Selling yourself FIRST will lead to more business because YOU are often the product or service

YOU are often your primary product or service.

YOU are what your clients or customers buy.

YOU are the first-line of contact and how your prospects see the business you run.

Everything you do or say, how you dress and carry yourself, how you speak and write (even in short emails that you feel "don't matter"), and whether you are an "on-time person" or one who is always late combine to be the "brand" that is YOU.

And it ALL matters. A lot!

It is how your clients and customers think about you. It's how they refer to you when speaking to other people about you. It determines if they return to do business with you another time.

Did you ever hear the story about the blind men and the elephant?

• The first man touched the elephant's trunk and described it as a flexible, long creature.
• The second man touched the elephant's tusk and thought it was a very hard, smooth, upward-pointed animal.
• The third touched the elephant's hoof and thought it was a large, flat, very heavy creature with several smoothe places (the toe nails).
• And the fourth touched the tail and thought it was a short, pliable snake-like animal with hair at the end.

Each one "knew" the elephant for what his experience told him… and each was correct, but only PARTIALLY correct.

The same is true for YOU…

Whatever you show your prospects is how they see YOU and the work you do

Be confident, they see confidence. Be a great salesman, full of knowledge, and they see a knowledgeable salesman. Be their adviser and advocate, and they see someone on THEIR side of the table who is there to help.

Be a wimp, and they see someone they don't want to do business with again.

If you are looking for a job, looking for employment, looking for a way to start your own business, be sure that what you show to people is the side of you that you want exposed.

For just as the blind men of the story thought they knew the elephant, people you come in contact with THINK they know you.

Be down, be loud, be obnoxious even ONE time, and it resonates with those who come in contact with you. But be UP, encouraging others around you, seeing the bright side… and that can work magic on people.

The northeast of the USA has had lots of rain. I often hear people say, "Ugh… what a horrible day." But what if we had no rain? What if the plants stopped growing? What if it were hot, muggy, and gardens were withering? Wouldn't the rain look pretty good THEN?

So LOOK for the good and then present yourself well to win new business

Keep your spirits high, see the good in what (and who) is around you, and you will win in just about everything you do.

It's a scary time out there in that economy of uncertainty.

And as the saying goes: It's a RECESSION when others are out of work; it's a DEPRESSION when YOU are out of work. And even if you work for yourself but have no paying assignments to keep you going, it's a tough place.

Let's stay away from the DEPRESSION. Being a part of the Great Recession is bad enough.

It's time to stay positive, upbeat, alert to new opportunities

OK… so your dream left you a long time ago but you came up with NEW dreams and you know that only YOU can pick you up and get you moving. Your new dreams are just as valid as the old ones – people of the 1920's didn't have the same dreams of those of the 1950's, so your dreams simply HAD to change.

Get moving. KEEP moving. Know that you have to sell yourself FIRST to win new business and that often YOU are the product.

Be sure to present yourself WELL. All the time!

Best,

Charlie Seymour Jr
A Work At Home Dad since 1983, succeeding in this economy

PS: You can find me here:

http://twitter.com/UltimateWAHDads

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Salesmanship – Sell Yourself FIRST To Win New Business

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Opportunities Abound For Work At Home Dads, Even In THIS Economy!

How often do we have to hear it from or read it in the news? The economy is the worst since our parents (and for some of us it's our parents' parents) were young. It's really awful.

All indicators are down. My personal retirement fund has shrunk by about 50%. Unemployment is rising (about 6.5% in my county), and if it hasn't touched your family, you KNOW a family it has struck.

What do they say: it's a Recession when your neighbor loses his job: it's a DEPRESSION with YOU lose your job! It sure feels that way! (Seems to me the only time you feel worse is when everyone tells you that the economy is GREAT but you just lost your job – that happened to me once and that feeling is burned into my brain and heart, still searing my insides.)

And the effect ripples through our town, county, state, country, and world. You can't escape that we're part of a SYSTEM, not a series of individuals. Someone losing a job in Maine doesn't buy as many groceries so the farmer in Texas doesn't plant as man crops and the family in California has to pay more. And on and on and on.

And Bernie Madoff can only account for about $67 Billion of this, so there are many other factors at work.

And when I was a kid, I remember my Dad talking about the economy (he later ran a major real estate firm and was on the Board of the Philadelphia Fed… so he had learned a thing or two).

And if there was one major lesson I learned from him it's that OPPORTUNITY is just as great in any part of the cycle (for indeed, economies are cyclical).

So… that means that there are opportunities abounding right now.

And if you follow Internet Marketing (especially Information Product Marketing), perhaps you just witnessed Frank Kern (one of the really good guys) sell more than $4,000,000 worth of CDs and booklets, teaching people how to succeed in today's economy. And this was in about 26 hours.

But For Many, Where Did The Dream Go?

But for people watching their 401(k)s being drained or their IRAs tumble, it certainly must feel like the sky has fallen. And if you're sitting at home instead of going into that job in an office, store, warehouse, or factory, the pain can be intense.

Or Perhaps You've Been Saying, Take Me From The Rat Race

Or, perhaps you still have a job but are nervous that you might be next to go. Here in the Philadelphia, PA USA area, apartment developer Steve Korman has pleaded with companies (many of which he owns stock in) to remember that firing people leads to more firing. He'd like to see a corporation earn less, but keep all of its people working.

Not many corporations share his thoughts.

Or, You're Already Working At Home And Think, How Can I Turbo Charge My Work At Home

You know how it is to have the freedom of working from home. No commute. No expensive lunches out. No boring meetings that take up so much of your time.

But with the way the economy is now, you really need some help to turbo charge your results. Going back to an office job just isn't in the cards for you, even if the economy had any jobs available.

I've Been There Too

As a Work At Home Dad since 1991 (longer, really, since from 1977 – 1991, I sold $247,368,657.97 worth of Investment Real Estate and though I worked for a large real estate firm, I did much of my work from home), I recognize each of these stories… and each of the opportunities they bring.

Oh, it may not FEEL like an opportunity when you're faced with being fired or the potential of a layoff, but it can be.

So, I've dedicated myself (with the help of some of my very smart friends) to help Work At Home Dads.

Dads Have Been Forgotten – But NO MORE!

When you search the Internet, there are all kinds of opportunities for Stay At Home Moms, but the Dads have been forgotten. And with the economy the way it is, we Dads can use all the help we can get. It's said that 82% of all the recent layoffs were to men!

I have created several family-centric sites (RaisingGreatFamilies.com, ILearnedItAllFromMyKids.com, FathersAndTheDaughtersTheyLove.com among them) and my professional photography business was all related to families (Family Portraits, Weddings, Bat and Bar Mitzvahs, Theater).

Over the next few months, I will openly share information to help Work At Home Dads. The site just starting, so be sure to enter your name and email address and I'll be sure to let you know when those resources are available.

Time We Banded Together, Men: Form Our Own Mastermind Group!

There's nothing like the power of when creative and hard-working men join together. Hey, not being sexist – my wife would smack me if I did that (to say nothing about my two successful daughters), but it's time for us men to band together to make the family economy work for each of us.

I look forward to hearing from you – hearing your ideas, your greatest concerns about working from home, hearing about some of the solutions you have come up with. Let's share this information to help all of us.

Best,

Charlie Seymour Jr
A Work At Home Dad, succeeding in this economy

Friends, if you like this post, please leave a comment and retweet it. And I've made it easy – just click on the icon below. Thanks!

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