The Hardest Territory to Work … a story

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Transcription:

00:00:01 Hello and welcome to The “S” Word LIVE. My name is Renee Hribar and I am a sales strategist, TEDx speaker and author, and I am sharing with you today the secrets that make sales simple and fun. And today I’m going to share a story with you about… We’re going to rewind the tape. Back in the day when I was in the field as a local sales manager. And this story is about the hardest territory. You know, if you’ve ever been in sales or if you’ve been selling for yourself, maybe there’s an area of the internet or an area geographically that you’re like, Oh, that’s a tough one. That’s a tough territory. So if you’ve ever felt that way where maybe there’s a certain sector of your market or a certain area of your physical territory where you think, Oh, that’s a hard one. Tell me below in the comments. Whether you’ve ever felt that way or if you don’t want to admit anything, maybe you know someone who’s felt that way. So, you know, in the world of sales, we always say, you know, it’s all good, it’s all good. We can work in any territory. But certainly there is this one piece of the territories that we could find that might be a little harder than others. So let me share a story with you. So if we rewind the tape back to nineteen ninety-five because I was still working B to B and I was in Queens working Long Island City and I was a sales manager at the time, so I was, you know, in the office most of the time, sometimes out in the field.

00:01:34 This particular day, I chose to go out in the field with a new rep. She was wicked smart. She had graduated from Boston University, but been like D-One basketball. So like us walking around like I’m five nothing and she’s like almost six foot and in heels. It was funny. It was like Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger. That’s what we used to say. Anyways, another time, if you know what movie I’m talking about, “Twins” tell me below. If you’ve ever seen the movie “Twins” with Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Hysterical. That’s what we looked like going into businesses in Long Island City in Queens this day. So this particular new rep had been given this territory, and honestly, I thought it was a sweet territory. It was my personal opinion because Long Island City, If you ever been there. I’m sure a lot’s changed since I last stopped by. But the point is a lot of businesses there, tons of businesses layered on top of each other layered behind each other. But they’re not retail establishments. Now, at the time, we were working for a business that was the ideal easy business to walk into and lay down and like sign real quick. Seemed to be like retail businesses right? Now

00:02:45 this particular rep, she had going to BU, and she was wicked smart, you know, played for the basketball team, great girl. And I thought, I’m going to give her this territory. I mean, it’s going to be fantastic for her. And she came back just discouraged and she’s like, No. And I had my pep talk with her. We talked over her, we role, played her sales conversations, we role played all the pieces of the puzzle, sent her back out, still didn’t work. So I went out with her on the third day. And I mean, I can’t say she’s a stick to it of kind of girl. I mean, she not only put herself through BU. She had worked like as a waitress. She had done a telemarketing job to help put herself through college. This is back in the day before, you know, we wanted to walk out of school with all this debt, so she wanted to come out debt free and she did. She, you know, she was just a go getter, a go getter kind of girl. So the fact that she was losing in this territory made me feel like there’s something missing. There’s something off. And so since we were working with a client at the time, that was very retail driven. She was hoping that her territory would be filled with strip malls because, you know, when I say strip malls, I mean, like retail businesses in those outdoor malls.

00:03:47 Well, it’s not. Long Island City’s not like that at all. So when I went out there with her that day, we signed almost five thousand dollars in clients. It was awesome. She, I mean, because once she understood and this is what I want to talk to you about today, once she understood how to look at the business and how to have that conversation, oh, she was like, Oh, that’s what I do? It was literally one simple switch, and that hardest territory that she had to work were these four inches. So it was all about how she was looking at the territory because it wasn’t what she thought it was initially that subtle mindset shift that we were able to do together by simply me exposing her to another vantage point. Another way to look at the situation, she was able to not only go in with success, but continued success. I couldn’t pull her out of that territory. She kept wanting to go back and finish it up. She’s like, Wait, one more call. And so it was an amazing turnaround in literally an hour. What does that mean? Well, if you have a segment of your market or if you have a segment of your territory where you’re thinking, Oh, I don’t know, maybe it’s time to bring in someone to help you get that different vantage point. That different perspective so that you can identify if it’s really these four inches that are giving you the trouble because that territory, this gray noodle up here that truly is the hardest territory to work.

00:05:13 And when I first came into the online space, people ask me all the time, Oh, Renee, do you teach mindset or Oh, thank you for your mindset, exercise. And I had never used that term. That wasn’t a phrase that I had understood or been educated on. But now that I know what it means here in the online space, mindset is all about how you look at things, how you view the world, and one hundred percent you cannot separate mindset from sales. And so that is what I work on so often with my clients. So whether it’s me or someone else, my goal for you today is that you can look at what you anticipated as the hardest territory to work, and you can get an outside perspective so that you can look at it and shift that view so that you can get the results that you need. Because chances are, if you’re listening to this, you do know what you’re talking about. You are an expert and you just need that subtle shift to find the people that need what you have, today. It doesn’t take much. It can literally take a couple of hours. Happy Wednesday. See you soon.

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