The Psychology of Selling Audiobook by Brian Tracy

[Music] hello i'm brian tracy and welcome to the psychology of selling increase your sales faster and easier than you ever thought possible introduction napoleon hill said that the imagination is literally the workshop wherein are fashioned all plans created by man the purpose of this book is to give you a series of ideas strategies and techniques that you can use immediately to make more sales faster and more easily than ever before in the time we spend together you will learn how to get more out of yourself and out of your selling career than you may have

ever thought possible you will learn how to double triple and even quadruple your sales and your income within a few months or as little as a few weeks this audiobook is the expanded version of my internationally successful sales program the psychology of selling since this program was originally produced it has been translated into 16 languages and is used in 24 countries it's the best selling professional sales training program in history become a millionaire according to follow-up research on graduates of my training programs more salespeople have become millionaires by listening to and applying these ideas than

by any other sales training process ever developed using this material i have personally trained more than five hundred thousand salespeople worldwide from thousands of companies and from virtually every industry these ideas really work my own story i did not graduate from high school instead as a young man i went off to see the world i worked at manual labor-type jobs for a few years and till i had enough money to begin traveling i worked my way on a norwegian freighter across the north atlantic and then traveled by bicycle bus truck and train around europe across

africa and eventually to the far east i never missed a meal but i did postpone a lot of them indefinitely when i could no longer find a laboring job in desperation i got into sales it seems that most of the decisions we make in life are similar to backing up in the night and hitting something and then getting out to see what it was in this case for me it was a sales job basic training i was hired on straight commission and i got the three part sales training program here's your cards here's your brochures

there's the door armed with this training i began my sales career cold calling knocking on office doors during the day and knocking on residential doors in the evenings the person who hired me couldn't sell but he told me that sales is a numbers game he said that all i had to do was talk to enough people and eventually i would find someone who would buy we call this the mud against the wall method of selling if you throw enough mud against the wall somewhere somehow some of it will stick this wasn't much but this was

all i had then someone told me that sales was really not a numbers game rather it was a rejection game the more rejections you collect the more sales you are likely to get equipped with this advice i ran from place to place so i could get rejected more often they said that i had the gift of gab so i used it and when a person seemed uninterested i would speak louder and faster but even though i hurried from prospect to prospect and spoke louder and faster to each person i was barely holding on by my

fingernails the turning point after six months of struggling making just enough sales to pay for my single room in a small guest house i finally did something that changed my life i went to the most successful guy in our company and i asked him what he was doing differently from me now i wasn't afraid of hard work i would get up at five or six in the morning prepare for the day and be waiting in the parking lot at 7am when my first prospects came to work i worked all day long going from office to

office and company to company in the evenings i would knock on residential doors until 9 or 10 at night if the light was on i would make the call the top salesman in my office who was only a couple of years older than me had a completely different approach he would roll into the office about nine o'clock a few minutes later a prospect would come in and they'd sit and talk after a few minutes conversation the prospect would take out his checkbook and write out a check for the product the salesman would then go on

that morning and make another couple of sales and have lunch with another prospect in the afternoon he would make another couple of sales and then perhaps have a drink or dinner with another prospect he was selling five and ten times as much as me or anyone else in our office and he hardly seemed to be working at all training makes the difference it turned out that he had worked for a fortune 500 company when he was younger that company had spent 16 months training him intensively in the process of professional selling with those skills he

could then go to work for any company or industry and sell any product or service in virtually any market because he knew how to sell he could sell circles around people like me even though he was working half the time or less this discovery changed my life when i asked him what he was doing differently he said well show me your sales presentation and i'll critique it for you that was my first problem i had no idea what a sales presentation looked like i had heard that there was such a thing but i had never

seen one myself i said you show me yours and i'll show you mine he was patient and polite and he said okay here's a basic sales presentation from beginning to end he then walked me step by step through a sales presentation for our product instead of using a speech or clever one-liners to get attention or to overcome resistance he asked a series of logical questions from general to specific that were ideally suited to a genuine prospect at the end of the series of questions it had become perfectly clear to the prospect that he could use

and benefit from our product the final question was simply to close the sale take action immediately well i wrote everything down fortified with this new approach to selling i went out and started calling on prospects once more but this time instead of talking i ask questions rather than trying to overwhelm the prospect with features and benefits of my product i focused on learning about the prospect situation and how i could best help him or her with this new method my sales went up then i learned about books on selling i had no idea that some

of the best sales people in the world had written some of the best ideas on selling in books i began reading everything i could find on selling spending the first two hours of every day studying and taking notes next i learned about audio learning it changed my life i began to listen hour after hour to audio programs as i walked from office to office i listened to them in the morning i listened to them in the evening i rehearsed and practiced the best sentences and phrases from the best salespeople until i could recite them in

my sleep and my sales went up and up then i discovered sales seminars i thought i died and gone to heaven i had no idea how much you could learn from a sales seminar i began to take every seminar and course i could find even if i had to travel long distances which i did and which i could eventually afford to do and my sales continue to increase moving into management my sales were so high that my company made me a sales manager they said whatever you're smoking find some people who want to get into

sales and share it with them i began to recruit salespeople off the street and through newspaper ads i showed them my methodology and process of selling they walked out the door and began making sales immediately today many of them are millionaires and multi-millionaires the best the simple idea that changed my life was the discovery of the law of cause and effect what this law says is that there is a cause for every effect that everything happens for a reason success is not an accident failure is not an accident either in fact success is predictable it

leaves tracks here's a great rule if you do what other successful people do over and over again nothing in the world can stop you from eventually getting the same results that they do and if you don't nothing can help you remember that everyone in the top 10 in sales today started in the bottom 10 percent all who are doing well today were once doing poorly everyone at the front of the line of life started at the back of the line and in every case what these top people did was to learn from the experts they

discovered what other top people were doing to be successful and they did the same things themselves again and again until they got the same results and so can you use what you learn sometimes i ask my sales audiences what is the most popular piece of home exercise equipment in america after a little hesitation i tell them it's the treadmill americans spend more than one billion dollars on treadmills every single year then i ask a second question if you buy a treadmill and take it home what will determine how much benefit you get from that treadmill

they answer the benefit you get will depend on how often you use it and how long you use it each time here's my point there's no question about whether or not the treadmill will give you the results you seek that's already been established everyone knows if you use a treadmill regularly and for an extended period of time you will definitely get health benefits the strategies and techniques you will learn in this book are very much like a treadmill there's no question about whether or not they work they are used by all the highest paid sales

people in every industry worldwide they are tested and proven the more you use these methods the better you will get at them and the better and faster results you'll achieve by practicing what you learn in this program you will move into the top 10 percent of sales professionals in your field and become one of the highest paid people in the world is this a good goal for us to achieve together if you feel it is let's get started remember what napoleon hill said whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe it can achieve chapter

1 the inner game of selling robert collier wrote visualize this thing that you want see it feel it believe in it make your mental blueprint and begin to build nothing happens until a sale takes place salespeople are some of the most important people in our society without sales our entire society would come to a grinding halt the only real creators of wealth in our society are businesses businesses produce all products and services businesses create all profits and wealth businesses pay all salaries and benefits the health of the business community in a city state or nation

is the key determinant of the quality of life and standard of living of the people in that geographical area you are important salespeople are the most vital people in any business without sales the biggest and most sophisticated companies shut down sales are the spark plug in the engine of free enterprise there's a direct relationship between the success of the sales community and the success of the entire country the more vibrant the level of sales the more successful and profitable is that industry or area salespeople pay for all the schools hospitals private and public charities libraries

parks and all good things that are vital to our standard of living salespeople through their sales and the profits and taxes created by successful companies pay for government at all levels for all welfare unemployment insurance social security medicare and other benefits salespeople are essential to our way of life salespeople are the movers and shakers president calvin coolidge once said the business of america is business if you strip down the major newspapers like the wall street journal and investors business daily and the major business magazine such as forbes fortune businessweek inc business 2.0 wired and fast

company almost everything they write about has something to do with sales all of our financial markets including the prices of stocks bonds and commodities as well as current interest rates have to do with sales as a professional salesperson you are a mover and shaker in our society the only question is how well do you sell for many years sales was considered to be a second-rate occupation many people were embarrassed to tell others that they were in sales there was a general bias against salespeople recently the president of a fortune 500 company told a journalist around

here we consider sales to be the sleazy side of our business the best companies this attitude is changing quickly today the very best companies have the very best people the second best companies have the second best sales people the third best companies are on their way out of business the most successful organizations in the world are all superb selling organizations hundreds of universities now offer courses in professional selling a great change from a few years ago many young people are coming out of college and immediately seeking positions in sales with large companies more ceos of

fortune 500 companies have come up through the ranks from sales than from any other part of the company the most powerful businesswoman in america at one time was carly fiorina president and ceo of hewlett-packard after obtaining a degree in medieval history from stanford she went to work at at t in sales and worked her way up pat mulcahy who was once the president of xerox also worked her way up from sales many of the top companies in the world are headed by former salespeople high income and job security you can be proud to be a

sales professional your ability to sell can give you a high income and lifelong job security no matter how many changes take place in the economy there will always be a need for top salespeople regardless of how many companies and industries become obsolete or just go out of business good salespeople will always be in high demand by becoming excellent in sales you can accomplish any financial goal you set for yourself 74 percent of self-made millionaires in america are entrepreneurs people who started and build their own businesses they get an idea for a product or service that

no one else is offering or which they feel they can offer better than the competition and they start their own business and among entrepreneurs the single most important skill for success is the ability to sell every other skill can be hired away from somewhere else but the ability to sell is the key factor determining a company's success or failure five percent of self-made millionaires in america are salespeople who have worked for other companies all their lives salespeople today are some of the highest paid people in america often earning more than doctors lawyers architects and persons

with extensive academic degrees sales is a gainful profession in sales there's no ceiling on your income if you're properly trained are skilled and are selling the right product in the right market there's no limit to the amount of money you can make selling is the only field in our society where you can start with little skill or training come from any background and be making a great living in a matter of three to twelve months the 80 20 rule in selling when i started selling someone told me about the pareto principle also known as the

80 20 rule he said the top twenty percent of salespeople make eighty percent of the money and the bottom eighty percent only make twenty percent of the money wow i was young and this was a real eye-opener for me so i made a decision right then that i was going to be in the top 20 later i learned that this was one of the most momentous decisions and turning points of my life again the top twenty percent of sales people make eighty percent of the sales and eighty percent of the money the bottom eighty percent

of sales people only make twenty percent your mission is to decide to join the top twenty percent and then to learn how to get there the pareto principle also applies to the top twenty percent of sales people it says that the top twenty percent of the top twenty percent which equals the top four percent earn eighty percent of the money in the top twenty percent of salespeople wow in every large sales force four or five people out of one hundred make as many sales and earn as much money as all the rest put together never

worry about money there's a very good reason to get into the top twenty percent and then later into the top four percent you'll never have to worry about money again or fret about job security you'll never lose sleep over employment the people in the top twenty percent or better are some of the happiest people in our society on the other hand the people in the bottom eighty percent are worried about money one of the great tragedies of our society the most affluent in human history is that the majority of people worry about money most of

the time they get up in the morning thinking about their money problems they think about how little money they have all day long when they come home at night they talk and often argue about money and how much everything costs this is not a good way to live top people earn vastly more the people in the top 20 on average earn 16 times the average income of the people in the bottom 80 those in the top 4 percent earn on average 16 times that of the folks in the top 20 this is astonishing a large

american insurance company tested this 80 20 rule some years ago with their several thousand asians nationwide they discovered that they had individual agents throughout the country who alone were selling and earning more than 20 to 30 other full-time trained professional agents even though they were all selling the same products to the same people at the same prices out of the same offices and under the same competitive conditions in the same year i addressed two elite sales groups in two different industries the people in these industries had all started off on the street dialing for dollars

out of the newspaper or the yellow pages they all worked on straight commission one sale at a time but the average yearly income of the salespeople in these elite groups was eight hundred and thirty three thousand and eight hundred and fifty thousand some of the top people in these groups earn several million dollars a year on straight commission your goal must therefore be to get into the top twenty percent and then the top ten percent the top five percent the top four percent and so on the purpose of this program is to get you there

it is to take you from wherever you are today to wherever you want to go in the future it is to make you one of the highest paid people in your industry the winning edge if the top 20 percent of salespeople in an industry earn 80 of the money and the top 20 percent of companies in an industry earn 80 percent of the profits what are the distinguishing factors of these individuals and organizations that make such an incredible difference possible the conclusion is that they have developed the winning edge in their fields this winning edge

concept is one of the most important management and sales ideas of the 21st century this principle says small differences in ability can lead to enormous differences in results the difference between the top performers and the average or mediocre performers is not a huge difference in talent or ability often it is just a few small things done consistently and well over and over again win by a nose for example if a horse runs in a race and wins by a nose it wins 10 times the prize money of the horse that loses by a nose here's

the question is the horse that wins by a nose 10 times faster than the horse that loses by a nose is it ten percent faster no it's only in those faster but that translates into one thousand percent difference in prize money if a sales person gets the sale in a competitive market does it mean that he or she is 10 times better than the sales person who lost the sale of course not sometimes it is only a small technicality that causes a customer to buy from one person rather than another the fact is the sales

who wins the sale may be only a knows better than the one who loses it sales people have a disadvantage over horses there are no consolation prizes if a horse comes in second or third he still comes in in the money but in selling it is a winner take all transaction the sales person who loses the sale gets nothing no matter how many hours he or she has invested in developing the sale become a little bit better in selling you only have to be a little bit better and different in each of the key result

areas of selling for you to accumulate into an extraordinary difference in income a small increment of skill or ability just three or four percent can give you the winning edge it can put you in the top twenty percent and then the top ten percent once you develop this small lead like compound interest it continues to grow at first you move slightly ahead of the crowd as you use your additional skills you get better and better at them the better you become the better results you get you soon begin to pull ahead of the crowd by

a larger and larger margin in a few years or even a few months you can be earning five or ten times as much as others who are still performing at average levels characteristics of top sales people there are certain characteristics that separate successful sales people from average sales people these qualities have been identified over the years through interviews surveys and exhaustive research we also note two things first no one is born with these qualities second all of these qualities are learnable through practice you can develop the characteristics that will virtually guarantee an extraordinary quality of

life for yourself it was once believed that people were successful because they came from the right families had the right educations developed the right contacts and got good grades in school and other measurable factors but then the researchers discovered that there were people who started with none of these advantages yet ended up at the top of their professions starting from nothing one of the best proofs of this is the number of new immigrants who arrive in this country with little money no contacts no school or university background limited english skills and every other conceivable disadvantage

but somehow in a few years they have overcome every single difficulty and have become leaders in their field in my seminars i continually meet men and women from all over the world who came to this country with nothing and who are now top salespeople highly paid and even self-made millionaires in every case the reasons have more to do with what is going on inside of them than what is going on outside success is mental it is what goes on inside the mind of the salesperson that makes all the difference some years ago harvard university did

a study of sixteen thousand salespeople and found that the basic qualities that determine success or failure in selling were all mental if a person had certain qualities he or she would succeed holding constant for everything else if you develop these psychological qualities they then form the foundation for your own personal sales success if you want to know how tall a building is going to be you look at how deep they dig the foundation for that building the deeper the foundation the taller the building in the same way the deeper your foundation of knowledge and skill

the greater the life that you will be able to build once you have built your foundation and have become absolutely excellent at selling you can go anywhere and write your own ticket and you can always build your foundation deeper use more of your potential the average salesperson uses only a small percentage of his potential for effectiveness in selling it's estimated that the average person in general never uses more than about 10 percent of his potential what this means is that each person has at least 90 percent or more potential left untapped it is when you

learn how to unlock this additional 90 percent of your own potential that you move yourself into the income categories of the highest earners follow the leaders if your goal is to be in the top 10 percent of salespeople in your field the first thing you do is you find out who is already in the top 10 percent instead of following the followers the average performers in your business follow the leaders compare yourself to the top people remember no one is better than you and no one is smarter than you if someone is doing better than

you it just means that he or she has discovered the cause and effect relationships in selling success before you have british philosopher bertrand russell once said the very proof that something can be done is that someone else has already done it this means that if someone else is earning five and ten times as much as you this is evidence that you can earn the same amount of money if you simply learn how remember everyone starts at the bottom and works his way up if someone else is doing better than you find out how he got

from the bottom to where he is today sometimes the very best way to find this out is to go and ask him he will probably tell you top people are usually willing to help other people who want to succeed your master program the most noteworthy breakthrough in psychology and human performance in the 20th century was the discovery of the self-concept your self-concept is the bundle of beliefs that you have about yourself it's the way you see yourself and think about yourself in every area of your life your self-concept is the master program of your subconscious

computer it's like an operating system that determines everything you say think feel and do now there's a direct relationship between your self-concept on the one hand and your performance and effectiveness on the other you always perform on the outside in the manner consistent with your self-concept all change improvement in your life begins when you alter and improve your self-concept your inner programming now not only do you have an overall self-concept that determines how you think and feel generally about yourself your life and other people but you also have a series of many self concepts these

are little self concepts that determine your effectiveness and performance in each area of your life from riding a bicycle to making a speech your self-concept in selling for example in selling you have a self-concept with regard to yourself and prospecting if you have a high positive self-concept then prospecting is no problem for you you get up in the morning eager to call on new people you are competent and confident in the area of prospecting so your sales pipeline is always full if you have a poor self-concept with regard to prospecting you will approach prospecting with

fear and anxiety you will avoid it whenever possible the very idea of prospecting will make you tense and uneasy you will do as little of it as possible and continually look for ways to avoid the activity this is true in every other area of selling as well what determines your income every salespeople already has a self-concept for the amount of money that he or she earns psychologists have found that you can never earn 10 percent more or less than your self-concept level of income if you earn 10 more than you think you are entitled to

you will immediately engage in compensating behaviors to get rid of the money if you have a great month and earn more than you had expected you will have an irresistible urge to spend it on dinners travel clothes or something else it will burn a hole in your pocket if you earn 10 or more below your self-concept level of income you will engage in scrambling behaviors you will start thinking about working longer harder smarter better in order to get your income back up into your comfort zone once you get into your comfort zone you will relax

and breathe a deep sigh of relief change your comfort zone the only way you can increase your sales income is by expanding your comfort zone with regard to the amount you earn some people have a comfort zone of fifty thousand dollars a year at that level they relax and coast others have a comfort zone of one hundred thousand dollars a year this is the level that they strive toward and they only relax when they hit that target here is the cosmic joke there's usually very little difference in talent between the person who earns fifty thousand

dollars a year and the person who earns one hundred thousand dollars per year the only difference is that one has settled at a lower level while the other has refused to settle for less than a hundred thousand dollars per year reset your financial thermostat you can never earn more on the outside than you can on the inside it's almost as if you have an income thermostat that determines your financial temperature as you know when a thermostat is set at a certain temperature it will continually adjust the heating and cooling to keep the room at that

temperature in the same way if you see yourself as a fifty thousand dollar a year person you will continually engage in behaviors that keep your income at fifty thousand dollars in my seminars and in my work for corporations i constantly run into this strange phenomenon a salesperson will set a goal to earn fifty thousand or sixty thousand dollars in the course of the year but then he has a great year and hits the fifty thousand dollar mark by the end of september suddenly for some reason the sales dry up he stops selling for the rest

of the year he cannot seem to get himself motivated no matter how good the market is for his product he spins his wheels until december thirty first then on january first or second he's out of the gate like a horse at a horse race and selling again in every case it's his self-concept sometimes people set a goal to earn a certain amount of money in a particular month but if they have a great month and they earn their self-concept amount by the middle of the month they stop selling for the next two weeks they can

hardly wait until the first of the month so they can psychologically get themselves back into selling this is quite common break fee of the past many people hold themselves back because they think that is not right for them to earn more than their fathers time and time again i've seen salespeople who plateau at a certain income level because that's the highest amount that their fathers ever earn at an unconscious level they have decided that they do not earn more than that amount and this becomes true for them in an extreme case i saw a young

man move from the farm into the city and got a job selling satellite dishes to farmers this salesman came from a poor background and had never earned very much money but the harvest was good that year and the farmers were buying five thousand dollar satellite dishes with both hands he began making money faster than he had ever dreamed in his life but the experience of making so much money so quickly was so traumatic for him that after a couple of sales at the beginning of the week he would actually go home turn off all the

lights in his small apartment crawl under the covers in his bed and lie there in the dark with his heart pounding he was so far out of his self-concept range of income that the stress was overwhelming him change your mind to increase your income you must achieve your financial goals in your mind before you can ever achieve them in your reality your aim should be to increase your self-concept level of income bit by bit until you think see and feel yourself as a higher income earner imagine yourself as if you are already the kind of

person you want to be earning the kind of money you want to earn look at other people who are earning more money than you and imagine that you are exactly like them suppose that you are already financially independent picture yourself having all the money you will ever need and only making sales calls because you enjoy meeting new people this calm confident relaxed attitude as if you were already a wealthy person will help you to perform at your very best with much less tension be realistic it's important to be realistic in developing your new self-concept especially

at the beginning when i first learned about the power of the self-concept and how my self-concept controlled my income i was earning about thirty thousand dollars a year i immediately set a goal to earn three hundred thousand dollars a year but instead of this big goal motivating me it actually served as a demotivator as opposed to my mind going to work to find a way to earn that kind of money my mind shut down like turning off a light switch what i learned later was that a goal that is vastly beyond anything you've ever accomplished

before it is ignored by your self-concept instead of motivating you it actually discourages you after six months of working toward this new unrealistic goal i finally realized my mistake and reset my goal for fifty thousand dollars per year almost immediately i began making progress and it soon achieved my new goal your income level locks in here's an interesting point a salesperson may start off at the bottom and work his way up over a period of several years eventually earning more than one hundred thousand dollars a year but then the economy goes south the industry retracts

or shuts down and he has to start over with a different company selling a different product how much do you think he earns in the following year answer more than one hundred thousand dollars why is this because he already has a self concept as a hundred thousand dollar a year salesperson no matter what happens on the outside he will always find a way to earn one hundred thousand dollars or more you've read stories of senior executives with large corporations who are earning more than a million dollars a year for some reason they lose their jobs

then a couple of months later you read or hear about them and learn that they are working for another company and still earning more than a million dollars a year the fact is once a person is a million dollar a year person no one would think of offering him or her less it's all a matter of self-concept the key result areas of selling in selling there are seven key result areas or kras these kras are like the digits in a telephone number you must dial each of them in sequence if you want to get through

and make a sale your performance and effectiveness in each of these key result areas and determine your overall success and the height of your income these seven key result areas are prospecting building rapport identifying needs presenting answering objections closing the sale and getting resales and referrals your self-concept in each of these seven areas determines your performance in these areas as well as your overall income level fortunately everyone who is good at any one of these areas was once poor at it every professional in the top 10 percent started in the bottom 10 the good news

is that if you can drive a car or operate a cell phone you can become excellent in each of these seven critical skills it's simply a matter of learning and practice if you have a poor self-concept with regard to any particular sales activity you will avoid that activity whenever possible but the only reason that you fear taking action in a particular skill area is because you're not good at it yet you've not mastered the skill if you're not good at something you'll make mistakes you'll feel awkward angry and frustrated it would be normal and natural

for you to avoid that activity master the skill the solution for your fears or reluctance in any skill area in selling is for you to master that skill fortunately there are more books audio programs courses and bits of advice available to you now to help you master each skill than you could consume in a lifetime there's absolutely no reason for you to be held back from joining the top 10 percent simply because you are weak in a particular skill area you can learn how to prospect effectively you can be taught how to build high levels

