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Quite a day
March 1, 2008

It is Saturday morning and I am still reeling from the day I had yesterday. In sales, it rains business about as often as Leap Year itself, so how beautifully ironic that the rain fell on February 29, 2008. Here’s what happened:

Late in the morning—roughly 11am or so—I followed through with an idea that I had been toying with for several weeks: To make a special offer of some kind on the 29th of February. I had tried to include GAM (the magazine that I write for), but the bureaucrats added that to the long list of things that “We’ll get back to you on, Bill” and so I moved on to do it myself (and once again reminding me why I work alone). What I was looking for was a product or program that I could sell for one day only.

What I came up with was a two-for-one special on the new audio training modules I’ve created. The first one was already “in the can,” as they say, and was entitled “How to Get Around Voice Mail.” It went up on the www.piamsc.com store a couple of weeks ago. On Wednesday of this week I recorded a second module, this one on Prospecting. I have the raw audio file but it had not yet been edited. So, putting the two together, I had my two-fer!

An email went out at 11am. Ten minutes after hitting “Send” the fun began. Orders were coming in at the rate of four a minute and if I wasn’t on the phone taking a call I was returning a message that came in while I was on the phone. This crazy pace went on all day and into the early evening (oh those Californians!). It was quite a day!

Along the way, I learned a few things:
1.    A long, long time ago when I first started selling stuff to printers, Dan Witte (then running the NAQP for Smith-Bucklin) told me that the price point for printers was $70. At $75 (the price I chose for my one day deal), I hit a nerve. Note to self.
2.    People are funny. More than one customer left me the following message on my voice mail: “Hi Bill, I want to order the “How to Overcome Voice Mail” module but I don’t like having my credit card on the Internet, so I will leave it give it to you now. The number is 3782….”
3.    People read emails on Fridays!!!
4.    Everyone learns differently. I have much the same material as what I sold yesterday in writing, deliver it live in seminars, and now have it in MP3 format for iPods.
5.    The best part of being in business for yourself is coming up with an idea, moving forward with it without the opinion, delay or burden of a committee and testing it out.
6.    Profit is good.

So, it’s Saturday morning and my 12 year old and I are off to our traditional Maddy/Daddy breakfast. Last night I treated myself to dinner at a friend’s restaurant. I declared myself to be the Salesman of the Week and wanted to celebrate. Ah, life is good!

Posted by Bill Farquharson on March 1, 2008 | Comments (1)