By John Carroll

Several years ago, our daughter Erynn wished very seriously for a cat. Shortly thereafter, a stray tabby cat appeared in our yard. My wife, Lori, in a weak moment, gave the cat a bit of milk and you can guess the rest of the story. Erynn quickly named it after the surname she had seen on another cat’s collar license a few months earlier. That family’s name: Price. After the first trip to the vet, she earned the nickname High Price.

Having a cat for a pet provides our family with opportunities for entertainment, unconditional love and acceptance of responsibility. Through observation, it has also given me some pointers to apply to selling. Here are some of those lessons:

1. Check it thoroughly – Price lives on cat food and gets an occasional treat. When we cook out on the grill, she keeps watch over the process, expecting that she’ll get a sample of what we’re having for dinner. When she does, she’ll sniff around it, take a step or two away and return to sniff again before she eats.

In selling, checking it out thoroughly means that doing your homework before diving into a new selling opportunity. From one perspective, look to see if this prospect is worth the time and effort required to develop a relationship. If the potential is a single sale or project, will the return on investment of your time and energy be sufficient?

From another point of view, take the time to learn all you can about this prospect from several sources of information. You can check web sites, annual reports, and media coverage. You can inquire with customers and suppliers as well. By taking the time to gather this information in advance, you demonstrate to the new prospect that you’re a professional who will not waste your contact’s time asking what I call beginner’s questions. "So tell me, what do you make here?" is hardly the sort of question you ask to make a great first impression.

2. Don’t get overly enthusiastic – When Price is in the middle of a nap, an offer to go outside is often unattractive. In response, she will look at us with eyes that betray her lack of excitement over leaving a comfortable spot.

In selling, enthusiasm has an important role. When you ask for the order, for instance, your enthusiasm can be the deciding factor in getting the sale, since enthusiasm is contagious. Left unchecked, however, enthusiasm can cloud your thinking. Placing too high of an expectation on getting any particular order can set you up for failure and heartache. Approaching each opportunity positively, with guarded optimism, works in your favor. Don’t get stuck on an emotional roller coaster. Take your sales results in stride by celebrating the wins and learning from the setbacks. Once you’ve been in selling for any period of time, you’ll have ample chances to do both.

3. Rest – Our cat has raised relaxation to an art form. In addition to her typical sleeping spot, we find her in any of several locations and poses always ready to catch a few winks.

Rest is underrated in today’s society and particularly in sales and marketing. It seems fashionable to live by inspirational sayings that compare sales professionals to lions and gazelles on the plains of Africa. In reality, your survival is rarely threatened by whether you get the "kill" today. Indeed, getting the proper rest can prepare you to "do battle" more effectively and with greater focus and effort than you might otherwise have.

Rest is more than just sleep. It includes participation in training and personal development that helps you step back from your day-to-day tasks. If you’re doing less than the equivalent of a day per quarter of professional improvement, you are under-investing in your biggest asset, your mind.

4. Stretch – Cats instinctively stretch their muscles upon rising from a nap or even after sitting in a certain position for any length of time. Regardless of her destination, Price will always take the time to stretch legs, back and various other areas before she moves very far.

Stretching in selling means getting your mind warmed up and ready for the task at hand. Rising in the morning just in time to rush through dressing and traveling to an appointment will show in rusty thinking and poor responses to unforeseen circumstances. Likewise, taking all morning to gear up mentally for the important sales call wastes valuable selling time.

Take the time to condition and stretch your mind early in the day by reading trade and industry publications relevant to you and your customers. Get your physical exercise first thing in the morning to get the blood flowing to the brain. Sit quietly at the beginning of the day and do what Julia Cameron calls "morning pages." You simply sit with a tablet and pen and write until you fill three sides of a page with whatever you please. You will find that you empty much of the mental and emotional trash, recall things you want to accomplish and move your mind to more creative levels, all through this simple exercise. I certainly don’t expect that you’ll do all of the above every single morning, although some people do. Try just one of these activities each morning and watch your results (and your mindset) improve.

5. Sharpen the claws – Cats have claws to protect themselves in case of attack and to climb toward prey or in flight from predators. While Price doesn’t need to hunt for her food, she still has all her claws and takes sharpening them very seriously. If there’s a tree anywhere nearby and she senses the need, that tree’s single purpose for existence is as a scratching post.

Sharpening the claws may sound a bit forceful in selling terms. Your protection in this world of rapidly changing, technology-intensive business, however, is to have the proper tools, become skilled at using them and continually find ways to use them more effectively and efficiently. If you’re still living exclusively by pad and pencil, you’re likely losing ground and have few if any claws to use to your advantage.

If this means carrying a portable PC and checking your inventory of a specific product at your customer’s location, go through the paces in advance to insure a smooth process in front of your customer. Rather than fighting the use of new tools as many sales professionals do, direct your energy toward putting the new resource to work for you.

6. Watch out for the dogs – Our neighborhood is heaven on earth for dogs, since they seem to have the run of the place. As a result, other living creatures residing in the area remain wary of the constant canine presence. Price is no exception and will assume her position under a bush or car, poised for action until the current danger passes.

In selling, the dogs are everywhere, presenting danger in untold forms. The obvious analogy here is your competition. You likely consider competitors as the primary force keeping you from making your sales and income numbers.

