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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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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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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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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I hear many people make excuses for postponing selling or giving presentations because they are concerned that they aren’t quite ready. Not being ready is a bad excuse for postponing success. The concern I often hear is that people don’t feel ready because they are worried their sales pitch or presentation won’t be perfect. Typically,…
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Whether you watched the Oscars or not, by now everyone has heard about the big mistake. The last and most important Oscar for best picture was awarded in error to the wrong film. By the time the error was caught and corrected, two producers of the non-winning film had already given their acceptance speeches, and…
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For those of you who regularly read my blog, I want to caution you that this article tackles some very real and sensitive topics. But I want to share with you how I have been able to use what I’ve experienced in my personal life as motivation, and how you can use even the most…
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In my last blog article, I discussed the fact that most distributors don’t really own a business, but rather, they own a job. The test to determine if you own your own business is if you can fly to Hawaii for three months and tell someone else where to send your check. The key words…
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In my last article, I discussed the No. 1 reason why most people in our industry aren’t rich. In that article, I stated that there is no good reason for people in our industry to make less than $500,000 per year income unless they choose not to. To some, that may sound like a lofty,…
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There’s one reason why most people in our industry aren’t rich. At the end of the day, the business we are really in is the “know, like and trust” business. That’s right. Our real job as industry professionals is to get people to know us, like us and trust us. It’s true if we are…
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