Fortunate Contest

In case you aim to acquire a digital camera at this moment, you ought to understand that you don’t essentially need to pay copious amounts. This is especially true if you’re somebody who is looking to own a camera in order to capture photos for later, and it is so since cameras that have basic features could be sourced at pretty inexpensive price-tags.
Discount Codes

One of the best inexpensive digital cameras is the Kodak-EasyShare-M381 priced at roughly $180. This camera comes with fairly good resolution and satisfactory zoom capabilities. It comes with a 3.5 inch LCD and viewfinder and a CCD .3″ picture sensor. If you’re looking at clicking pictures from close-range, then this is a worthy choice. With inexperienced people in mind, this camera boasts of a description for every ‘mode’ for the assistance of the consumer, as he or she can rotate the knob for the preferred screen-selection. dcmeuk2

Canon-Powershot-A470 is one more reasonably priced digital camera which boasts of a significant features list for its low cost of below $90. You also have preferences of choosing this unit in a number of colors, and the price-tag is certainly an aspect that appears great. Along with a 7.1 MP resolution, 4x ‘optical’ zoom and a 2.7″ viewfinder, this unit is a splendid buy at a cost that hardly generates tribulations with the finances.

The Sony-CyberShot-DSC-W55 costing around $210 is one of the best reasonably priced digital cameras available. This camera boasts of a variety of facets which aren’t there in a large number affordable cameras. The camera’s zoom aspect does function quite well, again considering the price-tag of the unit. This can also be felt about the camera’s image clarity. The lone hiccup is that you may not be able to open photos taken via different resolution standards.

In essence affliliate marketing resembles an auction. Your internet site features assorted items and for this, you receive a commission from every sale or lead. There’s less work, very few operating costs, it works twenty four hours a day, and even better, it’s relatively easy to pick up.

To start with, you must decide which items or niche market best suits you. To do this, determine what solutions to a given problem a certain market segment is suffering from, and then what solutions are available to assist them. An efficient way of accomplishing this easily is to look for specific extremely specific words and phrases; broadly speaking people search for these less, but they will convert far more into sales.

To find these crucial words and phrases, use Micro Niche Finder. Information generated by this computer program or analogous computer programs and software packages creates related terminology in an extensive list allowing you to get a good listing in the search engines and generate a lot of of traffic. Micro Niche Finder will in addition let you know how many searches each one gets, precisely how many different internet sites who exploit them, and how successful those web sites are. Last but not least, the data produced can help determine appropriate domains, subject matter for your web site, and even identify the best merchandise to market.

The next step is to construct a website; however there are still crucial things to do. Having the best placing on web based search engines requires the optimization of your site. Here SEO Elite information become helpful. Competing web sites are examined by the software which then provides advice on how to improve search engine performance.

With SEO Elite the data generated by the computer software indicates where you should look for pertinent links, what words and phrases to focus on, and details on where to submit articles. In short, Seo Elite information is similar to the advice you would get from a skilled SEO professional. Once you know which market segment you want to sell in, set up some advertising, and your internet site has been completed, then you are ready to get your site up in the search results. You’ll pick up a steady pay check and wonder why you did not think of this sooner!

If you have a sales pitch to drive home at work you must study a few simple principles that will help you to produce a more effective expose. Once you have got the hang of these ideas, you will rapidly be able to present more and more talks with greater ease and impact. You might even start looking for chances to give talks.

Script out the story board for your talk and then work out what visible clues you can use to signpost your talk. Don’t over do it with PowerPoint. remember to mark on your cards the visual aids that go with them so that the right OHP or slide is shown at the right time.

Work out how you are going to use your voice. You may even listen to voiceovers artists to work out how you might make yourself sound even better. There are plenty of great voice-over talents out there. Pay attention to how your voice sounds when you talk. Figure out what and how mortals do to make them sound good on the telly.

Listen to the radio set, as you can frequently find that the voiceover artist they have are well directed. Many of them have gone to voice over workshops and they know what they have to do to make themselves sound clear.

