Qtr. 1, Day 1 of 3 ACA Sales Summit

Good Evening Everyone!!!

Well this evening marks the beginning of one of my favorite events in sales, our summit.  Now just to catch all of you up the ACA Sales Summit simply put is a training & creative planning retreat.  This is when I get to sit down with my entire sales force outside of the stress full environment of our office and get them ready for an amazing 1st Quarter.  The entire event last 2 full days with Friday being the first as we leave at noonish from the office and then go out to dinner and talk sales all night. Saturday is our training focused day where we start at 8am and go till 7pm and do nothing but review the basics of what we do.  Finally Sunday we talk strategy and pull out our creative homework we assigned before the summit to share with the team.  

This summit program started 2 years ago and has been such a success that for 2009 we are now moving it from an annual event to a quarterly event.  This is when sales gets focused in on just what we need to do and how we are going to get there.  We create strategy to kill our competition in focused markets or industries and improve on current working strategies already in place.  Basically is similar to sharpening your knife before you butcher an animal.  It makes the whole process that much more enjoyable and smooth.

I know there is not much to talk about as far as content today but I promised this 3 day blog will be well worth the read.  So check it out each day as I will make entries each day of the summit and a finial entry Sunday night to wrap up the entire event.  And, since we are taping the whole thing I may even share a small video and pictures with all of you.  

ENJOY!!!

From Sales Life Style

Bio: Michael McMillan is the director of Sales & Marketing for Answer Center America, Inc. “Qtr. 1, Day 1, Sales Summit 2009” IS part 1 of 4 reviewing the ACA Qtr. 1 Sales Summit. For more information on ACA's services please visit http://www.goacanow.com

Outsourcing "Self" Questions

Below are my top 10 questions I like to supply businesses looking to utilize a commercial call center like Answer Center America, Inc. I do this before they get too far in the outsourcing process and find out they do not even want what they think they want. This is as important as an outsourced solution is not for everyone (I do not really believe that, FYI...LOL!) but some say that. 

So please take a moment print out these questions and get them answered. Even if you are not looking to outsource now these are great questions to ask yourself so you can take a different look at your company's way of doing business.

Mike’s Top 10 “SELF” Outsourcing Questions
1. What is my primary goal in working with a commercial call center?

2. What is my preliminary time line for rolling out the services I am immediately interested in?

3. How am I currently performing the task I am now looking to outsource?

4. What is the real DOLLAR amount each call is worth to me and my team?

5. What is my preliminary monthly, quarterly, and annual budget for these services?

6. How much percent am I willing to exceed my budget and be comfortable?

7. What services do I want but do not necessarily need at launch?

8. How soon after l launch do I want to add the additional services?

9. What type of reporting will I require to monitor the call centers performance and monitor my success?

10. How interactive do I want my experience to be with my call center provider?

From Sales Life Style

Bio: Michael McMillan is the Director of Sales & Marketing for Answer Center America, Inc. “Outsourcing "Self" Questions” helps business owners with how to outsource parts of their business. For more information on ACA's services please visit http://www.goacanow.com.

Learning Never Stops

Tonight I had the great honor and privilege of attending my first ever Toastmasters Meeting.

For those of you not familiar with the organization may I strongly suggest visiting http://www.toastmasters.org to learn more about them and find a local meeting to attend.

I have heard of the Toastmasters for many years but never really took the time to really look into what this organization had to offer me as a sales person, and more so as a leader of my sales team. Toastmasters quite possibly may be one of the single most important goals I am so happy I am accomplishing in 2009 for myself, and almost more importantly for my team and all of my readers. The knowledge I have gained in my first ever meeting alone has made me completely rethink the way in which I perform presentations. I now understand to present correctly it takes a ton of preparation, research, and most importantly PRACTICE!

Now I know many of you are going to say, "Mike I give presentations and run meetings all the time why do I need this silly club?" My answer to you is simple, you may be running these meetings, or giving presentations but, are you performing at the absolute performance? That answer would be no buckaroo!

We have all heard the sayings a million times, guess what here is 1,000,001:

Tiger Woods did not just wake up one day and become the best golfer in the world, he practices, got constructive criticism, and had coaches teach him how to be the best.

