Table of Contents
WHAT KIND OF RESULTS CAN YOU EXPECT FROM DANS NO B.S. SALES SUCCESS STRATEGIES?
In 1978, I went to work as a sales rep for a company that sold hand-held pricing equipment to retailers. By1981, I was promoted to General Manager, but saw with the advent of bar codes our business was endangered. Although we continued to add products and I bought the company, it wasnt until 1991, when I discovered Dan Kennedy, that I really discovered how to make my business the leader in its industry. Using Dans methodsincluding many in this bookmy business grew from $3.5-million in sales in 1991 to $13.4-million in 2006, and, while our sales increased 4-fold, our profits multiplied 8-fold.
Keith Lee, American Retail Supply
Ive had your No B.S. Sales Success book in my possession for only three days. I have set up eight presentations, closed two deals... the first presentation the Kennedy way went off without a hitchthey were pre-sold before I arrived, and that order put $13,475.00 profit in my pocket.
Tom Halloran, Medical Supplies
I have just returned from a trade show that was almost cancelled because of low registration. As I prepared, I re-adjusted and remembered your admonition that it is the quality of the prospects, not the quantity. As I left the show having written five large orders, reaching our goal, the organizer of the showwho had struggled to satisfy the other exhibitorssaid Youre my success story. My success is related to what you say in your book about selling in difficult conditions, when others cant.
Lisa Wilgus
I am writing with a long overdue thank you for everything you have done for my business and personal life. I have read all your books repeatedly... I have used your strategies to triple the size of my familys insurance agency in the past 36 months... from $3.4-million to $10.5-million . We are now able to dominate our target markets regardless of the economy or competition.
Michael McLean, McLeanInsuranceLive.com
I have lived and worked in Australia, slugged it out, on the street selling, to make a living. I knew there had to be an easier way, and I looked and looked for 25 years. When I found Dan Kennedy and adapted his unique way, my business took off like a cat on a hot tin roof in the outback. This year alone, Dan Kennedy was responsible for adding more than one million dollars to my income and I never spoke to him!
Ed Burton, Financial/Investment/Asset Protection Advisor, Sydney, Australia
My current success is entirely YOUR fault. I thank you so much. Changed my life. Im not exaggerating. Your No B.S. Sales Success book is the #1 reason behind my success. I was born a big baby, 11.5 pounds, to a petite woman, my legs and feet grew crookedly insider her womb, and I had to wear special braces from birth to age 3 to straighten them out. My perfectionist father viewed me as a failure, according to the family, began drinking heavily after my birth, so I grew up with an alcoholic father. I feared rejection immensely, and practically lived inside my bedroom, hidden away from my father and the rest of the world as much as possible. I actually forced myself into sales to try and conquer my fears but I failed miserably, even declaring bankruptcy at age 21. I tried selling everything: cars, vacuum cleaners, insurance, you name it. One day I came across your book. One statement made in it changed my whole career: positioning, not prospecting.
With guidance from your book, I specialized in a niche, I became an expert, I used my writing skills to create lead generation ads and free reports, and began attracting pre-qualified prospects to me so I no longer had to prospect or ever feel rejected. I subsequently became THE top selling representative at a Fortune 500 company. Today, Ive become a highly paid copywriter, selling via ads and sales letters. Thank you Dan, for everything.
Michel Fortin, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, www.SuccessDoctor.com
The old economy is shattered and gone forever.
Its never coming back as it was.
While some time-honored, reliable business strategies and skills continue to have their placeare even more important than everthey must be combined with new, more sophisticated, more disciplined methods in sync with the realities of the New Economy and the psychology of its consumers and clients.
Welcome to The New Economy
Well, its not like we shouldnt have seen this coming.
Problem : We are monstrously over-stored. The same stores every few miles. The joke about Starbucks was it had reached the point they were opening new Starbucks in the Mens Rooms in existing Starbucks. Me-too, same-as, indistinguishable chain stores, chain restaurants with zero differentiation right across the parking lot from one another. Simply, much, much more than the market could support. Implosion certain destiny.
Problem : There are far too many over-lapping brands. Should there ever have been Cadillac pick-up trucks when GM also has Chevy and GMC trucks? Other than to perpetuate jobs locked in by union contract, could the existence of Pontiac and Buick and Chevy and Cadillac and GMC possibly be justified? Not unique to GM, though. Many other companies sinned similarly. And it seems everybody wanted to play in everybody elses sandbox, sacrificing their very identities to their detriment. Starbucks added egg, cheese, and meat breakfast sandwiches (that ruined the coffee aroma in their stores) while McDonalds hurried to add lattes and gourmet coffee while Subway added pizza while Dominos Pizza added sub sandwiches, your pharmacy added clothes and lawn furniture, Wal-Mart added iPhones. Its a damn mess. That must be cleaned up.
Problem : Everybody already owns too much stuff. How many cars, TVs, computers, games, remodeled kitchens, backyard decks can consumers consume before they need a break? Above all else, the recession was made and extended by demand problems.
Problem : Worst of all, salesmanship perished and service went to hell in a handbasket, as free-flowing, easy, excess credit and the latest in a series of fools bubbles (this one with theoretically never-ending multiplying of property values so homes became ATMs, not investments) enabled countless companies with poor sales practices, lazy and inept salespeople, sloppy over-staffing, casual management and abysmal customer service to prosper, or at least seem to prosper. Truth is, consumers welcomed a good excuse to stay home and stop buying and punish .
Imagine a very loosely held together, giant ball of yarn with dozens of loose ends poking out all over the place. It wouldnt matter much which of the loose ends you gave a good tug; the entire ball, really just a pile of yarn, would implode and collapse and unravel. So it has been with the economy. It really wouldnt have mattered if it had been too many sub-prime mortgages issued to poorly qualified and irresponsible borrowers, based on inflated equity with no regard to the borrowers ability to pay, then bundled together in inventive investment packages or if it had been sudden skyrocketing of gas prices or if it had been the weight of mass-multiplied, poorly regulated hedge funds or accelerating disappearance of old-style manufacturing jobs sent overseas or just about any other loose end you might nameany one given a good yank would have been enough. Of course, when several got pulled hard in different directions at the same time....
Incidentally, the real estate bubble was visible far, far in advance of its bursting. In 2003, an outstanding book on the subject, The Coming Crash in the Housing Market by John Talbott, a former vice president at Goldman Sachs and real estate economist, very accurately predicted both the mortgage meltdown and real estate crash weve recently experiencedand reading it saved me some money. Authoritative articles began appearing pretty frequently from 2004 on, like the one on July 26, 2004, in the Financial Times , headlined Party OverTurn Off the Housing Boom Lights, that stated that the end is near in use of exotic type mortgage money. We should have seen this coming. Some of us did. I began foretelling in earnest of 20072008 in my No B.S. Marketing Letter and other publications in 2004.