Back when I was growing my original Proforma distributorship, I was teaching one of our newer sales reps how to conduct field calls. In my view, field calling is a lost skill. Sadly, in this day of email and voicemail, salespeople think they don’t need to get out and do field calls. I strongly disagree…
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About 25 years ago, we purchased a great 30,000 square foot office building on a beautiful eight-acre campus. Soon after, I met with the signage company to finalize the wording for our sign. At first it seemed like a no brainer that the sign should read “Proforma Headquarters,” but that wording didn’t align with the…
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Early on in building my distributorship to $20 million (I sold that business in the early ’90s to focus on our franchise model), I realized there were only four activities that would make me wealthy. Today at Proforma we call these the 4 Pillars of Success. Earn new customers. Sell more to current customers. Hire…
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Back in the days of building my own distributorship, I worked hard to secure an appointment with a large prospect in town. It took almost two years of diligent calling and following up, but I finally got an initial appointment. I was very excited about the opportunity. I did a great deal of work to…
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When we first started franchising Proforma in the late 1980s, most people in our industry scoffed at our business model. So, we reached out to people outside our industry to start building our franchise concept. In the late 1980s, there was no internet! So we relied on advertising in business publications and attending “own your…
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I started Proforma in 1978, just one year after graduating from college, in my Cleveland apartment with a $200 investment in a phone answering machine, stationery and a used file cabinet. We grew nicely in those early years. By 1984, we had grown to about $4 million in the Cleveland area. I decided it was…
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In my last blog article, I recalled a story from the early days of Proforma, and how a client’s request for 12 spiral rings led to earning a million-dollar customer with 50 percent gross profit. Here’s a story of another million dollar win. Back in those early years building Proforma, my practice was to get…
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Years ago when I was growing my small distributorship, I secured an initial sales appointment with the operations manager of a jewelry retailer with about 100 stores. I have little recollection of what we discussed back then during that first sales call. All I remember was that, after a seemingly good conversation, he asked me…
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In my last article, I mentioned that motivation doesn’t work. If it did, you would be halfway toward accomplishing all your New Year’s resolutions, right?! The only thing that really endures is discipline—discipline to do what we know we need to do when we don’t feel like doing it. The challenge is that discipline sounds…
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Let’s face it. Almost everyone wants to change something in their lives, right? Whether it’s their income, weight, relationships or bad habits, they hope to find the “motivation” to make the changes they want in their lives. But motivation doesn’t work. It’s actually pretty clear by this time of the year. We are six months…
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