We all have three blocks of time in our lives: YESTERDAY, TODAY and TOMORROW!
Yesterday is a canceled check. We can never get it back! Don't let Yesterday take up too much of Today!
Today is YOURS! Invest it wisely. However you use it, whatever you do with it, Today is a Down Payment on your Tomorrow!
Jim Loria, Career Planning Expert for Sports Professionals
Email address: loria@sfstampede.com
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
INSPIRATIONAL MESSAGE FROM THE AUG. 16TH PGA CHAMPIONSHIP!
Here's what we all should take away from Y.E. Yang's incredible play during the Sunday, August 16th PGA Championship.
Not only did he go toe-to-toe and defeat the world's greatest golfer in Tiger Woods and become the very first Asian player to win one of golf's coveted major titles, but he taught us all to REMAIN CALM UNDER PRESSURE, AIM HIGH and DO SO WITH A SMILE!
Jim Loria, Career Planning Expert for Sports Professionals
Email address: loria@sfstampede.com
Not only did he go toe-to-toe and defeat the world's greatest golfer in Tiger Woods and become the very first Asian player to win one of golf's coveted major titles, but he taught us all to REMAIN CALM UNDER PRESSURE, AIM HIGH and DO SO WITH A SMILE!
Jim Loria, Career Planning Expert for Sports Professionals
Email address: loria@sfstampede.com
Sunday, August 16, 2009
PERSONAL INSIGHTS TO SUCCESSFUL SALES!
* In order to achieve a high level of success, salespeople have to manage a multitude of different relationships. Some will be static, some will grow and some will break down. It is up to the salesperson to set relationship priorities and to decide which relationship to advance and which relationship to put on hold.
* Some salespeople get addicted to a relationship to the point that they ignore the potential for closing the sale; other salespeople get so addicted to the thrill of closing that they stop caring about the customer.
* It’s important to recognize that you have to alter your attitude according to the individual’s personal characteristics. Scan the prospect’s office for clues that reveal his/her personal interests (i.e. children, college, sports enthusiast, hunting/fisherman, avid collector, etc.) Say if your prospect has U/Florida Gators' memorabilia all over the office. From your notes taken, it’s nice to begin the next conversation with an opening comment like “Did you see the newest Sports Illustrated? Their College Pre-Season Poll lists your Gators #1 in the Nation!" This type of conversation relaxes your prospect to the point that they don’t view your purpose for phoning as a typical sales call!
* Speed up or slow down your rate of speech according to the prospect’s speaking habits but that “listening” is far more important than if you rambled on and just dominated the conversation. Remember that prospects will open up quickly to salespeople who understand and relate to them personally.
* I’ve read studies that say about 93% of your feelings and attitude are communicated simply through your body language and only 7% with words! The most common mistake you can make is to appear nervous be it by fidgeting, scratching your face, swaying side-to-side or even sitting in a slouched down manner. Your posture alone can communicate “insecurity”. Customers love to buy from confident salespeople, not insecure order takers!
* Just like dating, try not to turn your prospect into a “buddy” on the first meeting. Maintain a professional attitude and let the relationship develop naturally. As I’ve said many times, YOU SELL YOU FIRST! The product and the benefits comes afterwards! Sometimes a skilled prospect can detect a player from a pretender through the first glance and definitely by the first handshake!
Jim Loria, Career Planning Expert for Sports Professionals
Email address: loria@sfstampede.com
* Some salespeople get addicted to a relationship to the point that they ignore the potential for closing the sale; other salespeople get so addicted to the thrill of closing that they stop caring about the customer.
* It’s important to recognize that you have to alter your attitude according to the individual’s personal characteristics. Scan the prospect’s office for clues that reveal his/her personal interests (i.e. children, college, sports enthusiast, hunting/fisherman, avid collector, etc.) Say if your prospect has U/Florida Gators' memorabilia all over the office. From your notes taken, it’s nice to begin the next conversation with an opening comment like “Did you see the newest Sports Illustrated? Their College Pre-Season Poll lists your Gators #1 in the Nation!" This type of conversation relaxes your prospect to the point that they don’t view your purpose for phoning as a typical sales call!
