Originally posted on Facebook HERE
I’ve been in sales for a long time now. Personally, I think we’re all in sales every day in some respect whether we think we are or not. We learn the art of negotiation at a very young age. Kids do it all the time. That kind of amazes me, how does a young kid even start with negotiating? Trying to get to stay up another ten minutes, or buy this for me, and I’ll do that… yet, almost every kid I’ve ever seen or been around is negotiating from a very young age. And it really never stops. If you want to get a job, you have to convince someone you’re the right person. Your product is you. If you’re into politics you’re trying to get others to see your point of view. We’re selling every day whether we’re in sales or not. People get turned off sometimes by the term “selling” I think because of the connotations that it has with someone trying to get you to do something you don’t want to do, or spend more than you’d like to spend. But we’re selling all the time, whether we like the term or not. And the best salespeople learn how to read people. You start to get a sixth sense about body language, and the “feel” in the room. And if you’re actually in sales for a living, you’ll see ebbs and flows, and trends in how things work. For example: the more you need a sale, the harder it will be to get a sale. You’ll push too hard. People will get uneasy. They’ll “feel” the tension you have when you need to get a sale to pay your rent. And, conversely – there will be times when things just roll right along, money is coming in, you don’t really care if you sell anything, and oddly enough – these are often the best periods. The old adage about sales is “chicken for dinner one night, feathers the next” because of the natural ebbs and flows. Years ago, when I was first playing with the band Road Trip, we had a short period where we only wanted to do 6-8 shows a month. So, we decided to raise our price and hold steady to the minimums, only taking the highest paid jobs. We started getting even more offers than we had before we raised the minimum. It was really strange, but we held tight to that minimum, and periodically raised it. Not sure what the cosmic implications were, but somehow only taking shows above a certain minimum created more interest and made it easier to sell the band back then. Often, when people try to ease up at work, get ready to retire, back things off a bit, it increases interest and more work naturally flows in with little or no effort on their part. It’s on my mind because I’m at the point in my business where I feel the need to limit the amount of clients I can work with, and make sure those clients are handled extremely well. So, what’s going on? The busiest month we’ve had in years. Murphy’s law of sales: “The less you need to sell, the more you’ll sell”. It’s Sunday, I have to go in today and get some work done. I worked yesterday as well. Those of you who follow my posts know I recently said I was going to back off working on weekends after working almost every Saturday for the past twelve years. I took three Saturdays off in a row (huge deal for me), then all hell broke loose. But it’s all good, things are rolling, help is on the way (new team member starts this month), and work, for me, isn’t a bad thing. I love it. It’s so quiet on the weekends. No distractions. I will be going back to taking as many Saturdays and weekends off as I can, but for now I have to work. Because the time I took off created so much business I can’t get to it all during the week. What a bizarre Catch-22. I still think it all boils down to one thing: when you back off a bit, when you’re rested, you’re also more in touch with love than anger, and that love flows through in all you do. People feel it. Want more business? Take a vacation. It’s Murphy’s Law 
