" In sales you either make it rain or you don't." ~ Guy Kawasaki.
I've been fortunate to know and work with a few rainmakers over the years and I love em. What is a Rainmaker? "A person with the exceptional ability to consistently attract clients, customers, connections and profits." A long time ago a wise old man and mentor told me "In business there are essentially two types of people:
"Those that create demand and those that process demand."
A salesperson who can't create demand falls on the processing side of the equation. No matter how good they are at closing deals they will never be considered real rainmakers. You may be a closer, young whippersnapper, but I will never think of you as a rainmaker until you can create demand - that's when you become invaluable.
That's When You're Different.
Until then you are at the mercy of leads, marketing and a myriad of other variables. Until then I see you on the cost side of the equation. My mentor got a very serious look on his face. The kind of look I saw when he held a belief strongly and it scared the bejeezus out of me.
Don't be weak Dan, he said. Don't be like the salesperson who says that it's marketing's job to get us the leads. Those salespeople are a dime a dozen. They will never be considered rainmakers. They think they can close but really they're just order takers. Become known as a rainmaker and you seize control of your own destiny. A rainmaker writes his own ticket and paycheck. But more than anything else he has universal value in business because he "Creates Demand."
Remember young man, he said, anyone can take orders and process demand but very few can create consistent, profitable, connections and differentiated demand. If you want to be really valuable to any business here is what you need to do "Create demand out of nothing - and make it rain" . The old rainmaker turned away from me and bellowed at the top of his voice ~ "Now get out of here and go create demand".
Be a Rainmaker!
