Brief of the
Experience and Qualifications of
My sales career began with a series of
successive failures at various “commission only” jobs. These included
stints selling vacuum cleaners (door-to-door), replacement windows,
frozen food, fund raising, and termite control.
In 1988, with a $1500 investment, I
started my own pest & termite control business. What began as a
part-time venture operating out of the trunk of the family car soon grew
into a solid little service business with over 600 annual accounts,
four employees, and almost $250,000 in yearly sales. By 1995 I thought I
had it made. That is until the IRS came knocking on my door. Years of
careless accounting practices had finally caught up with me. I was in
big trouble. The tax man told me they had a problem with my estimated
tax payment figures and he was sorry but the discrepancy was not in my
favor. The IRS proceeded to levy my bank accounts and freeze all of my
business assets. I was unable to pay my creditors or even meet
payroll. Feeling depressed and hopeless I filed for bankruptcy.
Another failure.
In an attempt to salvage something from
the experience I was able to sell my client list to a former employee. I
immediately invested the proceeds into one failed business opportunity
after another and by 1998 I was completely broke. The family car had
been repossessed and the bank was threatening to foreclose on our home.
It was a struggle just to survive. On several occasions the only food in
the house had been provided by the kindness of church members and
friends. Throughout all of my failures I had always held to the belief
that someday I would succeed. Now I was beginning to lose faith in that
hope. My thoughts seemed to be just a continuous recounting of my
history of failure. I slowly began to give in to what seemed to be the
obvious reality of my situation. I
was a failure. I could not even support my own family. I came
dangerously close to accepting failure as the final statement of my
being. Then one day it happened. I picked up a little book, started
reading, and it changed my life. The book was
Think and Grow Rich by
Napoleon
Hill. The author claimed that thoughts were the substance that riches
were made of. He asserted that
all riches began in the form of thought! He argued that
thoughts were the only assets I had that were also completely under my
control. He cited example after example of successful people who
overcame adversity and achieved extraordinary greatness simply by taking
control of their own minds.
I say that the book changed my life that
day not because it changed the circumstances I had created for myself. I
was still broke and unemployed. I still had no idea of how I would ever
get out of the mess I was in. My life was changed, not because my
situation had suddenly changed, but because I had begun to change my
thinking. I now knew that, although I had failed, I was not failure.
Although I had made poor choices, I could begin making good choices. My
self pity was replaced by a deep sense of responsibility to
make things right. I realized that this was not outside of my control
because I could control my thinking! I immediately set out to develop a
plan of action.
Back to Top
Preparation meets opportunity
My plan centered on finding a good sales
job in, what was at the time, a very tight job market. I recognized that
the market might present an opportunity for me because it was hard for
employers to attract and retain qualified people at that time. I decided
to market my skills and work ethic toward attaining the first
legitimate sales opportunity I could find. I was determined to make up
for whatever I lacked in education and experience in corporate business
to business sales, with hard work and perseverance. Soon after, a
placement agency I was working with told me about an opening in the
telesales department at Newcourt Financial, an equipment leasing company
about an hour from where I lived. Despite my weak resume, the
Department Manager had agreed to give me a telephone interview. The
Agent shared with me that this Manager had interviewed 27 candidates
already without hiring a single one of them. He told me that I should
call the Manager and leave him a voice mail message. If he liked my
message he would call me back to schedule the telephone interview. If
that went well, we would then schedule a face to face interview. Because
I was determined to have this position I decided to leave nothing to
chance. Before calling, I sat down and planned the call, taking care to
write out
exactly what I wanted to say and how I wanted
to say it. I then picked up the phone and left my message for the
Manager. Within five minutes he had called me back. He said he was very
impressed by the message I had left for him and wanted to speak with me
in detail about the opportunity. We spoke for another 20 minutes on the
phone before he asked me to come in for a personal interview. I prepared
for the interview the same way I had prepared for the initial call.
I imagined myself already in possession of the job and even
becoming the most successful salesperson in the company! Needless to
say, I got the job and within three short months I was indeed the most
successful salesperson on the floor!
