Employees Assets or Liabilities

I'm kind of interested in what you think on this subject. I have worked for companies that treated me and payed me like I was an asset to the company. They asked for and respected my ideas and oppions. Many of them I have remained friends with, and I have always considered them a part of making me the woman I am in business today.

However, on the other hand I have worked for companies that saw their employees as disposable liablities. They didn't pay worth a darn and had the attitude "if you don't like it there's the door." Why is this? I understand there are some people who aren't good employees and are unreliable, but why treat everyone that way. Why not hire and treat people as though they were an asset to the company? Then if they just aren't working out, let them go? I just think you would get more out of your employees and they will be more willing to go the extra mile for you if you simply showed them so respect for their contribution to the company.

I'm just thinking out loud, but feel free to put in your ideas on the matter.

Paterson Principle 6

6. Studying.........

The First Discipline

of Knowledge

I more or less touched on this principle last week. Basically "practice makes perfect". You can read how to books on improving you selling, but if you don't practice the techniques you learn you are dead in the water.

The thing to ask yourself is "Do I have enough discipline and desire to work my butt off for my accounts, or do I expect my charm and good looks to land a few here and there for me?" If it's the later, then you are in the wrong business! You might have better luck as an actor(ess)! If it is the first then keep it up and you'll get there. But don't forget one way to improve yourself it to work with and help others to improve.

Take one technique ever week and work on only that technique, master it for that week. After that I can guarantee you it will come more naturally. But don't forget it. You skills are just like a motor, if you give it regular maintenance and use it regularly then it will treat you well. But if you forget to maintain it and you let it set for a long period of time with out use, it becomes rusty and unusable. So work hard to learn and maintain your skills.

Starting next week I'll give you things to do! So go back and read all six principles up to this point and motivate yourself to dedicate yourself. Then next week you'll be raring to go!

Selling is not for the lazy!

Paterson Principle 5

5. Survival is a Combination of

Knowing and Doing

"All sales people know what to do. Problem is they don't do it" - Jeffrey Gitomer

Isn't that the truth. So many of us, myself included, know many styles and techniques for selling. The problem is we get comfortable, get in a rut, or just get plain lazy. In this business you can not do that. You must stay on your toes and be ready for changes and new things all the time.

So here's an idea, become a mentor. Find someone in your own business or in another business who is new in sales and is open to learning more from your experience. Volunteer to mentor that person, and while you are training and mentoring that person challenge yourself to look at yourself and go back to the beginning. Start doing the things you have quit doing because you think that you are above that or you don't have time. Then hold on and watch your sales career come alive again! I guarantee you this will work.

If you are new in sales and would like to learn more, find a mentor, join us at Selling North Idaho Toastmaster (also a sales book group), or send me an email. I'll gladly help you in your sales career. It's always a good idea to have a mentor. Someone who can teach you, be your support when things aren't looking so good, or celebrate with you when they are going great.

Here's another idea. Try everything you hear of. Don't discredit any technique until you have tried it. Educate yourself, don't expect someone else to tell you what to do. The Television and useless use of the internet are your enemies. Turn them off, get books on sales (I highly recommend Jeffrey Gittomer's Sales Bible, and Frank Betgers How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success), find a mentor, try new things, dedicate yourself to your career (although don't forget about your family, they come first), and watch your career take off!

My career took off when I started reading sales books (thanks to Gitomer's seminar), found a mentor, dedicated and disciplined myself, and started networking with different groups.

Sunshine!

It's so beautiful outside that I find it hard to check in and add a post to my blog lately. I've been watering my yard like crazy and tending to it. I am actually getting a lawn this year. The last couple years have been awful. I don't have the money to poor into my yard, so I've got to struggle to get any lawn at all to grow. This year it's happening!

I'll tell you it's not easy living on one income. Since the birth of our third child in December I have been home. Well, I'm now looking at trying to go back to work, but finding work in the evening is very difficult as well. I don't want to work during the day because I really DO NOT want to put the kids in daycare anymore. They are so much better off with me home, and I enjoy it too. Yes, even during those moments when I just want to scream too. Plus I need to be at home during the day in order to run our business.

Speaking of daycare's I'll have to tell you about my daycare hunting experience one of these days. But I will say it is so amazing to me the conditions people will leave their children in, and the kinds of daycares that are allowed to operate. I'll have to come back to this story later.

Well this weekend is my oldest boys birthday. He'll be eight, and my hubby and I have been married for over 11 years. My nieces and nephews in California are teenagers! Okay stop it! I'm making myself feel old. Then again I have a seven month old too. Whew! Okay that feels better, I'm not so old after all, at least I don't feel old.