You have to look pleasant and sound good. So make sure that you are dressed smartly for your talk. Don’t be distracting by your appearance - either because you look too superb or too bad. It would be a real disgrace to get yourself all prepared to sound smashing, if nobody heard to you because you looked a mess or too hot.

Also pay tending to your body language as often the content that you drive home has more to do with the non verbal clues thant the verbal aspects of your message delivery.

This type of marketing resembles an auction website. Your website pushes merchandise in return, you receive a commission from each sale or lead. There’s less work, fewer overheads, it sells twenty-four hours a day, and even better, it is relatively easy to master.

To begin, you need to decide what products or niche area best suits you. A way of doing this is, determine what a specific set of individuals are anticipating, and which solutions will assist them. A good method of achieving this task is looking for unique long tail keywords; broadly speaking people look for these less, but they convert far more.

These profitable keywords can be found by using Micro Niche Finder. Data generated by Micro Niche Finder or analogous applications and software packages results in a list of related keywords allowing you to gain a great listing in an internet search and bring in a high number of hits.

Further information is also accessible by Micro Niche Finder, such as search frequency, the number of other sites using the particular word or phrase, even competitor information. Finally, Micro Niche Finder data should help in getting associated domains, content for your web site, and draw your attention to the greatest sales opportunities. Construction of a web site is next on the list; but there are still important things to do. Having a strong performance on internet based search engines involves the fine tuning of your web site. This is where Seo Elite information and alternative applications can be helpful. This software analyzes the web sites of your rivals and can advise you what you must do in order to receive a good ranking in the search engine listings.

In SEO Elite the info supplied by the program advises you on links, the best keywords, and even details on where and how to upload articles. Briefly, SEO Elite information is similar to the suggestions that a specialist in search engine optimization would provide.

When you determine your niche market, plan your product ads, and your web site is finished, then it’s time to enhance your search engine rankings. Earnings will roll in on daily basis and you’ll question why you ever struggled to make money!

In essence affliliate marketing is very much like an auction. Your web site promotes various products and in return, every last lead brings in cash. There’s less work, fewer overheads, it sells twenty-four hours a day, and it is simple to pick up. At the start, you have to decide what merchandise or market most suits you. To get this out of the way, find out what a certain customer profile is suffering from, and then what solutions are available to assist them. One of the better means to find this rapidly is searching for unique narrow keywords; more often than not customers search for these less often, nevertheless they convert far more into sales.

These important keywords can be obtained by using applications such as Micro Niche Finder. Data collected by Micro Niche Finder or analogous applications and services creates related words and phrases in an extensive list allowing you to get top ranking on internet searches. Micro Niche Finder data will in addition tell you how many searches each keyword or phrase gets, exactly how many other websites who exploit those keywords, even competitor information. Last but not least, Micro Niche Finder data can help identify suitable domains, aid you in putting together your web site, and even find the greatest sales opportunities. Construction of a internet site is the next step; however there are still essential things to do. Getting the top ranking on web based search engines demands the fine-tuning of your website. Products like SEO Elite should make this less problematic. Your competitors’ sites are examined by Seo Elite information which then provides advice on how to better search results.

With programs such as SEO Elite, information provided by the program suggests where you should look for pertinent links, the best keywords, and a list of sites for submitting articles to refer to. In summary, the results produced are similar to the information you might get when you confer with an experienced SEO professional. When you find your niche market sector, plan your product advertisements, and your site is ready to go, then you are ready to get your website up in the search results. You’ll pick up regular payments and wonder why you doubted that affiliate marketing would be successful for you!

It doesn’t matter whether you own a restaurant, a hotel, or a pub, the size of your alcohol sales will determine the success of your business. If you do sell alcohol, that likely means you’re going sell most of it from your bar. This means that at some point you will have to replace - or at least invest in - your barware.

The specific types of bar equipment every bartender needs in order to do his or her job can be broken down into three classes. Number 1 is hardware. The hardware, or infrastructer, includes all things mechanized including the beer tap system, the coolers, and your soda gun. Glassware is naturally the category number 2. Without glassware which it would be pretty much impossible to serve drinks at all. Category number is what most people in the business refer to as barware.