of rapport and trust with prospects you can become skilled at how to ask questions and listen carefully to the answers you can develop calmness and confidence in your interactions with others you can learn anything you need to learn through practice and repetition it's the same with each skill area you can become an expert at accurately identifying the needs of the person you are talking to and qualifying the prospect by asking more and better questions you can become excellent in your sales presentation growing so effective that people are tearing the product out of your hands even

before you finish talking you can learn how to answer the prospect's objections and concerns responding so satisfactory that the objections disappear and never come up again you can learn the various methods included in this book for asking for the order and closing the sale at the appropriate time finally you can learn how to create a golden chain of referrals from prospects and customers and how to sell more and more to people who have bought from you already these are all learnable skills get better at what you do the better you get in any area the

more positive your self-concept becomes in that area the more confidence you have in your ability the happier you feel when you are doing that part of your job and the better results you will get you can in fact like a sculptor shape the entire quality of your sales personality you never feel uneasy doing something that you are good at you only feel anxious doing something that you think you are not particularly good at every single step that you take to improve in any area raises your self-concept and increases your likelihood of success each time you

try it face your fears when you start selling for the first time your heart is usually in your throat it is pounding so loudly that you think people around you can hear it your stomach is often churning when you go into your first sales call psychologists say that you often act as if you were a child in fear of getting a spanking your self-concept is largely subjective it's not based on reality it is based solely on the ideas or thoughts that you have about yourself especially the self-limiting opinions that hold most people back fear and

doubt have always been the greatest enemies of human potential many people doubt their ability to excel in a particular area and even though it's not true it becomes true as william james of harvard said belief creates the actual fact if you believe that you are limited in some way you will feel and act as if you are limited and it will become true for you don't sell yourself short some people feel that they are terrible at closing sales as long as you think that and say it to yourself then you will be terrible at closing

sales the very act of asking for the order will cause your heart to pound your stomach to churn your palms to sweat and your mind to go blank the fact is that closing is a normal and natural end of a sales conversation as you will learn once you've mastered the art of closing sales you'll be able to ask for the order under any circumstances some people are convinced that they are terrible on the phone because of the common fear of rejection they avoid calling people who may or may not be friendly and welcoming they then

say to themselves i hate calling strangers as long as you think and say this to yourself every time you pick up the phone you're going to stumble over your words you'll make mistakes and perform poorly challenge your self-limiting beliefs the good news is that your self-limiting beliefs are usually based on erroneous information they're not based on fact or reality they're very often illusions in your own mind because they are unreal you can get rid of them by replacing them with new positive beliefs of confidence and competence in any area self-limiting beliefs develop early and easily

sometimes you will try something like skiing or skating and do it poorly the first time you will immediately conclude that you're no good at that sport from then on you will sabotage yourself by seeking out examples to validate your initial decision soon you will avoid that area of activity altogether luis hay the teacher and metaphysical writer says that the core problem that each person has is the feeling of i'm not good enough we all have the feeling deep down inside that we are not as good as other folks we feel that people who are doing

better than us are actually better than us if they are better than us we unconsciously conclude we must be worse than they are if they are worth more then we must be worth less this false conclusion is the fundamental cause of most unhappiness in our society the reactor core of your self-concept the most important discovery of all in self-concept psychology is the central role of your self-esteem your self-esteem is best defined as how much you like yourself how much you like yourself is the critical determining factor of your personality and of everything that happens to

you the degree to which you like yourself in any area is the key determinant of your performance and effectiveness in that area it determines how much money you make how you dress how well you get along with other people how much you sell and the quality of your life a person who really likes himself or herself has high self-esteem and therefore a positive self-concept when you really like yourself in a particular role you perform at your best in that role the more you like yourself the more you like other people the more you like other

people the more they like you in return the more you like your customers the more your customers like you and the more willing they are to buy from you and to recommend you to their friends high self-esteem people meet and marry other high self-esteem people high self-esteem parents raise high self-esteem children high self-esteem bosses build high self-esteem sales people and employees high self-esteem men and women set higher standards for themselves and practice higher levels of self-discipline they have better friendships and get along better with the people they meet they are generally happier and more fulfilled

than people who don't like themselves very much self-esteem and sales performance the more you like yourself in prospecting building rapport identifying needs presenting your product or service answering objections closing the sale and getting resales and referrals the better you will be in each of these areas a person who doesn't like himself or who feels badly about himself in a particular area performs poorly in that area low self-esteem salespeople who don't like themselves don't like other people very much either as a result they have a hard time building high quality relationships with customers for some reason

customers don't particularly like or trust them and prefer to buy from someone else how much you like yourself is the key determinant of your success in sales and of your income as a matter of fact it determines how successful you are in every part of your life the great discovery because of the power of your mind in determining your life and destiny one of the greatest discoveries in history is that you become what you think about most of the time happy people think happy thoughts successful people think successful thoughts loving people think loving thoughts wealthy

people think wealthy thoughts they become what they think about most of the time in addition you become what you say to yourself most of the time successful people control their inner dialogues they talk to themselves positively and confidently as they go through their days perhaps the most powerful words you can say to yourself to build your self-esteem are i like myself each time you say i like myself your self-esteem goes up when you repeat the words i like myself over and over throughout the day you actually cause a chemical change in your brain you release

endorphins that give you a general feeling of confidence and well-being the more you say i like myself the more confident you feel and the more competently you perform be your own cheerleader when i learned this affirmation many years ago i used to repeat it to myself 10 20 and even 50 times per day i would say it in the morning and in the evening i would say it as i drove along and before every sales presentation i would keep repeating it until i drove the message deep into my subconscious mind where it locked in and

took on a power of its own you can do the same thing every time you say i like myself your overall self-concept improves your ability to perform in your level of effectiveness increase immediately you do everything including selling better when you have a high level of self-generated self-esteem the best time to make a sale here's a question for you when is the best time to make a sale answer right after making a sale why right after you make a sale your self-esteem soars you feel terrific about yourself as a salesperson you like yourself more you

feel like a winner when you walk in to speak to the next prospect feeling terrific about yourself you will perform at your very best there will be something about you that has a powerful effect on the customer your positive attitude and confident bearing will trigger a desire at a subconscious level to buy from you sometimes a sales person will make a sale first thing in the morning and then another and then another and then another and another and sell more in a single day than he or she might have sold in a week or two

this spike in sales performance has nothing to do with the product the market or the customer it happens because the seller's self-concept has gone up like the mercury in a thermometer on a hot day as a result he or she is performing at an exceptional level of effectiveness perform at your best immediately after you have made a sale you like yourself more as a salesperson you feel more confident competent and effective in selling if you've been working on a difficult prospect and you have just closed a sale get in your car and drive straight over

to that tough customer and attempt to make the sale you will be amazed at how many times this turns out to be an effective strategy you will be more persuasive right after having made a sale than at any other time it will not be the customer who has changed it won't be the product or service or the price or the market or the competition the only thing that has changed is you nothing will stop you one of the things we know in sales is that success breeds success the more you sell the better you become

at selling your self-concept as a salesperson gets better and better you finally reach the point in your own thinking where you know that nothing can stop you if you continue to sell long enough you'll begin to have repeated success experiences as you sell more and more your self-concept improves to the point at which you become convinced that you are an excellent salesperson and that you can make a great living in sales wherever you go when you're feeling terrific about yourself when you really like yourself you know that you can do well in anything that you

put your mind to when you are selling well your family and interpersonal relationships seem to be much better you need less sleep you have more energy you have more enthusiasm you feel more positive about yourself the power of positive affirmations the key to reaching this state of mind is to prepare yourself psychologically before every sales call stop and take a couple of seconds and then say to yourself i like myself i like myself i like myself talking to yourself positively is like pumping yourself up just like pumping up a tire you pump up your self-esteem

first thing in the morning when you get out of bed start talking to yourself by saying i like myself and i love my work i like myself and i love my work whatever you say to yourself with feeling is accepted by your subconscious mind as an instruction a command your subconscious mind will then give you the words actions and feelings consistent with the message that you have sent to it before going in to see a prospect you say to yourself i am a great salesperson and this is going to be a great call repeat that

several times get yourself psychologically prepared for a good experience when you then walk in to see the prospect your subconscious will give you the words the feelings and the body language consistent with a person who is excellent at what he does talking to yourself positively makes you more confident it causes you to relax and perform better your level of self-confidence and calmness has a strong impact on the person you're talking to positive self-talk leads to positive sales results obstacles to sales success there are two major obstacles to making and closing any sale they're both mental

they are the fear of failure and the fear of rejection the fear of failure is the biggest single reason for failure in adult life it's not failure itself but the fear of failure the prospect of failure the anticipation of failure that causes you to freeze up and perform at a lower level the fear of failure is a deep subconscious fear that we all develop early in life usually as a result of destructive criticism from one or both parents when we are children if your parents criticized you continually when you were growing up you will experience

this deeply entrenched unconscious fear of failure as an adult at least until you learn to get rid of it why customers don't buy the fear of failure in the mind of the customer or the prospect is the one greatest obstacle to buying every customer has made countless buying mistakes he has purchased services and he later found out were overpriced he has bought products that broke down and that he could not get repaired he has been sold things that he did not want could not use and could not afford he has been burned so many times

in sales experiences that he is like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs this fear of failure and disappointment is the number one reason why customers do not buy so one of the most important things you can do in the process of building trust and credibility is to reduce the customer's fear to the point where he has no hesitation about going ahead with your offer the fear of rejection the second major obstacle to selling and closing is the fear of rejection this is the fear that the potential buyer might say no the

fear of rejection is triggered by the possibility of rudeness disapproval or criticism toward the salesperson by the prospect the rule is that 80 of sales calls will end in a no for a thousand different reasons this does not necessarily mean that there's anything wrong with the salesperson or the product or service being sold people say no because they simply do not need it do not want it cannot use it cannot afford it for some other reason if you're in sales and you fear rejection you've picked the wrong way to make a living the fact is

that you are going to get a lot of rejections as they say it goes with the territory every experience of failure or rejection affects your self-esteem it hurts your self-image it makes you feel bad about yourself and triggers your worst fear i'm not good enough if it were not for the fear of rejection we would all be terrific sales people we would all make twice as much and maybe even five or ten times as much the salesperson's average day in a study at columbia university a few years ago they found that the average salesperson works

approximately one and a half hours per day they also found that on the average the first sales call is not made before 11 o'clock in the morning the final sales call is usually made at about 3 30 in the afternoon and the average sales person quits working shortly after that he goes back to the office or heads for home most people spend half the morning getting warmed up drinking coffee chatting with co-workers reading the paper shuffling their business cards and surfing the internet then they go out and make a sales call just in time for

lunch the second sales call isn't made till about 1 or 2 p.m after which the average sales person begins winding down for the day the total amount of time spent face-to-face with customers works out to about 90 minutes a day that's the average half or above half are below that average the break on sales performance why is it that sales people work so little and avoid getting face-to-face with customers so much simple fear of rejection the fear of rejection acts like a subconscious break that holds people back and causes them to underperform of course they

always have a wonderful selection of excuses and rationalizations but the real reason is fear of rejection it's easy to prove this let's conduct an experiment imagine that your company has hired a marketing research firm to find customers for you this firm has developed a sophisticated way of identifying ideal prospects using this system they can give you a computer printout of fifty prospects that will be literally guaranteed with ninety percent accuracy to buy on a particular day this list of hot qualified prospects is so precise that it's only valid for 24 hours imagine that they call

you in and give you this list of 50 top prospects for the following day if you received a list of 50 highly qualified prospects 90 of whom were guaranteed to buy if you could call on them within that one day period what time would you start in the morning how much time would you take for coffee breaks or lunch during the day how long would you spend chatting with your colleagues and reading the newspaper if you were guaranteed a sale to virtually every single person you spoke to in a one-day period you would probably start

at the crack of dawn and keep on going to midnight if you possibly could if you had no fear of rejection and were guaranteed a high level of success you would be calling on prospects every single waking moment rejection is not personal all top salespeople have reached the point where they no longer fear rejection they built their self-esteem and self-concepts up such that if someone says no to them it doesn't hurt them or put them off it does not send them dejected back to their offices or cars here's the key to dealing with rejection you

must realize that rejection is not personal it's not aimed at you rejection has nothing to do with you instead it's just like the rain or the sunshine it just happens from day to day when you can rise above yourself stop taking yourself so seriously and recognize that rejection simply goes with the territory it will have no more fear for you you will ignore it like water off a duck's back you will expect it in the normal course of things shrug your shoulders and move on to the next prospect there is a sales motto some will

some won't so what next this should be your motto as well never give up perhaps the two most fundamental qualities for success in sales are boldness and persistence it takes courage each day to constantly get up and face the fears of failure and rejection it takes persistence to keep coming back day after day in spite of continued difficulties and disappointment but the good news is that courage is a habit like a muscle the more you practice courage the stronger you become eventually you reach the point at which you are virtually unafraid after that your career

takes off like a rocket five calls or closes a fully eighty percent of sales are never closed before the fifth meeting or closing attempt it's after the fifth time that you ask the prospect to make a buying decision that you make most of your sales these numbers turn out to be valid especially when you are trying to get your prospect to change from buying from one company to buying from your company at least 8 out of 10 of all first purchases from a new supplier take place after the fifth call or visit it seems that

only about ten percent of salespeople make more than five calls or attempts to close the sale half of all salespeople or more make only one call before they give up when you're selling to a company that you want to switch from their existing supplier to you remember that it usually takes about five visits to break down the prospect's natural skepticism and resistance this does not mean that you have to spend five hours it just means that you have to make five visits or more you have to make an appointment go and see the prospect talk

to him tell him that you and your company are available to serve him it's usually after the fifth visit that the prospect starts to become really interested most people quit early in a recent study it was discovered that 48 of all sales calls end without the salesperson trying to close even once the salesperson meets with the prospect talks enthusiastically about his product or service shows him the written information and dazzle him with reasons to buy then when the prospect has been completely overwhelmed with his charm enthusiasm and verbal agility he takes a deep breath sits

back and says well what do you think this almost automatically triggers the response well i'd like to think it over the prospect says he wants to talk it over with his boss wife cousin brother uncle sister partner board of directors banker accountant and whoever else he can think of could you call me back later prospects don't think it over one of the important secrets of success in sales is for you to understand and accept that people don't think it over the minute you walk out of the prospect's office or home he or she forgets that

you ever lived have you ever gone back to see a prospect a week later after you thought you had a fantastic sales conversation and he was thinking it over some sales people have the vanity to believe that this prospect has gone home and has been thinking about their product or service 24 hours a day they think he turns it over in his mind and talks about it with everyone he meets he thinks about it and dreams about it waiting for you to come back then when you visit the prospect a week or two later you're

amazed to find that he has forgotten your name your product and everything else he doesn't remember who you are or what you sell he has not been thinking about you or your product or service at all people don't think things over with regard to products or sales these words are a polite way of saying goodbye forever when they say to you let me think it over they are announcing to you that the interview is over and that you have lost your entire investment of time and energy in this prospect self-esteem eliminates fear the reason i

mention this direct relationship between courage and persistence on the one hand and making multiple calls and sales success on the other is this there's a direct and inverse relationship between the fears of rejection and failure and high self-esteem the more you like yourself the less you feel rejection and the less you hear failure imagine two escalators that go in different directions one is the up escalator to high self-esteem and the other is the down escalator to the fears of failure and rejection that holds you back the more you like yourself and the higher your self-esteem

the faster you go up the escalator to courage and confidence the more you think about failure and rejection the more you ride the down escalator toward fears of failure and rejection you are a good person when a person says no to you he is not saying no to you as a person you simply say no to your offering or your presentation or your prices the rejection is not personal once you know and understand that saying no is not personal you stop worrying about it when people react to you or to your product negatively here's the

danger if you take a note personally you can start to think that there's something wrong with you as an individual or you begin to believe that your product or your company is faulty when you begin thinking like this you can soon become discouraged you will lose your enthusiasm for selling as a result you will start cutting back on prospecting soon you'll only be working an hour and a half a day fear leads to excuses for not selling as your fears increase you will begin to rationalize and justify your non-selling behavior you'll make excuses and create

all kinds of make work at the office you'll convince yourself that you have to read the newspaper so that you will be fully informed when you call on prospects you have to shuffle your business cards and check the office to see if there have been any phone calls you have all those people out there who are thinking it over maybe one of them is called and ordered something you go into the office and plan your first hour or two around a couple of cups of coffee after all you have to wake yourself up in the

morning so that you are sharp and alert when you go out to see customers you chat with your co-workers and talk about business especially how tough the business is you kill most of the morning then you realize that you'd better go out and call on somebody anybody so you rush out and make a call just before it's time for lunch an unproductive day you wouldn't want to interrupt prospects when they're going for lunch therefore you don't make any calls after 11 30 a.m you go and have lunch with your friends go shopping get your car

washed or kill time time passes you certainly don't want to call on people immediately after they get back from lunch it might disturb their digestion so you make up a few more excuses and rationalizations and you don't make your next call until two or three pm soon it's 3 30 then 4 and of course everybody's on their way home aren't they you don't want to go out and bother people late in the afternoon while they're preparing to wrap up for the day instead you go back to the office to commiserate with the other salespeople who

are gathering there like survivors after an accident and talk about what a tough day you've had there's the story of the two salesmen who go back to the office at the end of the day one says boy did i ever have a lot of good interviews today the other one says yeah i didn't sell anything either can you identify with any of these behaviors they are the favorite practices and excuses of salespeople in the bottom 20 of money earners in their field increase traveling time another way that salespeople avoid the possibility of failure and rejection

is by spreading out their sales calls geographically such a salesperson makes one call at one end of town and makes her second call in the afternoon at the other end of town this gives her a nice solid hour of driving in between which allows her to pretend that she's working when in reality she's just putting off getting face to face with the prospect the fears of failure and rejection which lower your self-esteem quickly become the major obstacles to success in sales build your self-esteem increase your income everything you do to raise your own self-esteem including

positive self-talk affirmative visualization positive motivation enthusiasm and individual training improves your personality and increases your effectiveness in selling as we said before there is a direct relationship between your self-esteem and how much money you earn the more you like yourself the more sales you make and the higher your income will be when you organize your life so that you become a perpetual self-esteem generating person that alone will contribute more to your income than any other factor the friendship factor customers today are spoiled they are demanding they are disloyal they insist on being treated extremely well

before they buy anything more than anything else customers will only buy from people they like we call this the friendship factor the friendship factor in selling simply says that a prospect will not buy from you until he is genuinely convinced that you are his friend and that you are acting in his best interests for this reason the first thing you do in a sales interview is create a bond make a friend sales expert heinz goldman once wrote a book with a title that summarized this process perfectly it was called how to win customers your job

as a sales professional is to win people over to your side by making it clear that you care about them and want the best for them build a bridge you can only begin selling after you have convinced the prospect that you are his pal and that you want what is best for him in fact if you begin talking about your product or service before you have built a bridge of friendship to your prospect the customer will lose all interest in buying from you if you don't genuinely care about the customers why should the customer care

about you or what you're offering healthy personality an excellent definition of a healthy personality is this your personality is healthy to the degree to which you can get along with the greatest number of different types of people you have an unhealthy or problem personality to the degree to which you cannot get along with most other people people at the highest level of healthy personality have developed the ability to get along with the greatest variety of different people especially in selling the point is the level of your self-esteem corresponds directly with the health of your personality

again the more you like yourself the more you enjoy others and the more they like you the more you like yourself the easier it is for you to get along with a great variety of people making friends the individual with high self-esteem is the one who has the greatest facility for making friends wherever he goes because he likes himself he is naturally and spontaneously fond of others when people feel that someone genuinely likes them they are more open to listening to that person and to buying what he is selling have you ever had an experience

where you wanted to buy a product or service but you didn't like the sales person in most cases you will walk away even if the product and the price are ideal think of your very best customers today the people you enjoy selling to and the people who enjoy buying from you are invariably the people that you like the most and who like you the most in return your self-esteem determines your income everything you do to improve your level of self-esteem increases and enhances the quality of your relationships with your customers self-esteem building actions trigger the

friendship factor and make you a more successful sales person your level of self-esteem and selling determines the amount of money that you earn the very best sales people have a natural capacity to make friends easily prospective customers unfortunately everything that happens to lower your self-esteem will lower your sales effectiveness as well if you are tired or unwell for any reason your effectiveness will decrease if you have arguments with your boss or your spouse this will lower your self-esteem sometimes to the point at which you can't sell anything at all the catalyst for sales success the

primary emotion in sales success is enthusiasm enthusiasm accounts for 50 or more of all sales ability one of the very best definitions of a sale is a transfer of enthusiasm when you transfer your enthusiasm for your product or service into the mind and heart of your prospect like an electrical connection the sale takes place when your emotional commitment and belief in the goodness of what you are selling transfers into the mind of the prospector customer all hesitation to buy disappears once again there's a direct link between how much you like yourself your self-esteem and your

level of enthusiasm the more you like yourself the more enthusiastic you are the more enthusiastic you are about your company and your product the more enthusiastic the customer will become anything you do to raise your self-esteem will increase your ability to sell emotions are contagious in the inner game of selling is essential that you understand that emotions are contagious each person is affected by the emotions of other people when you are positive confident and enthusiastic about your goods or service the prospect picks up these emotions from you and becomes positive and enthusiastic as well here's

the key you cannot give away something that you don't already have you cannot convey enthusiasm if you don't have it yourself this is why top salespeople love their merchandise or service and love the field of selling their enthusiasm is heartfelt and genuine prospects pick it up at an unconscious level and want to participate in whatever is making them feel so good about themselves and their work because of their confidence and passion prospects want to buy from them and recommend them to their friends failure is not an option it's critical that you back your sales efforts

with willpower and determination decide now that you will not give up when you resolve in advance that you will never give up you will be mentally prepared to bounce back from failure and rejection when you continue to persist no matter how difficult the situation you will eventually succeed you will ultimately make sales you will finally win customers whenever you make a sale you feel like a winner each time you close your self-esteem goes up and your self-concept improves your self-image is reinforced the more you like yourself the better you will do in sales and every

other part of your life your ability to perform and your level of effectiveness increase in your non-business activities the reason so many people fail in sales is simply because they do not persist long enough and work hard enough to get those first few winning experiences once you begin to make sales and feel like a winner you become even more motivated to sell even more of your product or service but if you don't have those first successful experiences you can easily lose heart and begin thinking that selling is not for you practice mental rehearsal mental rehearsal

is vital the more you pre-program yourself to bounce back the easier it is for you to overcome the failures and rejections that are part of the selling life talk to yourself positively say things like i can do it i can do it i can do it whenever you feel fears of failure or rejection interestingly enough when you make the decision that no matter what happens you will never give up your self-esteem increases immediately you respect yourself more your self-confidence skyrockets even though you have not yet stepped out of your office the very act of making

the decision that you are going to succeed that you can do it that you will never quit no matter what improves your reputation with yourself you see yourself in a more positive light you feel more like a winner you are more composed and self-assured you become more capable of dealing with the ups and downs of daily selling life the very act of resolving to persist until you succeed changes your personality and makes you a stronger and more powerful person now here are some action exercises for you one decide today to become a totally confident high

