You might remember that old commercial that
categorized people into spenders and savers.
Then it made a liitle joke calling some couples
"spavers." There's some smidgen of truth in
that commercial.

After working in sales for a couple of decades,
and for several companies before I started my
own, I can tell you there are two kinds of sales
management, spenders, and savers, and we
used to call the savers "cutters."

It is always better to work for a spender. Spenders
make sure you get the materials you need, pay for
a golf outing, a dinner, whatever it takes to get the
job done. Cutters do the exact opposite, and make
it doubly difficult to do your job.

To give you an example of a cutter, I offer the
following story. We once had a company dinner at
a restaurant that was also one of our accounts. The
executive VP left a 5% tip after running the wait staff
hard all night.

(Mostly to get his drinks.)

Salespeople threw all kinds of money on the table
to cover his extremely low tip. This isn't how you
treat a long time account, but he saved on the bill
by shafting the staff.

He argued about expense reimbursements, and
once threatened to fire me over a $300 Christmas
gift to a very large and profitable customer. The
net profit on that single account was over $350,000.
I told him where he could place those papers, and
I never heard from him again about that issue.

Four years into his tenure he got fired, because
sales had slipped.

He was followed by a spender.

The first year sales rose 40%. The second year
the same. When I left they had never failed to
trample the previous years budget.

Salespeople made plenty of money and no one
argued about expense reimbursement.

If you want to be in the sales game you have to
pay the freight necessary to win the game, or
you're just grandstanding.

When I first started this company I flew to Los
Angeles on a moment's notice just to talk to a
guy who had a big title. It was all gut instinct. I
landed that account within 30 minutes of arrival,
and I still have it today. When I landed it, it
became my biggest account. Today there are
several accounts larger, but that one in the
beginning was crucial to my success. I often
wonder whether the old VP of Sales would
have approved my trip.

And the answer is, probably not.

That's why I have my own company.

From the big saddle,

Jim Whelan
The Chairman of the Board

P.S. Is anyone in Hollywood going to move to Europe after this election?

thejamesrwhelanagency.com
206 407 3124

Recently I had lunch with a Japanese friend
of mine who had made a few mistakes in the
beginning of a business venture. He was
really depressed and down in the dumps. He
also did not want to tell anyone involved in the
venture about the mistakes, which would only
serve to compound the issue.

When he told me what the mistakes were I
laughed. This through him for a loop, and
he said, Why are you laughing at me?"

That made me laugh even more. All the
mistakes he made were easy to fix, and
after I finished laughing I put him in the car
and took him to my office where I called a
couple of friends, explained the situation to
them, and had them take care of my friend.
In a little over an hour I had "fixed" all his
problems.

He almost started crying, and I told him I'd
have none of that in my office. I told him
about all the mistakes I made when I started
my business, and that I continue to make
mistakes every day.

As the philosopher said, "There is no
teacher like experience."

No matter what you are involved in, you will
always make mistakes.In fact, the more you
try to avoid mistakes the more frequently
they happen. Mistakes are the way we learn
from the time we were born. Just watch a six
month old who already knows they would like
to walk. They stand up, with or without help,
and try that first step, and fall down. Then they
do it again and again and again, and who
knows how many times they did it wrong, we
only remember when they did it right.

When we finally get things right we know a
helluva lot about what not to do. We learn a
lesson by doing things the wrong way. Very
few ever do the right thing on the first try or
venture. The ones who do often take a large
fall later, because they never had the chance
to fail early.

Edison failed 10,000 times to get the lightbulb
right, but when he did he lit up an entire country,
and probably the world.

Without failure we wouldn't have any idea of
what a beautiful thing success is. And though
it often appears that someone succeeded
overnight, that is rarely, if ever true.

Most of my successful friends banged on the
door of success for years before it opened.

When you make a mistake you just brush it
off and say "I'm one step closer to what I want!"

From the big saddle,

Jim Whelan
The Chairman of the Board

P.S. The stinking, pork laden bailout passed
this afternoon. Why don't I feel good?

While millions of people are watching the news
and crying in their beer feeling sorry for
themselves, some smart young people are
making a whole bunch of money by selling
products on the internet.

I happen to know one pretty well, and he has
done some business with me. His name is Nate
Rifkin, and he dropped out of the University of
Massachusetts because he was bored, and
wanted to make some money so he could do t
he things he dreamed about.

