, Presidents and Owners of Fortune 500 companies.    

SKAKUM SCHOOL OF SELLING is … The Selling School, first and foremost, for business executives.

The Selling School for BOSSES.   JOIN US.   www.skakumschoolofselling.com   446-3995

Registration is $1500.00. Classes convene each Wednesday for 16 weeks from 7-9 AM or 7-9 PM … your choice.

In the spirit of Halloween and the start of the Christmas shopping season Cats and Tangent can’t think of a better time to invite this thrilling writer to make a personal, promotional appearance in YOUR store. Leverage Ms. Moloney’s celebrity and her bestselling horror novel, THE THIRTEEN, to create a powerful promotional event that will attract Halifax shoppers through your door.

Canadian-New Yorker, Susie Moloney has never visited Halifax and tells me she is so excited to be coming to our magical city. Ms. Moloney is arriving shortly after Thanksgiving.

Schedule a strategy meeting with Peter Skakum now to reserve a promotional visit for your store.   Call 446-3995 or e-mail peter@tangentstrategies.com

http://www.cbc.ca/manitoba/scene/books/2011/06/08/winnipeg-author-takes-horror-stories-to-new-heights/



Jay Forte, a nationally ranked thought leader and president of Humanetrics had this to say about women in the workplace.  “The biological feminine attributes of communication, consensus building, nurturing, cooperative spirit and empathy naturally predisposes women to business. Customers need salespeople who can sell on these terms. Even bestselling author and management guru Tom Peters, a product of North America’s once male-dominated corporate culture, recently asserted, “Women are better salespeople than men.”

It is important to clarify that the point of this vignette is to neither elevate the female predisposition for selling nor  denigrate males in this role, but to illuminate what the marketplace says it needs from today’s salespeople whether male or female. There has never been a more exciting, constructive and profitable time to become part of one of our planet’s most noble professions … selling.

The 3^rd ISRA secret: Deputize Your Competitors.

The traditional selling model most companies subscribe to today, disregards the real needs of prospects and customers. ‘Traditional selling’ encourages salespeople to sell anything to anyone willing to part with their money, doing whatever it takes to close the sale because quotas, commissions and  employers’ threats of dismissal leave them no choice. Are you one of these employers? The fastest way to alienate customers is to sell them things that don’t fit, that they don’t need or that don’t perform as promised. The fastest way to alienate your sales staff is to perpetuate a culture of fear and promote a mercenary selling philosophy. 

ISRA teaches that if your product or service line fits the needs of your prospect/customer … go ahead and close the sale. But if it doesn’t fit, then deputize your competitors. In other words, help your prospect/customer find the product/service that does fit, even if the sale has to go to a competitor. Offer to research the market on behalf of your prospect. Check out every alternate supplier until you find the Holy Grail. If you can broker the alternate product or service without having your prospect deal directly with your competitor, fine. But do not mark it up nor hide the name of the alternate supplier. Simply ask your prospect if she would rather you broker the sale at no added cost to her, or if she would prefer to deal directly with the other supplier.  

Sound counter intuitive? It’s not. Your customer/prospect will be indebted to you and respect and admire your selfless act of allegiance to her. She will not only sing the praises of your sales staff and company throughout the marketplace, but the moment she has an opportunity to do business with you again, she’ll be your customer for life.

For the first time North American salesprofessionals, sales managers and business owners can access live, one-on-one sales coaching with Peter Skakum on Skype.

Weekly, one-hour coaching is now available on a first come-first serve basis. Coaching rates are offered on a sliding scale of between $75 and $125 per hour depending on the number of coaching meetings scheduled per month or the number of hours scheduled per meeting. The meetings are TEAM FRIENDLY. There are no restrictions on the number of people sitting in on any given meeting. That means, for example, that a sales manager can have his entire sales team sit in on a meeting and have all their issues raised and questions answered. 

The new, affordable coaching service is payable on Visa and MasterCARD.