self-esteem salesperson say over and over to yourself i like myself two visualize yourself continually as the very best in your business the person you see is the person you will be number three resolve in advance that no matter what happens you will never give up failure is not an option number four refuse to take rejection personally accept it as a normal and natural part of selling very much like the weather number five follow the leaders in your field pattern yourself after the highest paid and most successful people find out what they are doing and then

do the same things until you get the same results six make a decision today to join the top 20 of people in your business remember that no one is smarter than you and no one is better than you anything that anyone else has done within reason you can do as well and number seven take action on every new idea that you think can help you in any way give it a try the more things you try the more likely it is that you will eventually triumph as orris and sweat martin said we advance on our

journey only when we face our goal only when we are confident and believe we are going to win out chapter 2 set and achieve all your sales goals dan deardorff said if i've got correct goals and i keep pursuing them the best way i know how everything else falls into line if i do the right thing i know i'm going to succeed top salespeople are intensely goal oriented in every study the quality of goal orientation seems to be associated with high levels of success and achievement the highest paid sales people know in advance how much

they're going to earn each week each month each quarter and each year they know how many calls they will have to make to achieve a particular level of sales and they have clear plans about what they're going to do with the money they earn it's essential for your success that you decide exactly how much you intend to earn each year if you're not absolutely clear about your earnings target your sales activities will be unfocused they will be like a person trying to shoot at a target in the fog even if you're the finest marksman in

the world you are not going to hit a target you can't see you have to know exactly what you're aiming at your annual income goal begin with your annual income goal how much do you intend to make in the next 12 months what is the exact number write this number down this becomes the target toward which you orient all of your activities throughout the year you need a goal that is realistic but challenging take your highest income year to date and increase that amount by 25 to 50 percent or to whatever amount you are comfortable

with be sure to make your goal believable and achievable ridiculous goals do not motivate you they demotivate you because deep in your heart you know that they are unattainable as a result you will quit at the first sign of adversity top salespeople in every field know exactly what they are going to do and earn each year and each part of each year if you ask them they can tell you within a dollar what they are aiming at every single day low performing sales people have no idea how much they're going to earn they have to

wait until the end of the year and get their tax forms to find out what happened for them every day month and year is a new financial adventure they have no idea where they're going to end up put them in writing to be effective your goals must be in writing sometimes people are reluctant to write their goals down on paper they say what if i don't make it you don't need to worry the very act of writing your goals down increases your likelihood of achieving them by one thousand percent ten times and usually far faster

than you expected even if you don't hit your goal on schedule it's still better for you to have a written goal than to have no goal at all your annual sales goal the second part of goal setting is for you to ask yourself how much am i going to have to sell this year to achieve my personal income goal this should not be too difficult to calculate even if you work on a combination of base plus commission you should be able to determine the exact sales volume required for you to earn the amount of money

that you really want monthly and weekly goals once you've decided your annual income and sales goals break them down by month how much will you have to earn and sell each month to achieve your annual goals once you have your annual sales and income goals and your monthly sales and income goals break them down to weekly sales and income goals how much will you have to sell each week in order to achieve your long-term goals daily sales goals finally determine how much you have to sell each day to earn the amount that you want to

earn each day let's say that your annual income goal is 50 thousand dollars if you divide fifty thousand by twelve you get approximately four thousand two hundred dollars per month if you divide fifty thousand by fifty the number of weeks that you work in an average year it comes out to one thousand dollars per week now you have definite specific targets to aimat set clear activity goals the final step in setting sales goals is for you to determine the specific activities in which you must engage to achieve your desired sales level how many calls will

you have to make to get how many appointments with prospects how many presentations and callbacks will you have to generate to achieve a specific level of sales when you keep accurate records day by day and month by month you'll soon be able to predict with considerable accuracy exactly what you will have to do each day at each week to achieve your monthly and annual income goals let us assume that you'll have to make 10 prospecting calls a day to get sufficient appointments to make enough sales to achieve your goals make it a game with yourself

to make your 10 prospecting calls before noon each day set this as your daily activity target and then discipline yourself to follow through in your plan get on the phone by 8 or 8 30 in the morning or get out and cold call if you have to whatever you do force yourself to make your 10 calls before noon every single day until it becomes a habit you control your sales life the most important part of planning your activities is knowing that sales activities are controllable you cannot decide or determine where a particular sale will come

from but you can control the inputs the activities that you must engage in to achieve the sales in the first place and by controlling your activities you indirectly control your sales results some days and weeks will be better than others sometimes you will make a lot of sales and sometimes you won't make any sometimes you will have dry periods and sales slumps other times you'll sell two or three times as much as you expected but the law of averages is at work it is inexorable if you just keep on making the necessary calls you will

eventually make your sales on schedule your results may amaze you in many cases when you start setting goals for the week month and year and start working toward them systematically each day you will hit those goals far faster than you expected many of my students set one year goals and hit them in six or seven months some people have actually hit their sales goals for the entire year in as little as three months whenever you start setting clear specific goals for every part of your sales life you will be amazed at the results some of

my seminar participants have worked for years selling a particular product in a specific market but they had never set goals before the first year after they began setting goals their sales exploded they suddenly started breaking sales records and even though they were selling the same product out of the same office to the same people at the same price goal setting made the difference tap into your subconscious mind this happens because the very act of writing a goal programs it into your subconscious mind once you have programmed a goal into your subconscious mind it takes on

a power of its own your subconscious mind works 24 hours per day sleeping and waking and starts guiding you rapidly toward the achievement of this goal your subconscious alerts you to opportunities and possibilities around you it brings you the right ideas for the right things to say sometimes in the middle of a sales conversation once you program a goal into your subconscious mind it continually motivates you into taking the actions necessary to achieve it sometimes your subconscious mind will help you to read your prospect's face giving you a better sense of what to say everyone

has experience being in a sales presentation where he simply couldn't make a mistake or say the wrong word the sales presentation went smoothly from beginning to end and concluded with a closed sale whenever this happens it is because your mind is perfectly programmed at a subconscious level to enable you to perform at your best in the pursuit of your goals the right words at the right time when you feel excellent about yourself your subconscious mind will give you exactly the right words at exactly the right time it will make you sensitive to physical cues and

verbal clues that will guide you to bringing up a subject that you hadn't even thought about but it will turn out from the customer's point of view to be exactly the right thing to say you might mention that your company has an excellent reputation for customer service and after sales follow-up you later learned that this was the prospect's primary concern and was exactly what he needed to hear to buy from you as previously stated the average person uses only 10 percent of his potential by programming your subconscious mind with clear goals you gain access to

the 90 of your potential that lies beneath the surface deep in your subconscious mind you program your subconscious and access it on a regular basis by deciding exactly how much you want to earn and precisely what activities you will have to undertake to earn that amount of money set personal and family goals you also need personal and family goals these are the reasons why you do what you do these are the reasons that you get up in the morning and work all day in the face of disappointments and difficulties the greater clarity you have with

regard to your family and personal goals the more motivated you will be and the faster you will bounce back from temporary failure and rejection imagine that you could double your income in the next two or three years if you did what are some of the things that would change in your life make a list of all the things that you would be have or do if you are earning vastly more money than you are earning today the longer this list the greater your level of motivation and determination build a fire under your desire if you

have only one or two reasons for achieving your financial goals you'll be easily discouraged by setbacks and difficulties if you have 10 or 15 reasons for being successful you'll be more motivated and determined but if you have 50 or 100 reasons for increasing your sales and your income you will become virtually unstoppable when it comes to aggressively selling your product or service who do you think will be more motivated will it be the person with one or two reasons to succeed or the person with 50 plus reasons the fact is that the more reasons you

have the greater will be the intensity of your desire like a roaring furnace the more you want it the more guaranteed it is that you will do whatever it takes to achieve it the more reasons you give yourself the more of your subconscious powers will be available to you in each selling situation set 100 goals here's an exercise for you get a spiral notebook and write down 100 goals that you would like to accomplish in the years ahead make a list of everything that you would like to have in your life and everything that you

would like to do imagine that everything you write on this list is going to come to you at exactly the right time and in exactly the right way you only have to write it down as if submitting an order to the great cosmic storehouse of wealth in order to get it as you think of new things that you would like to have or accomplish write them in this spiral notebook you can never have too many goals a friend of mine who was just starting in sales began this exercise by writing down more than 350 goals

for himself for the years ahead every time he read the newspaper or watched television and saw something that he wanted he wrote it in his spiral notebook every week he read and reviewed his goals and added new ones within one year in a competitive market from a dead start he became one of the most successful sales people in his field he eventually broke every sales record in his industry he was written up in the newspapers as a sales superstar he told me privately that writing and reviewing his goals was the primary reason for the motivation

and enthusiasm that led to his success he eventually came to feel that he was unstoppable the number one reason for success in my work with millions of sales people throughout the united states and in 25 countries i found that the commitment to goal setting has been the number one reason for the success of the top people all the highest paid sales professionals in every field are committed goal setters they write and rewrite their goals every day they continually add to their lists they access and activate their subconscious and super conscious minds they begin to attract

into their lives people and circumstances that help them to achieve their goals visualize your goals as realized when used with goal setting visualization is perhaps the most powerful skill that you can develop there's no more powerful way to program your subconscious mind than for you to create a clear mental picture of the person you want to be and the goals you want to accomplish the power of visualization is the most awesome power possessed by human beings it's said that all improvement in your life begins with an improvement in your mental pictures when you visualize see

yourself as calm confident and powerful envision yourself as successful and influential picture yourself as capable and competent in every part of selling see yourself as absolutely excellent in prospecting presenting and closing sales before you go into a sales meeting imagine the prospect responding to you in a positive enthusiastic way see him or her smiling and engaged in the sales conversation picture especially the prospect signing the sales order or writing out the check you'll be amazed at how often your visualization will turn into reality when you are with the customer say it and see it your

subconscious mind is activated both by pictures and by strong affirmative statements each time you say something strongly to yourself your subconscious mind accepts these words as a command it then goes to work to bring that command into your reality the very best all-purpose affirmation is i like myself i like myself i like myself as i've already shown each time you say i like myself you raise your self-esteem improve your overall self-concept and perform more effectively in whatever you are doing especially in sales when you repeat an affirmation as a command to your subconscious mind with

confidence and enthusiasm you activate all your mental powers you increase your energy levels you feel more positive and enthusiastic you take complete control over your mind and emotions say to yourself i feel happy i feel healthy i feel terrific repeat this over and over again as you go through your day every time you repeat these words you will feel happier and more confident then see yourself as if you felt this way from the bottom to the top at a seminar recently a sales manager told me a story she said her company had hired a young

salesman with limited experience they were not sure whether he would be successful but they decided to give him a chance within six months however he was the top salesman in the entire country for that company they sat him down and asked him why he felt he was doing so well considering that he had never worked in this industry before how was he outperforming and outselling professional sales people who had been in the industry for 10 or 15 years his secret he was using affirmations and visualization every day he said every morning when i get into

my car i repeat to myself i'm the best i'm the best i'm the best i then say i'm the best salesman in this company i'm the best salesman in this industry i'm the best salesman in the business before every sales call i sit in my car and pump myself up by repeating these aspirations i'm the best in this company i'm the best in this industry i'm the best in the country create a clear metal picture this inspiring salesman went on to explain that while he was talking to himself positively he would create a clear mental

picture of himself selling and interacting with the customer exactly as if he was the top salesman in the nation he imagined the prospect responding to him positively and confidently he would relax smile and enjoy the feeling that he anticipated having when he gets face to face with a customer when he went in to see the prospect he radiated confidence he was warm friendly and self-assured he was courteous and respectful he created instant rapport with everyone in the company especially the customer and customers bought from him in record numbers choose your words and pictures here is

an interesting discovery everyone visualizes and talks to themselves continually as they go about their daily business the difference between top salespeople and average salespeople is the content of their inner dialogue and their mental pictures top salespeople think and talk about their best selling experiences in the past they then imagine that they're going to repeat those excellent experiences in the upcoming sales call mediocre sales people visualize and affirm as well unfortunately they think about their most recent negative experiences they think about wasted time and energy on people who didn't buy customers who were rude or indifferent

and how disappointed they felt in either case by visualizing and affirming the salesperson is setting himself up mentally to repeat the previous experience when you create a positive exciting picture of your very best previous sales experience your subconscious mind projects that experience like a picture on a screen onto your next sales call with this clear picture your subconscious organizes and orchestrates your thoughts feelings and actions so that you do and say the same things that you did and said before to be so successful you control your subconscious mind your subconscious mind is neutral it is

like clay you can shape it any way you want your subconscious mind does not think or decide it merely obeys your mental commands when you take full control of your conscious mind and discipline yourself to think and talk about only the things you want you send clear commands to your subconscious mind who give you the thoughts words and actions that will make you successful selling like columbus many salespeople are what we call columbus salespeople when columbus set off seeking a route to india he didn't know where he was going when he arrived in the americas

he didn't know where he was and when he got back to spain he didn't know where he had been many salespeople are like this they set off in the morning with only a vague idea of where they are going when they arrive at the customer's home or place of business they say the first thing that falls out of their mouths and when they arrive back at the office they are not sure where they have been or what happened plan your calls in advance top salespeople are different they think through their sales calls in advance they

go over what they are going to say mentally before they get face to face with the prospect they practice mental rehearsal a peak performance technique used by all top athletes including sales athletes they prepare themselves mentally for the upcoming meeting if you were an athlete going into competition you would never think of arriving at the field or court and then walking straight into the competition a professional athlete always warms up before going onto the field by the same token professional sales people warm up as well by mentally rehearsing so that they can perform at their

very best when they get face to face with their customer two ways to visualize there are two ways that you can use visualization to mentally rehearse your upcoming sales performance the first is direct whereby you see the customer and the sales situation through your own eyes you see the customer smiling and responding to you in a positive way you see him or her agreeing with you and enjoying your company and the sales presentation this is very effective the second way you can use visualization is indirectly with this method you actually stand outside of yourself and

see yourself and the customer in the sales situation exactly as if you were a third party watching from the side when you use both of these methods alternately see yourself from both the inside and the outside you dramatically improve the quality of your sales presentation and your personal performance see yourself as the best continually imagine yourself as the very best in your field see yourself as one of the highest money earners in your business model yourself after the highest paid sales people in your industry walk talk and treat others as if you were already a

sales superstar whenever you see someone else driving a new car or dressed in expensive clothes and wearing an expensive watch say to yourself that's for me you decide that whatever anyone else has accomplished you can achieve as well there are no limits now here are seven action exercises for you one think big set an income goal for yourself for the next year that is 25 to 50 percent more than you ever earned before number two determine how much of your product or service you will have to sell over the next year to achieve your ideal

income number three break your income and sales goals down by month week and day determine the activities you will have to engage in each day to earn the money that you have decided that you desire plan every day in advance determine exactly the number of prospects you will have to call the number of people you'll have to see and the number of sales you will have to make five set big exciting goals for your family in your personal life make a list of 50 to 100 things that you want to buy and do with the

extra money that you're going to earn number six make a written plan to achieve each of your goals and work on your plans every day and number seven determine the price you will have to pay in terms of additional work and sacrifice to achieve your most desired goals and then begin paying that price as w clement stone said you too can determine what you want you can decide on your major objectives targets aims and destinations chapter 3 why people buy as galileo galilei once said you cannot teach a man anything you can only help him

discover it within himself there are many different reasons why someone may buy your product or service what you must appreciate is that people buy for their reasons not for yours one of the biggest mistakes amateur sales people make is asking people to buy for their own personal reasons not for the reasons that actually motivate the customer to take action one of the most significant parts of selling the indispensable step upon which the whole sales process depends is your ability to identify the needs of your prospect accurately you must take whatever time is necessary and ask

as many questions as possible to find out exactly why this particular prospect needs to buy your product or service at this time if you fail to identify the prospect's needs accurately the entire sales process will grind to a halt the basic motivation as a fundamental principle every human action is aimed at an improvement of some kind people buy products and services because they feel they will be better off as a result they not only feel that they will be better off as a result of buying your product or service but they also feel they will

be better off than if they bought some other product or service or if they bought nothing at all every customer has three choices with every selling offer he can buy from you buy from someone else or buy nothing at all at this time your job is to get the customer to understand that he needs your product enough to overcome any buying resistance that might derail the sale in addition the customer must be substantially better off with your product or service than he is without it it cannot represent a small increment in value or benefit the

improvement in the prospect's life or work must be great enough to justify the amount of money you are charging plus the amount of time and energy it will take to implement your solution the greatest value people value freedom above almost all other benefits in our society when they have money available they have a certain degree of freedom they have choices and options they can do a variety of different things this desire for freedom is a major reason people hesitate to part with their money for any reason if a prospect buys from you he gives up

a certain amount of the flexibility and freedom he had before giving you the money if he buys a product from you that is unsatisfactory he no longer has the money and is stuck with the product since every prospect has had this experience more than once there's always a certain amount of buy and resistance the more the better economists talk about units of satisfaction they postulate that different actions can't give a person different degrees of satisfaction the prospect wants to get as many of these units of satisfaction as possible in every purchase decision he wants to

be better off physically emotionally and even spiritually he wants to be satisfied in a variety of ways the more diverse the ways that your product or service can please and satisfy your prospect the easier it is for him to buy emotional values each person has different buying motivations one of the most critical areas of sales psychology has to do with what are called psychic or emotional values these are invisible intangible values that attach to a product or service that make it appear and feel more valuable from the customer's perspective for example often sales people will

try to convince the customer to buy by assuring him that their product or service is being sold at the very best price available in the market but frequently the prospect is more concerned about the name or reputation of the company selling the product he would rather buy something that is better known even if it costs more money if this is what is most important to the prospect when the salesperson emphasizes the lower cost of an unknown product or service he's actually hurting his chances of making the sale how others feel people are sensitive to other

people in their work or home environment whenever someone considers making a purchase he or she thinks about how other people may respond to that purchase decision no one wants to be criticized if there is a chance that the prospect will be criticized by his boss or spouse for making a particular purchase he will refrain from making that purchase altogether price and quality most salespeople parrot the words price and quality as if they were reasons to buy anything in today's competitive market it is assumed that your product or service is well priced and of a sufficiently

high quality or it wouldn't be available in the first place telling the prospect that he should buy your product or service because of your price and quality is very similar to saying that he should buy your product or service because you will deliver it to him it's not a reason to buy at all identifying needs professional selling begins with needs analysis you are not really in a position to sell until you've asked enough questions and listen closely enough to the answers this enables you to understand the most intense need of your prospect that your product

or service can satisfy once you've identified the customer's key needs and wants you can then structure your presentation in such a way that you demonstrate overwhelmingly to the customer that he will have that need satisfied if he buys from you does versus is perhaps the chief distinction in needs analysis is the difference between what your product is and what your product does most sales people are preoccupied with what their product is how it is made and the specific features that go into its design and production as a result these are the things they talk about

when they are with a prospect but the prospect doesn't care what your product is he only cares about what your product or service will do for him every customer's favorite radio station is wiifm what's in it for me here is a simple way to determine what your product does for your customer imagine a pipeline into one end of the pipeline goes your product or service from sale to delivery to actual use from the customer out of the other end of the pipeline dropping into a bucket is what your product does to improve the life or

work of the customer your job is to clearly identify what arrives in the customer's bucket as a result of his or her buying what you are selling emotional versus practical reasons for example some people sell life insurance by stressing its affordability relative to competitive policies the size and reputation of the company the ease of monthly payments and the role that life insurance plays in financial planning these are all important but they are not the reason that a customer buys life insurance he buys it chiefly for peace of mind one of the top life insurance agents

in the country told me that he has a very simple question that he uses when calling on new prospects he asks do you feel responsible for providing for your family if something were to happen to you if the prospect does not say yes to this question immediately he spends no further time trying to convince him of the importance of life insurance he's found that if a person does not feel highly responsible for his family he'll be reluctant to take out insurance to provide for them in case of an accident by the same token there are

questions that you can ask to determine if the emotional need that your product or service satisfies is important enough to your customer for him to buy what you are selling if you can convince him that this need will be satisfied your choice of questions is often the key to identifying needs correctly two major motivations the two major reasons that people buy or don't buy respectively are desire for gain and fear of loss the desire for gain is obviously to be better off for an improvement in conditions of some kind your first task is to help

your prospect understand how much better his life or work would be with your product compared to the way it is now the second motivation is fear of loss as we've discussed earlier prospects are afraid of making a buying mistake of getting stuck with something they don't want don't need can't use and can't afford since this has happened to them so many times in the past they are cautious about allowing it to happen again here's an interesting discovery desire for gain has a motivational power of one but fear of loss has a negative motivational power of