Take a closer look, however, and you’ll find "dogs" of all shapes and sizes posing threats to your success. Check your reference group to see the type of people with whom you spend much or most of your time. Are these people going places? Do they challenge you mentally and intellectually to move your game to the next level of accomplishment? If not, you’re likely making the mistake of running with a pack of mediocre performers who are holding you back regardless of whether you realize it. Start spending time with people who appear to be getting where you want to go. Take them out to breakfast or lunch and pick their brains. Begin thinking the way they think and doing some of the things they do. Success leaves clues. Be a great detective and learn from the masters.

7. Keep things clean – Cats appear to feel that anytime is a good time for cleaning and preening oneself. At a moment’s notice, Price will stop, drop and begin a cleaning operation that can last from several minutes to nearly an hour. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to distract or detain her from this process once she gets started.

Keeping things clean in selling means continual maintenance of whatever you use for selling. If you’re using printed materials, be sure that they’re in proper condition and very presentable. If you’re using technology to sell your product or service, be sure that it’s up-to-date, attractive and easy to operate. If the tools you use for selling seem outmoded or less than presentable, your prospect need only make a small leap to assume that your product or service is similarly lacking. Look at your equipment and materials through the eyes of your customers and prospects and replace what needs to be replaced.

8. Sit still for a good scratch behind the ears – Price can be heard purring from quite a distance when a family member or neighbor stops to give her a scratch behind her ears. She will gladly accommodate by turning her head from side to side to improve both the angle of the hand to the ear and the satisfaction she gets from the scratching.

In selling, your ability to receive a compliment can be one of the most telling signs of your personal and professional self-esteem. Can you sit still long enough for someone to compliment you on your appearance, your insight in solving a particular type of problem or your ability to encourage a team member to stick with it through a slump? Or do you respond to such kind words with statements such as "It was nothing"? When you respond by saying, "Oh, it was no big deal," you actually demean the person trying to compliment you by negating both the observation and the observer.

When you’re good at what you do, people are bound to notice. When someone thinks enough of you to deliver a sincere compliment, your classiest response is simply to smile and say thank you. Anything beyond that can be seen as self-deprecating and insecure on one side or cocky and egotistical on the other. Appreciate the moment and the person giving you the compliment. You deserve it.

9. Ask – Price needs our help with several elements of her existence, including food, petting and moving in and out of doors. She has learned to ask in several different ways that range from her "poor, pitiful me" expression to seemingly non-stop cries for attention and help, until she gets what she wants.

As a professional in selling, you know how critical it is to ask your prospect or customer to make a decision to buy from you. Asking in different ways under various conditions, however, is often what separates the top performers from the others. If you tend to get into a rut by asking the same way every time, you’re likely getting stale and it’s becoming noticeable by those you ask. This is particularly true if you’re in relationship selling and you’re asking for additional or repeat business from the same customer or client.

Check yourself to see if you’ve become one-dimensional in your asking. Of your last five sales in which you asked for the order, how many different ways did you use to ask? If it was the same for all of them, you either have a tremendously effective way to ask or you’re getting a bit stale in your approach or both. Regardless, consider expanding your repertoire by asking in different ways at different times. You may find you can greatly increase your ratios and results simply by adding one or two new ways to ask for the sale or the advance.

10. Get at least one good hug per day – Cats seem to run the gamut from affectionate and cuddly to standoffish. Price leans toward the cuddly side and enjoys a good hug from one of our daughters or their friends. In the absence of someone taking the time to hug and pet her, she will hug a leg by starting with a nose nuzzle and finishing with tail curled around the leg. She needs no invitation for this and will usually continue until the owner of that leg moves away.

In sales, you may not need the equivalent of a hug per day, but you certainly deserve one. I know many sales professionals who try to end their day by seeing or at least speaking to one of their best customers, those with whom they have the strongest relationship and who provide a large part of their sales volume and/or profit dollars.

These people know that ending the day on a positive note by talking with a top customer can do several things for them. First, it keeps them in touch and helps maintain a strong relationship. Second, it reinforces the seller’s professionalism in spending more time on the critical accounts. Third, and sometimes most important, it provides a safe port after a stormy selling day. Dropping by or talking with that key customer can often compensate for a day full of setbacks and rejections. It also serves to help the seller end the day on more of an uplifting note, setting the stage for better things ahead tomorrow.

You can end your selling day more positively by scheduling to see key accounts later in the day, if only to check status of an delivery or satisfaction with the product or service. It’s true that you’re not guaranteed a warm reception, particularly if you are greeted with the news that your customer is experiencing problems. More likely than not, however, you’ll get a positive response for your effort and counterbalance those challenges or problems you may have encountered earlier.

You probably don’t think much about cats during your selling day. Try these simple ideas from Price and be the top cat in your sales results.

John Carroll is President/CEO of Unlimited Performance, a Mt. Pleasant, SC, firm focused on organizational and individual performance improvement. Brian Tracy International, a worldwide network of consultants, has recognized him for sales excellence. Contact him at 1-800-672-4277 toll-free, email at jcarroll@uperform.com, fax at (843) 881-6746.

© 1999 John Carroll All rights reserved.