Blair Singer in his book Sales Dogs says “The more marketing you do, less selling effort you have to deal with. Prospects put up their hands and come looking for you instead of your having to sniff them out. It’s art of having sales opportunities come to you” In effect what he is saying is more effort you put into cultivating your orchard, less time you have to spend out looking for fruit in other people’s orchards. The challenge for Cultivators is to make sure they call on prospect once they’ve raised their hand.

If you’re a Harvester how can you develop cultivation skills? ·Implement activities to develop awareness that allow you to reach many potential customers in less time than it would take you to reach each one individually . For example send out a predetermined number of letters each week to prospective customers you have not met and that may not yet be aware of your product or service. ·Develop systematic ways to stay in contact with prospects that are not currently ready to purchase such as a regular newsletter. ·Develop credibility through active involvement or a leadership role in a trade association or organization that your potential customers are involved in.

If you are a Cultivator how can you assure you are harvesting rewards of your work? ·Initiate one-on-one follow-up when someone expresses interest. Don’t expect even very interested people to follow-up with you. ·Don’t approach initial meeting as a “sales” meeting. Rather than trying to sell, use initial meeting as an opportunity to really learn about prospects, their problems and their needs. ·Learn to love objections. If someone has an objection to your product or service at least they have an interest. An objection is easier to deal with than a lack of interest any day. ·Rethink your attitude toward closing a sale. Think of it as gaining commitment for an action.

If you are a Cultivator, harvest will never be your favorite time of growing season. If you are a Harvester you will never relish work it takes to grow and ripen fruit. However, successfully building new business requires both.

© 2003 STRATEGIES-BY-DESIGN May be reprinted with credits and contact information.

To me they are as much of a benefit to growth of my business as those who serve as a model. I was able to look at them and see what I didn’t want. I could also see that in many cases they wanted instant success without effort.

One of greatest lessons I have learned from my mentors is to explore ideas I get. Not just explore, but have a plan of action and a systematic approach to implementing idea. And to trust my instinct. And be willing to take risks. It has been said, “With risk comes reward.”

Granted, not all my ideas have been wildly successful. As a matter of fact, some downright “failed.” And yet, out of every failure was seed to another idea that held possibility of success.

Regardless of type of business you are in, you can achieve a high level of success. It’s a matter of your level of commitment and having a vision of what you want to achieve.

Such was case with an idea I came up with a little over a year ago. Although I had some of those “warning” folks tell me it could never work, I chose to listen to those who have been successful in idea implementation and explore where idea could take me. Thank goodness I followed my instinct and implemented idea. That one idea has made me over $100,000.

The really amazing thing is that out of that one idea have come others. An offshoot idea is a FR*EE report in which I outline step-by-step what idea was and how it generated revenues.

If you would like to get your own copy of my report entitled, “Learn How One Salt Lake City Based Business Consultant Made Over 100k from One Idea” go to www.kathleengage.com to receive it. If learning how a home based business owner did this is not important then don’t. Either way, choice is yours.

And isn’t that what life is about, choice?