2.5 in other words the fear of loss is two and a half times more powerful than the desire for gain people are much more motivated to buy if they feel they're going to lose something by not buying then they are in anticipation of the benefits that they will enjoy if they do buy demonstrate both of course the best sales presentation shows the prospect how much better off he will be if he buys and simultaneously how much worse off he will be if he neglects to buy for example in selling a car you could show what

a wonderful automobile it is how beautiful it is and how well it drives if the prospect likes the car but is still hesitant you could point out that this is the last one available for at least two months or the last time this car will be sold at a slow low price often a prospect who is indecisive about buying will make an immediate purchase decision when confronted with the possibility that he won't be able to get it at its current price or get it at all are you believable believability is the single most crucial requirement

in your sales presentation no matter how convinced you are that your product or service will do what you say it will do the customer will still be skeptical your job is to raise your credibility to the point at which the customer will have no reluctance in going ahead just imagine if a prospect was absolutely convinced that he would be far better off as a result of purchasing your product and was absolutely convinced that you would stand behind the product or service one hundred percent virtually nothing but stopping from buying increasing your credibility to this point

is your main mission in the sales process and this requires that you identify needs accurately appealing to customer needs each customer has certain basic human needs that motivate him or her to take action including buying action you must identify the most important needs that your product or service can satisfy for each particular customer to whom you speak you must then convince him overwhelmingly that this particular need will be fulfilled by your product or service better than by anything else available in the market at this time or at this price number one money everyone wants to

have more money this is a basic need money makes the world go around whenever you can link your product or service to making or saving money for the customer you will have his total attention two security each person has a fundamental need for security most people feel that if they had enough money they would be completely secure so although money is hard and cold the need for security is warm and personal according to a university of chicago study people buy because of the way they anticipate feeling as a result of owning and using your product

or service it is the sense of emotional anticipation that you must trigger if you want to make a sale it is not the features or benefits of your product as much as it is the feeling of pleasure or fulfillment that the customer feels he or she will enjoy in buying from you the need for security whether financial emotional or physical for ourselves and our families is such a deep and powerful need that any appeal to greater security will arouse interest on the part of the prospect just as no one ever feels he has too much

freedom very few people ever feel that they have too much security they always want more security products and services today there is a booming market for every kind of security service or device for net servers and computers home security systems are a billion dollar industry various forms of insurance to provide security against accidents or unexpected reversals sell in the hundreds of billions of dollars each year anytime you can show a customer that he or she can be safer and more secure as a result of owning your product or service you can create buying desire three

being liked everyone wants to be liked by others we need to feel accepted and respected by the people around us we want to be admired by our friends neighbors and associates achieving these goals satisfies our deep need for belonging and self-worth how does your product or service increase the amount that your prospect is liked and respected by others four status and prestige one of the most powerful motivations for people is status or personal prestige we want to feel and be perceived as important and valuable we want people to look up to us and praise our

possessions or accomplishments when you pay up to fifty dollars for a watch you are buying a timepiece something that tells you what time it is throughout the day but once you pay more than fifty dollars for a watch you are buying jewelry you are buying a personal decoration that tells other people in a subtle way that you are successful perhaps the deepest of all needs is the need to feel important valued worthwhile both to ourselves and in the eyes of other people when you can structure your product offering to enhance the status respect and prestige

of another person you can touch on this deep human need and can often trigger buying desire emotions distort evaluations when you can appeal to a basic emotion you can trigger buying desires so intense that the concern about price becomes secondary or even irrelevant for example it's been demonstrated that some men who are anxious to please a particular woman for romantic reasons lose almost all ability to make rational spending decisions this is why they purchase expensive jewelry perfume gifts bouquets of flowers and even costlier items when they are under the influence of the strong emotions of

love or desire number five health and fitness everyone wants to live a long time and enjoy great health economists predict that health products such as vitamin mineral supplements and physical fitness equipment will soon be the next trillion dollar industry we all want to be healthier and to be thin and fit we all want to have high levels of energy and we want these same health benefits for our families consequently we are attracted to products or services that will enable us to be thinner more energetic and in top form if your product or service can enhance

the physical life of your prospect in a cost-effective way people who are over tired overweight or who have aches and pains will be extremely interested in talking to you number six praise and recognition an important need shared by one and all is to be recognized for our accomplishments as abraham lincoln said everybody likes a compliment one of the definitions of self-esteem is the degree to which one feels praiseworthy as a result whenever someone receives praise and recognition for an accomplishment large or small that individual feels happier and happier about him or herself when you can

position your product or service such that a person feels that he or she will achieve greater recognition or status by using it you can create buying desire since the need for praise taps into that deepest emotional need of all self-esteem convincing your product that you will get additional recognition by using your product or service weakens his price resistance considerably number seven power influence and popularity there are many needs which you can demonstrate that your product or service will satisfy people want power and influence and will buy products or services that give them more of these

things people want to be popular and to be liked by other people when your product or service offers to make a person more influential and popular it arouses buy and desire number eight leading the field another of our deepest needs or desires is to be considered up-to-date we want to be seen as current modern we want to be leaders and trendsetters in our work and social group many people will buy your product or service simply because it is the newest product on the market they want to be ahead of the pack they want to be

the first ones buying it and the first ones with it in buyer segmentation these are called early adapters they represent five to ten percent of the market they will buy the product or service for no other reason than that it is new and different when you tell an interested prospect you will be the first person in your industry with this product or you will be the first person in your neighborhood who has one of these you create immediate buying desire among early adopters number nine love and companionship today there are millions of subscribers to internet

dating services that match people with similar profiles this is because people crave companionship and good relationships an enormous number of people join clubs and associations to meet other people especially those of the opposite sex one of the primary motivators of social activities is the desire for love and companionship when you can present your product or service as making the prospect more attractive and desirable as a companion immediate buying desire is achievable number 10 personal growth one of the greatest of needs associated with the 21st century is for additional knowledge and skill people want to feel

competent they want to learn new skills and be on top of their jobs they want to get ahead more rapidly they want to excel and move ahead of their competitors both within their companies and in other areas of their lives many products appeal to the desire for greater self-understanding and self-actualization that's because the needs for self-expression and personal fulfillment are profound people want to feel that they are becoming all they are capable of becoming when you promote your product or services something that can help people reach even greater heights of personal success and self-realization you

again generate a desire to purchase number 11 personal transformation perhaps the most abstract need and the need for which people will pay the most is the desire for personal transformation if a prospect feels that your product or service will take him to a new higher level in his life or work and make him a different person in some way there could be no limit to the amount he will spend not long ago i was talking to the vice president of a midwestern manufacturing company he's an avid golfer he tries to play golf at least twice

a week and on vacation he plays five or six days a week sometimes two rounds per day he told me i would pay fifty thousand dollars cash for any golf pro who could show me how to permanently reduce my score by two strokes this form of personal transformation acquiring a new skill in an area important to him was worth fifty thousand dollars sometimes people will pay vast amounts of money for plastic surgery to improve their appearance or to vacation at health spas where they will lose weight and become physically fitter a personal transformation is purely

emotional becoming more and better than you have ever been before is a common desire and an intense motivator of buying action where you can market your product or service as being capable of bringing about a permanent transformation of some kind in work or personal life you can usually make the sale buying decisions are emotional all buying decisions are emotional in fact everything you do is 100 emotional the rule is that people decide emotionally and then justify logically you use logic to justify and rationalize your decision once you have made it when you say that you

are going to do something because it is the logical thing to do all you're saying is that you have more emotion invested in that course of action than in another humans have a wide variety of emotions but it has been discovered that the strongest emotion operating at any particular moment will determine how an individual decides and acts at that time for example a person may have a desire for improvement that your product or service offers but his fear of loss or making a mistake can be more intense than his desire for gain if this is

the case he will refrain from buying the stronger emotion will always win out over the weaker emotion increase buying desire the only way you could overcome the negative emotion of fear of loss that will block a sale is by increasing the positive emotion of desire for gain that will trigger that sale everything you see or say that increases the intensity of buying desire moves you closer to the sale simultaneously everything you do that lowers the fear of making a mistake or loss moves you toward the sale as well reducing fear of loss marketing guru jay

abraham has helped companies sell hundreds of millions of dollars worth of products by convincing them to offer unconditional guarantees of satisfaction on everything they sell he's famous for recommending that you give a better than money back guarantee in this type of offer the customer is promised that not only will he get his money back if he's not satisfied but he will also receive or be able to keep certain special bonuses and gifts that have a considerable perceived value in one of our businesses we offer a complete one-year personal and professional development program on entrepreneurship and

financial success the course runs over 52 weeks we guarantee that participants will be delighted with the results or they will get their money back in addition they'll be allowed to keep the more than three thousand dollars worth of books audio programs and video training materials that accompany the course this is a very powerful offer wanting to think it over when a prospect says that he wants to think about it for a while before deciding he is really saying one of two things about what you have offered him first he could be saying that he has

no real desire to own and enjoy what you are selling for some reason you have not connected with him at such a level that he is convinced he will be better off with your product or service than he would be with the money that it would cost the second reason that a person may hesitate and put off a buying decision is because he is not sufficiently persuaded they will actually get what you are promising he is saying that you have not given him enough emotional reasons for him to make a buying decision his fear of

loss or of error is still greater than the potential benefits from your offering focus on value in the process of value selling you put all your emphasis on repeating and explaining the values and benefits that the prospect will receive if he buys what you are selling instead of reducing the price or offering a special deal of some kind you focus your efforts on building value it's only when the customer feels the value he receives is greatly in excess of the cost you will have to pay that a buying decision takes place always focus on greater

value rather than lower price selling to small businesses many people sell to small and medium-sized businesses they deal with the entrepreneur who actually started and built his or her business if these salespeople are not careful they can easily slip into talking about the features and benefits of their products and services without taking the time to realize exactly what type of a customer they are talking to entrepreneurs are successful because they focus most of their energies on sales and satisfying customers they have very little patience for detail they consider book work accounting and finance as necessary

evils things that they have to do in the process of selling and delivering their products therefore talk about sales and profits if a salesperson visits with the business owner and tries to sell her computers and software that will improve her accounting department her eyes glaze over she loses interest immediately because she does not associate accounting with profitability she is the wrong person for you to be talking to entrepreneurs are interested in sales and cash flow they are concerned with communicating with customers and delivering their products and services satisfactorily they focus on the performance and reliability

of what they sell and they are attracted to revenues profits and growth they're not interested in the internal details of their operations to sell the very most of your products or services you must focus your time attention on energy on finding out exactly what will cause this customer to buy the more time you focus on clearly identifying the specific needs that you can satisfy for a customer the easier it is for you to structure your presentation and make a sale selling to retail businesses business people who buy products for resale are only concerned about one

thing net profits if you're selling to businesses who are buying your products or services to sell in the course of their business operations they're still only concerned with one thing net profits they're not concerned with what the product is they're only concerned with what the product does and how it affects their bottom line the most important benefit that product or service can offer a retail business customer is an increase in net profits selling to larger businesses businesses only buy products that help them to improve performance and productivity cut costs and expenses or boost cash flow

and profits you must be clear about the most advantageous results that your product or service can achieve for your business prospect in one or more of these areas what you sell may help the company to cut costs in some area it may increase or improve productivity it might enhance the performance of other equipment or people perhaps your help product helps the customer to get greater sales or increases buyer satisfaction if you can convince a business prospect that what you are selling can make or save time or money in excess of what you are charging for

your product you can make a sale this is your key job in selling to businesses emphasize the ultimate benefit once upon a time a woman in one of my seminars who was selling office automation system said to me i just can't seem to get appointments i call them up and tell them that we do office automation consulting and they always tell us that they are not interested she told me that because of her company's experience they can usually save their clients a good deal of money if they have a chance to examine their facilities and

make recommendations i asked her exactly how she went about approaching likely prospects she said i telephone and i say hello i'm betty dean from office automation services and we'd like an opportunity to come in and show you how some of our products can increase your efficiency and the smoothness of your administration but they always say things like no thank you i'm too busy we don't have the time right now we can't afford it we don't have it in the budget and so on reword your approach this sales professional was making a the mistake of trying

to sell on the phone rather than just getting an appointment to sell i suggested that she try prospecting a little differently the next time you make an appointment call up and ask to speak to the person in charge of administration when you get through to him or her say these words hello my name is betty dean and i'm with abc company we've developed a process that can save you 20 to 30 percent of your office administration costs it would take me about 10 minutes to show you how it works and you could decide for yourself

it's it's the sort of thing that you're looking for she told me later that this simple change in her approach enabled her to get all the appointments she needed her sales doubled and tripled she was soon making more money than she had ever earned before talk about what they want the reason for this result which thousands of salespeople enjoy once they understand this principle is simple people are not interested in office automation products computers servers wireless communications cell phones or anything else business people are interested in making or saving money or time they're interested in

getting better results and increasing profit there are only two ways that a business can increase its profits it can increase its sales and revenues holding costs constant or it can decrease its costs holding revenues constant whatever you are selling you must describe it in terms of how it either increases revenues or cuts costs or both if you're talking to someone who's in charge of administration he's interested in cutting costs if you're talking to someone in marketing or sales he is or she is interested in increasing sales and resulting income if you speak to the person

who owns the company he wants to improve the bottom line you must always talk about your product or service in terms of what the customer wants not in terms of what you are selling how does he get paid here's the key to selling products or services to people in business ask questions about what the person does and what results he is responsible for what are the key performance indicators of her job what does she get paid for what results is he expected to achieve for the company how is she appraised or evaluated by her superiors

these are key questions to ask and find out the answers for as we said before people always seek improvement in their conditions they will only take action on an offer if they feel better off as a result in business organizations people only approve the purchase of a product or service if they feel that it will improve their personal positions in the organization for example let us say that you are promoting a sales training system and are talking to the sales manager who makes the decisions in this area the entire focus of your presentation should be

on improved sales performance rather than improved profitability the sales manager is not rewarded on the basis of profitability but on the basis of the salespeople focus on the benefits that this specific prospect will personally enjoy rather than general benefits that have no effect on this prospect's results or rewards business versus personal benefit sales experts often differentiate between a business win and a personal win a business win is what the company gets as a result of using your product or service a personal win is how the individual will benefit personally when your product or service is

installed and working successfully people in business will not buy unless they see that there will be measurable benefits in both areas take the time to identify how the prospect will be better off personally in higher income greater convenience or even additional prestige and respect from other people in his company these can be the key factors that trigger the buying decision uncovering basic needs the key to conducting a basic needs analysis is to question skillfully and listen carefully the very best salespeople dominate the listening and let the customer dominate the talking the more you ask questions

and listen patiently and attentively to the answers the more the customer will open up and talk to you people think about themselves most of the time all day long no matter what is going on people are thinking about their own problems and concerns what is most important to each person is on the top of his mind when you ask questions and listen carefully you trigger these thoughts and concerns they then come up in the conversation the freudian slip in psychoanalysis this is called a freudian slip psychologists have found that if you allow a person to

talk about himself freely eventually he will slip he will blurt out what he is really thinking about at the moment the job of the psychologist is to create the kind of environment where the patient feels comfortable expressing himself openly and honestly in a way you are a traveling sales psychologist your goal is also to create a comfortable environment with your personality to ask good questions and then listen closely to the answers you lean forward not smile and make no effort to interrupt use open-ended questions the best questions to ask to open up a conversation and

get more information from a prospect are called open-ended questions these are questions that begin with a pronoun or adverb words such as what where when how who why and which these questions cannot be answered with a simple yes or no they require a more expanded answer which gives you a greater opportunity to understand the true needs of the prospect that can be satisfied by your product or service there's a rule that says telling is not selling only questioning is selling it takes no creativity to talk about your product or service it takes a good deal

of thought however to phrase your information in the form of a series of questions from the general to the particular today people do not want to be sold they may want to buy but they don't want to feel that they're being sold the moment a prospect feels that he has been pushed to make a certain buying decision he shuts down and loses interest the person who asks questions has control as a rule the person who asks questions has control the individual who's answering the questions is controlled by the person who is asking them whenever you

ask a question and listen attentively to the answer you are controlling the directional flow of the sales conversation which is as it should be whenever you're talking is a response to a question from the prospect the prospect has taken control of the conversation if a prospect asks you a question rather than answering automatically which most people do pause take a breath and say that is a good question may i ask you something first in other words you acknowledge the question but you then ask a question of your own and take back control of the conversation

when you do this a couple of times it will become so natural and automatic that the prospect will never even know what happened and you will be back in control position yourself properly the very best salespeople today see themselves more as consultants and advisors to their customers as a consultant your job is to help the customer solve its problems with what you are selling the very best sales consultants focus all of their energies on identifying the most pressing problem that the customer has that their product or service can solve he then concentrates all of his

efforts on convincing the prospect that he will definitely get the solution that he most wants position yourself as a friend rather than as a salesperson as an advisor rather than as someone who just wants to make a sale see yourself more as a helper than anything else take the time to fully understand the prospects needs and then to help the prospect to understand how and why your product or service will satisfy those needs better than anything else learn and teach position yourself as a teacher when you ask questions you learn the customer's needs when you

talk you teach the customer how he or she can most benefit from what you are selling when you approach every sales situation as a friend an advisor and a teacher you'll dramatically lower the stress involved in competitive selling you will radically reduce the likelihood of failure or rejection both you and the prospect will feel more comfortable and relaxed pause and listen the sale takes place with the words but the buying takes place in the silence many salespeople speak too loudly and too fast because they're nervous they are uncomfortable with silence they feel that they have

to fill every single moment with some wise comment or observation on their product or service but this is not the case when you are asking questions and advising the prospect regarding your product or service be sure to allow moments of silence in the conversation allow the customer to reflect on and digest what you are saying don't rush be calm and relaxed allow the sales process to unfold at its own speed without pressure or urgency this creates the very best mental state for the customer to make a buying decision present your idea as an improvement people

are funny in some respects they want things to get better and yet to stay the same this is especially true in selling and in buying a new product very few people want something completely new somehow if it is brand new and untried or untested in the market it is too risky it might not work you might lose your money this is why most companies are defined as late adapters they wait until the product has proven itself before they start to buy it the way to deal with this natural resistance when you're selling a new product

is to describe it as more of an improvement than as something new or different explain new features as advancements in the technology as forward steps as developments that your company has added to make it even better and more useful for your customer than before tell the truth customers want the simple truth about a product or service they want honest information about how it can help them improve their lives and businesses at the same time they resist and resent any kind of high pressure the more you relax and focus on the needs of the customer and

helping him to satisfy those needs the more relaxed both of you will be the more you concentrate on explaining the simple truth about what your product can do for the customer the easier it will be for the customer to buy quality is not enough many salespeople get stuck on the subject of quality their main argument for buying is that they are selling a quality product but quality is never the primary reason for buying anything quality is a logical argument people buy things emotionally but quality is always based on logic what is more important than quality

is utility when a person says my product is the highest quality machine in the business it doesn't matter the only thing that the prospect is interested in is will it do the job for me will it do what i need done is it adequate for my you can say that a rolls royce or a mercedes is a high quality automobile but if all you need is a car to go back and forth to work you don't need to buy one of them quality is not an argument quality and price comparisons the only time you can

use quality as an argument is when you are comparing your product at a higher price to another product at a lower price you have to show the prospect that there are definite reasons why he should opt for higher quality rather than lower price you have to prove that the customer will be much better off with your product because it is of higher quality than he might be with another product of lower quality even if it's cheaper if you're selling a snowmobile to an alaskan quality performance is a more important argument than price if he drives

the snowmobile out on the polar icecap and the machine breaks down he's going to freeze to death before he gets back in this case the cost of higher quality is more than justified by the benefits if you're selling a vehicle to someone who's going to drive it across the sahara it's very important that it be a high quality vehicle if it breaks down in the sahara where there are no people and no water the traveler will die before he gets help explain why your quality is important if additional quality is not necessary to get the

job done for the customer then it is not an important benefit in explaining quality features in your product or service you must always explain how they directly benefit the customer the customer must see the direct relationship between paying more for higher quality and getting back more as a result all customers ask the same question in their minds so what whatever you say to a prospect about your product or service imagine that he is looking at you and saying so what what the customer really wants to know is what's in it for me what is the

benefit to me of the feature that you are explaining why is this particular quality improvement so important to me make sure everything you say to a prospect about your product has a definite benefit in it for the customer and make sure that the customer clearly understands this benefit suitability comes first the product you sell must always be the most suitable for what the customer needs at the time before quality enters the equation an example of suitability before quality is the popularity of japanese automobiles everyone knows they are well made and they last for several years

because they sell at reasonable prices they tend to be ideal and appropriate for a large number of drivers they also happen to give good fuel economy in addition to this suitability factor they are of good quality but the quality always comes after the appropriateness and the utility have been demonstrated this is why it is so important to ask questions and identify the needs of the customer in advance before you begin explaining why your product or service is the ideal one for him at this time everything counts in selling one of the foremost principles of all

is this everything counts everything you do helps or hurts it adds up or takes away it moves you toward the successful conclusion of the sale or it moves you away from it nothing is neutral there is a halo effect in selling and in all human relationships prospects assume that if one part of your presentation or work is of high quality the rest of your product or service is probably of high quality as well one good impression often enables you to create a halo of quality and professionalism and everything counts your appearance counts a lot in

this respect your personal appearance and grooming extend to the quality of your product itself most of the contact that your company will have with a customer will be with you personally for this reason the way you appear and behave is a critical factor in the buying decision it satisfies the prospect's need for assurance a whopping 95 percent of the first impression that you make on a customer is determined by your clothes this is because in most cases your clothes cover 95 of your body when you are well dressed properly groomed shoes polished and looking professional

the prospect unconsciously assumes that you are working for an excellent company and that you sell an excellent product or service further when you are punctual polite and fully prepared you make a positive impression that spreads like a halo to everything you do into the product or service you sell on the other hand if the salesperson is late unprepared and poorly organized the customer immediately assumes that what you see is what you get he or she takes for granted that the company is second rate and the product or service being offered is of poor quality and

all that comes from close and appearance the best companies the very best companies have the best trained and best-looking sales people companies like ibm and hewlett-packard interview prospective salespeople several times to be sure in advance that these are the right people to represent them in a competitive marketplace they take prospective salespeople out to dinner to see how they use their utensils and how they handle themselves in social situations they meet their families to assure the positive or negative dynamics between and among spouses they interview these prospective employees both individually and in groups they know that

an enormous portion of the buying decision is going to be determined by the person who's actually selling the product identify the basic and secondary needs be able to identify the basic and secondary needs that your product can satisfy and then demonstrate this to the customer you do this by asking questions skillfully and listening carefully to the answers sooner or later the prospect will become interested by asking you questions about what the product does and how it works this becomes your selling opportunity for example in selling computers and software to businesses amateur sales people usually spend

a good little time talking about all the different functions that their equipment will perform but the customer doesn't care he wants to know if the product will pay for itself and how long it will take before it pays for itself the customer wants to know how certain he can be that the product will pay for itself he needs to know if this is an intelligent design decision or not put him in a spotlight instead of thinking about yourself focus all of your attention on the customer since you can only think about one thing at a

time the more you focus on the customer rather than yourself the more relaxed and confident you will become and the more positive and animated he will become whenever you start to feel tense in a sales situation immediately ask the customer a question about himself or his business and then listen to the answer imagine that you are in a darkened room with a customer there's a single spotlight on a swivel above the customer's desk this spotlight is voice activated whoever is speaking causes the spotlight to swivel around and focus exclusively on him so who is supposed

to be in the spotlight you or the customer since the customer is the most important person the spotlight should be on the customer most of the time whenever the customer is talking and replying to your questions the spotlight is on him whenever you are talking about him and his needs problems or objectives and requirements the spotlight stays on him the instant you start talking about yourself your product your service your company or your life story the spotlight swivels around and focuses on you the customer is left sitting in the dark the more the spotlight is

on him the greater the possibility that you will make a sale keep the spotlight on you and your company and the likelihood that he will buy becomes less and less customers buy benefits and solutions customers don't buy products they buy benefits they buy solutions to their problems they buy ways to satisfy their needs so again focus all of your attention on the customer ask questions such as what are you doing now in this area how is that working for you what are your plans for the future in this area if you could wave a magic

wand and have the perfect situation in this area how would it be different from what you are doing currently what would you have to be convinced of to go ahead with our product or any product remember the person who asks questions has control reasons for buying or not buying in every sale there is a key benefit that the prospect is seeking this is the one thing that the prospect must be convinced of before he can buy your job is to uncover this key benefit and then to convince the customer that he will enjoy this benefit

if he buys your product or service at the same time there is a key objection to every sale the major reason that the customer will hesitate or decide not to buy it's absolutely essential that you uncover this key objection and find a way to answer it to the customer's satisfaction focus on the 20 percent we spoke about the 80 20 rule a bit earlier in terms of buying your product or service the 80 20 rule applies as well fully eighty percent of the buying decision will be concentrated on twenty percent of the benefits that you

offer to the prospect sometimes the ninety ten rules in effect ninety percent of the sales decision can be based on ten percent of the features and benefits of your product your job is to find out what they are if you talk too much about features and benefits that are in the bottom eighty percent of concern to your prospect you'll actually hurt your chances of making a sale even if your product is the best in the world in the bottom eighty percent of reasons why the prospect will buy they will not convince him to go ahead

but if you can focus all of your attention on the top ten or twenty percent of benefits that your prospect will enjoy and convince him overwhelmingly that he will get these benefits from your product or service better and faster than from any other choice the sale becomes much easier the hot button close this brings us to one of the most powerful of all closing techniques it is called the hot button close and it's used over and over by the highest paid sales people it is quite simple as a result of asking questions and listening carefully

to the answers you finally ascertain the hot button the leading benefit that this customer seeks in your product or service you then concentrate all your energy on convincing him overwhelmingly that he will get this key benefit success of the hot button close depends on your ability to discover the prospect's most important reason for buying you then repeat it over and over concentrate on selling that one main point do everything to convince a potential buyer that he will get that one benefit that is decisive for buying action bring the whole decision to hang on that one

question press the hot button over and over how do you uncover the hot button simply ask especially when the prospect is hesitating or holding back you say mr prospect if ever you were to buy this product at any time in the future what would cause you to buy it at that time and then remain completely silent when you make it a theoretical question the prospect will often say well if i was ever going to buy one of these products i would have to be convinced of the and he or she will tell you the big

