Are you interested in your customers?

   

Annette Scorzelli

   I don’t know how many of you have read the below article by Brian Sullivan, but after 17 years in the medical sales business, I totally agree with what he has to say. I have formed some great friendships through out the years and now that we have social media we all get to put faces with names. I absolutely love what I do and I know that has a lot to do with the people I talk to on the phone everyday and the great people I work with. Check out the article  and see what you think.

  Brian Sullivan’s PRECISE Selling Quote of the Week

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming really interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”
?– Bernard Meltzer

I was recently approached by a medical industry marketing director with this question, “How the heck do I get our sales channel partners to focus on our product above all others? We have a new product that works great, and I know it can make them tons of profits.” I then asked the question, “If I was the sales director of one of your channel partners, and you were going to try to sell me on your product, what would you say or do?” The marketing director went on to say he would explain/tell the partner all the reasons they need to sell the product and why it would be good for them.

But there is the problem! Salespeople, managers, directors and executives are in meeting rooms right now making too many statements, using too many words and trying too hard to get others interested in them and their solution. They need to STOP! Because despite what the doubters tell you, people would rather give money to their friends than a stranger. And great salespeople outperform others because they understand that being INTERESTED beats being INTERESTING all day long. And when you show genuine interest in others, you create friendships.

So this week make a list of prospects whose attention and business you are longing for, and then spend the next two months doing what people looking to create friendships do. Show interest, smile, listen and help them in ways that pays you nothing. And as your circle of friends grows, so too will grow your circle of influence in your industry.

 

Water, Too Much of a Good Thing?

    

Tim Walton

       It’s still in the heat of summer, so you’d better heed the advice of making sure you drink 8 glasses of 8 ounces each of water, right?  Uuhm, not so fast. Where did this concept come from?  Actually from The Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council of 1945!!!   Oookkaayy.  And it was based on no actual research.  It recommended “1 Milliliter of water for every calorie of food,” which would come out to around 2 -2.5 quarts per day (64 – 80 ounces).  The problem is, is that the next sentence of the report is usually ignored, “MOST of this quantity is contained in prepared foods.” 

            Hhhmm.  Roasted turkey is 62% water, boiled chicken 71%, grapes 82%, an apple is 85%, green peppers 94%, strawberries come in at 90%, and a head of lettuce at 96%.  You can see that there is a lot of “hidden” water content in food.

            What about caffeinated drinks like coffee?  They dehydrate you, correct?  Actually, no.  A study published in The Journal of The American College of Nutrition (Grandjean 2000) used 18 healthy adult males to test this theory and proved that caffeine was not dehydrating in healthy people who were drinking normal amounts. 

            “You can never drink enough water!”  Well, actually, you can.  Water intoxication can occur if you drink excessive amounts of water.  The kidneys are unable to excrete enough water (as urine), which leads to dilution of blood sodium.  Mental confusion and death can result.

            ”You are already dehydrated if you are thirsty!”  Nope.  Thirst begins when the concentration of blood has risen by less than 2%.  Actual dehydration begins when that concentration has risen by 5%.

             Common sense (as usual) should prevail.  Drink when you are thirsty.  Keep hydrated, but don’t over do it by forcing yourself to down a “magic” number of ounces based on misinterpreted guesswork from 1945.  Strenuous work or exercise in the heat will obviously have you consuming more than if you are parked behind a desk in an air conditioned office.  One of the current ”Studies” that is not only touting the “8 X 8 myth”, but even more was found to be financed by, gasp, a bottled water company.  I wonder why?  The bottled water industry is HUGE.  Unfortunately, it’s also bogus for the most part.  The majority of them are nothing more than bottled tap water.  If you are complaining about the price of gas per gallon, figure up how much a gallon of bottled water will run you.  And you could get the same or better right from your own tap.

Enjoy The Little Things

Joni Walton

You know how you wake up in the morning and immediately start thinking about everything you have to do?  Instead of thinking of all the things that may go right with your day you begin to think about what will most likely go wrong.  I like to think I am a very positive person, but it is easy to get caught in this trap.  I started thinking about the little things in life the other day when a certain instance put a smile on my face for the whole day. 

My son is 21 years old and home from college this summer.  When he was little I used to wake him up in the morning by sitting on the bed next to him, giving him a great big body hug and saying “time to get up, time to get up.”  He used to laugh and giggle when I did this and it started his day happy.  Well, needless to say I have not done that for some time since he has become a grown man and sets his alarm.  For some reason this past weekend he asked me to be sure he was up by a certain time.  I took this opportunity to try my “wake up process” once again.  I assumed I would get the “Mom really, what are you doing, stop it.”  Instead the sweetest smile came over his face and I knew he remembered and it made him happy.  What a small gesture, but it made me happy and have a great day. 

We so often forget the little joys in life and only focus on the hardships and negative.  I made a small list of some little things in my life that may seem insignificant but seem to make my day sunny and bright. 

• My husband making my breakfast each morning because he knows I am always running late.
• When my son says “Thanks For The Food Mom” after dinner.
• When I start dancing in the kitchen and my husband laughs and says “Don’t hurt yourself.”
• When I walk into work each day and see my son’s name on our front door;
  (Dan Lee)
• Everyone at work always seems happy and they are smiling
• Someone at the gym tells me I look great
• I can button my pants and don’t have a muffin top
• Singing in the car on my way to work
• My mom still tells me to be careful

This brings me to a final quote I saw which sums things up nicely.

“Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things”  – Robert Brault

Wellness Programs at the Workplace are a True Win Win

Den Brown

My employer has always been a true advocate of living healthy through diet and exercise.  Back in December of 2010 my boss came to me with the idea of offering employees a paid fitness plan.  I thought this was a great opportunity for the staff, with New Years fast approaching and many of us coming up with our laundry list of resolutions, the timing could not have been better.  My initial thought was how much we as employees stood to benefit from this, without ever really giving consideration as to the advantages a wellness program has on companies as a whole.Recent evidence supports the importance of workplace wellness to reduce injuries, long-term disability, and healthcare costs.  According to an article I read the US spends more on healthcare than any other industrialized nation, yet Americans are considered the least healthy of these populations.  With this in mind employers need to begin to recognize that there are true advantages to implementing a wellness plan and these advantages may equate out to some big bucks.    

It has been proven that happy healthy employees demonstrate reduced absenteeism and higher productivity; this is where the return on investment comes in. “Research now suggests employers get an average of $3.48 back in reduced health care costs and $5.82 in lower absenteeism cost for every dollar spent on employee wellness.”  With numbers like that who can afford not to jump on the band wagon. 

When we talk about wellness programs it does not necessarily have to be something elaborate like constructing a gym at your worksite or something pricey like paying for membership to an exclusive gym; it can be as simple as making available information that helps to reduce stress and fatigue, to educating your staff on heart health and the importance of a healthful diet, to onsite health screenings that may include everything from blood pressure screenings to flu shots.  These are just a few examples and when you really start thinking about it, you could get very creative.

Bottom line, wellness programs create a win win at the workplace, employees are the most valuable asset when it comes to your business so if you have not implemented a program yet, don’t wait just do it!