The Importance
of Self Improvement and Personal Growth
My success was due mostly to careful
planning backed by persistent effort. My job was to call computer
equipment dealers and show them how leasing, and monthly payment
options, could help them increase their sales and profit margins. Years
before, in one of my failed sales jobs, someone had shared the old sales
adage with me that “success leaves clues”. That is, if you want to
become successful at something, find someone who is successful at it and
copy what they do. Wanting to emulate the presentation of someone
successful within the leasing business I asked my Department Manager to
recommend a mentor for me. He came by my cube a few days later with some
audio tapes on
The Art of Selling the Lease by Bill Greniari. Those tapes
marked my enrollment in Automobile University. I began to look forward
to my hours commuting to and from work because they provided time for me
to listen and learn from some of the world’s most experienced
salespeople. I felt that I was assimilating the equivalent of year’s
worth of experience, trial, and error from proven winners like Tom
Hopkins, Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy, and Anthony Robbins. I have come to
believe that this type of learning has given me a distinct competitive
advantage in every job, sale, or negotiation I have had since.
I didn’t know it at the time, but when I
listened to Steve Chandler’s
17 Lies that are Holding You Back and the Truth that Will Set You
Free, and later
Re-inventing Yourself, I was being equipped with the kind of
“ownership” thinking that would help me succeed at a time when most of
my co-workers were becoming victims of a corporate merger. Six months
into my new career in leasing it was announced that the company was
being sold. The buyer, CIT Group, would soon declare their intentions to
relocate our operations to Jacksonville FL. Within six months we would
all be unemployed. The ownership messages communicated in those tapes
empowered me to recognize an incredible opportunity within the same
situation where others saw only a devastating setback.
My
next incredible opportunity was at Monster.com. A highly profitable
Internet company, Monster was succeeding when other Internet businesses
were fading fast. I wanted to be a part of their culture and success. I
had heard that their compensation plan was weighted heavily in favor of
the overachievers and I was ready to make some big money. Selling
web-based recruiting solutions had been easy in the late 1990’s when the
job market was tight and unemployment was hitting all time lows. It was
still pretty easy when I came on board in May of 2000. Even working
Orlando FL, a territory primarily dominated by low wage, service, and
hospitality jobs, I enjoyed immediate success. The free ride ended
abruptly though, as the economy slid toward recession in February 2001.
Suddenly employers were tightening their belts, cutting recruiting
budgets, and putting hiring decisions on hold. Many salespeople
accustomed to only success were experiencing failure for the first time.
As summer wore on the market seemed to be getting progressively worse.
Many of our clients in the recruiting and staffing industry were going
out of business. None of us could have imagined what would come next...
September 11!
Because it relies heavily on travel and
tourism, Orlando FL was extremely hard hit by the economic effects of
September 11. Sales really started to slump across the board. I knew I
needed answers and I needed them fast.
Back to Top
Sales Process Management: the key to
thriving in a bad economy
Did you know that according to legendary
quality expert W. Edwards Deming, there is one critical but often
overlooked factor upon which success in almost any business depends?
Were you aware that your company’s ability to meet and exceed your sales
and revenue goals will be determined largely by your understanding and
ability to effectively manage this one thing? In fact, if this does not
receive your primary attention, it will almost certainly lead to
disastrous results including outright failure. Unfortunately, most
companies neglect it entirely, focusing instead on individuals and
performance issues while the real problem goes unnoticed and
unaddressed. Do you know what this important component is that can
either make or break your company’s success?
According to Dr. Deming it is your
system, or process. In this case, it is your selling process. Did you
know that regardless of how talented, educated, or experienced your
people are, or how hard they work at it, the tasks and actions they take
everyday, and the order and sequence with which they take them, can
make all of the difference between success and failure? Many of the
mistakes and failures blamed on people are really caused by processes in
need of improvement.
I learned this first hand at Monster
during the recession of 2001-2002. As the economy continued to suffer
the effects of recession, management focused on inspecting and
monitoring the individual performance of the salespeople. The
implication was that we were not making the necessary number of daily
sales calls. The resolution was to mandate ratcheting up the activity
levels on the floor. If we failed to make X percent more dials every day
we could be penalized or otherwise punished. Incentives were introduced
to reinforce and reward the required behaviors. Employee morale
plummeted. Salespeople expressed concern that management was unfairly
targeting them for blame. Management expressed concern that perhaps many
salespeople had been taking advantage of the situation during the good
times and didn’t really care about the company, or, worse yet, were lazy
and needed to be weeded out. As a result, the average number of daily
sales calls increased dramatically. The increase in the number of sales
calls did not, however, result in the hoped for increase in sales and
revenue.
During this time, my focus was on finding
something that would work to produce measurable results for me.
