Black In Business

My good friend, a man I call Rev. Jim, Jim Legington, asked me to expand on needs idenification selling. Jim has a terrific business site focused on emarketing and can exhibit methods that are time tested and proven ways to grow your business. Needs identification selling is where you find a need your product can solve and present your product as a solution. This will allow you to evaluate yourself from competitors that only want to sell a product. You can become a trusted advisor and not just a silver tongue devil.
You may ask, how do you determine needs? You ask questions. In the profession of selling, we refer to this as probing. You probe for areas of dissatisfaction. You must understand the business first. I have found if you are speaking to a decision maker they love to speak about their business. If so you have discovered rule one in needs identification selling; identify the person who can say yes. Never accept no from someone who cannot say yes.
After you break the Ice with your decision maker, hi how are you, I love your art work, can you believe this weather we are having. You start with a benefit for your decision maker. “I have been in this business for several years and have been fortunate to discover that for many small businesses, we have been able to provide a way for easy, cost effective and better received communication tools for their customers. In order to see if our program may provide these same benefits for you and your customers, I would like find out about your business.
There are 2 types of probes to use in discovering area of problems. You can use open or closed probes.
Here is a closed probe, or one that can be answered with a yes or no; “do you have communication problems with your customers?” Answer, no, sales call over. You seldom start with a open probe. We just discovered why.
Here is an open one; “Many of our clients have struggled with external communication, describe for me the nature of your communication strategy and the different ways you implement it.” Your decision maker will have to explain to you about a topic he has interest in. You want your decision maker to talk, smile and nod your head and let them know you are listening; “interesting, tell me more!”
Other examples; what do you like best about your strategy and why? If you could make it better, how would you do it, these will all stimulate conversation.
Dead end of closed probes are; do you like your communication strategy, have you ever considered something new, it is similar to when you walk into a high end clothing store and the saleman ask can I help you and your response, No!
All of you great salesmen, help me out, comment on some of your good open probes and how and when to use closed probes.

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If I knew I was this smart, I could have been somebody. But JD, your IQ is average! That is right, I am as smart as the average white person! Is that a reason to be excited? It should not be, but there was a time as a young black male, I did not feel capable of great things. Sadly in today’s world, when a Blackman can run for president, many of our young have low expectations of themselves and society sets the bar low. Barack was described as being articulate by a fellow Senator. I mean, the brother is running for President, George W. Bush aside, shouldn’t he be able to talk? That is just one example. Blackinbusiness, ask your self, how high is your bar set? Do you challenge yourself to win and win big. I ask myself, why did I wait until my 50’s to start a business? Lack of courage, confidence, or did I set my bar too low? You young brothers goofing off in class, is your bar set too low? You can be somebody! The young sisters are more studious, but we still have some low bar setting there. Those of you that have dropped out of college, is this the best you can do?
I took the classic IQ test at Tickle.Com. I scored average at 118. 95% of people score between 70 and 120. My vocabulary is my strongest suit! Who would have thought it. I guess if I could spell, I could really wow you with words. I am considered a terrific communicator, a word warrior. I am told I have the skill to clarify complex issues and that I can articulate commonly understood truths along with creatively solve problems.
My math range is in the 80 percentile, visual spatial in the 30, percentile, Linguistic 90 percentile, I love it! As for logic, 60 percentile was my performance. Meaning 40% of the public is better and I am better than 60%.
This IQ test offered suggestions for improvement and careers I could have excelled at. I could have been a Lawyer! Knowledge is power and what amazed me is my score of 118 is very close to what I remember being told as a teenager. By then I was told I was average and no insight to strengths or encouragement was given. To be fair, the encouragement could have been there but my outlook as a young black male was I just was not that smart.
I recovered my self esteem because I had to make a living and In order to do so, I had to believe in my self.
For some blogs written by smart people, above average smart, check out my brother Yobachi
The man who invited me into the Afro Spear, ESQ Holland
Field Negro
Liz Strauss
Robyn Mcmaster
Ellen Weber.Now these guys are smart, 3 PHD’s and 2 JD’s, and one business VP, who said being smart is not hip. Check out these blogs and not only will you find smart, you will find hip

