Keep Books and Sell

. . . manage your finances and sell yourself

One of my mentors once told me that to be successful in business you have to do two things. You have to keep books well and you have to sell well. We can likely do one or the other and survive in business. If we do neither we will fail for sure. But when we do both, we dramatically increase our chances of success.

I add another simple concept to these two and that is you have to have co-operation between both departments. Co-operation is achieved through effective communicating. This creates a successful and peaceful business where people like to work.

In every business there are people who keep track of the books and people who sell. People involved in production or tracking costs are part of the bookkeeping process. If we work on an assembly line, we are part of the bookkeeping process because our productivity affects the cost of delivering a product. Bookkeeping is about tracking income and controlling costs. We must know of every revenue and every expenditure in order to have a clear picture of our business lives.

Creating a paper budget periodically can help us keep track and allows us to make thoughtful decisions that are right for us, especially as a business grows. When our business or personal finances become so complicated that we no longer feel comfortable analyzing them, we can seek the advice of an accountant.

Some of us will need an accountant to set up a basic personal finance plan. Others will find themselves long into the process of starting their own business before seeking advice. The key is knowing when to get advice.

Anyone who interacts with customers is part of a business’s selling process. Receptionists are part of the selling process because they represent a business to its customers. If the receptionist is rude, irresponsible, or unwilling to help, customers will associate the behavior with the entire organization and sales will be negatively affected.

We spend a lot of time selling ourselves—whether to other people in order to gain friendship or to a prospective employer in order to gain an income or to co-workers in order to gain co-operation.

Part of selling effectively involves using a simple pyramid formula. A friend of mine, who is the best retail salesperson I’ve met, presented the sales process to me like this. At the bottom of the pyramid—the largest part of the selling process—is qualifying. Qualifying means asking questions. We find out what the customer wants. This builds a solid foundation for the sales interview. When qualifying becomes the most detailed part of the process, it leads to more success than any other part. The next, smaller block of the pyramid is product presentation in which we explain the features of our product. The last and smallest block is the closing, or asking for the order.

What ninety per cent of salespeople do is spend too little time qualifying and too much time presenting the product and struggling with the close. They build their pyramid upside down and it teeters and wobbles and falls over. When the qualifying is done effectively, the presentation is easily geared to the customer’s needs, and the closing process happens very quickly.

You choose how to build your pyramids!

When selling ourselves in life, we often turn our pyramids upside down too. We ask very few questions and we speak before we listen—the very reverse of what effective communication experts suggest we do. Qualifying in any situation by asking questions is usually more important than presenting ourselves and is critical for the healthy close of an important interaction.

Sometimes we are part of both the bookkeeping and selling processes, as we are in our personal lives. In this situation, as in all situations, we will be much more effective at what we do when we co-operate.

Co-operation—whether in the home, office, on the road, on site, or in school—is necessary when creating an environment for success. Without co-operation communication breaks down, and personal and group objectives become difficult to achieve. Co-operation is best achieved by developing healthy communication skills such as self-awareness, speaking from the “I” point of view, listening, clarifying, and paraphrasing.

I believe self-employment is the quickest path to financial independence, but eighty per cent of new businesses fail. Why? Because the business person does not have the experience to deal with all the different aspects of keeping books, selling, and communicating, or the resources to hire the people who do.

There are many inexpensive options for dealing with lack of experience. I learned to keep books and sell by doing as many different jobs as employers would let me. I changed jobs every time I saw an opportunity to advance or learn a different aspect of running a business.

I had nineteen different jobs before I was twenty. After twenty, I changed jobs every three years. When I was fired at twenty-eight for the first and only time in my life, I started my own cellular telephone business with no money—but enough experience—and grew it to three million dollars in annual sales within ten years.

I also learned to put into practice the principles outlined in this book. I went the extra mile, I took night-time business courses at my employer’s expense, and I learned communication skills and other valuable lessons from mentors.

The way I see it, the process of makin’ a million began the day I received my first paycheck (I was ten and can’t remember if it was for picking rocks in a field or for working in my uncle’s creamery washing cans). At sixteen I was introduced to the concept of positive thinking and mentoring (a very inspiring time).

More than twenty years later, I could say that I had earned a million dollars. Once these three skills were in place I began to make money more quickly.

Makin’ the first million usually takes way longer than makin’ the second. Most of us are on our way to makin’ the first. Some make it, some don’t, and some acquire different types of millions, like Mother Theresa. Whichever you choose, you’ll need the resources and the ability to keep books, sell well, and communicate.

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