* Speed up or slow down your rate of speech according to the prospect’s speaking habits but that “listening” is far more important than if you rambled on and just dominated the conversation. Remember that prospects will open up quickly to salespeople who understand and relate to them personally.
* I’ve read studies that say about 93% of your feelings and attitude are communicated simply through your body language and only 7% with words! The most common mistake you can make is to appear nervous be it by fidgeting, scratching your face, swaying side-to-side or even sitting in a slouched down manner. Your posture alone can communicate “insecurity”. Customers love to buy from confident salespeople, not insecure order takers!
* Just like dating, try not to turn your prospect into a “buddy” on the first meeting. Maintain a professional attitude and let the relationship develop naturally. As I’ve said many times, YOU SELL YOU FIRST! The product and the benefits comes afterwards! Sometimes a skilled prospect can detect a player from a pretender through the first glance and definitely by the first handshake!
Jim Loria, Career Planning Expert for Sports Professionals
Email address: loria@sfstampede.com
Sunday, August 9, 2009
HOW CERTAIN WORDS CAN WIN OVER A PROSPECT!
Sports Illustrated ran a piece during its recent August 3rd issue called "You've Got (Too Much) Mail".
It details a high school basketball prospect, Roberto Nelson, from Santa Barbara, CA. During SI's research into the story, they chatted with a few big name former high school stars seeking to find out what method of the recruiting process inspired them?
Before his Hall of Fame career, Bill Walton was considered one of the most coveted high school prospect in the country. In this story, Walton says he got his first recruiiting letter at age 15. It was hand written by a UCLA assistant coach and the last sentence stated "Make sure to focus on academics so that when the time comes you will qualify to live the privilege of being a UCLA Bruin."
The phrase, "live the privilege", is what stuck with Walton most and encapsulated his feelings about playing for Coach John Wooden said the SI writer.
Roberto Nelson was ranked in the Top 100 in the high school basketball recruiting class of 2009, Out of 2,161 pieces of recruiting mail sent to his home from 56 different NCAA Schools, the story says only Ohio State sent something that was perceived as truly "personal correspondence" to the prospect.
Nelson eventually chooses his college and accepts the scholarship offer from Oregon State. This particular school not once sent Nelson a piece of their recruiting mail. Like a good sales person, the school (Oregon State) met the prospect (Nelson) in person during the summer before his senior year. Then, followed up with four (4) phone calls to check in on the prospect and made one final visit to meet the prospect at his high school as classes began last September.
Moral of the story... don't just let direct mail be your total sales effort and or pump out e-mails without having first developed the relationship. Successful sales is like a dating relationship. You first prospect. Do your research on the client. Introduce yourself, be it with a phone call, a meeting at the office or a quick introduction at your (sports team) event or a chamber style mixer after work as examples. The key is to SELL YOU FIRST, NOT THE PRODUCT!
If there is a connection, ask for the second date. Here, you propose. Then, the follow-up process (do we schedule one more meeting; do we chat by phone or by e-mail to progress the discussions to a close?) Then, the marriage process takes over. Trust has been built. How do you follow through now? Do you ruin the trust or solidify it further? Do you keep things interesting or after the vows have beene exchanged, does your relationship go to rust?
Also, make note in the opening paragraphs that one particular prospect was sold on receiving a "hand written note" and a certain few words that ultimately connected him to his future school of choice!
Jim Loria, Career Planning Expert for Sports Professionals
Email address: loria@sfstampede.com
It details a high school basketball prospect, Roberto Nelson, from Santa Barbara, CA. During SI's research into the story, they chatted with a few big name former high school stars seeking to find out what method of the recruiting process inspired them?
