How young is too young to teach your kids about business and sales?
I was so proud of my daughter today. Its school holidays at the moment… and at 8am I suddenly didn’t have child care… it was cancelled at the last minute and after a brief panic, I decided that my daughter Rose, almost 6 years old could come with me to a potential new client briefing to hear what kind of training their team needed. (I know, a sales opportunity). If I cancelled and stayed at home with her, I could miss the opportunity and I didn’t want that. So I thought... I’ll do it and the worst that can happen is that Rose will learn about meetings. She needs to learn this, might as well be directly from me. What’s ironic about this, is that this potential client wanted me to pitch to them what I could do to deliver sales training to their staff for their upcoming conference!
So... we got all 'dressed up' ready to make a presentation. The briefing in the car to Rose was that 1. She wasn't allowed to ask me questions during the meeting. I was happy to answer any and all questions when we were back in the car. 2. She had to be respectful and listen. 3. She was not allowed to kiss me or ask for a cuddle if she was feeling scared. I reassured her that she would be sitting next to me at all times. 4. She was to answer any question from the people we were meeting as best she could. 5. She was to take notes and draw in her notepad in the red compendium I gave her (just like mine) and 6. The deal was that if she did all of that, she would earn $5 - the new Aussie five dollar note which she absolutely loves.
Well, we arrived and after I shook hands with all 3 people we were meeting, I introduced my work experience daughter Rose and she shook their hands except for the man… she wasn’t sure about that. They offered us water and one of the ladies brought in a slice of cake for Rose as well. We sat across from our hosts, we both opened our compendiums to our notepaper and the meeting began.
Rose was amazing. As I talked with the CEO and his two managers, Rose wrote notes (words she knew) and started writing on small squares of paper, ate the cake, drank the water and then at the 45 minute mark was getting slightly bored. That was OK as I was finishing up. I thanked them for their time, gave them my business card each and then Rose’s energy level surged and she suddenly jumped up from the table. She started to giggle and then with a big grin went to the other side of the table and gave them each a business card that she had just made with her name on it a picture of her and also her personal ‘seal’ logo. WOW!
As we left the room, I shook their hands and Rose shook all of their hands too, even the man. She was so happy with herself. Her first real meeting and she earned $5 bucks for it. We got down the the car and I hugged her and high fived her and whatever the outcome with this potential client, Rose had an extraordinary experience and I am so grateful to them for embracing Rose at the meeting.
I asked Rose in the car what she learned from the meeting and this is what she said: 1. You must look at the person across form the table when talking to them 2. Both people have turns talking 3. Write down lots about what they say on your notepad 4. Hand out Business Cards and then she said... I love meetings. I'm good at them.
BOOM! So proud !
So my question to you.... Whats in your way to make the sales or get the results you want? Whatever you do, DONT let your reason for making sales be the excuse of not doing them! My reason for sales is Rose... she is not going to be the reason I'm not selling. What re-frame do you need to make to get the results you want? Come on... keep moving and MAKE IT HAPPEN !