Evening All,
Ask anybody who has a small business & you will find certain reoccurring themes like...ground hog day, spinning around on hamsters wheel...endlessness...
Yep...I have subscribed to them all...
When the ultimate boss of a client, who I already supply, approached me recently & suggested I fill his fridges with my fabulous sandwiches & salads (sale or return),"take the pain & it will happen" he said, genuinely & loaded with his experience.... I could feel my eyes filing with tears..".I've know the pain I said, I've been feeling it since I started"...& I knew in an instance from his eyes that he knew .. he too understood the pain.
That's the thing about being an entrepreneur....it's full of highs & lows. The biggest thing for us is that it's personal..my product, my work, my care, my love.....& that my dear reader is the thing we need to change...cos do you know what....to the customer ....it's only a bleeding sandwich or salad....
I'm working on that at the moment.I went out with my great friend Crona who is quite a lady, earlier this week.She started her own training company last year Hibernian Training (www.hiberberiantrainingcourses.ie). Crona worked for many years for James Farrell at PDL, they were not only colleagues, but friends, James was the ultimate pro when it came to the sales function, there is so much to learn from James....
Crona told me a story of how James having pitched through the public tender process for an existing contract, a contract he had held for many years & which he had put in a phenomenal amount of work for the tender. It went to a competitor...the training manager called James, "come in & I'll talk you through it ...go through your scores" ..."Nah..you're grand" James said....Crona was aghast....but hey...James' logic was spot on..."Listen it's a three year contract..it's gone...I know what we do, I know we're good, on wards & upwards...
N.E.X.T....
Us business owners need to develop a tougher skin..I'm doing that, kinda...We've gotta recognize the real opportunities and move quickly on when we know the potential sale is not going to become an order.
I'm excited about the future... Jan was a good month for sales & we were well up on last year, Business is good....really the only way is up !
Shirley x
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