Initially I ratcheted up my activity levels too. In order to accomplish
this I began coming in early and staying late. After a few months of
this I noticed that although I was working harder and longer, and
sacrificing time with my family to do it, I wasn’t seeing any
appreciable return on my investment of additional time and energy. I
began to realize that I wasn’t addressing the real problem.
The market had changed dramatically while my sales process had
remained the same. I was doing the
exact same things I had been doing when the market was hot.
The only difference was that I was now doing a lot more of them!
I began to analyze how the
marketplace was different and to think about the changes I could make to
my own approach and how they might benefit me. Unwittingly I
was actually applying the Deming Cycle to improve my sales process. I
recognized that during the time the economy had been booming almost
every company seemed to be hiring. A salesperson could just pick up the
phone and dial a prospect (seemingly at random), and chances were that
they would be hiring or could refer you to someone who was. My data
showed that nearly one in three of my sales calls resulted in a lead. It
was a perfect market for making as many sales calls as you could
possibly fit into the day.
The present situation was very different.
Instead of one out of three I was now making almost 30 dials, on
average, to get to that one lead! Increasing my outbound sales calls by
the suggested 50 percent wasn’t going to get me to where I needed to be.
I would have needed almost a 1000 percent increase to come anywhere
close!
Another difference was that, during the
boom, I could approach a prospect and communicate the benefits of online
recruiting using very general terms and without needing specific
knowledge of their business or hiring plans. With good leads now so few
and far between, I realized I needed to approach prospects with a more
thorough knowledge of their situation, as well as specific, customized
solutions if I hoped to engage them in any kind of meaningful
discussion. Each lead was too rare and too valuable to risk losing on a
random, unplanned cold call.
I concluded that I needed to change my selling process from one in
which I was making more, random sales calls, to one where I was making
fewer, more targeted inquiries. Talk about flipping conventional
wisdom on its head! I couldn’t argue with the logic, however, and, after
some initial hand wringing, my manager couldn’t either. He agreed to
let me try out my new process.
The new approach began to yield immediate
results. I was now targeting only those industries that were still
hiring or that were at significant risk during the recession. I now
approached them only after having done my homework and gaining an
understanding of their specific situation and needs. As a result, I
found myself opening up far more new sales opportunities than anyone
else and my sales numbers went through the roof! In addition,
I started suggesting to my clients and prospects that the bad
economy was actually an opportunity for them to grow their businesses
and grab market share while their competitors were standing still. I
began to become intensely interested in helping my prospects identify
with the goals, dreams, and aspirations they had for their businesses.
We would then look for solutions and ways to help them meet or exceed
those goals. Sometimes these solutions included Monster products and
services and sometimes they did not. It really didn’t matter because I
had reinvented myself in the eyes of my clients and won their trust and
confidence. In doing so I had differentiated myself from my competitors
and created a huge competitive advantage. I was no longer just another
bothersome salesperson trying to take their hard earned money. They now
took my calls and carefully considered my recommendations and proposals.
I had become a trusted, valued business advisor and it was about to pay
off big!
In December 2001 I closed a sale, over
the telephone, for $308,000. At the time it was the largest single sale
in Monster Telesales history. The sale allowed me to surpass my income
goals for the year and made me the number one sales rep in the Southeast
Region for 2001.
2002 brought additional challenges as the
economy continued to be weak and hiring sporadic at best. Many people
who were once very successful gave up and left the company. I continued
to have more and more success challenging myself, my clients, and my
prospects to
focus on what was possible instead of what was not. The
approach consistently had me producing large sales and smashing quota.
In September 2002 I rewrote the rules for what was possible to sell over
the phone when I closed a deal for one million dollars! I finished 2002
as the
number
one sales rep in the entire company at 166% of goal,
with over $3 Million dollars in revenue. Once again I met and exceeded
my goal with $250,000 in personal income!
Back to Top
The Value of
Optimization
and Duplication
I began to apply the Deming Cycle to
every part of my sales process. First, I would
identify all of the activities I was engaged in
everyday and
measure the results of each. I would then look for ways
to
improve those results. I repeated these
simple steps over and over again;
continuously looking to identify inefficiencies and replace them
with new, improved ways to do things better. Often the improvements
would come as a result of talking with and observing other top
performing reps. I would identify what they were doing differently that
was allowing them to perform at a high level and immediately incorporate
it into my own selling process.
