If You're Not First, You're Last: Sales Strategies to Dominate Your Market and Beat Your Competition

CHAPTER 11. Act Hungry

Now is the time to let your customers know you are hungry. It’s not the time to act like you don’t need their business. There is an old saying that tells people to “fake it ’til you make it.” Well, this doesn’t apply here! Instead, you want to “act hungry to make sure you don’t end up hungry.”

No one likes people who act like they are better than others or so important that they don’t need your business. Everyone appreciates someone who goes the extra mile and really shows others that he or she wants, needs, and values others’ business. You will never create a powerful, solvent, prosperous, and abundant economy with an attitude of arrogance. You better have your best game face on when economies tighten up; people who are looking for reasons not to do business with you won’t tolerate any egotism. In almost every seminar I conduct, someone will say to me, “I’m afraid I might seem weak if I act like I want the business too much.” My response is always the same: “The biggest mistake you can make is not to act like you’re hungry for the business!” You cannot afford to make mistakes in these times. Let your competitors act like they don’t need the business, while you make it clear that you do.

Let’s face it: You need clients more than they need you in any economy, and just because you were a hotshot in the past means nothing now. I know companies, executives, and individuals that are still acting like they’re top in their industry because they used to be number one in their market, yet their current sales are off by 40 percent. Being number one doesn’t pay bills—and your position is only as valuable as the degree to which you are profitable. What you did last year means nothing in the market today. History is laden with companies that were number one in their field but who only exist nowadays between the pages of books. Sears and Kmart are two perfect examples of these. Both dominated their fields at one time, but their arrogance cost them their positions—and now they’re struggling in the market.

The primary goal in a shrinking economy is to close the gap in lost sales and keep finding creative ways to do so. There’s no time to brag about your position or discuss yesterday’s fortunes and successes. Spend all your time, energy, creativity, and resources in advancing your goals and getting so far ahead of the pack that you seize your competitors’ business along the way. The real world of business is the most brutal battlefield in the world; it will not tolerate conceit or people who are living in the past. Customers don’t value excuses, timing, reasons, ratings, yesterday, position; they only value results. If you want to create your own economy, you have to know what you are dealing with. The only way to impress the marketplace is to gain market share going forward—at which point, it will grant you all of its gold and treasures.

It’s easy to act like you are invincible when you’re busy, in demand, and have much more work than you can handle; however, it’s not attractive. Knock off the arrogance and start acting hungry. Acting hungry means that you’re aggressively ambitious or competitive. Perhaps it stems from a need to overcome poverty or past defeats or it is because your desire to succeed is so great. Regardless of your position in life, if you want to stay on top, you have to be willing to do whatever it takes to earn more business—during good times and bad.

You need to show great appreciation and gratitude for every opportunity you get. Be willing to bend over backward, sideways—even do handstands, if necessary—to let people know that you’ll do whatever it takes to earn their business. Don’t let yesterday’s successes give you a false sense of security and make you feel like you don’t need success today and tomorrow. You must have your attention on the future to create one and you must do things now that you didn’t do before the slowdown.

If your market is down 40 percent and you are still operating with the same energy, effort, and actions that you did before the pullback, you are going to move backward—because your efforts have not adjusted to the reduction in business. Your absence of effort is likely due to a lack of awareness, an abundance of arrogance, or a combination of the two. So wake up and make the adjustments necessary to tweak your business to the economy’s new realities. You absolutely must (1) make the mental adjustment that things are different and start acting accordingly; and (2) increase your activity. Just because you won the Super Bowl last year doesn’t mean you don’t go to spring camp and train next year. As any sailor knows, “yesterday’s winds won’t fill tomorrow’s sails.”

Always, always, always demonstrate your hunger and desire to grow your business by displaying how service oriented and interested you are in your clients on a daily basis. Follow up relentlessly and do anything you can (ethically and professionally, of course) in order to obtain someone’s business—especially when things tighten. Be useful, courteous, accessible, humble, and now more than ever, willing to go the extra mile. Surpass any and all expectations, act like you really want someone’s business—and do whatever you can to earn it.

Adjust your actions to match the reality of the situation; make sure potential clients know how much you do want their business. An attitude of “they need me more than I need them” always fails; treat your customers as though they’re more valuable than you and your company—because they are. If you give your clients genuine reasons to like you, demonstrate an authentic willingness to do anything for them, are consistently helpful, and never quit, they will want to do business with you, whatever your business is.

Any time someone who serves me continues to exhibit that hungry desire to do anything humanly possible to earn my business, I find every reason possible to support him or her. I stick with that person as long as he or she keeps exhibiting that kind of hungry attitude, and I don’t think I am unique this way. Most people want to be taken care of and paid attention to, and they crave this type of service from people because it is lacking in our culture. People wonder why their businesses fail in a country with countless citizens barely making it financially who are subject to the whims of the economy, dependent upon credit to pay their bills, and enslaved to someone else’s economy.

If you want to expand and conquer and create a personal economy that allows you freedom and control, then make sure everyone knows how badly you want their business. Act like your life depends on every transaction, every moment of every day. And if you have to tell someone that you really want his or her business, well then, you probably aren’t acting hungry enough!

Turn your hunger into a CLOSE. Visit www.grantcardone.com/resources