Yes, I'm still burred in the search for my ancestors too, although I spend fewer hours on it lately. The one part that is irritating me is our connection to Daniel Boone. I have heard all my life that I am related some how to Daniel Boone on my dad's side of the family. I have yet to make the connection. However I have discover other famous settlers and explorers that I am a descendant of. It's really interesting to find out that you are related to people in history, life Simon Sackett, one of the six original settlers sent over by the King to settle Newtown, Mass. (now Cambridge), or his grandson Cyrus Sackett who helped to blaze the way, fight the Indians (not a part I'm proud of), and settle Kentucky. I also found that my dad is a descendant of the Wycoff family. The Wycoff (the American spelling they took on in America) family were Dutch settlers who original settled the Flatlands of New York.

The Wycoff house was built about 1652 and occupied by Pieter and Grietje Wycoff about 1655. It remained the home of Wyckoff descendants for about 250 years. The Wyckoff House is the number one Landmark in New York City as well as the oldest house in New Your State It is also a National historic Landmark. In 1982, it was restored as a living museum to honor the Dutch presence in America. When the English took over New Amsterdam (renaming it New York in 1664), they made all Dutch take surnames, which had not been Dutch custom. Our Dutch ancestor chose the name "Wycoff" Most Wyckoff's (in any of the various sixty three spellings) in the U.S. today are descendants joined together and saved the origin all Wyckoff house in the Flatlands from destruction. Pieter Claesen, founder of the Wyckoff Family in America, came to Fort Orange, Province of New Netherlands, April 7, 1637, on the ship Rensselaerswick. In the log of that ship is the following: "This ship sailed from Amsterdam, Holland, 25 Sep 1636, anchored off the seaport, The Texel, 8 Oct 1636, reached New Amsterdam, New Netherland, 4 March 1637, and Tuesday 7 April 1637, about three o'clock in the morning we came to anchor before Fort Aeranien, the end of our journey upward." The Rensselaerswick was outfitted by Killian Van Rensselaer, a diamond merchant of Amsterdam, who had a speculative contract with the Est India Company for the grant of a large body of land near the headwaters of the Hudson River, under which he was required to transport men and animals to the new country. There is no complete list of the passengers on this ship, but among those named are Pieter Corneliseen from Monnickendam, North Holland; Pieter Claesen Van Norden, And Simon Walischez. These three did not remain in New Amsterdam, but went on to Fort Orange. Her Pieter Cornelissen became prominent in the affairs of the colony. He may have been an uncle of Pieter Claesen, although the two are not mentioned together in the records of the Van Rensselaer estate. These records show that Pieter Claesen was on of the thirty-eight laborers sent on the Rensselaerswick to be assigned to various farmers on the Rensselaer estate, and that under the date 3 April 1637, he was assigned to Simon Walischez. According to a scorched fragment of the records of the estate, saved from a fire in the State Library at Albany in 1911, he was to receive 50 guildres per year for the first three years and 75 guildres for the last three years. About the time when the contract matured, Simon Walischez' lease was canceled on the grounds the he was an unsatisfactory tenant and the final settlement was made by the Van Rensselaer Estate. According to the report, Pieter Claesen was 18 years old when he made his settlement with the van Rensselaer estate. Soon after this he rented a farm for himself and married Grietje van Ness, the daughter of a prominent Citizen of the colony. Their two eldest children were born in Renselaersweck, but the church in which were kept the records of their birth and the marriage of their parents, was burned and the records destroyed. With his wife and two children he went to New Amsterdam in 1649. Here he remained until 1655, when he signed a contract "to superintend the Bowery and cattle of Peter Stuyvesant in New Amersfoort" and moved into the house on Canarsie Lane in Flatlands, Brooklyn, now known as the Wyckoff Homestead. Pieter Claesen prospered and became one of the most influential citizens of the little frontier settlement. He had bought.

Okay so enough history for today. I just love history, especially when I find out it's part of my ancestory. It makes you feel like you came from something. Although with that comes the parts of history you don't want to admit you are a descendant of, such as slavery. Most of my roots are from the South, so it's a part that I'm afraid did exist in our family, I've just yet to uncover it.

Paterson Principle 4

4. Boot Camp Separates the Salesman

from the Wana-be Salesman

"Industry is cheap. It is laziness that costs. It has cost many a bright man a bright career" - John H Patterson

Business owners, here's something for you to think about. Are you having trouble finding salespeople who really know how to sale, or that have the right personality? Try this, hire your next employee with the right personality and then train that person to sale. It is easier to train a salesperson with the right personality and desire then to train an old salesperson set in their ways who thinks they know it all.