reason like a frightening slip it will often fall out of the prospect's mouth you are then charged with convincing him that he will get that benefit if he goes ahead with your offer fast cheap market research here's a powerful exercise that can double your sales in a very short time make a list of your last 10 customers phone each of them and say these words mr customer i just wanted to call you and tell you how much i appreciate your buying this product from us how is everything going is there any way that we can

help you the customer may or may not ask you a question or have a problem with the product or service if he does though promise to take care of it immediately after you get off the phone then ask mr customer may i ask you a question you could have purchased this product or service from another company but you bought it from us could you tell me exactly why you decided to buy from us rather than from someone else this is a powerful market research question remain perfectly silent let the customer think about it for a

few seconds before he replies don't interrupt the great discovery here is the remarkable discovery that you will make if you call 10 previous customers probably 80 percent 8 out of 10 of them will give you the same reason that they bought from you very often you were completely unaware that this was the real reason for the purchase decision whatever the answer write it down from that day forward whenever you meet with a new prospect be sure to tell him most of our best customers say that the reason they decided to buy from us was the

hot button is this important to you the flowering cherry tree there's a story about a real estate agent who takes a couple to show them a house the house is not in particularly great shape but as they pull up in front of the house the woman looks past the house and in the background there's a beautiful flowering cherry tree she immediately says oh harry look at that beautiful flowering cherry tree there was a flowering cherry tree in my backyard when i was a little girl i've always wanted to live in a house with a flowering

cherry tree they all get out of the car and going to look at the house but the salesperson has taken note of what the woman said harry looks at the house critically first thing he says is it looks like we're going to have to re-carpet this house the salesman says yes that's true but from here just look you can see out through the dining room and you're looking right at that beautiful flowering cherry tree the woman immediately looks out the back window at the flowering cherry tree and smiles the salesman knows that the woman is

the primary decision maker when it comes to buying a house so he focuses on her they go into the kitchen and harry says this kitchen's a bit small and the plumbing looks old the salesman says yes that's true but when you look through this window while you're preparing dinner you can see that beautiful flowering cherry tree in the backyard next they go upstairs to see the rest of the house harry says these bedrooms are too small and besides the wallpaper is old-fashioned and the rooms all have to be repainted the salesperson says yes but notice

from the master bedroom you have that beautiful view of the flowering cherry tree by the end of the walk through the house the woman is so excited about the flowering cherry tree that she can't see anything else the buying decision is made they buy the house because the salesman had identified the hot button the flowering cherry tree in every product or service that you sell there is a flowering cherry tree if this is a real prospect for what you are selling there's something in your product or service that the prospect really wants to enjoy it's

a benefit that the prospect really wants to have find out what it is by questioning and listening and then assure the customer that he will definitely get that benefit if he buys from you now here are seven action exercises for you one make a list of the needs that customers have that can be met by your product organize this list in order of importance to the customer build your prospecting and selling around these needs two conduct regular market research among your satisfied customers find out what benefit your product offered that caused them to buy from

you rather than from someone else number three determine the most important benefits your business customers are seeking and then develop a way to explain that benefit in every sales conversation four identify the most significant gains or losses that your prospects could experience from using or not using what you are selling and emphasize them repeatedly number five dress for success buy and read a book on proper business stress and then follow it so that you look like a complete professional when you visit a customer six develop a series of open-ended questions that you can use to

control the sales conversation and uncover the true needs of that prospect keep the light on him by asking and listening number seven position yourself as a friend an advisor and a teacher in every customer contact focus on helping and teaching rather than selling flora edwards wrote in helping others we shall help ourselves for whatever good we give out completes the circle and comes back to us chapter 4 creative selling charles schwab wrote a man to carry on a successful business must have imagination he must see things in a vision a dream of the whole thing

creativity is a natural characteristic of all top salespeople fortunately your level of creativity is largely determined by your self-concept by how you think and feel about yourself when it comes to creative activity this means that you can increase your creativity with practice until it becomes an automatic and easy response to any goal you set for yourself creativity is something that you demonstrate and use all the time when you are trying to avoid a traffic jam on your way to an appointment by taking alternate roads side streets and alleys you are engaging in highly creative acts

when you are arranging a party or designing a sales presentation you are acting creatively if you are attempting to convince somebody of the goodness and value of your product you are behaving creatively even getting dressed in the morning when you match your clothing ties shirts blouses dresses slack shoes together to make an overall impression you are engaging in an act of creativity your beliefs become your reality the sad fact is that most people do not think that they are particularly creative they associate creativity with writing great pieces of literature or painting great works of art

however creativity can best be defined simply as improvement when you improve anything by doing things differently you are using your creativity sometimes at a high level because of the central role of your self-concept the more you believe yourself to be creative the more you will generate creative ideas in selling you're essentially creating a business where no business existed before by the process of prospecting building rapport identifying needs presenting solutions answering objections closing the sale and getting resales and referrals you are engaging in extraordinary complex creative acts that are the wellsprings of our free enterprise society

three ways to stimulate creativity creativity is stimulated by three key factors one clear goals two pressing problems and three focus questions you must use all three as often as possible the more intensely you desire to achieve a clear specific goal the more creative you will be in finding ways to accomplish it the more determined you are to solve a pressing problem the more resourceful you will be in coming up with different solutions the more focused and specific the questions that you ask yourself or that others ask you the more innovative you will be in developing

answers you should use all three of these continually to keep your mind functioning at its highest level practice thinking creatively in selling there are several areas where you can increase your creativity with regular exercise and practice the more creative you become in these areas the more money you will make the first area where creativity is important is in prospecting your success in prospecting largely determines your income and your ability to find more and better prospects is only limited by your imagination the second area where creativity is essential is in uncovering buying motives you must be

creative in questioning to find out exactly what the customer needs and what will cause this customer to buy this is a real test of your intelligence and brainpower prospects have automatic buying resistance to any sales approach they don't want to tell you why they might not buy your product they know from experience that if you find out what they really want you will probably be able to convince them that they will get it and they will be too weak to resist your offering discover new product uses your creativity is essential in discovering new product uses

and applications you have to use your brain power to discover new ways to use your products and to create sales where no sales exist bringing together all the ingredients of a business transaction including you your company the customer the product or service the price and terms the delivery and installation and everything else is an extraordinarily creative act and requires creativity at a high level your ability to use your creativity to overcome buyer resistance and answer objections is essential to your success finally your ability to close the sale and get the customer to take action is

critical in determining how much you sell and how much you earn know what you're talking about creative selling begins with a thorough understanding of your product or service the better you know and understand what you are selling the more creative you will become in selling it the more knowledgeable you are about why and how your product is superior to that of the competition the better you will be in explaining it to customers and in overcoming their buying resistance read study and memorize your product information find out what your competitors are selling what they emphasize and

how much they charge become an expert in your market become excellent at prospecting the fastest way to increase your income is simple it is the key to success in selling spend more time with better prospects this six word formula is the recipe for high income in every market creative prospecting is essential to your success it begins with thorough planning and analysis and starts with three questions one what are the five to ten most attractive features of your product two what specific needs of your prospective customer does your product satisfy and three what does your company

offer that other companies do not offer its area of excellence one what are the five to ten most attractive features of your product do you know your products most attractive features list them in order of importance then go on to determine the following why should somebody buy your product at all why should somebody buy your product from your company and why should somebody buy your product from you you must be able to answer these questions clearly in your own mind before you get face to face with a customer two what specific needs of your prospective

customer does your product satisfy what benefits does it offer in other words what's in it for the customer to purchase your product rather than someone else's product or no one's product write the most attractive features of your product down one side of a piece of paper then write the benefits that your customer will enjoy from each of these features next to them on the other side of the paper remember customers do not buy features they only buy benefits they do not buy products or services they buy solutions to their problems they're not concerned with what

goes into your product they're only concerned about what comes out for them number three what does your company offer that other companies do not offer what is your unique selling proposition what is your company's or products area of excellence in what ways is your company product or service superior to anything else available in your market the greater clarity you have with regard to these answers the more creative you will be in finding better prospects and making more sales to those prospects four keys to strategic selling there are four keys to strategic selling that you must

master if you want to join the top ten percent of money earners in your field these are specialization differentiation segmentation and concentration let's take them one at a time one specialize with specialization you determine exactly what it is that your product is designed to do for your customer you may specialize in a particular result or benefit you can specialize in a particular customer or market you can specialize in a particular geographic area you can specialize in satisfying a particular need better than anyone else but you must be a specialist rather than a generalist many salespeople

have built their entire careers by specializing in a particular industry a specific type of customer or a distinct geographic area how could this apply to you two set yourself apart differentiate in differentiation you determine what it is that makes your product superior to your competitors what special benefits does your product offer to your customers that are not available anywhere else in what areas are your products better than 90 of similar goods or services on the market in many cases if the product you are selling is available elsewhere such as with real estate or life insurance

the special differentiator that you bring to the sales situation is your own unique personality there is only one person like you in the whole world most sales are made on the basis of the feeling that the customer has about the sales person more than any other factor three sort out your market by segmentation the third part of strategic selling is segmentation once you have determined your area of specialization and what it is that differentiates your product from your competitors your next goal is to determine exactly which customers can most benefit from what you do better

than anyone else who are they where can you find more of this ideal type of person or organization for your product think of running an ad for perfect customers how would you describe them and number four focus and concentrate the fourth part of strategic selling is concentration this is perhaps the most critical skill that you can develop for success in any area especially selling it is your ability to set clear priorities and then to concentrate single-mindedly on only those prospects who represent the very best potentialist customers in some cases one prospect may be worth 100

times the value of another prospect the basic rule in selling is to always fish for whales not minnows remember if you catch a thousand minnows all you have is a bucket full of minnows but if you catch one whale it can sink your whole ship after a sales seminar in tampa not long ago a salesperson wrote to me and told me that she began applying these techniques immediately within one week she closed the sale that represented 58 of her quota for the entire year she was absolutely astonished at what a difference it made when she

concentrated all of her energies on her largest potential customer what customers or markets could be capable of buying enormous quantities of what you sell where are they and how can you approach them conduct intensive market analysis you could use your creativity to identify your biggest and best sales opportunities this requires the regular and repeated use of focused questions like these who exactly is your customer make a list of all the qualities and characteristics that your ideal customer would have what would be his or her age education occupation income level experiences attitude or need the greater

clarity you have in identifying your ideal customer the easier it will be for you to find more of these customers to talk to who buys your product or service right now apply the 80 20 rule who are the 20 of your customers who represent 80 of your business what do they have in common how could you find more customers just like the very best customers you serve today who will be your future customers markets are continually changing and you must change as well project ahead five years based on current trends who are likely to be

your best customers at that time what are the trends in your business and in your market what changes are taking place that may force you to change the way you sell or the people to whom you sell in what direction is your market moving how are your customers changing what new markets might there be for your product or service who else could benefit from your areas of specialization and differentiation that you have not yet reached why does your customer buy what advantages or benefits does he perceive in purchasing your product or service of everything that

you offer to a customer what parts of your product or service does your customer most appreciate and complement what are the hot buttons that cause your customers to buy you must know the answers to these questions who or what is your competitor who are your major and minor competitors what benefits do your prospective customers see in buying from your competitors how could you offset these perceived benefits how could you position yourself in such a way that people would buy from you rather than from your competitors this is often the key to breaking open the entire

market when companies position themselves properly against their competitors their sales often increase by hundreds of percent apple versus microsoft apple computer was the first company to crack the market for the small personal or business computer and look at them now they came out of the gate with a user-friendly personal computer immediately took the lead in the market selling hundreds of thousands of apple ones and apple twos and now ipods iphones and ipads microsoft entered the market after apple determined to catch up and surpass apple's sales volume but instead of developing computers microsoft focused on software

on the operating systems and encouraged other software developers to develop programs compatible with theirs the strategies of the two companies were completely different apple was determined to keep its all its operating codes and hardware proprietary so that it could charge higher prices and make higher profits at its peak apple was earning 49 net profit on sales an incredible amount a different strategy microsoft under bill gates and steve ballmer decided to offset the competitive advantage of apple's user-friendly software by opening up its codes to software developers worldwide simultaneously with each new advance in technology microsoft lowered

the price of its ms-dos operating system rather than focusing on high profits per individual sale microsoft focused on volume sales with lower profit per sale but a far greater number of sales by the time the dust had settled back in the 90s microsoft controlled 90 percent of the global pc market after becoming a runaway success story and before becoming a runaway success story again apple was surpassed in the market and did not catch up for many years by 2004 apple's market share was down to three percent even though its products are judged by many people

to be technologically superior to those of microsoft what or who is your competitor and how are you going to position your products against them ignorance can be the problem in some cases your major competitor is not another company it is ignorance customers simply do not know your product is available it may be new it may not be well known it may not be well advertised sometimes the greatest obstacle you have to overcome is unawareness of what your product can do for a customer in strategic selling you're always competing against someone or something whatever you are

selling there is an alternative available in your market what you have to find out is what your prospective customers are considering and then position yourself in such a way that your customers conclude that your offering is superior to anything else available selling in some respects is similar to warfare decisions in warfare are always made in consideration of what the enemy is doing or likely to do many of your most crucial decisions in selling will be determined by what your competitors are doing or what they are likely to do what is your competitive advantage this is

your area of differentiation that we discussed earlier in what way do you have an advantage over your competitors how and why are you superior as jack welch of general electric once said if you don't have competitive advantage don't compete your competitive advantage is invariably the most important reason that a customer would choose your product over that of your competitor fully understanding the nature of your competitive advantage is the key to developing an effective and creative sales presentation you should be so clear about the competitive advantage of your product or service that someone could wake you

up at three in the morning shake you and ask why is your product better than anybody else's and you should answer this question right out of a sound sleep your area of superiority customers buy a particular product or service because they feel that it is superior in some way to anything else available sometimes it is lower price sometimes it is a particular feature or benefit sometimes it is because they like the salesperson better than the representative of another company sometimes the competitive advantage is that you are the first person who has explained to them how

much they could improve their lives or work with your product whatever it is the customer always chooses what he considers to be the very best available under the circumstances demonstrate to the customer that your product or service fits that description same old same old not long ago a young man came up to me at one of my seminars he needed advice he worked for one of 10 companies that sold electrical supplies to contractors in the local market but all of the suppliers bought their products from the same manufacturers and sold them at very much the

same prices to the same customers on top of this the market for electrical products was depressed at that time he asked me under these circumstances how can i develop a unique selling feature or a competitive advantage i explained to him that it was not really possible based on what he had told me he was selling something that anyone could buy somewhere else at the same price and quality and on the same terms his products had no unique selling features in a depressed market there was less business for everyone including himself there was very little future

in his industry at that time make your product special in some way one of the most creative things you can do is to offer a product or service that is special in some way it offers benefits that customers are willing to pay for that are not available anywhere else if what you are offering is a me too product the only way you can sell more is by working longer and harder by seeing more prospective customers and by trusting in the law of averages but there's no long-term future unless your product is unique and different in

some way from any other product available put your best foot forward in creative selling you always lead with the most important benefit that your product or service can offer your customer in comparison with your competitors this becomes the key factor in your advertising prospecting and sales activities when you meet a prospect who really wants the special benefits that only your product can offer it is easy to make the sale large companies spent an enormous amount of time and money to build a reputation for their unique selling propositions when ibm was the biggest computer company in

the world it had an extraordinary reputation for customer service the company invested more than one billion dollars a year giving its customers fast dependable service whenever an ibm product broke down for major customers with large computer installations ibm would often fly in several specialists from different parts of the world all within 24 hours to get a computer system up and running again ibm's reputation for quality service made it an industrial leader worldwide interestingly at no time did ibm ever have a better faster or cheaper product than its competitors other companies had superior products at lower

prices with more features ibm did not even attempt to lead the field with state-of-the-art equipment they focused instead on their reputation for service and support this competitive advantage enabled them to become the most successful company of its kind in the world it takes your breath away some years ago the distributors of smirnoff vodka attempted to introduce smirnoff to the market in the united states they had little success at that time vodka was considered not only a foreign drink but a russian foreign drink the cold war was on and americans were not particularly favorable to any

russian products especially a new form of liquor the smirnoff distributor spent an enormous amount of money attempting to position smirnoff vodka as a superior choice to whiskey scotch gin rum and other liquors but to no available finally they identified the unique selling feature usf of smirnoff after drinking smirnoff no one could smell it on your breath they instantly created an advertising campaign around this unique selling feature with two lines smirnoff it takes your breath away and spurnoff it leaves you breathless in no time at all smurf became a 50 million dollar product and eventually a

500 million and a billion dollar product it broke the market open for vodka sales which are now well in excess of several billion dollars a year by identifying the competitive advantage of the beverage that people could drink at lunch without folks back in the office knowing they were able to create a great marketing success how could you describe or position your product in a similar way what is your unique selling proposition who are your non-customers who are the people who could use your product or service but buy neither from you nor from your competitors these

are people who are not even in the market at all in reality the non-customers are the greatest untapped market for your products or services if you can identify them and find a way to get through to them you can often create sales where no sales exist and where there is little competition or price resistance a huge untapped market often these people are the late adapters in the market those who wait until a new product or service has been tested and proven by the majority of buyers before they risk buying when a company finds a way

to tap into this huge late adapter market of non-customers it can often surpass all of its competitors three examples come quickly to mine the fax machine the personal computer and the cell phone in each case only a few people were willing to take a risk on this new technology in the earlier versions they were often large clumsy and inefficient the first cell phones often required a briefcase to carry them around but once these three innovations had been accepted by business people and used in offices the dam began to crack suddenly the non-customer entered the market

by the millions and today by the tens of millions today even children have computers fax machines and cell phones which they are constantly upgrading with newer better faster and cheaper versions what were once early adapter markets have become multi-billion dollar worldwide markets how might you apply this to your product or service the non-voter here's another example the biggest non-customer in our society today is the person who does not vote the non-voter if he could be motivated to vote for a particular candidate or party could determine the outcome of virtually every election in the country forty

percent of qualified voters never go to the polls they are the largest single voting bloc in the country why don't they buy the people who are not now buying your product or anyone else's product are the greatest source of new customers if you can find out why they are not buying at all you can often break into a brand new market and sell more than you ever have before keep asking with regard to non-customers why don't they buy what is it in their perception that holds them back from buying the product or service you sell

what objection would have to be overcome in their minds to get them to come into the market what could you do to dispel the ignorance that they have of how much they could benefit how can you remove the fear that is holding them back very often the simplest way to approach the non-customer is to identify a specific benefit that the non-customer values and desires enough to want to own your product or service demonstrate to this prospect that he will definitely get the one benefit that would motivate him to buy and then give an unconditional guarantee

of satisfaction by focusing on the key benefit and backing it up with strong guarantees you can often break down the resistance that keeps your non-customer from buying in the first place when do your customers buy when is the best time to sell to your customer is it a specific time in the business cycle or a specific season during the year do customers buy when business is growing or when business is declining some services are most appropriate when businesses are in difficulty other services are bought more readily when businesses are growing rapidly what season of the

year do your customers buy the most during what stage of the business cycle do they buy some products are most suitable for start-up businesses others are better suited for growing businesses and some work better for large companies that have stabilized or leveled off in the market what triggers buying behavior some people are impulse buyers they buy immediately when the product comes out on the market they are the same people who see the new movie the first night it is showing they try the new restaurant as soon as it opens they embrace the new fashion trends

as soon as they appear in the stores approximately five to ten percent of customers are like this they will try it without really knowing whether it is good or not many people only buy a product when it is clear from two to four years of history that the product is popular and well accepted many products do not begin to take off until after they've been in the market for four or five years it often takes this long for the mass market to gain sufficient confidence to begin buying the product in quantity think about personal computers

there are many buyers who only come into the market when it is already mature the product or service is approaching the end of its life cycle it's being replaced by similar products that are faster better and cheaper the profits to be made at this stage of the life cycle are fairly small finally there is the post-mature buyer who only buys a product just before it is taken off the market what has to happen before your prospect will buy your product often a person will only buy a product or try out a company or service when

she has received a recommendation from someone she trusts sometimes the prospect will only buy when she has spoken to another satisfied customer or the prospect has to get encouragement reinforcement or approval from another person before she feels comfortable enough to buy here are two good questions to ask the hesitant prospect first what would have to happen before you went ahead with this offer and second what would you have to be convinced of to buy this product or service the answers you get will often give you the key to the sale use testimonial letters one of

the most powerful of all sales tools is the testimonial letter when you say that your product is excellent and a good choice for the prospect he immediately discounts your words because after all you are a salesperson but with someone else who has purchased your product says that it's good the customer believes and accepts this assessment some years ago when i was building one of my businesses i was continually struggling with prospects because i was relatively new in the market yet everyone i had worked with was happy with my services so i took a solid week

and visited each of my previous customers and asked them if they would write me a nice letter telling me how much they liked my services and recommending them to other people most of them agreed immediately i followed up continuously until i had a three-ring binder full of testimonial letters in plastic page protectors this changed my sales career my winning strategy from then on when i would meet with the prospect one of the first things i would say is before we begin let me show you some letters that i'm particularly proud of from some of my

customers i would then hand my binder to the prospect and let him read through the letters i found that people love to read testimonial letters it's sort of like reading other people's mail later i took a yellow highlighter and highlighted the very best sentences in each of the letters so that they jumped out when the prospect read the pages it was amazing very often the prospect would look up from reading through the testimonial letters and say i'm sold how soon can we get started my sales doubled and tripled in quadruple in the first two months

after i started using testimonial letters i made more sales than i had in the previous year now many people will write you a testimonial letter if you ask for it but sometimes they're so busy that they don't get around to it in this case offer to write the letter yourself and ask them to type it onto their own letterhead and sign it it's amazing how many customers will do this if you ask overcome objections with testimonials if you get the same objection over and over especially with regard to your high price or the fact that

your company or product is new in the market ask your satisfied customers to answer that objection in the text of their letter often you can write the letter for them with the answer to this objection for example let us say that your product or service is more expensive than that of your competitors and your customers continually bring this up you would ask for or write a testimonial letter that says something like this dear brian i just wanted to write and tell you how happy we are with your product when you first approached me i was

concerned about the high price but since we have started using your product the benefits and results i have achieved are far greater than the small difference in price i paid thank you for everything sincerely a happy customer that kind of a letter is worth its weight in gold if you have half a dozen letters like that you can double and triple your sales in a short time soon you'll be selling to almost everyone you speak to the best advertisement the most powerful of all forms of advertising in our society is word of mouth eighty-five percent

of all sales take place only after someone has said that the product or service is good all other advertising is an attempt to get people to try the product or service so that the process of word of mouth advertising can begin in the movie industry studios invest 80 percent or more of their advertising budget in the week of the movie's release their goal is to get as many people into the theaters as quickly as possible either before moviegoers find that the movie is not very good or to stimulate word of mouth advertising that will fill

the theaters later in 2004 both mel gibson's the passion of the christ and michael moore's fahrenheit 911 generated extraordinary word-of-mouth advertising turning both movies into blockbusters that made fortunes for their producers when was the last time that you decided to go to a restaurant by looking in the yellow pages instead someone tells you that he has been there personally and enjoyed the experience only then do you try it for yourself word of mouth is everything be sure to ask your satisfied customers are your very best source of resales and referrals if you take the time

and ask them why they bought from you rather than from someone else they will tell you once you know why your customers buy from you you can then repeat these same reasons when you're meeting with a new prospect call or visit a satisfied customer someone you like and who likes you and tell him that your company is conducting some market research we're talking to some of our most valued customers to find out how we can serve them better in the future would you answer a few questions for me then ask him questions such as the