As a generic term, barware is more often than not used to for the essential utensils that make a bartender’s job possible. Everything from bottle openers to zesting tools to cocktail shakers to cork screws is included in this category. The problem is that when purchase only the cheapest barware for your restaurant, you’re in danger of giving your guests a bad return on their money. It doesn’t matter how gifted your bartenders are or how good the quality of your spirits are, cheap barware can ruin a cocktail. That being said, here’s a couple rules you should follow to prevent such a mishap from happening.

It’s always best to use an insulated cocktail shaker because the colder your cocktails are when you serve them, the better they will be. If you choose a Boston shaker you want to be sure you buy a hawthorn strainer. For cutting citrus twist garnishes, a zester is a must, though you should know that a simple channel knife often works better. Nobody likes fishing bits of cork out of their wine, so purchase the highest quality wine opener you can. You should also buy a wall-mounted bottle opener if you can. You are going to misplace more of the hand-held kind than you even know. And last but not least, make sure you have a couple spirit measures or double jiggers around because portion control is everything in a restaurant.

To learn more about barware, visit Hospitality Direct, Australia’s #1 Hospitality Superstore!

One of the interesting things about being a coach and speaker is that I have the good fortune to work with lots of different people from all sorts of different types of companies, markets and backgrounds. Whilst I do work (on the motivation and public speaking side) with non-sales people probably 95%+ of the work I do is with sales teams of some sort or other! As such, I get a real insight into the challenges and issues that many top sales performers face and also into who they are and what they believe.

Now I guess that not many of my readers will not have heard of logical levels; logical levels hails from neuro-linguistic programming (nlp) and has been championed by a chap called Robert Dilts. Logical levels is a model of what’s inside of us and how that helps us to filter information through ourselves before acting on it. There are various different versions of logical levels however they all have at the deeper levels the word IDENTITY or who you are.

If you think about it, who you think you are forms the basis of every action you take and every feeling you have. And it’s not something that we consciously choose. At your next sales meeting why not ask everyone around the table:

“How did you get into sales?”

I’ve run this exercise with literally thousands of sales people and the answers are normally very interesting. One common theme however is that most sales people have “fallen into” sales. Very few actually choose. Lets take this back a step further and think about childhood because most of us had a goal or dream to be something when we grew up! What was it for you? Footballer? Astronaut? Nurse? Doctor? One thing I’m confident it probably wasn’t was a sales person or a telephone salesperson!! Very few people choose to be in sales!

Think about it for a second. If at some level you have not met your childhood dreams and you have just fallen into sales then how are you going to feel? Particularly when you face client rejections or objections? Its easy to adopt limiting beliefs to support your non-sales identity. I recently worked with a team who had such a strong non-sales identity and such an aversion to what they perceived was a sales identity that they wouldn’t even consider the option of objection handling as they felt it was too pushy and rude!!!! Fortunately, we did some one on one work and they’re getting on fine now.

So what can you do about this for either yourself or your team?

Imagine that you’re in a time machine and going back to your childhood armed with all of the information that you have now. When you get there ask yourself these questions …………

• Why would you choose a career in sales?
• What could be great about a career in sales?
• What are the advantages of a career in sales?
• What can only a career in sales allow you to do?
• How can you reinforce this new identity and beliefs on a day to day basis?

Answers I have previously heard include:- money, travel, promotion, fastest way to the board (other than finance), meeting people, variety, nice clothes, great cars, work your own hours, respected, professional, essential to business, exciting, dynamic…

Spend some time in writing down why you chose sales and what it can do for you. Even better spend some time writing out your goals (1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years) and then consider how sales can help you get there. Chances are sales can not only help you but it will be the fastest way there!

Why not keep a list of all of the beliefs that you have adopted to support your old self identity and spend some time considering more positive options?

But most of all have fun! When you start to respect who you are and the importance of what you do at the deepest level you will become more congruent and focused and this in turn will lead to better sales results.

