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Few things can be more frustrating for the sales professional than the proverbial game of phone tag with prospects. You know the drill…you call and leave a message, the prospect calls back and leaves a message, you call back, and on and on and on. This can be extremely frustrating, not to mention terribly inefficient. This situation is a symptom of a larger problem…the problem of not controlling the sales process.

From the moment of your initial contact, YOU should be controlling the sales process. You know the steps that must take place to complete the sale. You know how long each should take. You know the hurdles that must be overcome. In short, you know the sales process for your product or service and therefore you must control that process from the very first contact. This is a subject for another article, actually many more articles, but for today, let’s take phone tag out of your vocabulary.

Too often when we are making that initial contact, it is easy to allow a prospect to say something like, “This is a bad week for me, give me a call next week.” This seems to start a process that extends far beyond next week. It starts with your call the next week, your prospect is busy, or out and you leave a message to call you back. Now…IF the prospect calls you back, and if you have been in sales for any length of time, I don’t have to say any more than that, it is very possible that that return call will come while you are in another meeting or on the phone or in some way unavailable. Now, we start all over again. As soon as you get the message, you call back and your prospect is at lunch. Now the miracle that your prospect called you back the first time must be repeated again. Your odds for eventually closing this sale are falling dramatically with every missed opportunity.

Here’s how to avoid this extremely frustrating cycle. At the moment that your prospect gives you permission to contact them again, you want to set a time for that contact. “Give me a call next week.” “That sounds great Mr. Prospect. I have a bit of a full schedule next week and since I know your time is just as valuable as mine, let’s make sure we don’t waste it by playing phone tag. I have a couple of times available. How about either 10:00 on Tuesday or 1:30 on Wednesday?” You have just taken control of the situation. If your prospect does not want to set a time, you have just discovered that he is probably not very serious about moving forward. You can offer to let him set the time, “Since neither of those times work for you, Mr. Prospect, tell me what does work and I will see if I have that available.”

Now you will once again either get a commitment or you will find out that you are probably wasting your time chasing this guy. Either way, you have established control over the process and saved yourself the time of playing phone tag or chasing a prospect that you are never going to catch.

Now, go out and make this your best sales week ever!

Greg Beverly is a Sales and Business Coach with more than 21 years experience helping others claim the success and abundance they are capable of. Find out more about Greg and sign up for his free 10 day Sales E-Course by visiting http://www.salessuccess.yougethelp.com today.

“Hey everybody!” Hairdresser Lady called out. “It’s The Happy Guy.”

“Don’t try buttering me up, Hairdresser Lady,” I warned. “It’s not going to work.”

“What’s not going to work?” she demanded.

“You can’t cover up your gross incompetence with a ‘Hey everybody’ cheer.”

“Gross incompetence?”

“That’s right. Just look at my head. Go ahead, take a real close look.”

“Why, it’s a family of sparrows. What a lovely nest,” she grinned.

“No, over here.”

“My, my. If it isn’t a bald spot,” she giggled. “Should I give it a shine?”

“That’s just what I mean, Hairdresser Lady. Ever since I’ve been coming to you this past couple years, I’ve been losing hair. What have you been doing to it?”

“Er, nothing. Just a little growth formula.”

“Growth?!? My hair isn’t growing. It’s falling out.”

“The growth formula is not for your hair, silly. It’s for your scalp,” Hairdresser Lady responded.

“Growth formula for my scalp?”

“To make you look taller,” Hairdresser Lady explained. “You do look kind of short, you know.”

“How will growth formula on my scalp make me look taller?”

“Just look in the mirror. Already your head is starting to stick up out of your hair,” Hairdresser Lady pointed out. “You look taller already.”

She was right. I did look taller. “That stuff really works?”

“It works wonders on my petunias,” Hairdresser Lady asserted.

Saaaaay, wait a minute. That’s not a growing scalp. That’s a receding hairline! “I don’t believe it. You are NOT putting growth formula on my scalp. I am just losing my hair.”

By this time, Hairdresser Lady was rolling on the floor with laughter. And I still had no idea what she was doing to make my hair fall out.

“I’ll bet this is a secret trick to reduce your workload. The more hair falls out, the less you have to cut.”

“Less hair to cut, but more face to wash,” she chirped as she dunked my head under water. Deep under water. “Actually, you don’t look too bad. Your hair is just getting thin here and there, and you have a lot more vacant real estate above your eyes. But most of your hair is clinging on…for now.”

It was that last “for now” that sent shivers down my spine. Already I could see how much hair I had lost since she became my hairdresser. What diabolical anti-hair plot could she be preparing to unleash upon my head? I feared all my questions would soon be answered when she brought a new tray to the counter in front of me.

“What’s all that stuff? I demanded.

“These are your new hairdressing supplies: tar, a very large black brush, and a cheese grater,” she smiled as she opened the tar lid.

“What’s in that?” I was panicking.

“Don’t worry,” Hairdresser Lady whispered. “Nobody will know that it’s not really…hair.”

I lunged toward the exit. As the door swung closed behind me, I heard her call out, “Don’t you even want to know what the cheese grater is for?”

Looking back, the whole situation seems ludicrous. My hair was not falling out because of Hairdresser Lady. It was falling out because of middle age. After all, they didn’t have hairdressers in the Middle Ages.

Yesterday, my wife asked me when I last got my hair cut. I told her it had been a while. “Why do you ask?”

“Because,” she puzzled. “Your hair seems to be growing quite long.”

I think I shocked her when I began jumping up and down, shouting, “Yes. It works. Yes. Yes. Yes. No more hairdressers! No miracle petunias! No growing scalps!”

Still, every now and then, I wonder — just what was the cheese grater for.

About The Author

The author is David Leonhardt. Sign up for his weekly satire column up at http://www.TheHappyGuy.com/positive-thinking-free-ezine.html or read more columns at http://www.TheHappyGuy.com/self-actualization-articles.html. Or join in the happiness at http://www.thehappyguy.com.

info@thehappyguy.com

If you have ever wanted a way to get the wax out of your ears, then you could use many different methods, and one of those methods is ear candling. What is ear candling? It is where a long hollow candle is placed into your ear and at the end opposite of your ear the candle is lit. As the candle burns down it creates a suction and heat into your ear and pulls the wax into the center of the candle. This is a simple explanation, and there is defiantly a more technical explanation out there. This should be done by a health care professional because you only have one set of ears.

It is really interesting after the ear candling is over and you see how much wax came out of your ears, you will never forget the first time. Wax is protective of your ears and good for them, but it can become excessive and this is a way to get excess out, although there are many other options.

Taking care of your health can help you live a better life, eat healthy foods, drink a lot of water, sleep right, exercise, and you can take the Acceletrim product if you want to drop some extra weight. Balance is the way to go when it comes to your health, and take one day at a time and do the best that you can.