Before his Hall of Fame career, Bill Walton was considered one of the most coveted high school prospect in the country. In this story, Walton says he got his first recruiiting letter at age 15. It was hand written by a UCLA assistant coach and the last sentence stated "Make sure to focus on academics so that when the time comes you will qualify to live the privilege of being a UCLA Bruin."
The phrase, "live the privilege", is what stuck with Walton most and encapsulated his feelings about playing for Coach John Wooden said the SI writer.
Roberto Nelson was ranked in the Top 100 in the high school basketball recruiting class of 2009, Out of 2,161 pieces of recruiting mail sent to his home from 56 different NCAA Schools, the story says only Ohio State sent something that was perceived as truly "personal correspondence" to the prospect.
Nelson eventually chooses his college and accepts the scholarship offer from Oregon State. This particular school not once sent Nelson a piece of their recruiting mail. Like a good sales person, the school (Oregon State) met the prospect (Nelson) in person during the summer before his senior year. Then, followed up with four (4) phone calls to check in on the prospect and made one final visit to meet the prospect at his high school as classes began last September.
Moral of the story... don't just let direct mail be your total sales effort and or pump out e-mails without having first developed the relationship. Successful sales is like a dating relationship. You first prospect. Do your research on the client. Introduce yourself, be it with a phone call, a meeting at the office or a quick introduction at your (sports team) event or a chamber style mixer after work as examples. The key is to SELL YOU FIRST, NOT THE PRODUCT!
If there is a connection, ask for the second date. Here, you propose. Then, the follow-up process (do we schedule one more meeting; do we chat by phone or by e-mail to progress the discussions to a close?) Then, the marriage process takes over. Trust has been built. How do you follow through now? Do you ruin the trust or solidify it further? Do you keep things interesting or after the vows have beene exchanged, does your relationship go to rust?
Also, make note in the opening paragraphs that one particular prospect was sold on receiving a "hand written note" and a certain few words that ultimately connected him to his future school of choice!
Jim Loria, Career Planning Expert for Sports Professionals
Email address: loria@sfstampede.com
Saturday, August 8, 2009
MAKE YOUR COMMUNITY PROGRAMS A WINNING PROPOSAL!
Going back to the mid 1980's when I was first a ‘baby’ in the sports marketing world, we developed a unique niche by packaging the team’s community programs to our sponsors, a practice that most businesses had never before seen nor been asked. Back then, most sponsorship proposals were about as vanilla as you could get, including the usual mix: a program ad, game tickets, a shootout promotion and a giveaway item.
We took life’s everyday jobs and integrated them into our partnership packages. We created special monthly fundraising events that brought our players out underneath from their helmets and uniforms and into the community with charity projects like "pumping gas", "delivering pizza", "waiting restaurant tables" and "bagging groceries" just to name a few.
I can remember once proposing to my local Supercuts franchise in Washington that we wanted our hockey players to “Shampoo Hair” as a benefit for the United Way. All we asked for was that the business would donate the entire $3 shampoo fee for every customer our players serviced. This piece of our package even brought a Supercuts corporate representative to town to meet because she had never heard of such a fun thing - athletes shampooing hair for charity? The event brought in tons of Moms & Dads with their kids to meet our players at a rather unique up-close experience! The event created such a buzz that our local ABC station led off its 6 PM newscast with the top female anchor getting her hair shampooed by one of my players!
Because we were aggressive with our community initiatives, this form of “Illusion 101 Marketing” sold the sponsors, many that might not have given our club consideration. While my mind was focused on the community slant, the realization was that “we were creating new retail programs” and separating those that bought into our club from their competition! Over time, the success of these events, lured more sponsorship dollars to the club because the involved partners could perceive unique value.
