Changes Coming to Bennett's Blog

The Top 10 Reasons to Vote

It’s election day, and here are the top 10 reasons to go out and vote (some serious...some not so much):

10) You have a right to vote.

9) You want your voice heard and the people at the polling booths can’t leave so they have to listen to you.

8) You truly believe that even though we often seem to mess up the democratic process, it’s still better than any other type of government.

7) The “I Voted” sticker is a fabulous fashion statement.

6) It sets a good example. It’s amazing how many people (including kids) will be influenced by your actions.

5) To shut up all those "If you didn't vote then you can't complain" people.

4) It honors our founding fathers – and many since then – who were willing to risk their lives to establish and protect democracy.

3) To relive those test-taking days in college when you filled in infinite numbers of circles on finals. 

2) To be able to say you're involved in politics.

and the #1 reason...

1) You not only have a right to vote, you have a responsibility to vote.

 

Get off your tush and go to the polls! And don't forget to wear your "I Voted" sticker!

jkl

 

"It's a Wonderful Life" in the GB World

If you want to see something absolutely hysterical, you've got to watch this little ditty I created using JibJab (have you seen this site???)... anyway it's a take off of "It's a Wonderful Life" where I'm playing George Baily...my wife Rosemary is Mary...my biz-partner Bob is playing several roles including the taxi driver AND my "guardian angel" (he WOULD be the type I'd get)...and a few co-workers of mine, Jason Lin as my father, and our sales director Torrie Pottorff as Little Zuzu...just click below and watch! (you may have to hit "play" twice if it doesn't fire right away)

Don't send a lame Holiday eCard. Try JibJab Sendables!

Classic "Sales Letter" From My Youngest Daughter Maddy (12) to My Wife Rosemary

I'm raising up the next generation of sellers in my house...a classic sales letter if I've ever seen one:

Dear mother,

     I would like to ask if you would follow these newly thought up rules…

1.     If I am in my room, please knock before I either say come in or open the door. You may only enter my room when I’m not there if you are cleaning, or getting something.

2.     My bedtime is no earlier than 9:00 p.m. unless you consult me and/or have a good reason to send me to bed early.

3.     I don’t know if this is a good one… but, if you don’t give me my allowance by Wednesday of that week, then I get an extra $1.00. We will not count Wednesday.

By the time you get this, I will be asleep or in school, so if you wish to discuss with me bout this, then I am available right after school or before school. You can choose.

p.s. I worked long and hard on this letter so please take that in to concideration and do not throw this document away, but rather give it to me when I am awake or back from school.

What Will the Future Hold for Sales and Training?

Have been doing a fair bit of daydreaming and visioning lately, trying to picture what the world of sales will be like for folks 20 or 30 years from now.  I mean if you think about how far we've come from selling 20 years ago to today... 

• - How has e-mail changed our lives?  What was done in days and weeks is accomplished in minutes and hours...
• - How has the internet changed our approach?  More than we could ever want to know about a prospect, and them about us, is available 24/7 at our fingertips...

- We have more prospects, but fewer long-term clients (long-term? what is that?)...

- We have more gadgets for being efficient, but we still have less down time...

- And several others too numerous to mention...

...and given the fact that change, when it comes, seems to pick up speed and starts to create innovation at an ever-increasing multiple...I'm not sure I can fully grasp what a seller's life will be like in 2025 ("In the year, 25-25...if man is still alive, if woman can survive, they may find...") 

But here are a few predictions I see coming to sales, and to my world...the world of training and consulting:

• The use of video streaming (live and archived) will move into the hands of salespeople, who will use it regularly in sales calls...
  • It will be common to play several video presentation elements during a presentation, as easily as we've used power point slides..
  • It will be common to play several client testimonials during a call...
  • Video will be used extensively for product demo'ing during a call as well..
• Great salespeople..."the closers"...will be able to help other salespeople close via live video feed...as well as managers being able to "appear" in a live call to help answer questions and close deals...
  • Can you imagine being in a call and saying..."Well, let me do this...let's pull up my manager and see what he thinks about your concerns...Bob, are you there?"...
  • Or...one of your top salespeople being present in the meeting, watching on a two-way system, with his head sitting off to the right on a little V-Pod video machine...or maybe two or three people appearing their...everyone seeing everything, everyone live and participating...
• Training will also be delivered this way, as salespeople will be able to take the latest training courses with them as they go about their sales day...
  • This would almost be like taking your favorite trainer with you on a call...client gives an objection, you pull out your vpod, say, "Can I have just a moment?"...you access the module on handling that objection, you quickly watch or listen to it while the client is doing something else, and you swoop back in and close it...

What innovations are out there that have the chance to create "sea changes", as Bill Gates says, like e-mail several years back?    Here are a few my rapidly declining mind can imagine:

• o We will hold more virtual conferences with access to more information, and more advanced ways to pull several people into meetings where we can see and hear each other seamlessly...

• I will be able to pull up video of people I want to see as well as hear, from just about anywhere I can reach them now with my cell...the videos will be delivered like the blue-tooth tech of the phone, but in little drop down eye covers, or built in to sunglasses, or whatever...(I think they already have prototypes of this done)...

• Sitting together in sales offices will become unnecessary and a waste of commuting time, space, etc...my manager and the other sellers are going to be "there" with me in a virtual office setting...all of us residing in our home offices, in a video cubicle farm, where my manager can still glance over at me, see what I'm working on, check in, etc...imagine a big screen full of 20 little video shots of others on your staff...as well as from around the nation...

Sometimes when we try to imagine the future we have a tendency to move too far in some areas, and not enough in others.  For instance, think back to when we were kids and we thought about "the year 2000!!!", and we imagined things like everyone having a flying car, and living in Jetson-like space houses...and yet we didn't really see the internet.

What do you imagine we'll see?

GB

Is Technology Eating Our Brains?

Was just thinking about how new technology, like this blog, will effect all of us in the future...

I know my kids are in a whole other ball game on this... I've got four girls...ranging in age from 9 to 24 (yes I'm THAT freaking old)...and both my 16 and 14 year old are totally into IM'ing...have you watched a kid do THAT these days?  8 or 10 convo's going at once...

They'll have 5 other kids over to the house, all watching tv with their cell phones out silently texting kids who aren't there and even EACH OTHER...Very strange indeed...

And the 9 year old is building her own web site and creating animated powerpoints...What the...?  At 9 I think I was borrowing the ol' man's CB radio to call my buddies down the street..."Yeah...breaker 1-9...do you copy?"

I guess I'm just as bad with emails these days...how many do you get or send in a day?  I'm at about 100-150 in and/or out...here's an interesting study a buddy of mine, John Convery at PointB, sent over to me...I can TOTALLY relate...

Click here to read "How Email is Worse Than Weed At Destroying Brain Cells?