Grant Cardone - If You're Not First, You're Last - Sales Strategies to Dominate Your Market and Beat Your Competition

Again, do not call and talk about how bad the market is or tell a client that you’re calling because things are slow. No one wants to hear more of this. Be positive, be assertive, be in control, and be of service.

Now, let’s get into action. Pull up five clients from your database who bought from you in the first quarter of last year and make the call. No organizing, no coffee; just make the call. Don’t be scared, and don’t think about what you are going to say or what they might say; just go for it. The faster you do it, the less you will be intimidated! Remember, most of what you fear in life never happens. And if you don’t have five clients from last quarter because this is your first quarter, either find five from some period of time or identify those who bought from someone who previously worked at your company.

Always keep in mind that your purpose during this call is to offer clients solutions or improve their situation in some way. If you have a complete commitment to succeeding, surviving, advancing, and taking market share, then ask for a referral.

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Personal visits are the single most powerful method by which you will ever make contact with a client and are guaranteed to advance your position in the marketplace. It would take 10 phone calls to equal the outcome of one personal visit. I built my seminar and speaking business under the assumption that making personal visits to clients—who did not even know me—is the best way to grow a company. I was in Memphis one week and stopped by three clients to say hello after my seminar, something that has a powerful effect on both them and me. When I was building my first business, there were instances—frequent ones, in fact—when I simply wasn’t able to get an appointment to see someone. So I opted to make personal “cold” visits to make myself known. It was the scariest thing I have ever done, but because I wasn’t known and had no capital for advertising, it was the only way I could introduce myself and my company to those with whom I wanted to do business.

Establishing personal contacts is an incredibly effort-intensive action. It takes lots of guts, but it will help you develop skills that you won’t be able to hone unless you repeat them over and over again. This habit has had more to do with my personal and business success than any other approach I have ever taken. In addition to helping establish a client base, personal contact will elicit in clients a level of confidence in you that is not attainable in any other way. Master this skill and you will be able to care for yourself and your family and build a business anywhere .

Making personal visits can also help you overcome the fears and insecurities you might feel with regard to your abilities. It certainly did for me. It forced me to disregard many of the so-called business protocols that I believe denied me success.

The president of the United States does not become the president without making personal visits, shaking hands with those he doesn’t know, and kissing lots of babies. He or she is required to reach out—welcomed or not—and make contact at his or her own personal risk. Any successful politician will tell you that neither money nor speeches can replace reaching out personally and touching people. If it is good enough to make a person president, then it is certainly good enough for me. And believe it or not, you are running for president—president of your industry and marketplace. Okay, so it’s not a public office recognized by other countries. It’s a private office over which you have 100 percent authority and no one else to blame. There’s no congress or senate to appease. You are in complete control of your economy, and your approval rating is not an issue. There’s no media attacking your every move. You get your way in any situation, and you alone determine the conditions of your universe. As president, the personal visits you make to the people with whom you have done business before will ensure the health, solvency, and success of your administration.

I am not suggesting that you grow your business solely on making personal calls the way I did mine, because you likely have two things going for you that I didn’t: (1) your power base (people you know); and (2) your past customers. Use the power of personal visits with those two sources first before you start making cold calls, I will show you exactly how to most effectively do that.

My wife is an actress, and one time, after she returned from an audition that didn’t go well, I tried to console her. She responded by informing me, “You have no clue what it’s like to go on an audition.” I told her, “Sweetie, I understand. I have been on more auditions in my life than you and 10 other actors combined, with only two differences: (1) I call it a sales call; and (2) I was never invited.”

When you want something bad enough, you will do whatever it takes to make it happen—including ignoring social norms and acceptable behaviors in order to get your products and services known. The marketplace—particularly in a contracting market—will only reward those who are willing to do whatever it takes .

Remember: You’re going to use the information collected during your “checking-in call” on this personal visit. It’s not a cold call because these people are friends, relatives, and even former clients and contacts. There are a lot of reasons why people don’t make this call. One of them is that we are socialized not to go to extreme measures in order to get what we want in life. You and I are basically programmed to be reasonable and logical (suppressed in this case) rather than unreasonable, illogical (which is good in this case) and willing to do whatever it takes to create success. This is the main reason why people do not make their dreams come true.

The economy does not have to be in dire straits in order for people to have financial problems. You see proof of this every day. Economies, therefore, don’t determine success; your actions do. Economies don’t run people; people create and run economies. Individuals and companies suffer because they refuse to do whatever it takes . People suffer financially because they are unable and unwilling to get in front of enough people in order to promote themselves, their services, and their products. Have you ever seen a guy dating a beautiful woman who is seemingly “out of his league” and wondered, how did he do that ? Well, he was unreasonable and disregarded the things that most people consider important. And because of that, he got the pretty girl.

Personal contact is both the most effective and most feared kind of all sales calls. It is also the fastest way to separate yourself from your competition. You must be willing—especially during economic slowdowns—to take extreme actions in order to offset the pullback. Often, the action only seems extreme because people are conditioned to wait for something to happen rather than make something happen. I have never met anyone who doesn’t agree that nothing is more effective than personal contact when trying to sell yourself, your product, or a service. Since entire industries have become addicted to mass marketing and huge advertising programs, they have become dependent upon taking orders instead of creating opportunities. Advertising is ineffective during periods of contraction, however, as it becomes unaffordable and falls on deaf ears. Members of the public are only looking for products that will save them money with no investment! Full-page ads are put in the trash and never read. Billions of e-mails go unread everyday because they end up in junk mail folders. Personal visits, on the other hand, are cost effective, targeted, and a major way of differentiating yourself in the marketplace. They will get potential customers thinking about you and your company.