Every month, then and even today, the organization's I've been with have always created and managed charity fundraising projects alongside one of our corporate partners. Here is another example of how you can recruit new business partners through your team’s work in the community: Five years ago, we created an event called MALL GOLF and partnered this fundraising event with our local Home Builders Association and Shopping Mall. It was a first-of-its kind indoor community event designed around the popular game of miniature golf. This special promotion features "9" authentic course holes, each designed and custom built by my area's finest and most prominent home builders, and cost $5 per person to play. Just over $100,000 has been raised for local charities since the project’s inception and our club has gained significant sponsorship dollars and media attention as a result of this goodwill.
There are other reasons why we need to involve our team’s in the community: One, it teaches your players how to get involved, interact and communicate. Secondly, it enhances and shapes your team's "brand image” and most importantly, it allows your fans numerous opportunities to meet the players (whom I view as “marketing agents”). Your players, for example, can influence a customer quicker than any other form of advertising you may purchase!
I have seen that our work in hosting numerous charity events has engaged media coverage not seen before while helping our club step outside the sports pages and into the life and community sections of the local newspapers. NOT EVERYONE IS A SPORTS FAN so our community events have played a key role in our marketing efforts to get us on TV NEWS in the first 10 minutes so that we are seen by a wider audience that might not be aware of our product versus the 25-after-the-hour segment where the die-hard sports nuts might be the only viewers tuned in?
Jim Loria, Career Planning Expert for Sports Professionals
Email address: loria@sfstampede.com
We took life’s everyday jobs and integrated them into our partnership packages. We created special monthly fundraising events that brought our players out underneath from their helmets and uniforms and into the community with charity projects like "pumping gas", "delivering pizza", "waiting restaurant tables" and "bagging groceries" just to name a few.
I can remember once proposing to my local Supercuts franchise in Washington that we wanted our hockey players to “Shampoo Hair” as a benefit for the United Way. All we asked for was that the business would donate the entire $3 shampoo fee for every customer our players serviced. This piece of our package even brought a Supercuts corporate representative to town to meet because she had never heard of such a fun thing - athletes shampooing hair for charity? The event brought in tons of Moms & Dads with their kids to meet our players at a rather unique up-close experience! The event created such a buzz that our local ABC station led off its 6 PM newscast with the top female anchor getting her hair shampooed by one of my players!
Because we were aggressive with our community initiatives, this form of “Illusion 101 Marketing” sold the sponsors, many that might not have given our club consideration. While my mind was focused on the community slant, the realization was that “we were creating new retail programs” and separating those that bought into our club from their competition! Over time, the success of these events, lured more sponsorship dollars to the club because the involved partners could perceive unique value.
Every month, then and even today, the organization's I've been with have always created and managed charity fundraising projects alongside one of our corporate partners. Here is another example of how you can recruit new business partners through your team’s work in the community: Five years ago, we created an event called MALL GOLF and partnered this fundraising event with our local Home Builders Association and Shopping Mall. It was a first-of-its kind indoor community event designed around the popular game of miniature golf. This special promotion features "9" authentic course holes, each designed and custom built by my area's finest and most prominent home builders, and cost $5 per person to play. Just over $100,000 has been raised for local charities since the project’s inception and our club has gained significant sponsorship dollars and media attention as a result of this goodwill.
There are other reasons why we need to involve our team’s in the community: One, it teaches your players how to get involved, interact and communicate. Secondly, it enhances and shapes your team's "brand image” and most importantly, it allows your fans numerous opportunities to meet the players (whom I view as “marketing agents”). Your players, for example, can influence a customer quicker than any other form of advertising you may purchase!
I have seen that our work in hosting numerous charity events has engaged media coverage not seen before while helping our club step outside the sports pages and into the life and community sections of the local newspapers. NOT EVERYONE IS A SPORTS FAN so our community events have played a key role in our marketing efforts to get us on TV NEWS in the first 10 minutes so that we are seen by a wider audience that might not be aware of our product versus the 25-after-the-hour segment where the die-hard sports nuts might be the only viewers tuned in?
Jim Loria, Career Planning Expert for Sports Professionals
Email address: loria@sfstampede.com
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