I lost 19 of my 20 staff within 30 days.  They either quit or I let them go.  Because I lost my entire sales staff I was not able to generate enough money to cover the high overhead that I had.  I closed my office down with 24 months left on a lease that I had to personally guarantee.

When I would wake up each day I felt like pulling the covers back over my head and wishing it would all go away.  Have you ever been in a place like that before?  One day an idea came to me that turned everything around.  It was the exact idea that I needed at that moment.  The idea was to focus on revenue producing activities.

What I realized was fear, panic, and worry was not going to make my situation any better.  Worrying was not going to manifest money or sales.  When the thought hit my mind “to focus on revenue producing activities” my next steps became clear.

My revenue producing activities were:

-Generate leads

-Set appointments

-Close sales

I started to focus on the activities that would produce revenue…and guest what?  The money started coming in.  It took me 18 months to turn my situation around and rebuild my company.  What are your top 5 revenue producing activities?  Have you been spending enough time on these activities?  October 1 is in a few days.  That is the first day of the 4th quarter.  Make a decision today to focus on revenue producing activities in October.

I want to invite you to join me for a webinar my top 5 revenue producing ideas that I am doing on Friday, October 7 at 10 am pacific.

Click Here to register for the webinar

Here is a short video of me telling the story I just told you.

Want to learn more?

Click here to read the rest of the newsletter

I love recording these videos. It's a great way for me to share some amazing ideas with you as I go about my day. I recorded this video on a trip down to the Bay Area to speak at Arvee Robinson's event.

This idea is one I have used in my business consistently over the years to help me close more sales. I know it will work for you too!

Watch this video now!

Eric Lofholm
Master Sales Trainer

Click here to read my latest newsletter

I recently had an incredible interview with John Assraf where he interviewed me. CLICK HERE For a FREE Audio Interview between John Assaraf and Eric Lofholm John Assaraf is founder of OneCoach, a company that is helping thousands of entrepreneurs and small-business professionals grow their revenues so they can achieve financial freedom and live extraordinary lives.

He is one of the experts featured in the hit film and book The Secret, and helped launch it into a worldwide phenomenon (for which Simon & Shuster ordered the largest second printing in its history – 2 million copies) through his appearances on Larry King Live, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Anderson Cooper 360° and other major media outlets. John is also one of the Marshall Goldsmith School of Management’s Distinguished Thought Leaders.

In the last 20 years, John has built four multi-million dollar companies, including:
* RE/MAX of Indiana, which now has more than 1,500 sales associates, who collectively generate more than $5 billion a year in sales and are paid more than $120 million in commissions annually
* Bamboo.com, a start-up that attracted over 100,000 clients in less than a year and generated more than $30 million in revenues within 10 months. Bamboo then merged with Ipix and went on to become the world’s leading provider of online virtual tours including the imaging infrastructure for Internet companies like eBay.

John’s personal passions are his family, spirituality, exercise, cooking, travel, and helping entrepreneurs understand how to incorporate the psychological and strategic sides of building a successful business and life.

Here's a link to John's blog:

http://www.johnassaraf.com

Success,

Eric Lofholm

One of the keys to lead generation is systems. You want to develop multiple lead generation systems.

Lead generation begins with a database. Do you have a database where you are entering leads? If not, then you might be leaving money on the table.

Lead generation begins with identifying your target market. Who is your ideal client? You need to find ways to connect with new prospects, whether through networking, phone calls, or email.

A POI is a Person of Influence!

Eric's number 1 lead generation idea is POI. A POI is a person of influence. Everyone has a network. A POI is a person who has a large network where a % of that network is your target market.

Another great strategy to prospect for new leads is through Top Down Selling. This is another way of describing a POI relationship. You influence the POI to refer you, recommend you, or endorse you to their network.

So, what can you do if you want to reach a POI in an organization? You can use an approach called Climb the Ladder Selling. This is where you know someone who knows the POI. You get the person you know to refer you to the POI.

Another strategy that many people know about, but that few do well is the Reciprocal Referral Relationship. This is where you find someone that you can refer business to and then can refer business back to you. An example would be a real estate agent and an insurance agent.

What are you doing to find new prospects? Select one new strategy to implement and you will be well on your way to finding new prospects.

Sell with Confidence,

Kevin Perkins
Sales Trainer, Eric Lofholm International

Kevin delivers training through conference calls and live training sessions.

Praised as a modern-day Dale Carnegie for how to be influential, Jill Lublin authored Get Noticed…Get Referrals: Build Your Client Base and Your Business by Making a Name for Yourself (McGraw-Hill, June 2008). She is also the coauthor of the national bestselling books, Networking Magic which rose to #1 on the Barnes and Noble charts for three weeks, and Guerrilla Publicity, the PR bible, which is also reached bestseller status. Jill is the founder of GoodNews Media, Inc. and hosts the TV program, Messages of Hope, and the nationally syndicated radio show, Do the Dream. In addition she has created two audio programs, three DVD training videos, and a workbook.

Jill is a popular international speaker who teaches powerful publicity, networking, and how to be influential techniques. As the CEO of the strategic consulting firm, Promising Promotion, Jill has trained companies in innovative techniques to improve bottom line results. In the past twenty years, she has worked with ABC, NBC, CBS, and other national media, and knows what the media wants.

Jill has been featured in The New York Times, Women’s Day, Fortune Small Business, Inc, and Entrepreneur Magazine, and on ABC and NBC radio and TV national affiliates.

Click here to visit Jill's website:

http://www.jilllublin.com/

When the economy is strong, it's easy just to keep on doing what you're doing. You're likely to get good results even though you're not working as effectively as possible.

In a down economy, it's much more difficult. You can put out the same effort, but not get the same result.

When the economy shifted in 2008, my business was affected. Our efforts as a company were not generating the same results.

We took action to make adjustments and very quickly, our results began to improve. One of the areas where we made a change was in the type of training we do. In the past, we were a seminar company. Most of the training we did was through live training events.

I Realized I Needed to Expand my Comfort Zone!

We also use conference calls to deliver training. But, one area where I resisted was in doing webinars. Many other trainers do webinars, but for whatever reason it was outside my comfort zone.

When the economy shifted, I realized I needed to find another way to deliver training that didn't require students to travel or for us to book a venue which adds an additional cost.

What strategy did I choose to implement? You guessed it! Webinars!

The funny thing is once I did the first one, I realized how easy it was. And now, we're delivering just as much training through webinars as we are through live training events.

But, this is not a conversation about webinars. It's a conversation about making changes in your business.

The big idea for you is that there's something you are resisting doing that could create a breakthrough in your business. What is that one thing that you know if you did it would increase your sales and profits?

Look for Ways to Optimize your Business!

The principle here is Optimize. You need to optimize your business. Look for opportunities to make a change that will help you to generate more leads, book appointments or close more sales. Look for opportunities to automate your work so you can earn Sleeping Money. That's money that comes in while you're sleeping!

What is one area of your business you can optimize now that would allow you to improve your results? Write it down and take action. Move at the the speed of instruction.