When he informed all his friends about his
decision they were all negative. They called him
stupid, and ignorant, and those were the nice
things they said. But Nate persevered, and
spent money he didn't have on acquiring some
marketing expertise.

His family didn't support him either, and that
didn't discourage him in the least. He just kept
pushing forward.

He developed an improbable product, called
Lumberjack Yoga, which you can find at:
www.lumberjackyoga.com.
and he started selling it on the Internet with
a fine salesletter that he wrote himself.

In the beginning things were slow, but Nate
kept his eyes on the prize. Pretty soon things
started looking up, and these days Nate's
garage operation is doing somewhere north
of $30,000.00 a month in sales. Nate nets a
very nice percentage of that, and is now in the
top 1% of all wage earners in the U.S.. Not to
shabby for a self confessed lazy college dropout.

Nate has recently writen a book entitled.
"Go For Greed - How To Get Whatever The Hell
You Want Out Of Life - Even If You're Lazy, Miserable,
And People Don't Like You." You can get a copy for
yourself at: NateRifkin.com

Nate's next goal is $100,000,00 a month
online. When he hits it, and I have no doubt that
he will. he will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt
that all this emphasis on college is a crock.

Among my many successful friends, only one
finished college, and it took him close to 8 years
to get an undergraduate degree.

Again I repeat the advice in a story told by Dr. Al
Sears, "there are a thousand ways to make money,
and all of them involve selling."

Nate is a seller, and in the drivers seat because of it.
Someday he will have his own plane, several homes,
and a business that will need accountants and advisors
to keep track of it all.

Not bad for a college dropout.

From the big saddle,

Jim Whelan
Chairman of the Board

P.S. I wonder why they don't teach selling in college?

A couple of years ago a salesman stood
in my office and gave an excellent short
presentation. Then a very strange thing
happened. When it became time to close
me, he got very nervous, and his whole
demeanor changed. His hands started to
shake, and his speech became halting.

I knew what was happening, and so I
had him sitdown and relax.

This salesman, like many salesman,
had a huge fear of asking someone for
money. We salesmen have all kinds of
phobia's, enough to keep a shrink on
duty twenty four hours a day. Some of
our phobia's are harmless, like wearing
the same tie when you're on a roll, or
wearing the same sox until you strike
out, things like that.

But this salesman's fears were strangling
him. One thing you have to be able to do
in sales is ask for the money. If you don't
get the money you can't complete the sale.

I offered to help this salesman get over his
fear.

He accepted my offer, and I began to work
with him sometime last year. We have an
hour long chat once a month, and I teach
him about sales situations and how to handle
them, with an emphasis on how to close and
how to ask for the money.

Soon after he started with me he started have
small successes, and then at the beginning of
2008 he started having big ones. He has
followed that up with even bigger successes
since the end of May.

In his last twelves presentations he has
closed eleven, and the last one could fall this
week. That's a perfect closing ratio, and it
doesn't just happen.

Not only is he close to perfect, more than
half of his customers are buying his most
expensive product, or an even more
expensive custom product. He has erased
all his fears of asking for money, and
followed my advice.

Not only has he followed my advice, but
he has adapted what I have told him into
language that he and his prospects are
very comfortable with. He is now able to
establish rapport with almost everyone he
comes in contact with immediately. Spend
five minutes with him and you'll think you
have known him for ages.

What has this done for him?

1) It has quintupled his income in the last
twelve months. He will generate more than
a million dollars in income by December.
Thats not gross sales, that's income from
gross sales.

2) His confidence and self esteem have
gone off the charts.

3) Selling has become so easy for him that
he can spend almost all of his time developing solutions.

He doesn't look like the same guy I met a
couple of years back, and he certainly
doesn't talk like it. Just like me, he has
his own planet. He had to choose a different
name though, because I already own Planet Jim.

The moral of this story is; that not only
did he listen to what I had to say, he had
the courage to put it into action, and to
continue to refine it.

If you're struggling, find a mentor, or a coach.
They can take years off your learning curve,
and help propel you to the next level.

From the big saddle,

Jim Whelan
The Chairman of the Board

P.S. In sales there is no such thing as voting "Present."

One of the first movies I can remember
seeing is "Cool Hand Luke," followed up
a little later by "Butch Cassidy and the
Sundance Kid." It's really hard to believe
that 40 years have passed since I watched
Paul Newman try to eat all those eggs.