For the last 10 years, Gavin Ingham has been helping sales people to explode their sales performance by turning self-doubt, fear and lack of motivation into self-belief, confidence and action. With his inspirational approach to sales performance and motivation Gavin combines commercial experience, personal excellence and communications technologies in delivering personal and business sales success.

Visit http://www.gaviningham.net now to join Gavin’s free monthly newsletter packed full of sales secrets, strategies and tactics. Join now and get Gavin’s ground-breaking 9-part objection handling course absolutely free.

The following 7 sales skills are what I have found to be the most important skills for professional salespeople. Get good at these, and you’ll be able to make a lot of money no matter how the economy is doing.

Sales Skill #1: Qualifying Fast to Avoid Wasting Sales Time

Do you chase after your prospects until they tell you yes or no? Do you ever tell your prospects “No”, as in “No, I am not going to sell to you”? There are many things in selling that you do not and will not be able to control. The one thing that you do have control over is your time and how you choose to use it.

To qualify fast you must have a set of criteria describing who you will and will not sell to. You want to sell to the prospects likely to buy your products, and drop the prospects unlikely to buy (so that you can find more good prospects). Sounds simple, but too many salespeople let sludge buildup in their pipeline, constricting the total revenue that flows out.

KEY TIP: Develop a list of sales qualifying criteria that prospect’s must meet in order for you to invest your sales time with them.

Sales Skill #2: Motivating Prospects

Qualifying goes beyond budget, authority, and need. You want to sell to prospects who *want* to buy from you. Finding prospects that need our products usually is not difficult. Finding those who really want our products though can be very hard if we wait for them to come to us.

Products sold by professional salespeople are more complex and offer more value than commodity products offered through stores, catalogs and brokers. Prospects generally do not know they need such products, until they first discover that they have a problem. This process can take seconds or years depending on the nature of the problem (and the prospect!). Prospects get motivated to work with you when you help them to discover that you solve their problem better than anyone else does

KEY TIP: Determine which problems that you eliminate or solve for your prospects. Plan and ask questions to uncover and agitate those problems.

Sales Skill #3: Selling to People Outside Your Comfort Zone

Most salespeople who are “people persons”, already think that they are good at this. Let me ask you a question. When you last lost a sale, how was your rapport with the key person who decided against you?

You can’t afford to look away and ignore people that you don’t have natural rapport with. The good news is that people like people like themselves. All you have to do to gain rapport is stretch your behavior outside or your comfort zone until you become like another person.

KEY TIP: Match speech patterns with people to gain rapport outside of your typical sports or weather conversation.

Sales Skill #4: Reaching Decision-Makers Through Voicemail

There’s two ways to make more sales. One is to close more of the prospects you do contact. The other is to get more prospects into the pipeline. When prospecting, you can look at voicemail as either your friend or your enemy. With 70% of your prospecting calls going to voicemail, it is time to make friends with it.

Although you will never get even close to getting every voicemail returned, you can get a significant number of your messages returned when treat them as a one-on-one commercials.

KEY TIP: Prepare 3-5 separate benefit-focused voicemail messages that you can leave over a period of days or weeks for a single decision-maker before you give up on her. Each message should focus on a single unique customer-focused benefit.

Sales Skill #5: Delivering “I Gotta Have That” Presentations

Let’s face it, a lot of business presentations are really boring. Salespeople talk about why their product is great, why their company is great, and the history of their company. Prospects don’t relate to this. That’s why they look so bored.

Great presentations get the prospect’s imagination involved. The best way to involve the imagination is through storytelling. Stories rich in descriptive detail get the prospect picturing them using your product and evoke that “I Gotta Have That” reaction.

KEY TIP: Study 1-3 of your best customers and develop detailed customer success stories that will put emotional power into your presentations.

Sales Skill #6: Gaining Commitments Instead of Closing

Eliminate “Closing Cheese” from Your Vocabulary. You know what I am talking about: “Would you like that in gray or in black?” or “If I can show you how this will help you will you buy today?”. Lines like these are why salespeople are down on the bottom of society’s respect list somewhere near lawyers.

