I then asked him these seven questions:

1. How many times do you dial the phone each day for the sole purpose of scheduling an appointment with a prospect?

2. How much time do you spend dialling for appointments each day? Do you block out time to call on your calendar?

3. Where do you get your leads?

4. How many times do you attempt to reach a person before you decide they aren't a prospect and move on?

5. How many new people do you call each day? People you've never attempted to reach before?

6. How many people are you calling from your database that you've called on five, ten, fifteen times but have never bought from you? How do you feel calling on the same people who - even though they may be friendly - always tell you that they aren't in the market?

7. What are your annual sales goats? Quarterly goals? Monthly goals? Weekly goals? Daily goals? What daily activity must you generate to achieve these goals?

- Sales is about being a great opener, not just being a great closer.

- Sales is about looking for prospects every day.

- Sales is about getting on the phone every day.

- Sales is about solving problems every day.

So we went to work.

1. We changed his attitude. He began to see the telephone as his friend, instead of his mortal enemy.

2. He developed a great Elevator Speech which enabled him to keep his conversations going. His days of having five to ten second "We aren't in the market." phone calls were over.

3. He started prospecting and looking for new people to call on. He attended networking events. He began asking for referrals. And even started calling on people whose names and photos had appeared in the business sections of the local paper.

He was telling me how bad he felt because he wasn't getting many appointments. People weren't returning his phone calls. In addition, the few people he was speaking to weren't interested in meeting with him."Then why isn't your business growing by leaps and bounds? Why aren't you making tons of money? Why aren't you spending more time with your family and friends instead of spending so much time at the office?" I asked?He looked out the window and pondered this question. He stared at the ceiling.And that's precisely his problem. He didn't realize that selling isn't about being a great closer. Selling is about being a great opener. It's about creating opportunities. It's about discovering what people want and need, and then giving them the solution to their problem.He explained that he comes into the office at about 7:45 am each day and spends most of the morning doing paperwork and reads e-mail. He works on client proposals.Ever since I started in sales, I always wondered why bright, talented, knowledgeable and successful salespeople never continued to grow in their businesses and further their careers. Why were they always struggling? Why were they always experiencing high peaks and low - below sea level - valleys? Why were they living a feast or famine existence?I've watched salespeople start their careers like a rocket roaring into outer space. But within a few short years their business had levelled off. Their meteoric rise to stardom had stopped, and their sales volume and commission level never grew by more than five, ten or fifteen percent a year... at best.With the passage of time their business started a slow decline as their best customers moved on or retired and the person who took their place put the old contracts out for bid, or brought in a preferred supplier.He tried everything he could think of so he wouldn't have to get on the phone.So he would leave a voice mail message that said something like, "Hi Joanne. This is Bud. I was just calling to see if you would like to setup a date to discuss your financial planning. Give me a call at 888-423- 1234."And in today's busy world most of us don't have time to return the calls of the people we do want to talk to, let alone return the call of someone who leaves a poorly worded message that basically says, "Please call me back."