Sales Lessons From Baseball

Baseball, I remember the first time I went to a game. Going through a dark tunnel opening up to w wide green field. This

was as good as it gets. The big leagues.

It’s about individual efforts and the team.

1) A baseball team is made up of individual players who know how to play together.
2) Every great baseball player started out as a beginner.
3) Every Major Leaguer started out in the minors
4) All Pros are coachable
5) Baseball players warm up and practice before every game
6) Baseball players learn the fundamentals until they are automatic
7) All baseball players go through slumps
8) All baseball players make errors
9) All baseball players LOVE the game

The down side

1) Very few baseball players make it to the big leagues
2) Very few baseball players can lead
3) Very few baseball players can hit a home run or get that clutch hit
4) Errors in judgment can cost you your career
5) Cheaters do eventually get caught
6) There is not prize for second place
7) For fans to be loyal to the team the team needs to be loyal to the fans

Larson Notes & Satire: To succeed in baseball or sales you need to believe not just in yourself but in your teammates, you have to believe you and your team will win. You need to believe in your coach and your leadership.

So ask yourself
Who are you playing for?
Are you a winner?
How much do you practice a day?
How much of you is in the game?
Where is your loyalty?

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-1294
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws

http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
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P.S. We make teleprospecting for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you sould add teleprospecting into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Larson’s ABC’s

A. Avoid negative people, places, things and habits.
B. Believe in yourself.
C. Consider all things from every angle and opinion.
D. Don’t ever ever ever give up.
E. Enjoy life now! Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow is yet to come. Now is all you have.
F. Family and Friends are the hidden treasure of life.
G. Give more to others than they give to you or more than you planned to.
H. Hold on to your dreams and don’t let anyone take them away.
I. Ignore those people who try to discourage you. Listen to wise council and not the black holes of life.
J. Just do it.
K. Keep on trying. It will only get easier. No matter how many times you get knocked down just get up one more time.
L. Love yourself so that you may love others.
M. Make it happen.
N. Never lie, cheat or steal.
O. Open your eyes and see things for what they are and the possibilities of what they could become.
P. Perfect practice makes perfect.
Q. Quitters never win and winners never quit.
R. Read, study and learn about everything you can.
S. Stop procrastinating.
T. Team work. Man is social not solitary
U. Utilize everything you can to ethically win.
V. VISUALIZE it
W. Win-win in all negotiations.
X. eXcellerate your efforts for the long haul and eXceed your eXpections not just for today but for every day.
Y. You are unique of all of the creations of God. Nothing can ever replace you so take good care of yourself.
Z. Zero in on your goals. All of them, work, family, health, education and spiritual.


Larson Notes & Satire:  It’s your life and no one can live it for you.


For the answer to your sales and lead generation problems call Larson & Associates at 847-991-1294 or email me at howard@larsonassociates.ws .  One call is all it takes.

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-1294
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make teleprospection for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 10 hours a week. Maybe you should add teleprospecting into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Cold Calling Builds Long Term Relationships

Even with the push of Social Media and Online Marketing, cold calling is and still remains the best way to go out and make contact with potential clients. It is the only proactive way to start a two way conversation with a prospect. Using every other way you need to sit back and hope the prospect actually picks up the phone, emails or sends back a business reply card. Do you have that kind of time? Now these are all great ways to marketing but if you add in a cold call follow-up in your marketing play your results will be 10% to 22% better.

In case you need more of an incentive to using the phone or picking it up and calling us here at Larson & Associates to do it for you, here are 5 successful ways to mix in cold calling into your sales and marketing attack.

1st. Clearly define your criteria. Get your program put together and aimed towards where you want to go. No brainer but how many times does it not happen. Sit down in a meeting with all your sales and marketing people and determine the base criteria for what is a qualified lead.

2nd Set an agenda to guide you through the steps to start a real conversation. A call without a direction is the path to a failed call. I am not saying use a script but know where you want to go to in the call.

3rd Be relevant to the person you are calling. Ask yourself these two questions. 1) What is the reason for the call? And 2) Is it relevant to THIS prospect? Don’t waste their time. Don’t waste your time.

4th Create a voice mail strategy. I believe in voice mail so much that if I take a project and the client says to NOT leave a voice mail, I might just not take the project. It is almost doomed to failure. A voice mail is a way to send out a mini advertisement right into the prospects ear. With a relative message you will warm up the prospect for your next try at speaking to them. And yes sometimes they call back and if they do 1 of 2 things are happening. Then need what you got or they are calling you to tell you to go away and don’t call back. Either way you win. In the first one you are one step further down the sales process. The other you can take them off your prospect list and you don’t have to waste your time on them anymore.

5th Integration of multimedia and multichannel marketing. Keep in mind the 3 legged stool. 3 channels work best. Cold calling can and will benefit from the use of multimedia, content marketing, social media marketing, direct mail and/or email marketing. You may go the Whitepaper and webinar route as well. It is about exposure and follow-up. You don’t follow up, don’t bother doing it.


Larson Notes & Satire:  Cold calling follow up is just the natural progression of the sales process.  Every product or service has a cycle and a natural progression.  A good well placed cold call only shortens the sales cycle because you get in and out quickly.  The key is to get in and get out without making the prospect angry. The fact that most of you reading this are B2B and the telephone is a natural way to do business it only makes sense to use it. Or if you don’t or can’t find the time or nerve to call prospects call Larson & Associates at 847-991-1294. One call and we back the rest of those scary cold calls and hand over those leads to you to finish the job.

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-1294
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.