If You Fail to Plan, You Plan to Fail!
Planning is a very important and easily learned technology. It has often been said that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. So true. But a real plan (and I define a good plan as one that gets done,) is not a list of to-do items. It is the creation of your future.
“THE SUCCESS OF ANY EVENT IS DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL TO THE TIMELY PREPARATION.”1
Excerpt from The Natural Laws of Management: The Admin Scale, Chapter 11, PREPARATION, Page 51
1 Hubbard, policy letter "Too Little Too Late"
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Goals Are a Luxury Earned Through Production
“While goals are vital, it is so much harder (and less efficient) to judge effectiveness by a person’s verbalized or even written goals than by what that person actually produces. One doesn’t often hear, “Boy, he sure can turn out a good goal.” In fact, too often goals are used as a substitute or excuse for production. Something has to come out the end of the conveyor belt of production and it shouldn’t be good intentions alone.
“Successful people do have very pro-survival goals and purposes. You can see the products of such people around you. But if good intentions actually exist, then they should manifest as valuable final products.”
The Natural Laws of Management: The Admin Scale
Chapter 4, VALUABLE FINAL PRODUCTS, Page 17
Ask Arte: A Question and Answer Period with Arte Maren
Question: When presenting my product or service in the sales process how can I best judge the prospect’s interest level?
Arte Answer: Judging interest level is a step that is done AFTER rapport (a connection would be another way to express it) has been established (without which actual interest could be submerged due to lack of affinity). In the Hubbard management system we refer to it as a “communication line” meaning there is a palpable connection from salesperson to prospect.
There are several steps to be considered BEFORE one is concerned about interest level. In fact, the interest level is CREATED by these earlier steps.
Having established a “comm line”, one must then determine, discover, and remove any barriers which are present due to prior poor experience with your or similar product or service.
Note well: You cannot get a valid interest level in your product or service if the actual/real interest potential is suppressed by a prior negative of some nature (which could be personal experience or negative word of mouth or rumor).
Having cleared the barriers, you may THEN begin to judge interest by determining WHY they might want the product or service AND to what degree. This probing section is where you are interested, not interesting. What is the prospect trying to handle or why do they feel they need your product? And, knowing what your product or service DOES handle, and handles well, search for their needs. How? By KNOWING the “ideal” for their area/industry/product or service within which they deliver. What would it look like if it was operating optimally (see chapter 22 “The Ideal Scene” in my book “The Natural Laws of Management: The Admin Scale” at www.adminscale.net).
When comparing your concept of the optimal condition for the prospects company or activity, you can then determine the area or areas most likely in need of your product as the comparison will reveal a departure from that optimal condition. You will then be able to more easily perceive a potential need and explore it for prospect reaction. And if it is proving fruitful, pursue it deeper with further questioning in the area. The rule here: Possible area of need? Dig Deeper.
Here’s an example of a huge amateur mistake: Prospect tells you they need the product or service because they are “not very good at explaining the product” and the salesperson then proceeds to explain how their product or service totally handles that and here is why…blah, blah, blah. When, in fact, through digging deeper for exactly WHAT troubles they have in “explaining the product” you may well discover that they have very poor communication skills as the real difficulty. Another possibility is they, in fact, don’t think the product or service is actually that valuable (real event in my sales career more than once). And there can be other possibilities such as they do know how to present but someone in their environment is invalidating their abilities.
So, how do you know if your prospect has interest? By determining, through the 3 steps indicated above, the most important reason for their purchasing your product or service—from their viewpoint—and THEN explaining why and how your product or service handles THAT.
When you provide the solution to a problem that the prospect knows he has but has not been able to handle, you are in positive buying attitude on the part of the prospect. When you discover A NEED THAT THE PROSPECT DID NOT KNOW THAT THEY HAD, WHICH IS CONTRIBUTING T,O OR ACTUALLY CAUSING THE UNDERLYING SITUATION WHICH THEY ARE COMPLAINING ABOUT, you are Golden. Done Deal. Wrap it up and take the order.
What about the “Close?” Oh, that? That comes NATURALLY and effortlessly when having done the above. It is simply Natural Law.
Arte Maren has 40 years experience in sales and administration and is the author of The Natural Laws of Management: The Admin Scale. For more information: www.adminscale.net He can also be reached at artemaren@gmail.com.
Copyright © ArteMaren, 2012. All Rights Reserved.
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Providing Superlative Service
A positive attitude on sales is important too.
Selling has a bad reputation. It’s come to mean, in some cases, “forcing something on someone that they don’t want and can’t afford.” That’s not selling. Selling has been a major force in the creation of American society. It’s been a vital link between the producer and the consumer. And the derivation of the word “sell” comes from an old English word sellen, which means “to get, deliver.” It’s the ability to place your product into the hands of the consumer on a rapid basis.
The whole cycle of a product and exchange can be viewed in relation to communication.
Excerpt from The Natural Laws of Management: The Admin Scale, Chapter 7 Superlative Service, Page 32.
The Natural Laws of Management: Delegate Does Not Mean Dump
It is supremely important that the executive concentrates on those activities that only he or she can do from his or her vantage point.
The effective action to ensure this occurrence on 
any regular basis is often short-circuited, made expedient. Functions that indeed do belong outside of the executive office, more profitably done elsewhere, are not formally delegated but unceremoniously dumped.
A “function dump” might well be defined as: passing off a function to another without having insured by direct observation or other means that the individual receiving the function not only fully understands its purpose and value, but in fact has demonstrated his or her ability to actually accomplish the function.
But, you say, “this takes time. It is so much easier to simply dump it”. I’m reminded of the old saying, “You can pay me now or you can pay me later”. You are going to put in the delegation training time and it is best to do it before you start, rather than after you have begun delegating–only to find that it is necessary to redo much of what you have passed on.
An executive conundrum to consider— why is it we never have the time to do it right, but we always find the time to do it over?
Arte Maren, Author of The Natural Laws of Management: The Admin Scale
