Charity Event!

Everyone, On Thursday, October 11th I will be supporting a charity event benefiting
Project Angel Heart. Project Angel Heart is a local
organization that brings food to those with terminal illnesses
www.projectangelheart.org.

I am attaching my flyer for the event, I hope you all can make it. The
event will be casual, at Leela's European Cafe. I believe that this
venue is family-friendly with children welcome, but please check with
Leela's to verify this.

We are still looking for items for the silent auction; if you know
anyone who might be able to make a donation please let me know, or get them in contact with me.

Networking - Learning the Hard Way

I ask myself all the time, How valuable is Networking? Are my efforts really helping increase the probability of uncovering new opportunities?


Why is it so hard to get involved in your local Networking events?


It seems to be a funny phenomenon in order to be involved in networking events, you have to first know a bunch of people and through those personal connections they help you navigate your way through the world of networking.

I want to share my personal experience learning the ropes of Networking in Denver and the surrounding areas.

Wanting to get involved in the local business community, meet new people, and hopefully drum up some new business for my company, I started to reach out to others. Everything started with an email I received a few months ago from a mentor of mine, Lorna Donovan. She sent me an email informing me of her next Advanced Sales Mentor Group she was offering. Knowing her well and the exceptional level of training she offers, I jumped on the opportunity to learn more from the best.

During the first few group meetings we had, she brought in a guest speaker, David Collins. He spoke on the power of Power Networking. Though I had heard this discussion before from many people, including Lorna herself, it was great to hear it again. David inspired me to use my contacts I have made in the last few years to find new business for my new job with Internet Alliance Group.

This was the catalyst I needed to get involved, use my contacts and attend more networking events. I did what most people would do and hopped on Google and searched for ‘Denver, CO Networking Events’, ‘Denver Business Networking’, and other variations. What I found was a bunch of rubbish. There was hardly anything showing up relative to what I was looking for. I found a few dating events, and I believe in this search, Integrated Alliances showed up somewhere in between a pay per click ad and a singles dating website with a bunch of photos of wasted sweaty people in a bar. Besides that I was out of luck.

That being the case, I signed myself and my one of my colleges up to attend my first real business networking event. We went to the Linked-In – Integrated Alliances Broomfield-to-Boulder (B2B) Networking Event. It was hosted at the Broomfield Event Center. It was probably the best place for a first-timer like myself to go. There were over 100 people in attendance, food, drinks, a helicopter, and everyone was so nice and easy to talk to. During the event I found out about other events going on in the Denver area and made tons of great contacts including another group I am now involved in, JESSI Search. This is a Sales Management group that meets on the last Friday of each month. It is a peer group where we discuss current issues, case studies, and have a chance to again, Network. It is owned and run by two individuals, Julie McFall and Garry Duncan.

Since then, I have attended multiple events on a weekly basis. I’ve been introduced to a plethora of new local businesses and entrepreneurs wanting to make their own business connections and help each other be successful in their own. I have found many people attend the same events, so switching it up frequently and stepping out of my comfort zone as often as possible has been the most successful way for me to make connections. Granted, there are at least 2 wealth / financial advisors at every event trying to differentiate themselves from one another, you can still use the power of networking and 7 degrees of separation to help grow your own business.

A great idea for anyone looking to start to a new business; There are still no great online tools out there for people like myself to find the local events and their locations on the internet. That said, if anyone is ambitious enough to do so, please, build a site and launch it quickly so the rest of us know what’s happening in Denver.

What To Do?

I have encountered a very dynamic situation and am very interested in getting some much needed advice

So, what do you do when… Consider this a case study…?

Being a the newly hired VP of sales at his company, George McFarland was tasked with the role of bringing structure, teamwork, and most importantly, and increase in sales for his company, The United Glass Company.

The company was small given they contracted out a majority of their work and George was the leader of a 5 man and 1 woman sales team. George made a conscious effort at the beginning to meet with each person on his team. He went to lunch with each of them, got to understand to their personal lives, whether they were married, had children, life dreams and much more information.

He thereafter implemented a weekly sales meeting to bring the entire team together. Funny enough, the sales team to date had not been having any internal meetings whatsoever. They had no quotas, call requirements, pipeline, nothing. Getting past the first initial meeting, during the second George started it by posing a simple question: What did you do this week? What did you learn? What can you share with the rest of the team?

