Several years ago I had the pleasure of meeting a new client who has also become a friend. His name is Reese Griffin. He is now retired, and was lastly a SVP at Boston Mutual Life. He's a born and bred southerner from Tennessee.
Reese came to us looking for Act consulting. He is a devotee of the product and has been for years. It runs his world and he's almost lost without it. I was impressed with how well he used it and how he made it a vital part of his every day actions. Often, when we were working together on various projects, Reese would share stories and ideas about a variety of topics. His down home, southern common sense style impressed me. He understands how to deal with customers and prospects and has great experience knowing how to be profitable and rewarded in daily interactions with people. His genuine love for dealing with people is infectious. His ideas and approach work not only for the sales process but for all dealings with people. I've learned so much from him reliving his journey with wonderful stories and anecdotal comments.
One day while we were working on a project, I told him now he was retired he should share his wisdom with others. His ideas are great fodder for blogs, podcasts, sales training and seminars. That germ of an idea grew into ongoing discussions and I'm now ready to start off this next venture with a blog series I'm calling Reese's Southern Wisdom.
The topics are concepts and tips Reese has learned over the course of his career that influenced him and led to his success. The ideas work whether you are a sales person trying to keep ahead of the game, or a small business owner dealing with every day challenges. All the ideas are either good old-fashioned common sense or topics taught in sophisticated sales training, but now morphed into Reese's way of thinking. I will interject some of my own thoughts into the posts as well - this will be a melding of a variety of ideas and how to implement them.
This first post is the introduction to what is coming over the next several months. To peak your interest, here's some of the topics, many in "Reese speak" which will be explained in each post. There will be interjections on how these ideas can be enhanced or implemented using Act to tie it all together.
1. Strategies to maximize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses. 2. Tangiblize the intangibles (true Reese speak) 3. Lombardi time 4. The power of warm calls 5. Columbo Style 6. What you wear and how you wear it makes a difference 7. What to do when you first walk into an office - (the Power of observation) 8. "How do you mean" - or finding out what the customer really wants (The power of listening) 10. "To be honest" - why you shouldn't be saying that 11. Understanding the type of customer based on personality 12. Using open-ended questions to get the right answer 13. Do it now
This series is going to be fun. I really look forward to people asking questions or responding with comments. There are all kinds of fancy, expensive sales training and people management courses on the market today. To me, though, many of them take it too far or become too impersonal. Dealing with people should be simple. Good old common sense works the majority of the time. We just need to be reminded of it periodically.