Selling When Nobody's Buying : Day 1

Just started reading what could be my favorite sales book of the year. I am only at the very start of the first chapter, but the message hit me so hard right (right between the eyes) that I had to drop the book and pick-up the keyboard (it's midnight!) to post this entry about it. If the author can keep the momentum going through the next ten chapters, he's really going to help a lot of people turn around what could be the most challenging year in sales that a lot of us have faced in a very long time.

Dave Lakhani's new book "How to Sell When Nobody's Buying" starts with a Chapter 0 -- and what might turn out to be the most valuable chapter in the book. Heck, it knocked the sleep out of my head enough to prompt an immediate post. Here is Lakhani's advice for getting started on Day 1 to selling successfully when nobody's buying:

• Call 25 inactive clients and talk to them about engaging with you once again. If they stopped doing business with you because of an unresolved past issue, ask if they'll do business with you if you can resolve the issue. If they say yes, getthe issue resoved. If they say no, get the issue resolved anyway. The past client may reconsider once their problem has been solved.
• Call 10 existing clients present them with a new offer. Have a plan and a pitch for an upgrade, a new product or an additional service. Doesn't matter if they bought last year or last week and you "know" they're going to say no. Do it anyway.
• Call a non-competing company that offers a complementary service to client profiles that mirror your own. Tell them you've got five great clients to whom you'd be willing to introduce and endorse them if they'll do the same.
• For an hour before you leave the office, work on your action plan for the following day so you can hit the ground running. Have a list of 10 people from whom you can get referrals, five that will give you a testimonial, and 20 that have asked for more information but haven't spoken to in 10 days. Plus a list of 10 prospects with whom you'd like to be doing business.
• Just before you walk out the door, go back to your desk and leave five voicemails for people who've requested information from you in the past month and tell them you'll be calling them tomorrow because you've discovered something important that will impact them.

It doesn't matter what you sell, all the rules are the same. No excuses.

Love it.
Lakhani is basically calling 'bullshit' on everyone whining about the economy and proving that none of us are really doing everything we could possibly be doing to turn our situation around all by ourselves.

Can't wait to read about Day 2...