SALES - Make A List of What You Do

SALES

Make A List Of What You Do

By Nikki Viljoen – Viljoen Consulting – September 2010 .

Phew! What a hectic couple of weeks it has been! Writing proposals and delivering presentations . . .

The last one that I had to do was a 15 minute presentation on who I am!

It’s not that I was totally stumped, you understand – but the question was “who are you?” not “what do you do?”

For me that poses a bit of a dilemma because I think that ‘who’ I am is exactly ‘what’ it is that I do – I do understand that that is not the same for everybody out there.

I realized very quickly that this presentation was about selling myself, selling my brand, selling my belief in myself, my morals and my ethics as well.

Actually it made a lot of sense as I had already submitted a whole proposal on what I do and what I was prepared to offer and what the cost would be.

So how did I do this? I mean, I have no doubt that the panel that I am presenting to have no real interest in the fact that I love my cat Deushka, who is a little strange and eccentric since he loves to eat olives and avocado pear with balsamic vinegar!

For a minute there, I was quite stumped and of course my ‘knee jerk’ reaction was ‘what the hell do they want this for’? Fortunately I have many friends who are always willing to help and Dyonne came to my rescue (being well versed in the world of presentations and proposals). Dyonne is very methodical and we started at the beginning and broke it down.

It started with a little history – a little background if you will, you know - the where I have worked, where I come from, what I did and so on. This progressed to how it all started – Viljoen Consulting – why I started the business and the driving force that is behind my decision to go on my own. From there we went into the how it has changed, which is clearly about how the business has morphed and grown and almost taken on a life of its own and then finally the ‘what’s in it for me’? Clearly cost is important as I need to pay the bills and put food on the table, but it’s also about my sense of achievement, my own personal satisfaction of a job well done and of course, my own mission of ‘making a difference’ in the lives of others in order to make a difference in my own life. It’s about the things that I value in life and how I go about achieving them.

Now of course, my biggest challenge was to keep it short and within the 15 minute time frame – talk about going from nothing to say to nothing can shut me up!

Clearly the lesson here for me is to ‘step away from the car’! Calm down and the write it all down in a logical manner!

Now why didn’t I think of that?

Nikki is an Internal Auditor and Business Administration Specialist who can be contacted on 083 702 8849 or nikki@viljoenconsulting.co.za or http://www.viljoenconsulting.co.za