My friends and I had a contest and I came
in second eating 13 eggs. I don't see how
anybody could do more than that but we
know it's possible. After that competition I
don't think I ate any eggs for years.

I was in my thirties when I saw other Newman
movies like "Hud" and "Somebody Up There
Likes Me."

I saw "The Color of Money" with Newman and
Tom Cruise before I saw "The Hustler" which
also starred Jackie Gleason, Piper Laurie, and
George C Scott.

Newman was walking among the giants in
that film.

"Slap Shot" is one of my favorite movies, as is
"The Verdict." In both of these movies Newman
portrays a guy that is down on his luck but still
seeks redemption.

Newman was good at his craft when he was younger,
but he seemed to age more gracefully than others
in the business.

Newman took to racing cars as he got older, and
he also built a huge philanthropic organization that
donated the profits of his food products to charity.

He didn't do anything halfway, and he was as
respected on the racetrack as he was in front of
the camera. His foundation work is enviable.

I didn't agree much with his politics, and cringed
whenever he was making political statements. But
on the whole he was a man that accomplished a
lot more than others ever dreamed about.

That's a good thing, and we get to watch him for
as long as we're around.

From the big saddle,

Jim Whelan
The Chairman of the Board

P.S. Pauline Kael wrote about Paul Newman,
"There are some men who project such a
traditional heroic frankness and sweetness
that the audience dotes on them, and seeks
to protect them from harm or pain."

That sums it up.

thejamesrwhelanagency.com
206 407 3124

The bailout that everybody said was going to
happen didn't. 95 Democrats defected from the
command of Speaker Nancy Pants, who tried
to blame the entire debacle on George Bush.
I guess they don't remember that it was Tommy
Boy Dowd and the rest of his cohorts including
Herebama Therebama that protected their old
friend Franklin Raines at Fannie Mae, and
refused to add oversight or regulation.

John Boy Kerry finally found a microphone today,
and he of course vehemently denied this any of
this was the fault of the Democrats, who as you
know are always looking out for the little guy.

We haven't heard from Billy Jay or Fat Al on any
of this, and the reason is simple. They both have
so much money that they don't care. And they
have it buried so deep that they can ride out any
crisis with impunity.

The fact is that Pelosi is the weakest Speaker in
history, and a dimwit to boot. Just when a deal might
be struck she tosses a grenade in the room, and
expects that everyone will understand it was just
Nancy Pants being Nancy Pants.

Can a deal be struck? Maybe, maybe not. And
maybe we should just let these companies fall.
Yeh...there would be a lot of short term pain, but
it might teach the Masters of the Universe a lesson.

I won't hold my breath, or bet my last ten dollars
on that though. All this talk is poppycock anyway,
and the markets will never be regulated the way all
the socialists want. One thing we know from Clinton
is that rules can always be circumvented. Obama's
fundraisers learned a lot of lessons from Clinton,
and they know the rules better than anyone, and
just how easy it is to get around them.

Poor John helped write the rules that strangled his
campaign in the early going, and that may end up
causing him to lose the election.

So this is the situation.

The country is standing at a financial precipice,
where everything can come tumbling down, and
a good portion of Congress takes off for a religious
holiday.

Nothing wrong with religious holidays, but you
might think there would be an exception granted
here. So it will be at least late Wednesday before
anything happens. If it happens at all.

Somebody should be stepping up to the plate here.

But it just doesn't look like there are any leaders here anymore.

My grandfather is rolling over in his grave.

From the big saddle,

Jim Whelan
The Chairman of the Board

P.S. If you followed my football advice Sunday you are a winner!

thejamesrwhelanagency.com
206 407 3124

What do you do in Washington when there
is a crisis?

Have a meeting. Isn't that the way it is across
this great land?

So many meetings, and so little gets accomplished.

In my own company, which is now a liitle over
four years old, we have never had a meeting.

Not one.

I have a friend in the hotel business, and they have
meetings every day. Sometimes he attends two or
three meetings a day. If that ever happens here it
will be a sure sign that I should sell the business.

Rule # 4 in Whelanetics is: NO MEETINGS!

If we took all the time that people spend in
useless meetings and made it productive
we would certainly usher in a new era of
prosperity.