The result is a powerful process that you
can easily adapt to your own situation. The process allows for
tremendous and rapid growth, and, because it calls for continued
measuring and improvement, this process will work in any economy or
environment, industry, or company.
After increasing my income by almost ten
times in just a few short years it began to dawn on me that this had not
happened by accident or by sheer luck. I began to look back at the
process that had taken me from failure to success so quickly. I
recognized, at that time, that I had been documenting and measuring
details of my sales and non-sales for years while continuously testing
different approaches and comparing results. More than that, I had
identified and implemented the best practices of some of the most
successful sales reps at each company I had worked for over a ten year
period.
The result is this incredible selling process I am offering to put
to work for you! I was humbled to realize that all my success was
due to this process and not to me being some superstar salesperson. The
truth is that anyone could have accomplished what I had
accomplished if they had developed and followed this process.
From there I knew this sales process was
like gold! I began a small sales consulting firm helping clients
implement my process across their own organizations. The results were
fantastic. One client grew from six employees with modest revenue in
1999, to a sales force of more than 300 with revenues exceeding $3M per
month by 2002. Another client quantified a $4M dollar reduction in costs
for an International company using the
same system during the
same time period.
This approach produces measurable results quickly and can be
easily duplicated within any organization looking to establish a
world-class sales organization, drive sales and revenues, and lower cost
of sales, within a very short period of time.
I have been a featured presenter at
numerous sales training seminars since 2006. Teaching others the
principles behind this process and motivating them to become more
successful at what they do has been as thrilling an experience as it has
been my privilege to enjoy. There is nothing I love more than standing
in front of an audience pouring all of my energy, enthusiasm, and
passion into my presentation and watching people come alive as they
reconnect to their goals and dreams!
Back to Top
How My Consultative Selling Process
Saves A Small Non-Profit
When the
opportunity presented itself for me to build a sales department from the
ground up at Lifestyle Center of America (LCA for short), I jumped at
the chance. Not only would my process be able to help a small,
struggling non-profit realize financial success and stability but,
because the organization was dedicated to helping people restore their
health through lifestyle, I would be working to make a real difference
in peoples lives. This had been an important goal of mine from the
beginning when I had pursued training in the use of healthful diet,
exercise, and other lifestyle based approaches as a means to stop the
progression (and perhaps even reverse) chronic diseases like diabetes,
heart disease and obesity.
My
time as Director of Sales at LCA resulted in the biggest jump in revenue
in the history of the organization. This was evident from the very
first month (July 2005) when we recorded record sales—a 400%+ increase
vs. the previous July on our way to 60% year over year growth the first
year alone! This increase represented $1.8 million dollars in additional
sales dollars for the organization and allowed reduction of subsidy for
the first time in the nine years of LCA’s existence.
You might be interested to know that all of this success was
accomplished using the very same people who had been failing miserably
for years. Our close ration jumped from a paltry 2% to more than 18%
generating an exponential increase in sales of a difficult, high ticket
($7000 average sale) offering. As a direct result of our people being
able to close so many more sales we didn’t need as many prospects each
month to hit our revenue targets. This meant a decrease of 30% in the
net cost of sales or a more than $90,000 savings per year from our sales
and marketing budget.
Back to Top
The Next
Challenge
What about
your business? Could you benefit from a process that has produced the
kinds of measurable results you’ve just read about?
What about
your customers and prospects? Do they recognize and acknowledge the
unique value they get from you or do they see you as the same as
everyone else who does what you do?
And what
happens if the economy gets tough and your customers cut back on their
spending—will you have the answers you need to sustain growth and
profitability? In a market where sales will be harder to come
by, will you be able to continue to compete on value or will you be
forced to cut price in order to avoid losing sales to competitors?
I believe
that I’d be a valuable asset to your company in any economy. However,
with an economic forecast calling for recession, I’m confident that the
skills, experience, and proven selling process I bring to the table
could prove invaluable to you this year. I can help you win. I offer you
my passion, experience, and a process proven to increase sales
and grow your business regardless of what happens with the economy. I’d
like to invite you to imagine the possibilities and consider what can
happen when people with specialized knowledge and experience work
together in pursuit of a common goal. I'd love to talk with you about
it.
Click
here to schedule an interview
or call me at 817-776-5325
begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 817-776-5325 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
The Krajewski Family
Click to Enlarge
Back to Top
Home
I Resume
I
Bio I
Recommendations I
References I
Awards
I
Contact
Me
© 2009 GWK Rainmaker