following why did you decide to buy from us rather than from someone else what specific value or benefit do you feel that you get from our product how could we improve it in the future for you what kind of customer do you feel could most benefit from our product is there anything special that our product or service does that you did not expect when you bought it never be afraid to ask if you ask your happy customers enough questions and listen carefully enough to the answers they will tell you everything you need to know to

sell more of your products to more people faster and more easily than ever before practice mindstorming regularly this is one of the most powerful ways to stimulate your creativity alert you to new opportunities and accelerate your success in your sales career it's called the 20 idea method when you begin using this method regularly and applying some of the ideas that you generate you'll increase or double or more your income in the months ahead here's how it works take a sheet of paper and write your biggest goal or your most pressing problem at the top of

the page in the form of a question for example you could write how can i double my income in the next 12 months you can even be more specific how can i increase my income from 50 000 to 100 000 per year over the next 12 months be clear and concrete the more clear and specific the question the easier it is for your mind to generate multiple answers to it you use this mindstorming method primarily on questions for which you are seeking concrete tangible answers for example you would not write how can i be happier

this question is so soft and vague that your mind cannot focus on it and generate specific workable answers once you have written out your question you then discipline yourself to write out 20 answers to that question you write them in the personal positive present tense for example instead of writing make more calls you would write i make five extra calls each day the more specific your answers the more ideas they will stimulate write 20 answers minimum write a minimum of 20 answers to the question you can write more than 20 answers if you like but

you must discipline yourself to keep writing until you have at least 20 answers for some reason the number 20 has a magical effect very often the 20th answer is the breakthrough idea that changes your career once you have put down 20 answers go back over your list of answers and select at least one idea that you will implement immediately do it now this very minute don't delay this is very important when you generate these answers and then take action on at least one of them you keep the tab open for creative ideas to flow all

day long as you move through your day you will constantly have ideas and insights on how you can be more effective and get more done your mind will sparkle like lights on a christmas tree you'll be more alert and aware you'll come up with solutions not only to your own problems but to the problems of others quickly and efficiently the key to wealth earl nightingale in writing about this idea said that more people have become wealthy using this 20 idea method than any other method of creative thinking ever discovered in my own experience and in

the experience of thousands of my students this 20 idea exercise is life transforming once you begin using it you will start applying it to every problem or goal you ever have you can use it to outline any project large or small you can use it to build a house or build a career the results you get will be absolutely amazing cumulative results if you were to pick a different problem or goal or even the same problem or goal and conduct this mindstorming exercise each morning you would generate a minimum of 20 ideas per day if

you did this exercise 5 days a week you would generate 100 ideas per week if you did this exercise 5 days per week for 50 weeks a year you would generate 5 000 ideas each year to help you to be more successful if you then selected one idea each day and took action on it immediately that would come to 250 ideas per year that you would be implementing in your life to help you move faster towards your personal and career goals the big question if you were to implement 250 new ideas each year to be

more successful do you think this would have any impact on your life would your income increase do you think that one self-improvement idea per day might change your life so dramatically that it would be unrecognizable a year from now marshall mcluhan once wrote that all you need is an idea that is ten percent new to make a million dollars or much much more it does not have to be the discovery of relativity or a major scientific breakthrough it only has to be a small improvement on what is currently being done in some field and which

gives you a competitive advantage one small competitive advantage is enough to separate you from everyone else and put you under the fast track to success when you begin using this idea and developing 20 ideas each day you will be astonished you'll become one of the most creative sales people in your field as a result you'll become one of the highest paid people in your profession once you develop the regular habit of thinking creatively and applying your creative ideas there will be no product that you cannot sell successfully and no goal that you cannot achieve now

here are seven action exercises for you one you are a genius resolve today that you will use your inborn creativity to solve any problem overcome any obstacle and achieve any goal you can set for yourself two write your most important goal at the top of a page in the form of a question write out 20 answers to that question and then take action on at least one of them do this every day three identify your areas of excellence and superiority in your product or service what makes what you sell better than any competitive alternative four

determine why your customers buy from you rather than from someone else which prospects can most benefit from what you do best five where are your very best concentrations of prospective customers decide how you are going to spend more time with them six differentiate your products or services in a meaningful way find out why people buy your product and then show them why your product is the best choice all things considered and seven get written testimonial letters from your satisfied customers highlight the best sentences and then place them in plastic pages in a three-ring binder show

these letters to every prospect theodore roosevelt said far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing chapter 5 getting more appointments makhar douglas wrote when a man has done his best has given us all and in the process supplied the needs of his family and his society that man has made a habit of succeeding the most important rule for selling success is spend more time with better prospects this rule contains just six words but it summarizes your complete strategy to selling the more time you spend

with better prospects by the law of probabilities the more sales you will make and the more successful you will be finding new people to talk to and then approaching them for the first time is one of the most challenging parts of selling all advertising promotion is designed to speed up this process or to make it easier prospecting is also the part of selling that causes the most stress and frustration more salespeople lose heart and give up what might have been a successful career because of their inability to master the skills of prospecting than for any

other reason you can learn any skill fortunately prospecting is a skill that you can learn if anyone else is good at prospecting that is proof that you can be good as well you simply need to learn the strategies and techniques used by other top people and then adapt them to your own work until you feel comfortable with them after that your sales success is guaranteed by now you have done your creative thinking and analysis of your market you've identified your major competitive advantages and your unique selling proposition you know exactly the very best type of

people to talk to what to say why they should buy from you rather than from anyone else you have loaded your gun and cocked it now you have to aim and fire this is the hard part now you have to contact either by phone or face to face or by internet a real live prospect who has never seen you before this is one of the most fearsome parts of selling until you master it the process of prospecting an ongoing analysis of your product in your market will give you a continuous stream of new prospects and

prospect groups to call on your first contact with the prospect will begin the process which will or will not conclude with the sale therefore every word of your approach or introduction must be planned in advance to accomplish the following goals break preoccupation your approach must break the preoccupation of the prospect everyone you call on is busy and thinking about other things they're completely involved in their own problems work family health business or bills unless you can break through this preoccupation with your opening words you never get a chance to make a sales presentation some salespeople

phone introduce themselves and begin talking about their product or service immediately a better way is to introduce yourself and then ask i need about two minutes of your time is this a good time to talk only when the prospect has confirmed that he has a couple of minutes to listen to you do you ask a question aimed at the result or benefit of what you are selling sell the appointment not the product never talk about your product or price on the phone unless you can actually make and conclude the sale without seeing the prospect personally

this is an important rule young salespeople and their eagerness to get appointments often blurt out details about their product in the first couple of sentences if you do this you will kill the sale the prospect does not have enough information to seriously consider your offer instead he will say i'm not interested or we're not in the market right now and you'll end up talking into a dead telephone line choose your words carefully when meeting the prospect for the first time a salesperson will often start off talking about his product while the prospect is still on

the phone signing checks shuffling papers or doing something else the prospect's mind is a thousand miles away he's not paying attention to you you may be sitting there but he is still preoccupied with everything that is going on in his life your job is to break this preoccupation before you begin speaking your first words should be the equivalent of throwing a brick through a playglass window develop an opening statement or question that gets his complete attention this sentence should always be aimed at the result or benefit that the prospect will receive from your product or

service but does not mention the product or service itself preoccupation breaking made simple many years ago there was a salesman who worked for corning glass this was the year that the company introduced safety glass for the first time this product contained a transparent plastic sheet between two pieces of glass and as a result it did not shatter the way most windshield glass did at that time this young salesman went up with his new product and within one year he became the top performing salesman of safety glass in north america at the national sales conference he

received the first prize for sales performance and was invited to share his secret with the other salespeople present they wanted to know how did you sell so much more safety glass than anyone else demonstrate the benefit he explained first of all i got the factory to cut some safety glass into six inch squares as samples then i got a ball peen hammer which i took with me on sales calls when i walked in on the prospect i would ask would you like to see a piece of glass that doesn't shatter almost invariably the prospect would

say that's not possible i don't believe it i would then put the glass sample on his desk take out the ball peen hammer and whack it he would instinctively jump and throw up his hands to protect his eyes when he looked down and saw that the glass had not shattered he would be amazed after that it was simple i would just ask how much would you like take up my order pad and begin writing teach it to everyone corning glass was so impressed with this technique that the following year they bought ball peen hammers for

all their sales people provided them with samples of safety glass and sent them out nationwide the method really worked they sold glass by the carload at the end of the year at the next national sales convention the young salesman for some reason was still head and shoulders above every other salesperson in the country once again they invited him up on the stage to receive his award as the top salesperson in the country and again they asked him what is it that you did this year to outsell everybody else get the customer into the act well

he said i knew that you were all going to use my method so i had to come up with a new technique now when i go in to see the customer i've got a ball-peen hammer in one hand and the sample of safety glass in the other i ask him would you like to see a piece of glass that doesn't shatter he usually says i don't believe it then i put the piece of glass on his desk and give him the hammer and have him hit it when he tries and fails to smash the glass

himself he is totally convinced then i write up the order well begun is half done a good opening with a strong question aimed at the result or benefit of your product can get you almost to the close of the sale a strong opening breaks the customer's preoccupation makes him fully alert and gets you his complete attention he is immediately willing to listen to you marketing guru dan kennedy has a powerful technique for testing your opening sentence when you visit a prospect for the first time he says that your opening words should trigger the response really

how do you do that for example we can provide you with glass that doesn't shatter really how do you do that your statement should immediately grab undivided attention if he or she is a genuine prospect your time is limited you only have about 30 seconds at the beginning of your meeting to get the prospect's complete attention in the first 30 seconds the prospect decides whether or not he is going to listen to you if you wander or make general conversation the prospect will grow impatient within 30 seconds he will have turned off and tuned out

it is then hard to get him back experts generally agree that the first 15 to 25 words out of your mouth set the tone for the rest of the conversation you should select these words carefully and rehearse them regularly they should not be left to chance many salespeople meet with the prospect for the first time and say to themselves i can hardly wait to hear what i have to say i wonder what's going to fall out of my mouth next this is not for you planet word for word your opening question or statement should be

planned word for word rehearsed in front of a mirror over and over and memorized you must go out and say it to a real live prospect see what kind of response you get if your prospect does not respond with interest and complete attention it's back to the drawing board you have to rework your opening question or statement until it gets the kind of reaction you want really what is it cold calling for appointments i learned about the importance of this from my own experience when i was selling sales training i would call people on the

telephone and say something like i would like to talk to you about training your people this automatically triggered responses such as we can't afford it we don't have the time to train our sales people we have our own sales training program our people don't need training sales are down right now and we can't pay for it business is bad we don't have any training money in our budget with some variation these are the same things that prospects tell us all the time rewrite and reword your opening words when i found that i wasn't getting anywhere

with my approach i sat down and studied it i spent several hours working and reworking my opening comments trying to determine how i could cold call on prospects in sales organizations more effectively i finally realized where i was going wrong and developed a strategy to compensate for it the first thing i decided was that i had to be sure that i was speaking to the right person before i made any attempt to set up an appointment who is the prospect for sales training in a business organization it was obviously the person who was responsible for

making decisions about sales training for the sales people the owner or sales manager my second question was what is the basic need or concern of my ideal prospect this too was obvious my ideal customer was not interested in sales training he was interested in higher sales volume in increasing sales results i realized that i had to ask a question that focused on that specific need the result or benefit that my ideal prospect was seeking back to the phone i began prospecting by telephone once more my first question was to the receptionist who is the person

in your organization that is responsible for sales and sales training that would be mr brown our sales manager could i speak to mr brown please and the receptionist would put me through when i got through i would say mr brown my name is brian tracy i'm with the institute for executive development i was wondering if you would be interested in a proven method that could increase your sales by 20 to 30 percent over the next 12 months what kind of response do you think i got almost every prospect answered of course what is it repeat

the key benefit i would then repeat the key benefit or hot button mr brown we've developed a method to increase your sales by twenty percent thirty percent and even fifty percent over the next few months my prospect would often say really how do you do that my response would be that is exactly why i'm calling you i just need 10 minutes of your time to show you this system and you can decide for yourself if it applies to your company and your sales people from failure and frustration in telephone prospecting i began getting appointments with

4 out of 5 and even 9 out of 10 people that i called cold out of the phone book with this simple change in my approach i did more business in the next two months than i had done in the previous year your opening question should trigger the response what is it or really how do you do that if it does not generate such a response then you need to rework the question if it is not breaking the prospect's preoccupation and getting his complete attention you must reword the question until it does sales resistance is

normal if the prospect says well i'm really not interested it means one of two things either your question is not strong enough or the person you are talking to is not a prospect for what you are selling in the first place you are probably talking to the wrong person when you open with a strong statement or question you separate yourself into an elite class of sales professionals instead of wasting the first couple of minutes talking about your product line and how long you've been in town you go straight to the subject that is of most

interest to the prospect neutralizing initial sales resistance whenever you phone a prospect for the first time you are interrupting him from something he is doing that he considers to be more important than anything you have to say everyone is busy for this reason you should always expect initial sales resistance even if you're offering the very best product at the very best price to the most qualified prospect in the world here is a simple technique that you can use to neutralize sales resistance at the very beginning when the prospect says something like thanks for calling but

i'm not interested or we're not really in the market right now you shouldn't take it seriously the prospect has no idea how good your product or service can be for him and his company his reaction is a nature automatic response to any sales offer roll with this resistance like a boxer rolls with a punch and come back with these words that's all right most people in your industry felt the same way when i first called on them but now they've become our best customers and they recommend us to their friends when the prospect hears these

words he immediately stops what he is doing and starts paying attention he will almost invariably say oh really well what is it then customize your comeback you can make these words even more powerful by being specific about the prospect's occupation you could say that's okay most people in the financial services industry felt the same way when i first called on them but now they've become our best clients and they recommend us to their friends in robert cialdini's book influence he explains the impact of social proof in building credibility and a rousing desire social proof comes

from other people like the customers who have already bought the product or service whenever we hear of someone else like us in our business or with our same interests or beliefs who has bought a product we're immediately interested in knowing what it is if lots of people like us have bought a particular product we almost automatically conclude that it is a good choice for us as well when the prospect says oh really what is it then you say that's exactly what i would like to talk to you about and i just need about 10 minutes

of your time you can decide for yourself if it's right for you frequently busy prospects will say well can you tell me a little bit about it on the phone don't sell on the phone you reply mr prospect i love to tell you about it on the phone but i have something i have to show you you need to see it personally this triggers the powerful emotion of curiosity you should immediately offer two time periods to meet would tuesday morning be convenient for you or would sometime on wednesday afternoon be better remember the purpose of

your first call is not to sell or even to discuss your product or service it is to get a 10 minute face-to-face appointment with the prospect do not talk about anything else for this appointment and absolutely refuse to discuss your product or service on the phone sidestep the excuse sometimes the busy prospect will say could you send me something in the mail or by email if you send the prospect something in the mail or on the internet the chances are very high that he will lose it forget about it or decide not to see or

talk to you at all he will feel that he has enough information to make a decision and that he doesn't have to tie up his time with a salesperson sending things via email or in the post is usually a complete waste of time and money unless you are selling from a distance when the prospect asks you if you could mail something respond by saying i would love to mail it to you but you know how undependable the mail can be today why don't i drop it off to you personally on tuesday afternoon when i'm in

the area will you be available around that time don't be put off the prospect may now make a last-ditch effort to avoid committing all right why don't you call me on monday and we can set up a specific time to get together next week if you accept this put off then when you call on monday the prospect will be in a meeting from which he will probably never emerge instead say mr prospect i've got my calendar here in front of me do you have your schedule handy prospect will always agree that he has his schedule

near at hand you then say let's set up a specific time right now if something comes up and this time doesn't work for you you can give me a call and we can reschedule would tuesday afternoon at around 3 o'clock be convenient for you when the prospect agrees to meet with you at a specific time you have made your first sale the sale that makes the real sale possible you then confirm by repeating the time day and date of the meeting plus you give the prospect your telephone number in case something comes up once this

has been done thank the prospect repeat the time date and place of the meeting and say thank you you are really going to like what i have to show you face to face with the prospect your first selling task is to get the prospect to listen to you before the prospect will relax and listen to you she wants to be sure five things she may not say it or ask for these five factors by name but they are essential if you want to get a fair hearing first she wants to be sure that you have

something important to communicate that is why you go straight to the result or benefit of what you sell in the first sentence if what you are offering is relevant to her life or work you will have her complete attention second she wants to be sure that you are talking to the right person since your product or service usually solves a problem of some kind she wants to be sure that she is the one with the problem or need that you can solve or satisfy fortunately you've already qualified this prospect when you got through to her

via the receptionist you already know that you are talking to the right person but if you have any doubts at all ask her are you the person that i would talk to about increasing sales in your organization are you the one with whom i should speak about cutting your costs of information processing or are you the person to talk to with regard to the specific need or a problem within your organization remember you do not sell a product or a service you sell a solution to a problem or the satisfaction of a genuine need you

must initially find the person who has the problem or the need only then can you begin talking about helping her get the benefits of what you are selling there is no point in doing a wonderful sales presentation to someone to whom your product is of no interest or who is not in a position to make a buying decision always be sure you are talking to the right person third at least initially the prospect wants to be assured that your visit will be short people are extremely busy today they are often overwhelmed with problems and responsibilities

they become nervous and negative if they think that someone is going to take up a lot of their time you must therefore assure them right away that you are only going to take up a couple of minutes to tell them about the benefit that you have mentioned in your opening question fourth the prospect wants to be sure that she will be placed under no obligation if she meets with you this is why you say i have something to show you and you can judge for yourself this takes the pressure off the prospect and often determines

whether you get the appointment or the continued meeting in the first place fifth the prospect wants to be sure that you will not use high pressure the two most common fears of prospects with regard to salespeople are the fear of being pressured and the fear of being taken advantage of by approaching the prospect with a positive polite and friendly attitude you take these fears away you cause her to relax and listen to you more closely you have to accomplish these five goals at the beginning of your conversation and often on the phone with a new

prospect just to get the appointment there's a method for doing this that i have taught to thousands of salespeople when they've used this method it has often revolutionized their results in getting appointments either by telephone or while cold calling begin with a well-structured question when you finally get face to face with a new prospect introduce yourself shake hands sit down and begin by asking a well-structured question this is often an interesting or unusual question aimed at the benefit of what you are selling questions are powerful because each person is conditioned from childhood to answer questions

when they are asked if you ask a person what time it is before he can think of anything else he will look at his watch and tell you the time people respond automatically to questions this is why we say in selling that the person who asks questions has control the person who's asking the questions controls the person who is answering the very fastest way to take control over any conversation is to pause and ask a question until the other person has answered your question he will be totally focused on what he is saying when you

ask the prospect may i ask you a question he will almost always say yes you will then be in complete control continue asking questions good questions trigger good responses when you ask the prospect would you like to see a proven method to increase your sales by twenty to thirty percent per year the prospect cannot say anything else until he has answered the question the questioner is in control in all my years of opening a call with a prospect using this question i've only had one person who has said no i'm not interested and the reason

he wasn't interested was that the receivers in his bankruptcy had just come in and closed the company down he said on the phone it's too late for us i wish you had called me six months ago but every other sales manager to whom i have asked that question has said yes what is it when would you like to come in and talk your question should trigger this response as well the second step in this method of getting face-to-face appointments is to be courteous and say i would just need about 10 minutes of your time to

show you what i've got and you can judge for yourself the essential point to convey is you be the judge this assures the prospect that the meeting will be brief he will be under no pressure and you have something important and relevant to share with them refer to other happy customers in most cases even with the best opening question prospects will be reluctant and resistant to making an appointment with you to overcome this resistance the most powerful technique is to refer to other satisfied customers who are already using your product if you are calling on

a printing company and you've already sold one of your products to another printing company tell them another company in your industry abc printing services is already using this product and is getting great results because of the power of social proof this often changes a negative or neutral prospect to positive and triggers a desire to see you and learn about what other people in that industry are already doing build the credibility of your product when i was selling sales training i would say hundreds of companies are already using this process and are reaping great results it's

proven practical and completely guaranteed and i just need 10 minutes of your time to show it to you and you could decide for yourself anyone can give you 10 minutes they may not be able to give you half an hour before the month after next but they can give you 10 minutes right away if you have something that is of interest to them be professional at all times it's important that you don't make the mistake of offering the prospect of two specific times such as would 10 30 this morning or 11 20 tomorrow morning be

best for you this is an old manipulative method of getting appointments that customers have heard so many times if you use it you hurt your credibility even if the prospect is interested in your offering he may lose interest if he feels that you are trying to manipulate him this is the time when you must be pleasant positive and persistent offer the prospect a choice of general times like around 10 on wednesday or three in the afternoon on thursday if neither of these times will work for the prospect ask when would be a convenient time for

you the person who asks questions has control confirm the appointment once you have made an appointment the job is not done it's only beginning before you go off to a pre-arranged appointment always call to reconfirm this is a mark of top professionals many people are afraid to call and confirm because they fear that the prospect will cancel the appointment so they just show up at the scheduled time often however the prospect has been called into a meeting or out of town sometimes he or she is sick or has had an emergency a large number of

pre-arranged appointments fall through for reasons over which you have no control there are two ways to confirm an appointment the first is to call through to the prospect and tell him that you will be there at the scheduled time and are looking forward to seeing him this gives the prospect an opportunity to reschedule if something has come up that conflicts with your meeting another way to confirm an appointment is simply to call the receptionist and ask is mr brown there when the receptionist says yes you then say good this is brian tracy i'm just calling

to confirm my appointment with him at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning please tell him that i will be there on schedule thank you very much if for any reason your appointment is cancelled move immediately to reschedule at a specific time using the techniques that i explained earlier in this chapter i've often set up and confirmed appointments at a specific time several weeks in advance it's amazing how many of these pre-arranged appointments come off on schedule and how much business eventually comes from them manage by exception the prospect will often say i'm not sure that i'll be

in town on that day could you call me back in a few days or next week to set something up when you hear this you immediately respond with mr prospect i know how busy you are but let's manage by exception we'll set a firm appointment now and if anything comes up later we can change it at that time be polite but be persistent once you have an opportunity to speak to an interested and qualified prospect you must be insistent on nailing down a specific time to meet with that prospect human beings are strongly affected by

their expectations if they expect to learn or benefit from meeting with you they will be looking forward to your appointment if there is a need to reschedule they will usually call you if you have set it up correctly at the beginning your chances of making a sale once you get face to face with the prospect increase by 10 or 20 times or for a telephone or email discussion once the prospect has an opportunity to meet you see you look you in the eye and realize that you are a knowledgeable professional person is much much more

likely to take you seriously improve your telephone prospecting there are two things you can do to improve the quality of your telephone prospecting the first is to stand up when you speak to the prospect when you stand up you align all the energy centers of your body the strength and tone of your voice will sound stronger and more confident you'll have more energy you will sound more believable and authoritative the second thing you can do is smile into the phone when you speak surprisingly a smile can be felt on the other end of the line

people also know when you are not smiling or even worse when you are frowning many salespeople with whom i work actually set up mirrors on their desks and smile into them when they're talking on the phone to their prospects when you combine standing up with smiling you project greater energy and sincerity it is often the extra push that you need to get the appointment over the phone keep the initiative never expect people to call you back no matter how honest or intelligent they sound you as the salesperson must maintain the initiative until you get the

