Give Yourself a Raise

My cousin, William Flugelhoffen, wanted to invent the best recipe for fried chicken that anyone had ever eaten. And while the other kids were out playing baseball and football, Billy was in the kitchen, cooking fried chicken. As an adult, Billy had the option of attending university. But he said, “No, I am not going to university. Instead, I am going to follow my dream.” He took the money his parents had saved for his education and he used that money to start his business. Everyday, he got up. He put on a suit and tie, and he marched into the city. He walked into every single restaurant, and demanded, that they buy his chicken recipe from him. The first place he walked into said, “NO!” The next place also said “NO!” as did, the next, and the next and the next. Finally, after eight months, people began to say to him, “Billy, maybe it’s not going to happen for you. Maybe you should just take NO and stop.” But Billy said, “I will not stop, until in have heard NO! one-thousand times.” Undaunted, William pressed on, until had nine-hundred and ninety-nine “NO’s.” But, when he went on the one-thousandth call, the one none of us would have gone on, do you know what the restaurant owner said? He also said “NO!” True to his word, Billy quit when he heard “NO!” one thousand times.” Now he parks cars out in Vegas. He quit. Not a very inspiring story. But there is another man who had a dream for fried chicken. Colonel sanders. Colonel Sanders started KFC when he was 62 years old, with his first social security check, which was only $100. To make matters worse, he was living in his car, and he used the check to buy gas, so he could drive from city to city, asking restaurants to buy his chicken recipe. He heard “NO!” one thousand and ten times. Colonel Sanders had a much greater success than my cousin William Flugelhoffen, simply because the Colonel knocked on ten more doors than William. Colonel Sanders embodies the beauty of the sales profession. Most people have to wait for life to hand them something good. Sales people just go out and take it. According to recent reports, the inflation in the USA is about 3%. Government workers can look forward to about a 2-3% cost of living adjustment. Probably the same is true for Social Security recipients. But for you, SALESPEOPLE, you can chose to give yourselves whatever size salary increase you want. How would you like to give yourself a 10% increase in salary, but only have to increase your work by 2%? If you are currently working fifty hours per week, a 2% increase is only going to be one extra hour per week. Think about your weekly salary. What is 10% of that number? That is the amount you will earn for one extra hour of work. If one additional hour of work gives you an extra ten percent of salary, then it must follow that an additional five hours gives you and extra fifty percent of salary. How do we do this? How do we increase our work by only two percent but increase earnings by ten percent? The answer lies in your activity. During the course of the day, do you ever do anything that doesn’t generate an income? Of course you do. Do you answer the phone, file paperwork, think about your family, drink coffee, fill in forms, make copies, write reports, eat lunch, go to meetings, or use the toilet? None of those activities generate an income. But there is a certain amount of that stuff which is necessary just to stay in business. We call this overhead activity. In truth, the only activity that generates income is getting new clients. If we analyze the day of most sales people, working forty to fifty hours per week, we will find that they spend less than 20% of their day looking for new clients. So, if we increase that activity by 10%, we increase our income by 10%. But your workweek will only increase by two percent. My father told me that when he was a boy there was a machine to roll cigarettes. When you turned it once, it measured the tobacco. You turned it again, and it poured the tobacco. The next turn rolled the paper and sealed it. The final turn dropped the finished cigarette into your hand. To get the first cigarette you had to turn the handle five times. But once the first one was done, one turn equaled one cigarette. The same goes for your work. All those first forty to fifty hours you put in are overhead, priming the pump. Every hour you put in beyond that pays off tremendously. What do you do now to get new clients? If you use cold calling, increase your calls by ten percent. So, if you do a hundred calls a day, increase it to a hundred and ten. Ten phone calls will probably only cost you three minutes. If you use direct mail, increase the number of letters by ten percent. Ten letters won’t cost you any extra time. If you are canvassing, knock on ten extra doors per day. If you are going to networking events, getting business cards from people, and then going back and trying to sell to them, I am going to ask you to pick up ten percent more cards. A friend of mine had been fretting about his weight for years. Then, he went on a diet and exercise program. In the first month he lost ten pounds. “You must be happy.” I said. He said, “I feel like a jerk. Why didn’t I do this a year ago?” It is the same way when you get your first salary increase. You will look at the check and think of all the things you could have bought, for yourself or your family, if you had just worked an extra one or two hours per week.