There were reports yesterday that Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid was so angry
that he almost passed out. My question is,
when is Harry Reid not angry? If ever a guy
was born that had a scowl tattooed on his
face it would be Harry Reid.

But there he is, fighting to fix the economy, along
with 535 other idiots, most of whom have never
held a real job in the private sector. These guys
couldn't fix a tricycle if they had all the parts, tools,
and a blueprint in front of them.

Then of course there's the fact that they accept
campaign contributions from the guys who are
crying for help. Those would be the guys passing
out $66 billion dollars of bonuses for the fine
performance of their companies.

The fox is not only in the henhouse, but now
has a nice little condo in the corner.

Can this economy be fixed? Yes. But it won't happen
in Washington and Wall Street. It will happen on Main
Street USA, where people try to live within their means.
Where people work hard and follow the rules.

Their reward? Higher taxes. And higher taxes.

All because some guys never know when enough
is enough.

Including all the members of Congress, and a
good number of Wall Street CEO's. The Obamessiah
has called for change.

Be careful what you wish for. It's already at your doorstep.

From the big saddle,

Jim Whelan
The Chairman of the Board

P.S. Take the points and the Redskins on Sunday.

thejamesrwhelanagency.com
206 407 3124

One of the biggest sins committed by rookie
salespeople and even by salespeople who
should know better is dropping their price low
enough to make a buyer happy.

One of the big lessons to be learned is that
this only makes one person happy, and it isn't
you, since you'll be earning a lower commission.

When I was a rookie many moons ago I
landed a huge account, and every time
I went in they were just so happy to see
me. I sold them thousands and thousands
of dollars worth of merchandise, and the
account ate up a big percentage of my time.

After my second year in the business I did
a financial analysis of all my accounts and
discovered that neither I nor the company
made any serious money on that huge
account. The margin was very low, and I
had other accounts I made 10 times what I
did in this one.

I started raising my prices, and pretty soon
the attitude of the people who ordered from
me in that account changed too. They weren't
so happy to see me all the time, and some
times they refused to see me at all.

Why? The reason is very simple. When I was
a rookie they took advantage of me for almost
two years, and got great deals for themselves,
and I made virtually no money in return. That
isn't the way the system is supposed to work,
and when I figured it out I wanted more of a
piece of the pie.

I cut back on my visits to this account, and
then I stopped seeeing them altogether. If they
needed somethig they could leave it on my
voicemail.

Then they called me in for a meeting. I went,
listened to their proposal, and told them I would
think about it. They were willing to pay a little
more than they had previously, but not enough
to make me any money with the time that was
required to service the account. I left them a
voicemail message the next day thanking them
for their offer, but told them it wasn't high enough
to get all the things they wanted.

We had no communication at all for four months,
then they left a message asking me to come in
again. They made a much better offer this time,
but I wanted a clause in the contract that left me
free to charge market rates for anything that was
short notice.

I wanted this because this outfit was always
behind the eight ball when they needed something,
and often required things at supersonic speed.

They huffed and puffed for a little while,
and then agreed.

When I analyzed this account at the end of the
year the difference was amazing. They were
now my second most profitable account, and
over half of the orders they placed with me
were short notice.

So in the third and fourth year I made back some
of the money I had lost while I was a rookie.

You can't employ this strategy unless you are
willing to walk away from the table. Not every deal
is a good deal. If you don't get want you need out
of a deal then you should walk away.

If a deal is slanted to far in a customers favor it
won't work in the long run. The same is true if it's
too far in your favor.

Don't let yourself or your services go cheaply.
It's a serious mistake. Learn how to ask for top dollar
and hold your ground when you're are questioned
about your price. If you have to make a price
concession then you must make the buyer
concede something too. Never give up your
price point without getting something in return.

And if the buyer wants a concession from you
but they aren't willing to give you anything in return,
walk away. Negotiation is hardball, and you have to
learn how to play.

From the big saddle,

Jim Whelan
The Chairman of the Board

P.S. Every man, woman, and child just ponied
up $4082.00 to the government so they can save
companies who are giving out $66
billion dollars in performance bonuses.

thejamesrwhelanagency.com
206 407 3124

I'm a big fan of fortune cookies, even though
the Chinese didn't event this after meal treat.
If you go to China you will never get a fortune
cookie, because this strictly an American
enterprise.

