What does “community service” mean to you? For some, community service means helping around the four-block radius surrounding their homes. For others, community service may mean their entire neighborhood, city, or town. Regardless of how you define community service, you should know you can play an active role in building it and helping it to grow.
Acronyms and buzzwords are riddled throughout the copier sales community. As a recovering copier sales rep, I have had countless dreams and or nightmares:
- ABC - Always be Closing
- CTA - Call to Action
- ABP - Always be Prospecting
- AFTO - Ask for the Order
- CPP - Cost per Page
ABH (Always be Helping) is one acronym if intertwined within your weekly ritual within your community will catapult your sales success and may just resuscitate your sales funnels.
There are countless opportunities within your community or even your sales territory to get started. The way to really make a difference over time is a series of small steps. The single biggest impact you can make is quite simple:
Volunteer
One of the best things you can give your community is your time. The reward is more valuable than you think! I get it, we all work hard and we all lead busy lives but if you’re willing to carve out a few hours each week to helping within your community, you’ll wind up making a big impact.
Here are a few things you could consider doing:
- Tutor underprivileged students to help them get ahead at school
- Sign up to deliver hot meals to the elderly or sick
- Help serve food at a homeless shelter
- Participate in school cleanup projects
- Join a not for profit board as a director
Attention Copier Reps... Always be Helping within the Community
Get involved in the community you live in or within the sales community you sell in. I can't think of a more rewarding experience than lending a helping hand. Get involved and get active. By giving back I have gained so much in return. My motto,
"Offer to help without expecting anything in return"
My personal commitment to helping has led me to become active with my local Elks Lodge, Kiwanis Group and Senior Concerns; where I deliver food to home-bound seniors. My commitment to service led me to being awarded "Kiwanian of the Year, 2015" within my local community.
3 Areas Your "Always Be Helping" Mindset Will Grow Sales Success
1. A personal bond around a common cause - rapport building within the sales process is extremely important. Within your LinkedIn profile you can share your volunteer experience, the organizations you support, and the causes you care about. What a great way to kick start a deep meaningful conversation to help your relationship building with a C-Level executive, as they too may share the same philanthropic characteristics as you.
2. Corporations support the community - philanthropic efforts in supporting the community through giving sits within the core and mission of most corporations. Corporations will embrace and make it their responsibility to be a leading corporate citizen. They will look for diverse perspectives to inform the community, strive to strengthen through financial contributions and become proactive in caring for through volunteerism, all for the betterment of the community.
As a copier rep, look at your target list of accounts and start conducting research. Look for the charities they support, the schools they support or even the local events inside the community they volunteer within. Why? Get involved and volunteer as you may never know who you will run into. These can and will lead into prospecting moments, relationship building moments and more important conversation starters.
3. Executives sit on not for profit boards - quite often C-Level executives, key decision-makers or even influencers as part of their civic duty will offer their insight by committing to join boards of not for profit organizations.
Start thinking of joining a not for profit board to elevate your status within the community. What a great way to get involved, offer your insight as well as your knowledge. You never know who you may sitting next to in a board meeting.
Think of adding not for profit organizations to your prospecting efforts. If you don't get involved personally then think of all the board of directors you have the opportunity to get to know if these organizations become your clients.
My community service experiences have led to many great personal and business friendships.
Attention to all copier sales reps, a great way to connect with business executives is through your commitment to Philanthropy.
Whether you invest money, energy, or time within your community, the sooner you get involved, the better you’ll feel about your community and the brighter your opportunities to build relationships will become.
If you enjoyed please share your comments. Look forward to connecting and starting a conversation.
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I appreciate getting the opportunity to share my LinkedIn stories. Integrating the use of LinkedIn was my “game-changer” in the highly competitive copier world. With great pride I transform and coach copier sales professionals to grow net new business by helping them tell their story and communicate on LinkedIn. My commitment is to help independent office technology dealers thrive in a changing marketplace. You can follow me on LinkedIn, Twitter, as well as at the Social Sales Academy
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