Todd Duncan's Sales Mistake #5: Muscling

Duncan defines "muscling" as: "Taking Lone Ranger Actions instead of using team-connected strategies." See pp. 83-102. The quote is from p. 83 of his great book, Killing the Sale; the 10 Fatal Mistakes Salespeople make and how to avoid them. (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2004).

For those not old enough to remember the lone ranger, he was a Texas Ranger, something like a state policeman in Texas who was the sole survivor of a massacre of Texas Rangers who, with his faithful Indian friend, Tonto, dedicated his life to finding the men who killed all his buddies and wears a mask so no one will recognize him. Come to think of it, why is he wearing that mask?

To overcome muscling, Duncan suggests that you analyze all the things you do in terms of production (Money, referrals, sales, etc., not just hours spent). Then make a priority of doing the first two things and either delegate or eliminate the remaining activities.Here are some strategies Duncan recommends to implement this:

1. Hire yourself for no more than 2 hours per day to take care of the less productive but necessary tasks.

2. Hire a responsible young person that you know. A college student or teenager might be willing to spend a few hours a day taking less productive tasks off your hand.

3. Hire a coach, for that fresh pair of eyes.

4. Share an assistant with a co-worker or colleague whose values you share.

5. Let your assistant hire an assistant.

6. Promote your assistant.

To get the whole scoop, check out his book.

What do you think about this? Have you ever been guilty of posing? I'm trying to create more skilled entrepreneurs. Do you think this helps?

This is some of the stuff that will go into my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.

Todd Duncan's 10 Fatal Selling Errors

Todd Duncan, in Killing the Sale; the 10 Fatal Mistakes Salespeople Make and How to Avoid Them. (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2004), lays out 10 basic selling errors. Entrepreneurs should recognize them so they don't do them.

Here they are:

1. Hyping: "Relying on 'You can do it' propaganda to maintain your sales motivation.' (p.1)

2. Posing: "Trying to sell before training to sell." (p. 17)

3. Tinkering: "Treating the symptoms but not the sickness of poor selling efforts." (p. 39)

4. Moonlighting: Buliding a business-based life instead of a life-based busines. (p. 61)

5. Muscling: Taking Lone Ranger actions instead of using team-connected strategies. (p. 83)

6. Arguing: Selling your product before knowing your customer. (p. 103)

7. Gambling: Making unplanned calls on unknown customers. (p. 123)

8. Begging: Seeking your customers' business before earning your customers' trust. (p. 141)

9. Skimming: Focusing of surface profitability instead of client satisfaction. (p. 159)

10. Stagnating: Losing your sales edge by neglecting your growth curve. (p. 181)

There's not one salesman who hasn't been guilty of none of these. All of us have done every one of them at one point in time.

The key is to keep them in your mind and recognize them when you're either doing them or contemplating on doing them.

But if you recognize your core values and act according to them as often as possible, you'll maximize your chances of never doing any of them.

I'm going to go over each one in subsequent posts. Entrepreneurship is a sales business. Need I say more?

What do you think about this? Have you ever been guilty of it? I'm trying to create more skilled entrepreneurs. Do you think this helps?

This material comes from This is some of the stuff that will go into my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.