Olympic Athletes do not just send in a resume saying they would like to compete in the Olympics. They have to train for years to hone their skills to perfection for the very slim possibility they MAY get picked to compete.

These sayings are things we say but very rarely act on. My primary goal for my self this year was simple, "Become a Better Follower, So I Can Become a Better Leader!" Yeah sounds weird right, that is what I thought when I first wrote it. But, then after reviewing my goals over and over again in December I realized it made perfect sense. I have to first learn how to follow (TRAIN) before I can lead. So this year I am getting myself in front of the experts and begging for teaching and guidance so that I can then become the best leader for my sales force.

In closing always remember if you are a person you thinks you know everything about everything, you are never going to succeed in life. The faster you can come to understand that with continual education comes the success you seek, the faster you will find the happiness you seek.

From Sales Life Style

Bio: Michael McMillan is the director of Sales & Marketing for Answer Center America, Inc. “Learning Never Stops” talks about how the learning process must never end if a person is to be successful. For more information on ACA's services please visit http://www.goacanow.com.

Amazing People

I just completed possibly the best and most amazing training in my life.  Meeting both Jack Daly & Cameron Herold.  I will write much more about all I learned once I can process all of it and get my notes better organized but I had to share right away with all of you just how amazing this training was as it has really helped me refocus and change the way I perform.  Thank you Jack & Cameron!!

From Amazing People I Have Met

From Amazing People I Have Met

Business in 2009

I thought it very important to share a reply to a question I received to everyone. I was asked why I felt that '09 would be a good sales year even though the economy is down. Here was my reply...

The economy is just in a new state. This is when companies that have planned for this down turn are going to take off, and those who did not will go away. For instance my company has been planning for this depression for over 2 years. This is because we didn’t listen to the talking heads and just saw what was going on. This planning allowed us to position our self very well. We now are able to tap a wealth of talent in the job market right now, and go after businesses we knew would be able to get through this bad economy as well as supply us vast amount of business.

Now is when people need to get back to basics and start understanding to be a success you have to work HARD, REALLY HARD! The age of entitlement is gone and the faster people understand this, the faster the economy will turn around.

My secret is simple:

• There is no such thing as quick money!
• The fact you can show up entitles you to NOTHING!

Most Importantly… 

• If you do not put company first, you will never be successful!
  

To Succeed or Not Succeed

Today I had a sales guy calling me asking me my opinion on how I felt my sales force would do during this depression. I quickly responded, "unlike other industries our team saw this coming for a long time and has positioned our self to not only succeed but clean up." Of course the next question was how do I plan on doing so well in this horrible economy. My response possibly less than what he wanted was, "EXTREMELY HARD WORK!"

I started this entry out with this quick review of this interview because I wanted to comment to the world want it is going to take to get through this depression and come out on top.

To succeed in this bad economy takes a level of work that is so foreign to people in my age group they see it as fiction. The problem with this is that this is the time we need to get back to basics and understand an 8 hour work day is not possible any more. To not only survive but be a winner we need to do everything that is possible to do what is necessary for our businesses success.

If you want to really see the level of dedication it will take, go see you Grandparents, or even better your Great Grandparents if they are still around and ask them what their work ethic was. What you will hear is the same like when you were a child. It will more than likely sound something like my Grandfather told me:

"Boy, my work ethic was simple, I went to work, I never called off 1 day, I worked till the work was done, and I will never stop working till my heart gives out or my boss kicks me out."

That is Dedication! 

That is a Statement of a Winner! 

Are you willing to have that same dedication to your business? If not I can guarantee you with almost no uncertainty you will more than likely fail in this economy and be one of the many losers out there. So starting now stops playing around on the internet and gets your nose into your work and do whatever is necessary to not only fit the status quo, but to be a winner!


Bio: Michael McMillan is the director of Sales & Marketing for Answer Center America, Inc. “To Succeed or Not Succeed” gives a peak into what an employee will need to do in 2009 to not only survive but be a winner. For more information on ACA's services please visit http://www.goacanow.com

From Sales Life Style

New Video Hobby

So today I finally figured out how to use iMovie on my Mac and decided to make a little video.  Take a look at this and let me know what you all think.