Learn the power of asking for incremental commitments from the beginning of your sales cycle. It is not an easy shift to make. First you got to get the prospect to show you what they most want (Hint: See Skill #2 above). Then you can negotiate incremental commitments in return for more of your time, information or resources.

KEY TIP: Practice asking for simple commitments once someone has expressed a clear want, pain, or desire.

Sales Skill #7: Have More Fun

Sales is fun when you are in control and closing deals. Selling is miserable when you are under pressure to close business.

Take the pressure off yourself to close and instead focus on qualifying and motivating your prospects.

KEY TIP: Shift the responsibility back to the prospect to solve his own problems, and the pressure to make the sale will be gone. Focus on selling at your best only to qualified prospects and you’ll close more and have fun doing it.

Bonus Sales Tip

When you are giving a presentation, selling on the telephone or one-on-one in your prospect’s office, picture your prospect as having the words SO WHAT stamped on his forehead. Imagine that for everything you say, the prospect is asking “so what, why should I care?”.

Remember, prospects only care about how what you are selling can eliminate a problem that they have or help make their business or life better. The answer to this question is always what your product does for them (benefits), not what your product is (features).

© 1999-2004 Shamus Brown, All Rights Reserved.

Shamus Brown is a Professional Sales Coach and former high-tech sales pro who began his career selling for IBM. Shamus has written more than 50 articles on selling and is the creator of the popular Persuasive Selling Skills CD Audio Program. You can read more of Shamus Brown’s sales tips at http://Sales-Tips.industrialEGO.com/ and you can learn more about his persuasive sales skills training at http://www.Persuasive-Sales-Skills.com/

While heading home at day’s end, you begin reflecting on a coaching meeting you had earlier that day with an employee, Chris. You hope that, this time, you finally succeeded in getting her to understand the importance of spending less time in disruptive socializing in the office and more time elevating her performance. If not, you feel that your only remaining alternatives are to give her a poor performance evaluation or demotion or may even fire her. You’re reluctant to do either of the first two things because you know these would disrupt the positive work relationship you’ve had with Chris. And you don’t really want to fire her. On the other hand, you’re running out of patience; this is the fourth time you’ve said something to Chris about the situation. Admittedly, the first few times, your comments may have missed the mark because you gave her only some casual feedback. But about a month ago, you held a formal coaching meeting with Chris, in which you discussed the situation in depth and came away thinking that she understood the need to change her behavior. In fact, she did change. But after a week or so, she was back to her old behavior.

Sound familiar? The most critical step in the management coaching process - getting an employee to agree there’s a need for improvement - is usually not well understood or well executed. Without that, there’s little likelihood of any permanent change.

Not a chewing out

As the use of coaching rises, so does the confusion over what it is and isn’t. I define management coaching as an interpersonal process between a manager and an employee in which the manager helps the employee redirect his or her performance while maintaining mutual trust. Coaching differs from feedback, although feedback is part of the management coaching process. Feedback is given by a manager or supervisor in response to a specific event or situation; coaching focuses on a pattern of behavior along with strategies for growth and development. Coaching is all about the art of turning situations and events into learning and growing experiences. Examples include missing several deadlines in a short period despite being reminded that meeting deadlines is important, continuing to arrive late for work after being told tardiness is not acceptable, and continuing to interrupt others in spite of receiving feedback that such behavior isn’t appropriate. Management Coaching is not “chewing out”, taking to task, or threatening employees to try to improve their performance. Those tactics can work, but the results may be worse than the original problem. Such approaches tend to make employees passive-aggressive. They will walk the line and do nothing more or less than what is asked.

In general, a management coaching meeting should take place only after an employee understands clearly what’s expected and has received feedback at least once that his or her performance is not what it could or should be. However, in some cases, certain significant events may be the focus of a coaching meeting, before they develop into a pattern of behavior. For example, a manufacturer decided that any safety violation - no matter how minor - would be addressed in a coaching discussion and, if significant, could lead to formal discipline.

