I remember back in the day when I was a kid my mom saving everything. And I mean everything. It was almost like an obsession. She would save copies of bills, xmas cards, boxes, our school projects, magazines, newspapers, tests my brother and I passed (the bad ones went in the garbage), momentos, pictures, clothes and the list goes on. I thought she was nuts. She still is nuts. Just don't tell her I said that. She can get a little rowdy at the young age of 63. I love my mom dearly, cant you tell. LOL. I really do. The most unbelievably warm and loving person I know. But I never really knew why she saved everything. I would ask her and she would say, "you just never know when you are going to need something". Now this was 20 years ago. When there were no personal computers, tablets, iPhones, smart phones, laptops, "cloud", amazon, dropbox, box.net, digital pictures, picture phones, Facebook, Google+, etc etc. Things were saved in boxes in garages or attics or maybe storage facilities.
Now we have the ability to save things at the blink of an eye on a multitude of platforms online or on an external hard drive for minimal to no investment. As a salesperson or for that matter anyone, information is one of your most valuable assets. Whether this is information on yourself, your customers, your prospects, your former employer, your current employer, your job description, your job contract, your compensation, your benefits, your investments, your children (well you cannot save your children in the "cloud" but that would be cool if they figured that out. LOL.) and so on. I think you see my point. The information you collect in your professional career is invaluable. If it is not documented or "saved" in a way, you have no way of referencing it or using in later on down the road. Lets take a few examples:
1. Your customer / prospective contacts and relationships that are built upon are your ticket to maximizing your time and energy. We spend the bulk of our time meeting people all day and night discussing projects and ideas and philosophies to try and earn trust. Trust does not stop at the first "sale". This continues on with you because remember your customers are not necessarily investing in the product solutions you represent they are investing in YOU. Our careers are one big journey. Some of us stay at one company, others move around a bit and some move around a bit to find their GEM and once they find really where they are supposed to be they sink there teeth into their work and make a mark at the company they retire from. To be successful at any of the aforementioned choices, you need good relationships that are built over time. The contact information and experiences need to be saved and documented for you to reference to be prepared to continue to earn trust, make sales and be successful.
2. As mentioned in the prior point, our careers are a journey. Not only does this reflect keeping records of contacts and experiences but I should also point out some important advice when it comes to career path. Lets take LinkedIn for example. I myself have blogged about this before briefly. My linkedin address was linkedin.com/in/shawnreilly. It was a pretty simple address. If you look at the new addresses without customizing it, they are long and complicated. I have been a member of LinkedIn since they first started. I changed my address to linkedin.com/in/shawncreilly over time. My profile has been a collection of data since then. Career positions I have held, posts, groups, group posting, Inmails, connections, job applications, requests, etc etc. Whether its LinkedIn or some other social career networking site (not sure if it gets better than LinkedIn for now) you need to save all of your career path experiences and career positions. The first place new employers look to for information about YOU is the internet and LinkedIn. Resume's are a necessity as a formality but your online presence in today's day and age is far more powerful. Not to mention, if you think your customers are not looking you up on your LinkedIn page you have another thing coming. Keep it up to date, professional and filled with reasons to invest in your solutions!!
3. Saving information should become habitual. For example, you have started a new job. The one thing that sucks about a new job is not knowing what, who, how, etc etc things are done or who to go to to get them done. As your questions are answered, save the information that answered the questions. There is nothing worse for reputation than having to answer your questions over and over. In addition, one of the best ways to gain a great reputation is being able to answer the questions you had asked before for other employees. This shows your interest in being prepared and your willingness to understand how to do your job. This is good stuff! Sometimes the little things will go a LONG LONG way.
4. Your customers generally do not like to wait for answers. As you learn your product solutions and ask questions about does it do this, or does it do that, and how does it do this and why this and why that etc etc. SAVE THE ANSWERS and have them readily available. Trust me when I tell you this last point will catapult your reputation within your company and with your customers. I challenge you to start saving the emails you get from questions you have asked, or documents sent to you or URLs you have been sent. The first time you are able to answer a question because you saved information you will feel great about yourself and your peers and or customers will feel the same way. This sounds a little corny but as I said before sometimes little things go a LONG LONG way.
Thanks for reading and happy selling!
Shawn
SR@ShawnCReilly.com
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