first face-to-face appointment don't let people put you off for any reason and then expect them to get back to you at a later time because they are so busy they will never get around to it even if they are interested in what you sell remember rejection is not personal initial sales resistance is not personal either when the prospect says that he is not interested or that he is already satisfied with his current situation it doesn't mean anything it is a normal and natural response to your call don't take it personally practice mental rehearsal here's one

of the most important success secrets of all in the psychology of selling it involves the way you prepare mentally immediately before going in to see the prospect especially for the first time stop for a few seconds and create a clear mental picture of yourself as completely relaxed calm positive smiling and in complete control of the interview then inhale deeply filling up your lungs and putting pressure on your diaphragm hold this breath for a count of seven and then exhale for a count of seven while you are breathing deeply continue to hold a picture of yourself

as the very best salesperson you could possibly be create a clear mental picture then just before you go in to see the prospect create a picture in your mind of the prospect responding to you positively see him or her nodding smiling agreeing and enjoying your presence and your conversation you can increase the power of metal rehearsal prior to a sales meeting by remembering a previous successful sales call think about the best sales call that you have had recently think about how much you enjoyed talking to the prospect how positive the prospect was and especially the

presentation ending with the sale remember the feelings of happiness and satisfaction that you got from that transaction then transfer the same feeling to the mental picture that you have created for yourself and the prospect you're about to see this exercise will amaze you it will smooth out your whole personality by breathing deeply relaxing and visualizing you'll be fully prepared to perform at your best talk to yourself positively don't forget to use the technique we covered earlier the use of positive affirmations especially if you feel a little tense repeat to yourself strongly and emphatically the words

i like myself i like myself i like myself say i love my work i love my work i love my work help yourself warm up and prepare mentally by repeating i feel happy i feel healthy i feel terrific it's not possible for you to talk positively to yourself using words like this without immediately feeling happier and more confident when you walk in to see the prospect the prospect will feel the positive energy coming from you always prepare for a sales meeting by breathing visualizing and affirming in advance it will make all the difference in the

world set the stage immediately when you meet with the prospect shake hands firmly and say thank you very much for your time you're really going to enjoy what i have to show you when you build positive expectancy you get him interested and make him curious he begins saying to himself i wonder what it is when you are smiling confident and positive you project this to the prospect and create a high level of anticipation in what you have to say expect to be welcome sometimes your prospect has had a bad morning ever since she arrived she

has been deluged with phone messages emails and complaints the coffee was cold her employees are sick or unhappy and her boss is mad then you come in the prospect thinks thank heavens here's a nice pleasant intelligent positive looking person who's got something interesting to tell me many people feel this way you could be the highlight of the entire morning or afternoon when you are pleasant and smiling they will be happy to see you refuse to talk standing up when you arrive at your appointment sometimes a busy prospect will come out to meet you in the

reception area and ask you to tell them about your product but you should refuse to make your presentation standing up if you do you run the risk of devaluing your product or service no one buys a product or service standing up refuse to sell it that way remember the adage everything counts unless you sell in a showroom nobody considers a product or service of any value if you're willing to talk about it and try to sell it standing up instead say what i have to show you is really important and i just need about 10

minutes of your time if the prospect does not invite you to sit down to discuss your offering say if you don't have the time right now perhaps we could schedule 10 minutes at a later date when it would be more convenient for you but refuse to discuss your product or service standing up the basic rule is this if the prospect cannot buy your product standing up don't try to sell it standing up respect your product the same is true for the telephone if your prospect cannot buy what you are selling over the phone don't try

to make it over the phone sale if the prospect cannot buy and pay for it through the mail don't try to sell it through the mail if selling your product requires your being there physically then insist on being there personally to make the sales presentation people don't make buying decisions standing up they make buying decisions sitting down where they are comfortable in their offices or their homes they make buying decisions after listening considering reflecting and looking at your material they only buy after they have evaluated reviewed and decided that the benefits you offer are worth

more than the price you charge now here are seven action exercises for you number one determine exactly the number of prospects you must call on each day and each week to achieve your sales and income goals number two spend eighty percent of your time prospecting until you have so many people to see that you do not have time to call anyone else three write out your script for telephone prospecting memorize it and practice it continually until it sounds natural and relaxed four ignore initial sales resistance when you prospect focus on the result or benefit of

what you sell and refer to other happy customers who already use it five keep the initiative nail down the exact time and date of your first appointment with the prospect six refuse to talk about your product or service or the price on the phone focus single-mindedly on getting a face-to-face meeting nothing more and seven prepare thoroughly for every sales meeting do your homework on the internet if possible so that you look and sound like an absolute professional when you meet the prospect for the first time as mark kane said meticulous planning will enable everything a

man does to appear spontaneous chapter 6 the power of suggestion earl nightingale said whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become a reality human beings are greatly influenced by the suggested elements in their environments especially the human elements the suggested influence of a calm confident relaxed salesperson is very powerful this is why the most successful sales people are usually those who are the most tranquil and easy going they're usually well dressed well groomed and professional looking in every respect top sales people have a calming soothing effect

on customers they have confidence in themselves and in their product or service as a result we feel confident in listening to them we feel convinced about the things they say and about the product or service they offer external environment each person is strongly influenced by his physical environment as well your environment has a tremendous impact on how you think feel and behave small changes in your environment can bring about immediate changes in the way you react and respond to what is going on around you for example normal room temperature is about 70 degrees fahrenheit but

if you raise or lower this temperature by 5 degrees it can dramatically change your level of comfort in the amount of attention you give to what is being said if you are too hot or too cold your discomfort will lead you to be irritable and demanding and impatient the people around you in your suggestive environment perhaps the most powerful influence of all is the people that you deal with you are very strongly influenced by the way people respond to you and behave when you are around them much of your reaction to other people is initially

subconscious everyone is experienced meeting a person and instantly having a negative or positive reaction to him or her even before a word has been exchanged the reason for this instant assessment is that your previous experiences with many other people are stored in your subconscious mind as part of your permanent memory bank when you meet a new person your subconscious connects the dots and gives you an instant assessment of that person based on your previous experiences you respond subconsciously to other people customers respond subconsciously to you everything you do prior to the sales presentation and everything

about you when you meet the prospect either increases or decreases the quality of the suggestive environment and determines whether or not you make a sale your internal environment there are several suggestive influences that you can control the essentials are your appearance your voice and your attitude if you look good your voice is clear and confident and your attitude is calm and optimistic the initial impact of your presence will make a positive impression on the prospect fortunately you can control your physical appearance in almost every respect you can dress professionally groom yourself attractively and control your

posture your goal at all times is to look on the outside as if you were one of the very best people in your field practice your selling you can assure that your voice is strong and clear by practicing your presentation aloud in front of a mirror professional actors spend many hours walking talking gesturing and delivering their lines before a mirror exactly as if they were attempting to project their voices to the back row of the audience then when you are with a prospect you simply turn down the volume while maintaining the same confidence and energy

this has an inordinate suggestive influence on the mind of the prospect be positive and cheerful you can control your attitude making sure that it is upbeat and confident by using the mental rehearsal techniques already mentioned you can visualize yourself regularly as one of the top sales professionals in your field before you go in to see the prospect you can talk to yourself positively repeating i'm the best i'm the best i'm the best you can stand erect with your back straight in your chin up you can look the prospect in the eye and shake hands firmly

you can come across as a positive prepared professional salesperson in every respect dress for success one of the turning points in my sales career came when a friend of mine took me aside and asked me if i'd ever read anything about the proper close to where when i met with a customer i came from a family where no one ever wore a suit and no one ever told me about the importance of dress in business but i was a ready student my friend explained a few things about dressing for success in business later i bought

a series of books on the subject and studied dress extensively what i learned was that 95 of the first impression you make on a prospect will be determined by your clothing prospects are visual prospects are intensely visual the visual impact of your clothes strikes the prospect like a wave hitting a breakwater and exerts a strong subconscious influence on that prospect the way you look on the outside is considered to be an expression of the kind of person you are on the inside when you are well dressed and groomed the customer unconsciously assumes that you come

from a good company and that your product or service is of good quality when you look the part of a top salesperson at the first meeting the prospect takes you more seriously and is more open to your sales message who makes the most money over the years in more than a thousand seminars with more than a million salespeople i have noticed that the best dressed sales people are always the one making the most money in their fields whenever a well-dressed salesperson talks to me it's immediately evident from his confident attitude that he is making excellent

money in his field on the other hand i see countless salespeople who have no idea that they are sabotaging themselves and their sales each morning when they leave the house dressed poorly the tragedy is that no one has ever taken them aside and explain to them how important appropriate business dress is to success worse no one wants to criticize a salesperson by telling him or her that his or her dress is not appropriate everyone knows but no one says anything every person should read at least two books on proper business attire and then follow their

advice religiously remember in dress as well as in all other aspects of selling everything counts it is either helping you or hurting you it either adds or detracts your dress either moves you toward the sale or moves you away dress is one of the most powerful of all suggested influences in selling the friendship factor one of the most notable truths in sales which i have already addressed briefly is this a person will not buy from you until he is convinced that you are his friend and acting in his best interest another point in robert chialdini's

book influence is the importance of liking in sales success if a prospect likes you the details will not get in the way of the sale but if the prospect is neutral or negative towards you the details will trip you up every step of the way and often make a sale impossible the first unspoken question a customer asks when he meets you for the first time is do you care about me if you don't answer yes in the first minute or two the customer will quietly lose interest in doing business with you he may sit politely

through your visit in your presentation but at the end he will thank you for coming in and tell you that he will think about it we like to deal with people to whom we feel friendly we set the stage for this relationship in the first few seconds of the first conversation and with the first few words hair care the focus of the sales conversation should be on the face of the salesperson for this reason grooming is of the essence the rule is that nothing about your grooming or your dress for that matter should distract from

the message that you are there to deliver you've heard the saying birds of a feather flock together or like attracts like the fact is that we'd like to deal with people and buy from people who are similar to us in as many respects as possible we feel more comfortable with people who dress the way we do groomed the way we do have the same attitudes and opinions that we have and so on the more you harmonize your appearance so that it is in keeping with the way people look in the customer's environment the less resistance

the customer has to listening to you and doing business with you one of our greatest desires is to feel comfortable in a personal or business situation everything you do that increases the level of comfort of your prospect also increases the likelihood that you will make a sale to him or her long hair short sales record some years ago a young salesman approached me at a seminar and asked me for advice on increasing his sales i saw immediately from his long shaggy hair what his problem was when i asked him about his business he told me

that his primary customers were business people in offices he had a good product at a good price but he wasn't making very many sales the reason for this was immediately evident to me i told him that he wanted to be more successful in selling to business people he would have to cut his hair he flared up and said that his hair length should not make any difference he liked to express his personality by wearing long shaggy hair over his collar i explained to him that he could wear his hair as long as he wanted but

he was trading long hair for sale success immediate action immediate results fortunately he was a good student he went out and got his hair cut but only a little bit nonetheless his sales increased almost immediately so he cut his hair even shorter again his sales increased noticeably he finally went all the way and got a conservative business-like haircut his sails jumped he was able to move out of his parents house get a car and begin creating a good life for himself he was delighted but alas he began to think that his success was solely because

of his great product and exceptional personality he reverted to his old ways and started growing his hair longer and longer and as his hair grew longer his sails slowed down once more when his hair was once more over his collar and he looked like a shaggy dog going from prospect to prospect he ran out of money and had to move back home with his parents the last time i saw him he still had long hair he wore old clothes and he had holes in his shoes he trudged from appointment to a point with a little

hope and even less success presenting your product your product or service should always be clean neat and presented in its best possible light people are strongly influenced by the suggested impact of a product that is colorful and attractive prospects are negatively influenced by product materials that are dirty dingy peppered with coffee stains or sloppy and disorderly always take the time to assure that your sales materials look excellent in every respect remember people are highly visual what they see has an inordinate impact on the opinions they form of you your product or service and your company

practice your presentation your sales presentation should be well organized practiced and complete with all details as much as eighty percent of the value of your product or services far as your prospect is concerned will be contained in the quality of your presentation if your sales presentation is random and wandering the prospect will consider your product or service to be less desirable or attractive if your presentation is crisp and well ordered and moves step by step in a logical process the customer will assume that your product your service and your company are equally ordered and efficient

a professional sales presentation can dramatically increase the perceived value of what you are selling and simultaneously lower price resistance pleasant surroundings your surroundings should always be clean orderly and emanating success and prosperity when people come to your place of business they should immediately get the feeling that this is a successful organization everything should be tidy and in its place in our advanced coaching programs we train successful entrepreneurs to make changes in the images they present to their customers the results our clients have achieved are often astounding recently a couple with a small business complained that

though they were quite successful in getting prospects to come to their office for an initial sales interview afterward the prospects went away and never came back these two very talented people were constantly working on upgrading and improving their sales presentation and materials but to no avail something they were doing or failing to do was costing them an enormous amount of business upgrade your offices it turned out that they had started their business working out of their home when they decided to move from their home they rented an inexpensive office and set it up with used

furniture just as i had not known how to dress properly as a salesperson they did not know how to lay out a business office because no one had given them any advice their office looked cheap and second hand when prospects came in in response to their sales and marketing activities their first impression was that this was a second rate company the office looked and felt low budget no matter how positive and cheerful they were in dealing with their customers prospects could not get over the negative suggestive impact that the appearance of the office was having

on their subconscious minds they left and never returned take immediate action our coaching classes are held every 90 days once this couple understood the importance of the visual impact that their offices were making on their clients they resolved to completely redecorate get new furniture put in new carpets hang art on the wall install a professional music system and have fresh cut flowers in their reception area they went back and implemented these ideas immediately when they returned to the coaching class after 90 days they were bubbling with excitement their closing ratio had jumped from about five

percent to about 50 percent they had tripled their sales and profitability they were absolutely amazed at the impact that their attractive and well-appointed offices had on their prospects they received countless compliments from their new customers on how beautifully their offices were laid out they had more than paid for the cost of redecoration within 30 days from additional sales and profits work from a clean desk one of the rules of office etiquette is keep your desk clean when you have a neat desk in an orderly office you look like a successful person on the other hand

when your desk is cluttered with all sorts of things you look confused disorderly and incompetent people conclude that it would be unsafe to do business with you you should have only one thing on your desk at a time the one item that you are working on at the moment everything else should be put away in drawers on the credenza behind you or in files you can even clear your desk by putting everything in a stack and putting the stack on your floor behind the desk but keep your desk clean double your productivity i have found

that people who work from a clean desk are two or three times as productive as those who work from a clutter desk when you work from a clean desk you can focus and concentrate on one thing at a time when your desk is cluttered you are constantly arranging it rearranging papers and work most of the time you are unsure where everything is you spend an enormous amount of time going back and forth getting little done single focus is the key to high productivity and a clean desk is the key to single focus create an impression

of value when you look like a total professional well-dressed and well-groomed and your sales presentation is organized efficient and effective the customer gets the unconscious feeling that you are selling a valuable product that is worth every penny you charge as the customer's confidence in you and your company increases his or her price resistance declines first-class companies represented by first-class people find it much easier to charge higher prices than their rate competitors the way you see is the way you will be to succeed you must see yourself as a complete professional in every respect treat yourself

and your customers as if you one of the best educated and most knowledgeable people in your business think of the behavior of an accountant or management consultant in each case these professionals do not start off talking to you in a random fashion they have a series of questions that they ask you in order they seek a specific quality and quantity of information that they request from you in a systematic way and the more they focus on asking that series of questions about you and your situation the more confident you feel in doing business with them

you are a world-class professional imagine yourself as a doctor of selling the more time you spend asking your patient logical intelligent and well-organized questions the more he feels that he is in the presence of a professional his initial sales resistance and skepticism decline his confidence in you increases he relaxes and opens up he realizes that you are there to help him solve a problem or achieve a goal he begins to work with you rather than hold back from you walk the talk body language is also important in selling according to albert morabian of ucla the

message you convey in a sales conversation is 55 body language 38 tone of voice and only 7 percent in the words you use because people are highly visual they are most affected by the predominant message that you convey and this is usually communicated by the way you hold and use your body when you walk imagine that your head is dangling from a string holding your entire body erect you should breathe deeply with your shoulders back and your spine straight raise your chin and look straight ahead walk and move with strength and confidence pick up the

pace don't shuffle along move fast as if you have places to go and people to see your overall physical impressions should be one of a busy active confident and effective sales professional shake hands firmly and fully when you meet people give a strong full firm handshake this initial physical contact can often make or break the sale for you when people feel your hand they measure your character when your handshake is strong and firm they assume that you have good character and by extension represent a good product or service some sales people that i meet give

weak in different handshakes as if offering a cold fish others especially women give a half handshake offering their fingers instead of a full handshake this suggests that you are dealing with a half person not long ago a gentleman came up to me at one of my seminars and asked me why he was having so much trouble in his sales work he was quite proficient at getting appointments over the phone but immediately after meeting the prospect in person for the first time the sales conversation seemed to deteriorate something you can't hide as soon as he shook

hands with me i knew the problem he was originally from india from a culture where people did not shake hands when they met as a result when he held out his hand to a prospect his grip was weak and sloppy the prospect immediately lost interest in him and his product and he could sense it no one had ever told him this he had no idea how important a firm handshake was in initiating a business contact in our culture he had thought that shaking hands was merely a formality that had no meaning when he learned that

a handshake was important he began to practice giving full firm handshakes to everyone he met he wrote to me later and said that his sales had jumped from the very first week that he began practicing this new technique the proper greeting someone once wrote a letter to miss manners asking if the proper greeting upon meeting a new person was pleased to meet you or how do you do miss manners replied by saying that the correct reading is how do you do humorously she added that you do not say pleased to meet you because you don't

yet know if you are when you meet a prospect for the first time offer your hand look the prospect directly in the eye and say how do you do this initial contact is like the kickoff in a football game if it is done properly it can move you a long way down the field toward the goal posts of a successful sale sit erect facing forward when you sit in a sales situation always face the prospect directly never lean against the back of the chair this makes you look relaxed and uncaring about the purpose of your

visit instead sit with your back erect lean slightly forward stay alert and be fully engaged both physically and mentally in the sales conversation you should look like a runner at the mark waiting for the starting gun interestingly enough we are greatly influenced by the body language of the people to whom we speak when you were sitting up straight leaning forward and aware of your surroundings you caused the prospect to be more interested and aware as well he or she will pay closer attention to you and be more involved in your sales message at an unconscious

level the prospect assumes that what you have to say is important and valuable that individual will therefore pay closer attention to you than if you were lean back and relax during the sales conversation get the prospect to open up if a prospect is sitting with his or her arms folded this is usually not a good sign occasionally it is because the office is too cold but in most cases it is a sign of disinterest when a person's arms are folded it usually means that his mind is closed folded arms are an unconscious body language way

of blocking out incoming information when he unfolds his arms he opens his mind get the prospect to unfold his arms it is fortunately quite simple to open the client up to your message begin by asking questions if he does not relax and unfold his arms hand him something physically like a brochure or price list to read ask him to calculate a number or give you a business card use your ingenuity to get those arms unfolded so that he is more open and receptive to you in your message use positive body language cross legs can be

sending the same message when a customer's legs are crossed it usually means that he is holding back information if his legs are crossed at the ankle it means that he is not telling you everything that you need to know in the process of mirroring and matching your prospect will tend to mimic your own body language when you deliberately keep your arms unfolded and your hands open with your feet flat on the floor ankles uncrossed your prospect will often engage in the same body language when you lean slightly forward listen attentively to what the prospect is

saying nod smile and listen the prospect will often engage in the same behaviors he or she will soon begin speaking asking questions and listening more attentively as well minimize noise and interruptions people can only concentrate on one thing at a time this is why it's so important to minimize the noise and distractions in the environment while talking to a prospect try to ensure that there are no interruptions if you are in your prospect's place of business and there's a lot going on around you ask if you can move to a location where you can speak

for a few minutes without interruptions say mr prospect i only need about 10 minutes of your time is there somewhere we could sit where we wouldn't be interrupted you'll be happily surprised at how many prospects will immediately agree to this avoid barriers to communication when you sit with the prospect try to avoid barriers like tables or desks if the prospect is sitting behind a desk ask him if you could sit together at a table where you can more easily show him the material that you have brought with you i have never had a prospect refuse

to get up and move if a salesperson asked him to do so in a polite and pleasant way when you sit next to a prospect always have the individual sit on your left this way when you turn the pages of your presentation material it's easy for the prospect to see everything you are doing when you ask the prospect to move and he agrees he begins the process of responding to your reasonable requests this moves you closer to the point at which you can ask for the sale selling in the home when you are selling in

the home there are certain special psychological dynamics to which you must pay attention first of all never make a sales presentation in the living room people do not make important business or family decisions in the living room they make them in the kitchen or at the dining room table these are the places where they talk about business matters that affect them even though you are invited to sit in the living room say instead why don't we sit at the kitchen table where we will be more comfortable then stand the suggested influence of a professional salesperson

standing up waiting to be led to the kitchen or dining room table is very powerful and almost unresistable wait to be seated when you get to the kitchen or dining room table wait for them to show you where to sit each person has a favorite chair at the table where they sit each day you must be sure that you do not seat yourself in that chair when you sit at the table make sure that you can maintain eye contact with both people when you ask questions and explain your product continually alternate the person you are

speaking to so that both people feel fully involved in the presentation always be polite finally with regard to etiquette whether in a place of business or at home never forget your manners always be courteous and considerate with prospects their employees their spouses and with other people in the office when you go to your appointment at a place of business always treat the receptionist with courtesy and respect treat everyone as if he or she was really important and valuable behave toward each person as if he or she is a million dollar customer or has the potential

to become one the reward for treating people well perhaps the greatest benefit of all from treating people well is this whenever you do anything to raise the self-esteem of another person your self-esteem goes up to the same degree when you are polite and respectful you like and respect yourself more while causing other people to like and respect themselves more at the same time the more you practice these critical suggestive elements in selling the more powerful positive and confident you become and the higher your sales will be now here are seven action exercises for you number

one remember everything counts take complete control of every factor that your prospect sees hears feels and does plan in advance number two visualize yourself as a doctor of selling as a world-class professional thoroughly knowledgeable with an excellent product or service three dress for success pattern your dress after the most successful and highest paid people in your business look like the kind of person that a customer can confidently take advice from four be courteous with everyone you meet from the receptionist through to the secretary and customer always be positive and cheerful number five practice mental rehearsal

before every sales call imagine yourself as calm controlled optimistic and completely relaxed the way you see yourself is the way you'll be number six do everything possible to avoid noise or distractions of any kind when you are talking to a prospect have him move if necessary so he can concentrate on you and your product and number seven walk erect chin up shake hands firmly and confidently carry yourself as if you are the best in your field as success magazine said by visualizing your goals you can get your subconscious mind to work toward making those subconscious

pictures come true chapter 7 making the sale norman vincent peale wrote any fact is not as important as our attitude toward it for that determines our success or failure everything you do in the sales process from the first contact through to the close of the sale and the delivery of the product or service has an effect nothing is neutral everything either helps or hurts nothing can be left to chance it all counts the first words out of your mouth begin the process that leads to either a sale or a rejection when you meet a prospect

for the first time his or her level of sales resistance is at its highest in fact all prospects have what is called generalized sales resistance at the beginning of any meeting with any salesperson under almost any circumstance this is a normal natural part of living in a commercial society it's a form of self-defense self-defense against sales messages the average customer is exposed to perhaps 3 000 commercial messages a day from all sources from the time he gets up in the morning he is bombarded with sales messages on the radio television billboards and store signs in