Coaching involves these critical elements:

• A two-way dialogue
  
• A series of interdependent steps or objectives
  
• Specific coaching skills and strategies
  
• Courage and conviction
  
• A personal sense of humor
  

The management coaching process has two primary areas of focus: helping an employee recognize the need to improve his or her performance and developing an employee’s commitment to taking steps to improve performance permanently.

While all of the steps in the C.M.O.E coaching model are important, the most critical one is often not understood or carried out effectively - getting an employee to recognize and agree that there is a need to improve his performance. That step is equally important whether an employee has a specific performance problem or an employee is an average performer who could do better. Without a felt need for change and greater self awareness, there’s little likelihood that any improvement will occur or that it will be permanent.

The Center for Management and Organization Effectiveness (CMOE) seeks to improve individual leadership and team member skills within organizations.

For professional information on management coaching, visit CMOE.

It was a cold October morning in Dayton, Ohio and as I left my house at 7am the skies opened up and it began to pour. It wasn’t cold enough to turn the rain into ice but it was still chilly enough that I turned on the heater. “Today was gonna be a great day, I just knew it!” That thought just kept running through my head. I was full of confidence. We were prepared.

Today we were having customers in. Not just any customer - General Motors was visiting our branch and we were going to make a presentation trying to secure all the distribution business for two of their local manufacturing facilities. We had a plan and we had rehearsed our game plan over and over.

This wasn’t small potatoes. It could mean a $4 million increase in our business. We were ready. I was 31 years old, the youngest Branch Manger working for the largest steel distribution company in the world, but I wasn’t nervous. Scared, a little bit, yes, apprehensive, a little bit. But, I was confident.

One of my most cherished mentors always said, “If you’re gonna be a bear, you ought to be a grizzly.” I was gonna be a Grizzly today I told myself. We were hungry!

Three General Motors muckety mucks came that day. The Director of Procurement; he was a tall lanky man with that corporate pin striped look and the division buyers of each of the two manufacturing plants. One buyer was short and thick with huge hairy hands and it looked like he didn’t have a neck. He reminded me of Danny Davito but he was just a little taller. The other one was average height, average looks and average dress but he was built like Arnold Swartznager. Looking at the two division buyers reminded me of the movie Twins where Arnold Swartznager and Danny Divito were twin brothers.

Looking at the the three of them brought to mind the spectrum of emotions we face as salesmen in this business. Pin Stripes intimidated meDanny D. made me laugh and Arnold scared the heck out of me.

The morning went ok. My top sales rep and I walked through much of the presentation before lunch - back then we didn’t have PowerPoint. We were following our plan. I was young, but Bud Hurst was an old pro, a lone wolf, with over 25 years of experience. During a break he told me we just didn’t seem to be reaching them. Something was missing. We weren’t in a zone. We decided to break for lunch a little early hoping with the help of a couple of Martinis (Martini lunches were ok and common back then) we could break down some of the resistance and make them feel a little more relaxed, hoping to close the deal after lunch.

So, off we go to lunch. We grabbed our suit jackets (back then dark suits with white shirts and ties were mandatory - there was no such thing as casual days — this was the late 70’s). Little did I know I was about to set a new standard of dress.

Out the door we went—-it was beautiful out. The rain had stopped, the sun was shining and it had warmed up a little. The five of us, the Director of Procurement, the twins and Bud Hurst, my top sales rep followed as I led the way to my car.

As I rounded the corner and approached my car I noticed that between me and the car was a huge puddle of water about 6 feet across and at least 3 inches deep. It really didn’t bother me much, I’d seen it before on rainy days and, in fact, I had been meaning to get it fixed. It was just one of those expenses (fixing the parking lot) that always seemed to get pushed to the bottom of the budget priority list. Besides, it was only noticeable when it rained. It was a slight indentation or minor sink hole as we say in Florida in the black top.

No big deal, RIGHT — no big deal - until that day.

