Five Habits That Increase Your Income

This is Dave Lorenzo and you're listening to the sixty second sales show and in today's episode we're going to talk about the five daily habits that make you more money. Five daily habits that make you more money. This episode actually comes about from an experience I had right when I first started out in sales and in selling. I was running a business for Maria and I needed to attract more people to come to stay in the hotel that I ran. This was something that was not native to me. It was not something that I was used to doing so I did what a lot of sales people do when they start out. I did probably what you did when you started out. I went out and I joined every group possible. I joined every chamber of commerce, I joined every networking group, I joined every organization I could and I was going to a breakfast, a luncheon, a dinner, it seemed like every day of the week.

I was meeting a lot of people and I didn't really know what to do after I had met them. I met an older gentleman at one of these Chamber of Commerce meetings and one of the first things he said to me was, when you meet somebody that you really like you should try to follow up with them in a way that's special and personal to them. My thought was okay how am I going to do that? I decided I was going to pick two or three people from every networking meeting that I went to. I was going to just follow up with a note. This is a handwritten note and the reason it was a handwritten note and not an email quite frankly is because this was in the time before everybody had email. People had it and maybe they checked it once a week or maybe they didn't have access to it all the time so if you were going to communicate with people send a note to them in the regular mail.

I went out to the local drugstore on the corner and I bought some white note cards that just said ... I think they said thanks on the front, the first batch that I got. I would go to these networking meetings and I would meet people and I would pick three people who were the most interesting to me who I thought I probably could do business with down the road and I would write them just a handwritten note and it was very simple. I would say something to the effect, "It was great meeting you, I really enjoyed the experience, I'd love to speak with you again soon, have a nice day." Something along those lines and I would throw my business card in the envelope and I would send it off. I did this every networking meeting I went to for the first couple of weeks and something amazing happened. I probably sent out fifteen of these in the first two weeks, twenty maybe in the first two weeks. I got four or five phone calls people calling me thanking me for the handwritten note that I sent them and asking if they could connect with me and have lunch and learn more about me and what I did and how they could possibly help me.

This was something that for me it was a breakthrough at the time because it was a way for me to schedule follow up meetings, potential sales meetings. These people could have been prospects. It was a way for me to schedule these without having to cold call. It was a way for me to schedule sales appointments without having a cold call. I thought to myself this could be the breakthrough that I've been looking for let me go through the paper and highlight some of the most influential and important people in our community and let me write them a handwritten note. I went to a printer and I got some stationery printed up with my name on it, very nice stationery with my return address printed on the envelope and I started to read the paper every day and pick three people out of the newspaper.

I would write them note cards that said congratulations on being featured in the paper. I saw the article in Tuesday's ... And I'd put the name of the paper there.