Everybody in business has plans to grow their business. There are many ways for this to happen; price increases, open new stores, add new territories, introduce a new product, merge with or acquire a competitor, are among the methods used. Even a very small business like mine can grow by hiring some recruiters. Even great companies can be fooled by sales growth thinking they have it going on when their base business is flat or losing sales.
Organic growth has become a challenge for most. How do you get more business from current customers? It involves sales. The profession of sales has evolved from, feature benefit sales to needs indentification selling. We have grown from trusted advisors to relationship selling based on trust and respect. In most situations, not all but most, the more contact with a customer the more opportunity to build trust and respect.
That is why I ask the question, do you call on your customers enough? I spoke to a leading sales manager from a top medical company. His reps have an average of 140 customers each. He expects them to call on their customers at least 1 time per month; this comes out to 7 calls per day, plus make new business call of 5 per day. Your new business calls are in person and hopefully some of your customer care calls as well.
How do you make the other calls? My man Chris Baggott, author of “Email Marketing by the Num8ers, makes a strong case for email as the best marketing tool ever. I use the phone a lot and email. Us bloggers understand how blogging can build community.Blogging is an under utilized tool for building business relationships. Companies like Compendium Software are at the forefront of providing software solutions to make blogging as simple as email.
I would like to know your thoughts on communication with customers and Organic growth within your business. If you blog for your customers, let me know how it is going for you. In today’s world time is precious and we have to be able to ensure our communication; in person, by phone, email or blogging is of value. If it is, you have a strong chance for business growth.

Answer to the post title questions; yes and yes. Yes Mike is getting screwed without a drink and dinner. Yes there is a lesson for blackinbusiness. I do not feel sorry for Mike Vick. I remember a song by Public Enemy; the song title could be used to describe many of us when we are young. “Dumb Nigger!” is the title. Mr. Vick’s behavior adds to the already mountain of negative stereotypes that plague black young men, and to a lesser degree, all black people. For that we have a right to feel some discuss toward Vick and the situation. I would hate to be a young black man interviewing with Arthur Blank or almost any Atlanta based firm with all of this in the news.
Mr. Vick is a tremendous athlete, has exhibited times of greatness as a QB. He is a scrambler, similar to former greats; Fran Tarkenton, Roger Staubach, John Elway and Steve Young. All of these men are in Pro Football’s Hall of Fame, and Vick is a better runner and scrambler than all of them. He is Mr. Excitement.
I think Vick is being screwed because, we are talking dogs, be serious! This is a country and a part of the country where human beings were slaves, were lynched, raped whipped, and separated from family. We all know of cases of police brutality where there is no discuss. Dog Fighting is a legal sport in many countries. I think they should slap his hands, no jail, 4 game suspension and let the brother grow up, get new friends and play football. I know many will disagree but dose anyone feel the same. As OJ would say, he did not kill anybody!
Here is the lesson for blackinbusiness. Stay out of trouble. As a Youngman, I was a troublemaker, anything went. When I finisher college and went to work for Xerox, I understood, some friends had to go, I had to be trouble free. We are lucky to have opportunity, it dose not make sense to toss it all away!

I learned a valuable lesson about business early in my medical sales career. My boss had a theme for the year, the theme is the name of this post; “Try not, it’s do or do not there is no try!” He had the theme in bold letters at the top of all of his correspondence. We sold capital equipment. Often times the buying cycle could last 12 months. Sometimes you could go a few months with no business. My boss did not want to hear, how hard I worked or tried. Only what were the results.
If you go on a job interview and want the job, this theme applies. You can be well qualified, smooth as silk with an excellent track record. All of that is for nil if you do not get the job. In my business as an executive recruiter and owner, I received a painful lesson last week of that fact.
My canidate was at the top of his field, in the salary range and was willing to relocate for the job. The people that had conducted several interviews with him were ready to make him an offer. My revenue from this was to be 40K.This intelligent man chose to answer a question about his leadership style, by commenting to the VP of HR, about women on their menstrual period and how they have to be managed differently. She was not pleased and my 40K is delayed and possibly gone. I have seen other qualified candidates be unable to sound exciting when interviewing.
Here are some tips
Dress professional, you are better to be over dressed than underdressed
Sell the product. You are the product, sell your self, this is no time to be shy. It is a good Idea to practice describing salient points about your self prior.
Get to the point. Do not ramble, concise and to the point
Do your research. Know the company, their values, their mission and recent performance
Stay cool. Some interviewers will try to challenge you in an aggressive manner to see how you react
Listen well. You have something to say but make sure you listen very closely to the interviewer
Ask questions. Make sure you have some good questions about the company position and strategy
Be confident. You have to be convinced you are a great find for the company
Smile. You want these guys to like you, use your people skills to build rapport. Break the Ice
Ask for feedback. Did I answer your question, how does my experience fit your profile, do I get the job
As you know a book could be written on this but keep in mind, there is no try