Sales:
The Anti-Bailout Crowd

Selling is a part of life. Regardless of one’s position, status or age, everyone has to sell. It could be ideas, views, or an actual product or service. In fact, the ultimate sales professionals are children. They build great relationships, and are not afraid to ask for what they want a hundred different times in a hundred different ways until they get it. In my opinion, they could certainly teach many of us a lesson or two on sales.

Lately, we’ve had a first-hand look at an incredible sales effort on a grand scale – the one put forth by our federal government on why we need their help, why they need our money and why we should incur some very heavy debt as a nation in the process. Whether they will be successful in this sales endeavor remains to be seen, but they have one unique advantage in getting their ideas sold that the rest of us don’t – the ability to give people and companies “goodies” in exchange for support. Wouldn’t we all love to have that kind of advantage!

So as we sit back and watch the banks, insurance companies, auto manufacturers, real estate speculators and countless others receive their “bailouts” in exchange for their support, the readers of this magazine who I have spoken with continue to soldier on and do their jobs. I believe that’s because sales is a special profession and this is a special industry. It attracts self-reliant businesspeople that don’t expect anything more than a good company with solid systems and the right products behind them. They know the rest is up to them. It’s not about handouts, freebies or a business model gone bad – it’s about hard work, solid relationships, good ideas, helping your customers and the entrepreneurial spirit.

We would also like to welcome a new columnist, Todd Brodersen, who will be sharing his expertise on inside sales. His column “Building the Business from the Inside; Yours, Theirs, Ours” begins on page 8. This will be a regular feature for the rest of the year and one we know you will enjoy. Todd has a very successful track record of building inside sales teams, as well as improving performance, and we believe his ideas will fit perfectly with our tagline of Promoting Excellence in Animal Health Sales.

And last, we would like to thank all of you for the overwhelming response we got to the first issue of the magazine. The calls, letters and survey information we received back were awesome and will be used to help guide our future direction on content. We also completed our drawing for the $100 cash prizes for the survey respondents who were randomly picked last month. The winners are: Ami Newland, MWI; Sharon Schnepf, Nelson Laboratories; Joane Williams, Butler; Bob Weinschenk, MWI; and Janie Bourke, Butler.

Thank you!