Salespeople, keep this in mind. You will never know it all! There is always room for improvement. So train yourself daily! Set aside 30 minutes everyday for your training, and 30 minutes every morning to plan out your day. If you are new in the sales field start networking and find a mentor to help you. I have my mentor and I call on him regularly to help me. If you have been in the game for a long time then search out someone new with the desire to learn, and mentor that person. Amazingly my mentor says it even helps to motivate him when he works with me.

I have a couple forms that can help you organize your day and one to help you measure your daily progress. Send me an email if you would like a copy at amyrebba@adelphia.net. If you have a sales team that really needs help or your just one sales person looking for a mentor let me know. I would be glad to help out other salespeople and business owners to improve their sales.

Sex Offenders among us

This is so disturbing to me. I'm very grateful that Shasta Groene was found, thanks to someone paying attention and responding quickly. However, it got me thinking. Who am I living near? Who are my neighbors, really? So I pulled up Idaho's sex offender registry. I was shocked to find that we have 58 offenders living right here in Post Falls, another 78 living in Coeur d'Alene, and no telling how many in Hayden. I was too discussed to keep looking.

Then I got to thinking, it's not enough just to find out how many are in my town. I needed to look further and find out how many may be living near me. That's when I became really disturbed. I live over by Wal Mart and found that there are two living just under the Highlands Golf Course, three living in a trailer park near by, one living just behind us, and few others on a near by street. Then I looked around the school. Now I thought these sicko's couldn't live within a certain distance from the school. Well a couple block away from the high school are two offenders and a couple more down the street from the elementary school my son goes to.

I thought you know this is just to close for comfort and considering that my neighbor has four girls I took my findings next door. I shared all of it with them, and just my luck another mother from down the street was there. They recognized one man as someone that worked for a family member. Then they recognized another man as one that lives two doors down from their friend. And to think their children may have been around these sicko's and they didn't even know who they were.

I left California seven years ago because I didn't want my children to grow up in the gang infested town I grew up in. But at least with gangsters you can see them coming. Sex offenders, some of them, look like the everyday guy next door.

If you have children. Don't be foolish enough to think that it'll never happen to you, or that it can't be the nice family guy next door. Because it sure as hell can.

I agree with Steve Groene. I read somewhere today that he thinks these people should be REMOVED from the street. I agree. Put them in a control environment where they won't be tempted by the child they see walking down the street. I'm not saying put them in prison per say. But create an environment for only such people. Sterilize them and put the on an island. Heck that's how Australia got started.

Just don't waste anytime finding out who your neighbors may be. Get on the Idaho Sex Offenders web site. Then take the time to map out where these people are. Inform your children about these people and show them the faces of the ones that live near by you or their school. Don't take any chances. The lives and well being of your children are too important and should be your first priority! Do it today!

Paterson Principle 3

Oops where was my head this week. I forgot our next principle on Friday. So here it is.

3. Positive Mental Attitude

is Determined by You,

Not Others.

Did your parents ever tell you "you better change that attitude missy." Oh maybe that was only my parents. That was usually my mom's warning that if I didn't replace the sour look on my face she would smack it off for me. Believe it our not your attitude shows in your face, no matter how hard you try to hide it. How about this have you ever forced a smile on your face, when inside you were about to scream and someone asks you "what's wrong?" That should tell you 1) people see right through fake and they hate it 2) you're not very good at pretending.

So why pretend or be fake? Why not change the way you think. Here are some steps to accomplish this goal.

1. Be careful of your associations. People with bad attitudes bring down those around them.
2. Gittomer has a great idea. Every morning read a couple pages from a positive, encouraging, inspiring book.
3. Find phrases of encouragement and post them on your computer screen.
4. exercise daily. I love this one and it goes a long way toward helping me. I've been really bummed lately because my asthma has kept me from getting on the treadmill every morning which is my usually routine (maybe next week it'll be better).
5. Set goals that challenge you but that are achievable. Then when you achieve them you'll be amazed how that will boost you attitude. If the bosses goal seem out of reach then set smaller steps for your self in working up to those goals, and enjoy the journey instead of stressing over the end result.
6. I'm sure there are many more maybe you could come up with another attitude booster and share with the rest of us.

Now this weeks posting can apply to everyone. It's not just a sales thing. When you have a sour attitude the glass is always half empty and nothing ever goes right. But when you see the glass half full and you know there is a silver lining behind every cloud, and you realize everything happens for a reason then nothing can penetrate you shell and bring you down.

Have you ever noticed that some people always get the breaks in life and they are always so full of life. Well that can be you, so take some steps to make it happen.

Your life is what you make of it!