Hey everyone!

Hope you had a great Easter holiday.

Last week, I was selected to be on a jury trial for the first time ever in my 45 years of living.

It was a civil trial centered around the Plaintiff suing a City and their Police Department for a car pursuit that ended in a fatality and unfortunately, an expectant mother lost her life. Thankfully the baby survived. This took place back in 2016 and the trial centered around recovery of lost lifetime wages of the deceased.

Both the plaintiffs and defense presented their cases and rested. The judge dismissed us for the day but instructed us to return the next day at 9:30 am to deliberate. (The case was settled before deliberations.)

Here are 5 takeaways that I noted while sitting in the jury box:

1. Appearances, NOT looks matter.  You can’t control your looks, but you can control how you dress. When in doubt dress up and step up your wardrobe appropriately for the situation. I’m not suggesting you wear a suit and tie or dress, but dress accordingly to the situation.
2. Make eye contact when communicating with people. One side barely made eye contact with the jury. Maybe it was done intentionally or because they were nervous. The other side hardly looked at the person asking questions and mainly looked at us jurors and answered the questions. Look people in the eye!
3. When the Plaintiffs questioned the economics professor who was giving his analysis of what the lifetime value of lost wages were, he was pretty specific in his number. He could have easily rounded up a number to say, $1,000,000, which we are all familiar with. Nope, he used some figure like $983,753.00. It sounded more believable. When presenting pricing to prospective clients, perhaps use not so slick numbers but round up or down a bit? When sharing with prospects on how much you saved a client or helped generate some revenue figure, use some non-rounded off numbers that are more believable and increase your credibility.
4. Both sides seemed prepared and thorough. When meeting with a client, do the same. Don’t be sloppy or lazy. Come prepared. Enough said.
5. Whoever communicates the best, usually wins. The Plaintiffs and Defense were engaged in a sales contest. Money was involved. It was a sales contest. They were selling each side of the story. Thankfully us jurors didn’t have to declare a winner or loser. Communicate well, be concise, and ask good questions!

I’m Ray Ruecker with Connect 5000 and proudly performed my civic duty!

 

Happy New Year everyone!

Ray Ruecker with Connect 5000 here.

I survived the holidays and no in-laws or relatives got harmed in the process. (I’m kidding.)

Personal story: My wife and I got married Memorial Day weekend in 2005. We agreed the first year of marriage we wouldn’t start a family or get any pets as we transitioned to being newlyweds.

A year later, my wife said she wanted a baby. I said, “Let’s get a dog.”. So we did. We went to a breeder and picked out a 6 week old Labrador Retriever and brought her home 12 and a half years ago.

Zoey was a wonderful dog and great companion for our household. In April 2018, we noticed she had a malignant mass on her ear and she had surgery in July 2018. In December, her health started deteriorating badly and unfortunately we had to send her to doggie heaven on December 28.

She was a wonderful dog and will be sorely missed in our family.

What’s the sales lesson here?

There’s no obvious lesson but here’s a takeaway if you want one:

When you’re communicating with clients or prospects by phone, email, or in person, you never truly know what’s going on in their personal or professional lives. Us humans can put on a good fake front. I know for me personally as we made plans to take our dog to the vet for end of life finality, I was pretty quiet and stoic on the outside.

If they seem down, distracted, or impersonal, there may be things going on in their lives that you may know nothing about.

I’m pretty extroverted and social, but I can keep a good front like the rest of world when I don’t feel like showing my true feelings.

Your prospects and clients can do the same.

Cheers to a successful 2019!