I just like the idea of getting a little something
at the end of a meal that is whimsical, and
fortune cookies fit the bill.

I like the sayings, and sometimes they are just
what you need at the moment. In my desk drawer
I have about twenty, or maybe more, little pieces
of paper that I got in fortune cookies. Some of
them are pretty weathered, and go back years.

Usually the cookies have numbers on the back,
and these are for people who like to buy lottery
tickets. I never paid much attention to these until
a friend of mine won some thousands of dollars,
and then I would use them whenever the lottery
got extremely high, like say over 75 million dollars.

I have placed my bets, but lottery fortune has yet
to smile on me. I may have to eat quite a bit of beef
with broccoli to win anything. I'm just guessing at
the lucky dish, for all I know it could be pickled and
shredded sea cucumber. Or maybe duck's feet with
slivered tongue and vegetables. (And yes, that is a
real dish, served at the table next to me last night.)

The quicker way to a fortune is to start your own
business. Starting your own business means you can
have money coming in the door everyday, and you
don't have to wait for the lotto results to come out.
Oh...and the other thing is that your odds of winning
the lotto are very, very small. In fact, they are infinitesimal.
That means you ain't got a snowballs chance in hell of
winning.

That doesn't mean you should never buy a ticket,
just don't count on the lotto to pay your rent and
put groceries on the table.

Getting started in a business is a better idea, and
you can start small, without quitting your day job.
Start bringing in another source of income, and
start watching your bank account grow. The more
streams of income you have coming in, the better
off you will be. Lotto doesn't count as an income
stream.

In the meantime, keep reading those fortune
cookies. They'll keep you on track, and now
and then they will lighten your load.

From the big saddle,

Jim Whelan
The Chairman of the Board

P.S. Should we really be in a hurry to send money to Wall Street?

thejamesrwhelanagency.com
206 407 3124

I was sitting in my big chair this morning with
my boots on the corner of the desk thinking
about money. There have been times in my l
ife when I didn't have much, and times when
my buckets overflowed.

What was it F.Scott Fitzgerald said, "The rich
are different from you and me...they have money."
Well now, I have more money than I used too,
but am I rich? I don't know.

One thing for sure, I don't carry much money,
and I rarely use cash. Almost 99% of all the
transactions I make are done with plastic. So
maybe the question is, instead of how much
money does a person have, is how much
plastic is he or she carrying.

How does one acquire money, or plastic?

Well you can work for it, or you can attract it.

I'm in the latter camp because it's easier to
attract it than work for it. That doesn't mean
I don't do any work, it just means that I can
attract more money than I can work for.

If you want to be truly successful you must
be a money magnet or attractor. You have to
visualize yourself with money, and the money
will come. The best visualization is that money
is coming to you, and when it arrives, you're
happy. And you then visualize more money,
and more money.

If you think that money won't come to you, or
you're not worthy of having money, then you
won't have any. It doesn't matter if you're one
of the world's best artists, like Vincent Van Gogh.
He never sold a painting during his life.

Van Gogh was so depressed he sliced off his
own ear. He wallowed in his depression. He
threw off a heap of bad energy, and so he
was never rewarded for his work. He never
saw himself with any money, so he didn't get any.

Thomas Jefferson was a great thinker except
when it came to money, and consequently he
was a terrible businessman. (Some say he was a
cheat and scoundrel.) Whatever the case, he
didn't honor his debts, and rarely paid anyone
that he owed. When he died he was millions of
dollars in debt.

It's a good thing he didn't stick around to be part
of the credit card age. He most certainly would
have ended up just like many Wall Street firms.

There are those who think money isn't important.
Usually they don't have any, so they think the
words absolve them.

The fact is that money is important, and you
should have some. Enough so that you can
decide what you want to do in life without any
interference. Enough so that you can give some
away. Enough so that you can make changes in
the lives of others.

And here's something that is really important.

There is an infinite supply of money. There is
enough money so that everyone can live a life
of abundance. All you have to is attract your
share. You can start doing that at any time,
and in anyplace.

You can have all you want in your lifetime,
and then it goes to someone else. Someone
who attracts it. Someone who visualizes it.
Someone who makes things happen.

From the big saddle,

Jim Whelan
The Chairman of the Board

P.S. Can the Chicago Cubs break the curse?

thejamesrwhelanagency.com
206 407 3124