Everyone had normal predictable answers around the calls they made, getting shot down by administrative assistants, and what they plan on doing differently next week.

The second more provocative question, but still fairly predictable given the knowledge George had gained about his team, he asked: What are you excellent at today, and what would you like to gain as a sales person during your time here?

The answers were all very similar. Everyone was unsurprisingly good at generating new opportunities, getting conversations going, and wanting to gain more skills finding pain, and creating value to help advance the sales cycle.

BUT, one very determined, head strong, arrogant salesman in the room proudly stated to George and the entire sales team, “I need help understanding the objections my prospects are going to throw at me”.

George stated, “How can we, your team, help you better understand these objections?”

“Well you can’t, I just need to hear them from the prospects for myself.”

“Ok,” George said. Trying to move on he went the other half of the question, “What are you looking to gain during your time hear at the Glass Company?”

The salesman paused for a moment and thought about it. He proudly stated, “You can all have a positive attitude. If there is a lot of buzz and things going on around here, it will motivate me and help me have the right mindset.”

“Is there anything else we as your colleges can do to help you, is there anything you want to take away from your time here?” George asked again.

“Now that I think of it, if everyone comes to me and asks me questions and comes to me for help, that will better me as a salesman.”

George shortly ended the meeting after that wanting the rest of the team to think over the conversation they had just witnessed.


As the VP of Sales for this small Glass Company, what do you do? How do you manage this person to be a team player? Do you keep him, let him go…?

Welcome fellow readers and Blog Fans

Welcome. This is the introduction of my first and far from last Blog entry. I know everyone has a personal Blog out there, and as Greg Schwarzer so kindly states as his personal Blog title, this is “Yet another Sales Blog.”

I hope to cover in my Blog many things. I intend the focus of this to be around my professional life as a Salesman with the rest of my life as entertaining filler.

Here is a brief high-level preview of some topics I plan on covering, not in this order, but eventually:
-Goal Setting
-Employee retention, management, growth, etc
-Networking
-Identifying personal (ones) issues
-Personal growth and continued training
-Increasing your focus
-Sales tools, cycle, processes, structure, etc
-Sales Culture
-And more

As for a brief Bio:
I was born in Saginaw, MI and grew up in Midland, MI. I Graduated From Herbert Henry Dow High School. After High School, I Graduated from the University of Colorado – Boulder. At the end of my College career I was plagued with the issue most college graduates face; I had no ‘real’ experience with any real companies. Besides owning my own Lawn Care company with a high school friend I and learning some of the basic issues small companies face, I was an official rookie.

This led me to the next chapter of my life. As I was going from one job interview to the next (I thought I wanted to be a financial analyst), I found one company, Three Value Logic Sales Institute (3VLSI). Funny story actually…In the course of nearly 9 months while looking for a job, I went to 3VLSI on average every 2 – 3 months with the goal of ‘getting some real experience.’ The first time I showed up at their door I was actually still in college and wanted to find something to fill some time when I wasn’t in class. They were polite about it and said, “wait until you graduate and then come back”. A few months past by, still in school, and still in search of that first real job. By this time I had met with and been kindly rejected by at least 10 companies in Boulder. So I thought I would try my luck with 3VLSI for a second time. I was again told, ‘we appreciate your persistence, but you just don’t have the experience and need to graduate….”

By this time I was getting extremely frustrated, bitter, resentful, and needless to say, depressed. I couldn’t get a job anywhere!

I let a few more months pass and approached 3VLSI for a third time. The only thing I had going for me with 3VLSI was the fact that I could get someone to talk to me. This time when I was declined for the third time, I said “I will work for free.” Who would turn away Free Work, come on!

I was finally award the position of Phone Monkey. I made about 75 – 100 calls a day with no real inclination it was hard or difficult. I just did it. I was told to make calls, and nothing really more.

At that point, I started to see some real success and was getting recognized for my work, don’t forget, free work.

To make a long story short, after 2 years I became a Project Principal and the Director of Sales for 3VLSI.

After gaining more sales knowledge than I knew what to do with, and uncovering a personal opportunity to make more money, I made a change. I took a job with Internet Alliance Group (IAG) to be their Director of Sales.

This position with IAG has been so dynamic in so many different ways it has inspired me to start my own personal Blog.

Please Enjoy

Kind Regards,

Robert Johnson