As I turned, a little quick I might add, to go around the puddle, I stepped on a rock, no bigger than the size of a golf ball. But it was big enough to turn my ankle, twist it and there I went, face first, doing a belly smacker right into the 6 foot puddle. I even scraped my chin causing blood to trickle down my chin.

	I was in shock
 	I didn't want to get up
 	My face was as red as a baboons behind
 	I was stunned
 	I laid there for a few secondsan eternity
 	I was hoping this wasn't real

Finally, I turned over, propped myself up on one hand and my two feet to keep the seat of my pants dry and I looked up at four suits, the three muckety mucks, Danny Divito, Arnold Swartznager, the Corporate Pin Striped suit and Bud, the old pro who probably thought I was wet behind the ears even before I fell into the puddle.

	They were trying not to look at me
 	Mr. Pin stripes was covering his mouth trying desperately not to laugh
 	One buyer, Danny Divito was moving around like he had ants in his pantslooking in every direction but mine
 	The second buyer, Arnold, his cheeks were bulging out; his eyes looked like they were going to pop. He even had that big vein running down the middle of his forehead like the real Arnold Swartznager does. I swear - he must have been holding his breath

There I was, sitting in the middle of a mud puddle; I looked more like a wounded duck than a Grizzly Bear.

It was eerie; it was like a deafening silence in the parking lot. The kind of silence you saw in the Alfred Hitchcock movie, The Birds, just before they attacked.

The Director of Procurement for General Motors Corporation, Mr. Pin Stripes, the one holding his hand over his mouth started bouncing like he had a pogo stick up his behind. You know how you bounce when you hold a laugh inside.

Finally, bless his heart, old Bud, my sales rep reached down to take my hand to help me up - and as I struggled to my feed, he grinned a grin so wide he could have eaten a banana sideways and said, “Nice FALL day, isn’t it?”

Well that comment cut it loose and all four of them roared with laughter. They thought it was absolutely hilarious. And, I guarantee you, no matter how embarrassed you get, no matter how stupid you feel, when you’re standing in front of four people that are laughing so hard tears are running down their cheeks, you can’t help but laugh with them.

I dried off with my golf towel that I retrieved from the trunk of my car and even though I was soaked we went to lunch anyway. Of course that’s all we talked about during the entire lunch - I couldn’t eat from being so embarrassed and they barely stopped laughing long enough to put food in their mouths.

Alls well that ends well; we got back from lunch and within an hour closed the deal. That meant a $4 million increase in sales for our branch. I think they felt sorry for me.

 After lunch tide turnedeverything we discussed seemed to lead back to my grand belly smacker

 We talked about reducing inventory and someone said that would prevent tripping over it as they all roared with laughter.

 Some of the parts we discussed that were to be made from our steel spurred even more laughter -parts like ankle pin, splash shield, dry lube on the parts

Our plan worked - and even through my belly smacker wasn’t in our original plan, it seemed to play a role in our success.

Many times even the best plan, the best preparation will encounter a twist in the road. The more prepared, the more confident we are, the better able we are to handle these twists. The belly flop into the parking lot puddle could have been more devastating than embarrassing. But, thanks to Bud, the sales pro, we were able to turn that most embarrassing moment for yours truly into an opportunity.

Ever since that day, I have never ever short changed maintenance and repair on any budget I was ever responsible for.

What are your puddles in the parking lot?

http://www.ceostrategist.com Dr. Rick Johnson (rick@ceostrategist.com) is the founder of CEO Strategist LLC. an experienced based firm specializing in leadership and the creation of competitive advantage in wholesale distribution. CEO Strategist LLC. works in an advisory capacity with distributor executives in board representation, executive coaching, team coaching and education and training to make the changes necessary to create or maintain competitive advantage. You can contact them by calling 352-750-0868, or visit http://www.ceostrategist.com for more information. CEO Strategist - experts in Strategic Leadership in Wholesale Distribution. Sign up for Rick’s monthly news letter - “The Howl” email rick@ceostrategist.com.