newspapers and magazines on internet and telephone calls and mail solicitations everywhere he turns there are advertisements shouting by this to survive in a commercial society a person must develop a high degree of sales resistance first he must filter out most of these messages ignoring them if for no other reason than to be able to function effectively second he must be able to resist direct sales approaches from salespeople like you or he will end up buying everything that is offered to him as a professional learn to expect this generalized sales resistance in your first meeting and

to deal with it effectively the approach close one of the most helpful ways to begin a sales conversation is with the approach close when you successfully this close can get the prospect to agree to make any decision after you have made your presentation rather than his saying something like well let me think it over or i need to talk it over with someone you can ask for a decision one way or the other you reduce initial sales resistance by saying mr prospect thank you very much for your time please relax i'm not here to sell

you anything right now that's not the purpose of my visit if you deliver this opening statement with a smile the prospect will relax a little it will still be suspicious but not as much as before you then say all i want to do in the time we have together is to show you some of the reasons why so many other people have bought this product and continue to buy it all i ask is that you look at what i have to show you with an open mind determine whether or not it applies to your situation

and then tell me at the end of our conversation whether or not this product makes sense to you is that fair with this approach closed you're offering an exchange you're saying i won't try to sell you anything if in exchange you will listen with an open mind a fair exchange almost without fail the prospect will agree to your offer he has nothing to lose in fact he is now curious to know why so many other people have purchased your product and continue to purchase it his mind is open and he is prepared to listen to

you there is a very strong suggested element involved in this close you are suggesting that the product is already popular and being used by a great number of people all that is being asked to the prospect is that he agree or disagree that the same reasons that other people are using what you sell apply to him you then begin your sales process by asking questions to find out what he is already doing and how your product or service might apply to his situation like a doctor of selling you conduct a thorough examination to uncover needs

that the prospect has that your product or service can satisfy once you are clear about the prospect's situation and needs you can present your product as the ideal solution to his needs at this time all things considered at the end of your presentation you have the psychological advantage ask for an answer if the prospect says well i have to think it over you can respond by saying well mr prospect i appreciate that but you promised you would tell me one way or the other if this applied to your situation or not you then say and

after what you've told me it seems that this is ideal for you at this time unless there is something else that i don't understand this forces the prospect to give you a reason for hesitating or objecting in either case this allows you to answer the objection and go on to selling but when a prospect ends with i want to think it over there's nothing you can do you cannot continue selling unless you have an objection that you can answer by using this approach close you force the prospect to give you an objection which you can

probably handle you can use this approach closed with virtually any product or service when you suggest that large number of customers have already bought this and continue to buy it you build a high degree of positive expectancy right at the beginning you trigger the prospect's curiosity you get him to listen to you with an open mind and to give you any reasons that might cause him to hesitate at the end rather than putting you off with let me think it over the demonstration close this is a powerful closing technique that you can use early in

the sales conversation it often sets up the conditions necessary for you to make a sale at the end of your presentation the demonstration close starts with a strong question aimed at the chief result or benefit that the customer would enjoy when he buys your product and simultaneously qualifies the prospect when i was selling mutual funds this method was very effective i would open with the question mr prospect if i could show you the best investment available in the market today are you in a position to invest five thousand dollars right now change the focus of

the conversation this question changes the whole nature of the conversation it is no longer will you listen to me but rather how much are you capable of investing if i can fulfill the promise contained in my opening question the prospect might say yes if the investment is as good as you say i could invest five thousand today you could further qualify the prospect by saying if you really liked it could you invest ten thousand or more the prospect can either say yes or no in either case you are qualifying the prospect more narrowly and determine

exactly what its financial situation is even before you begin talking about your product or service let's say the prospect says i don't think i have five thousand dollars you can then ask well could you invest three thousand if it was the best investment that you've ever seen the prospect might then say well if it was as good as that i could probably invest three thousand the qualified prospect with these questions you have qualified the prospect exactly in terms of his financial capacity by answering your question he has now given you permission to give your presentation

and to prove whether or not you have the best investment or the best deal or the best offer or the best combinations of features and benefits or the best of whatever it happens to be that you offered him in your opening question you can then give your presentation and demonstrate that what you are offering is absolutely excellent for him right now all things considered at the end of your presentation he cannot say that he can't afford it or that he doesn't have the money right now or that he has to talk it over with someone

else he has already agreed that if your product or service is an excellent choice for him he's in a position to buy it at this time it works with any product you can use this demonstration close to begin the sales process for virtually any product or service you can use it to sell software and systems business opportunities or financial investment advice insurance or business services if you're selling life insurance for example you could ask mr prospect if i could show you the most comprehensive insurance policy available to protect yourself your family and your home and

perhaps the lowest available price on the market today would you be in a position to make a decision right now when i was selling sales training to businesses i would ask mr prospect if i could show you a way to increase your sales by twenty to thirty percent over the next six to twelve months are you in a position to go ahead with it right now if the prospect says well yes if you can show me a way to increase my sales by twenty to thirty percent i could make a decision immediately your job then

is to show the prospect that your product or service will definitely deliver on the promise you made in your opening statement you can demand an answer the beauty of the demonstration close is that it forces the prospect to view an answer at the end of the presentation instead of saying that he needs to think about it or talk it over with someone else or check his finances or some other excuse he has promised to give you an answer immediately one way or another buyer personality types there are six basic personality profiles that you will run

into every day and selling it's important that you recognize these different personality styles and that you learn how to deal effectively with each one one the apathetic buyer the first personality type you will meet in selling is the apathetic prospect this type of buyer represents about five percent of the total he's the kind of person who's never going to buy anything no matter how good it is he is usually pessimistic cynical and often depressed or uninterested the apathetic buyer doesn't care how good it is how cheap it is or how successful it is for other

people he's not going to buy even if you give it away you run into apathetic buyers occasionally they usually have a lot of problems in their own personal and business lives they are down on themselves down on life and down on you they have so many problems they just don't care what you have to offer even if you're offering an apathetic buyer a 100 prize for five dollars he wouldn't take it they waste your time a friend of mine was once selling an excellent product for 295 dollars the person with whom he was speaking was

perfectly qualified to buy it and use it he needed it and he could afford it but he was an apathetic buyer no matter what my friend said this customer replied by saying it's too expensive it's too expensive it's too expensive finally in exasperation the salesperson asked him what if i gave it to you for two hundred dollars it's still too expensive my salesman friend said how about 100. the apathetic buyer said i still couldn't afford it finally my friend said how about five dollars i still wouldn't buy it this is the typical apathetic buyer they

just don't care they are negative and indifferent when you meet these people you will recognize them right away instead of tiring yourself out with them extricate yourself as politely as you can and leave go and talk to someone else who will be more likely to buy two the self-actualizing buyer on the other end of the scale of buyer types you find the self-actualizing buyer the self-actualizing buyer is exactly the opposite of the apathetic buyer these buyers also represent about five percent of the customer market the self-actualizing buyer knows exactly what he wants exactly the features

and benefits he is seeking and exactly what price he is going to pay for it if you have what he is looking for he will take it immediately right now with few or no questions he is positive pleasant and a pleasure to deal with all you have to do is have the product or service he seeks and the sale is made these buyers are rare the self-actualizing buyer like the apathetic buyer is rare never more than one in 20 prospects but if you call on enough people every so often you run into one of these

self-actualizing buyers and the sale is so easy that you say to yourself if i could sell like this all the time i'd be rich in dealing with self-actualizing buyers always sell them exactly what they say they want don't try to sell them something else or something different and don't change the specifications you might give them some additional information but don't try to talk them into something other than what they have their hearts set on if you don't have what they want tell them immediately that you don't have it and suggest to them where they might

find it three the analytical buyer the third type is the analytical buyer this person represents about 25 percent of the market this type of buyer is self-contained and task oriented he is not particularly outgoing but he is quite concerned about accuracy and detail the primary motivator of the analyzer buyer is accuracy you will find these people in any field that requires detailed orientation to be successful there will be accountants engineers bankers financiers loan officers and computer specialists the primary focus of their questions to you will be the exact numbers details and specifications of what you

sell slow down and be exact when you are dealing with an analytical buyer you must slow down and avoid generalizations be specific and clear be prepared to prove on paper everything you say the more precise you can be about the benefits of your product or service and how this customer can acquire them the easier it is for this person to eventually make a buying decision the more detail you give him about how your product works what it costs how it performs how it will be serviced and so on the happier he will be these buyers

love details they can sit and study details charts and graphs for hours analytical buyers do not make decisions in a hurry they are slow to make up their minds they need to be left alone with your material to reflect on it and analyze it they will often come back to you with a series of questions for clarification there's no point in trying to rush these people they're far more concerned about making the correct decision than they are about saving money or speeding up the transaction number four the relator buyer another customer you will deal with

is the relationship oriented person these represent approximately 25 percent of the customer market depending on what you sell they tend to be self-contained and not particularly exuberant or expressive you have to slow down and relax to get along well with them relators are very concerned about people they are sensitive to how people think and feel about various subjects in considering a product or service they're concerned about how people might react or respond to their choices they imagine what people's opinions might be positive or negative and they're often hypersensitive to the opinions of other people relators

naturally gravitate toward the helping professions they become teachers personnel administrators psychologists nurses and social workers they need to be liked this type of customer worries about what people might think if the relator bought a particular product or service she always has to talk it over with someone often with lots of people sometimes she has to ask every member of her family plus her friends and associates before she can buy a new product or service the primary motivation of relators is to get along well with others they strive for harmony and happiness among the people around

them and become distressed at the thought of someone being unhappy for any reason focus on other happy customers when you're selling a product or service to a relator she will ask you a lot of questions about others who use the product she will want to know if the product will be popular and accepted by the other people who will be affected by her purchase she wants to be sure that others will find it attractive and suitable if you're selling her a home her primary concern will be the likely reactions of other people when they see

and visit the home when you sell a relator clothes or cars her main interest will be how other people respond to her choices build a relationship relators like to talk and ask questions about you and how you think and feel they like to talk about the product or service and how other people have reacted to buying and using it they want to develop a relationship with the salesperson until they feel comfortable talking about your product or service in the first place when you deal with a relator or an emotional buyer she may want to spend

an hour or two getting to know you and then have you come back and spend another hour or two to build a relationship she wants to feel comfortable with you so that she can get her mind around you and the product or service that you are offering don't rush them relator type buyers tend to be slow in making up their minds they are generally hesitant and indecisive they like to think about things a lot they can decide to buy your product and then change their minds completely if one other person voices criticism or disapproval of

their decision you must develop the ability to be patient sensitive and thoughtful when dealing with relationship oriented buyers number five the driver buyer the fifth type of buyer is more task-oriented than any other kind he has the personality profile of the director he is direct impatient and wants to get straight to the point he is business-like and practical his greatest concern is getting results because the task focused buyer is impatient and outgoing he will be direct and to the point with you he will want to know what your product is what it does what results

he will get how much it costs how sure he can be that your product or service will deliver on your promises and how long it will take get straight to the point a driver buyer does not like small talk and he has no interest in developing a warm relationship with the salesperson he wants to get to the bottom line quickly and make a decision yes or no results or task focused persons gravitate to those occupations where this temperament is most in demand they become entrepreneurs hard driving sales people and sales managers they become senior executives

in positions where they are directly responsible for measurable results they are fire chiefs and the heads of swat teams they are people who get the job done fast and do it well they are busy and preoccupied task focused buyers are busy you are interrupting them and keeping them away from something that they consider to be more important than you they want you to cut to the chase quickly they don't want a big build up about how your product or service was conceived and designed they only want you to answer the question what's in it for

me this type of buyer is a pleasure to deal with if you can demonstrate that your product or service will get him the results that he wants like all buyers he seeks improvement and the clearer it is that your product or service will improve his life or work the faster he will give you a yes answer task focused buyers are decisive and clear they know what they want and if you have it they will want to get it and begin using it immediately when you deal with a buyer like this you must speed up your

presentation get to the bottom line quickly and focus on the specific results or benefits that he will enjoy if he buys from you this type of buyer represents about 25 percent of potential buyers depending on what you sell six the socializer buyer the sixth type of buyer is the socializer type buyer this person is outgoing and extroverted he likes working with and through people to get results he's often called the integrated buyer and that he operates with a nice balance between people orientation and task orientation this type of buyer gravitates toward fields that require a

high degree of coordination among different types of people to get the job done they become supervisors managers and executives as well as orchestra conductors senior administrators in large professional firms presidents of non-profit organizations and other positions where the ability to coordinate a variety of people to accomplish goals is necessary the socializer is achievement oriented because of his extroverted socializer type nature the chief concern of this person is himself and other people he likes to talk about you as well as himself he likes to talk about achievement and results he enjoys telling you what he has

done in the past and is very interested in knowing about you and what you have accomplished sometimes the socializer buyer agrees too quickly and does not remember details he might agree to do something with you or buy something from you and a few days later forget about it completely or even worse he will remember the conversation differently and will be surprised at your interpretation of your meeting with him put it on paper when you deal with this kind of extroverted outgoing buyer as soon as you reach an agreement of any kind you should write it

down and get a copy off to him send him an email remember with this type of buyer understandings prevent misunderstandings this type of buyer represents about 25 percent of the customer market you can always tell when you meet a socializer type buyer because he will be warm friendly outgoing interested in you and will ask a lot of questions different strokes for different folks most successful sales people tend to be either socializers or directors or a combination of these two styles a relator type salesperson would usually be too sensitive to the opinions of others to ever

ask for the order or try to close the sale an analyzer type salesperson would be so concerned about details and information gathering that he would never call on a prospect if he did call on a prospect he would be far too concerned about getting more information for the prospect than he would be in asking for the order the great problem in sales is that we all tend to see the world through our own eyes as a result we tend to treat everybody else as if they are the way we are if you're a socializer you

will treat everyone else as if they are also socializers if you are a director type salesperson you will be blunt and to the point and expect people to make quick decisions once you have shown them good reasons to buy personal flexibility to achieve success in sales you must develop personality flexibility this requires that you take a few moments to assess the type of prospect you are talking to and adjust your personality accordingly if you're talking to a relator slow down ask a lot of questions and focus on the relationship take the time to help the

prospect understand how your product or service will be appreciated and accepted by others who will be affected by it don't rush the person or try to get her to make a quick decision by going slowly and patiently you will eventually succeed with a relator type buyer when dealing with an analyzer again you must slow down and concentrate on details take time to answer every question preferably in writing be specific with regard to your claims in your conversation allow silences and give the prospect an opportunity to think about what you have said be patient polite and

persistent give the customer what he wants in dealing with a director type buyer you must get straight to the point even if you are a socializer and you like to talk and get to know people you must hold this tendency in check while dealing with the driver instead answer his questions directly and focus on the bottom line result that he will get from using your product or service the more convinced the driver is that your product or service will help him in a short period of time the faster he will make a buying decision when

dealing with a socializer be positive and open when the prospect begins talking about personal or business matters that have nothing to do with your product gently bring the conversation back to focus on the reason for your visit when the prospect agrees to go ahead write the sale up quickly and get a signature as fast as you can otherwise he might forget or misremember take time to observe and analyze others before you begin to sell figure out what type of person you are talking to and then structure your answers and your presentation in such a way

that it satisfies their needs rather than yours even better develop four separate sales presentations the analyzer thinker the relator people person the director driver and the socializer achievement type of buyers be prepared to slip in and out of different sales roles as you find yourself dealing with different types of customers moving right along the true beginning of the sales process is after the salesperson has established a certain degree of trust and rapport with the prospect trust is the major factor in the sales process today until a person likes and trusts you is not open to

what you are selling or how good it can be for him and his company trust is everything the bigger the product or service the longer it usually takes to develop this feeling of trust and rapport with large products or services the entire first meeting can be taken up with feeling each other out and sensing whether or not there's a good fit between a salesperson and the company the way to build trust the very best way to build trust in a sales relationship is to ask the prospect questions and listen carefully to the answers the more

you show that you are genuinely interested in the prospect and his situation the more the prospect will be open to giving you information and accepting your recommendations and never even start talking about your product or service until you've activated the friendship factor you have to develop a bond of friendship before you can bridge into the development of a customer relationship customers are careful in selling expensive sophisticated products with a long life and installation time it will often take three or four visits just to reach the point where the relationship is strong enough that you can

talk business seriously it's not uncommon for the sales process to require six months or more of meetings and proposals before the customer feels comfortable enough to make a large long-term commitment be patient there's a good reason for this caution and delay in many cases the prospect's reputation and even career can be on the line if he makes the wrong buying decision for his company it can cost him his job he can be demoted or even fired for this reason he cannot afford to make a mistake begin qualifying early use the approach close or the demonstration

close in your first interaction with the customer this enables you to qualify him immediately the answer to one or both of these questions tells you at the beginning whether or not he is in the market for your product if i could show you exactly the car you are looking for at perhaps the best price in the city would you be interested in taking it for a drive if the prospect says no i just bought a car and i won't need another one for a few years then you know that this person is not a prospect

there's no point in trying to establish a high quality relationship and understand more about her situation she is not in the market the purpose of the presentation your opening question is to discover whether or not a person is a prospect for what you are selling the purpose of subsequent questioning is to further qualify the prospect and to discover the key reasons why he might buy each product contains a variety of features and benefits features arouse interest but benefits arouse buying desire the saying goes the purpose of the presentation is to explain the features that your

product or service includes and to demonstrate the benefits that they offer to your prospect in a way you're a bit of a detective you're looking for clues that will lead you to the sale you are presenting features and benefits for the purpose of eliciting buying interest on the part of the prospect you are watching and listening to uncover reasons why he would buy present one feature benefit at a time the process of your presentation is not to show all of the information available on your product or service it is to show one feature or one

benefit at a time and to find out which of these benefits are of greatest interest to your prospect if you have 10 features and benefits listed in order of descending importance from the most attractive benefit your product offers down to the least unveil your features and benefits in that order if your prospect brightens up and becomes intensely interested when you mention your second most desirable benefit you can then focus on that and even start moving toward closing the sale conclude the sale once it's clear that your customer most desires a particular benefit that your product

or service offers you don't need to go through numbers three through ten when you have found the hot button begin focusing on that specific benefit showing the customer how he can enjoy that benefit when he buys your product the prospect says in response to a particular point in your presentation wow that's great i've never seen that before we need that around here how long does it take to get something like that delivered when this happens you can ask for the order immediately you don't need to go on talking any further simply say how soon would

you need this and close the sale buyers are sometimes ready now one of the top mutual fund sales people i ever met had spent years developing his sales presentation it moved from the general to the particular it included every benefit that an investor could enjoy from a mutual fund by the time the presentation was complete it included 32 different points at which he could close the sale what he told me was that every prospect is either very close to buying when he meets the salesperson for the first time or very far away actually most prospects

are somewhere in between some prospects only need one or two reasons to say yes other prospects require a much longer sales process before they're ready to buy his sales presentation was designed to be effective with any prospect he met at any stage of the buying cycle ask for the order early sometimes he could close right at the beginning with a highly qualified prospect in his mutual fund presentation he would start by asking a question such as would you like to see a way to get the highest return on your money with the lowest possible risk

in the market today if the prospect says yes my friend would take out a piece of paper and draw two circles he would say mr prospect these two circles represent what you can do with your money if you put your money into the first circle into a traditional savings account you can earn three to five percent on your money before taxes isn't that right but if you put your money into the second circle into a well-managed mutual fund you can make 10 to 15 percent on your money and pay no taxes on the money until

you withdraw it which of these two would you prefer often if not always the prospect would say well i would rather get 10 to 15 percent of my money the salesman would say great why don't we get started right away take action to close the sale he would then take out an application form write the date on the upper right hand corner and ask what is the correct spelling of your last name when the prospect gave him the spelling of his name the sale was made he would then go on to wrap up the details

and conclude the transaction this salesman eventually became one of the most successful and highest paid people in his field in the country keep the initiative sometimes the prospect would say wait a minute wait a minute i need some time to think about this he would immediately say may i ask how much money do you have in your savings account today about five thousand dollars my friend would then say mr prospect which do you think is best three to five percent or ten to fifteen percent well i guess ten to fifteen percent is better his prospect

would respond exactly do you have your checkbook with you he would then simply assume the sale and begin filling out the form the prospect would have to stop him to keep the sale from going through he seldom did what he found was that in dealing with a qualified prospect he could roll into the close of the sale as soon as the prospect made it clear that he wanted the primary benefit that he would get from buying the product what we have found over the years is that many sales are delayed far longer than they need

to be because salespeople are reluctant to ask for the order and bring the transaction to a close selling tangibles versus intangibles closing the sale on a tangible product requires a different method than closing on an intangible product when you have made a presentation on a tangible product such as a car a photocopier a cellular telephone or a refrigerator and the prospect has no further questions you should ask for the order immediately when the prospect fully understands what you are selling how it works and how he or she will benefit from owning and enjoying it it's

time to close the sale when you've completed your presentation the prospect knows everything that he will ever know about buying and enjoying your product or service he will not learn anything new or different after you leave or he leaves this is the high point of the sales presentation from this point onward the customer will gradually forget the features and benefits of the product and gradually lose his interest and desire in purchasing be polite but persistent if the prospect says well it looks pretty good let me think it over you can immediately reply by saying mr

prospect at this moment you already know everything you'll ever know about this product from what you told me it looks like an excellent choice for you why don't you just take it you'll be absolutely amazed at how often the prospect will say well okay i'll take it but if you give the prospect an opportunity to walk away and think it over chances are the prospect will gradually forget why he was ever attracted to your product or service in the first place even worse the prospect will run into another salesperson who's a little bit more assertive

and will end up buying your product from the other person this happens all the time no more callbacks when i was a new salesman just starting out i was selling a discount card from office to office for about 100 local restaurants the price was 20 dollars whenever the owner of the card showed it at a restaurant he would get 10 to 20 off the bill the card would therefore pay for itself in one or two uses it was a simple product a simple benefit a simple decision and a simple sale but when i went out

selling i was really nervous i would make my presentation and then wait the prospect would invariably say well let me think it over i would thank the prospect very much and promised to call back on him in a few days after he had a chance to think it over surprise surprise nobody ever thought it over and nobody bought the card when i phoned the prospect was never available if i went back to his office i was left sitting in the waiting room indefinitely i was making almost no sales and i was getting desperate the light

went on one day i had a revelation i realized that it was me who was causing prospects to hesitate from buying i already had decided in the back of my mind that people needed to think it over i would even suggest if the prospect was hesitating why don't you think it over but from that day forward i developed a new tactic after i had given my presentation and the prospect said well let me think it over i would say i'm sorry i don't make callbacks i remember the first time i said this to a prospect

he was surprised he said what do you mean i told him mr prospect you know everything you need to know to make a decision today this is a great product that pays for itself in one or two uses after that you can save five or a hundred times the cost of the card why don't you just take it to my surprise the prospect said okay that makes sense i'll take it i walked out with a whole new attitude towards selling and closing on my next call i did and said the same things and again got

a sale on my third goal it was the same soon i was selling more than anybody else in my company and more than most of them put together i sold to virtually every person i spoke to because i refused to make callbacks think about how this might apply to your selling as well intangibles are different if you're selling an intangible product where the prospect may or may not be in a position to benefit from the values contained in your offering you usually need to make more than one call on the first call you merely separate

prospects from suspects you ask questions and qualify the prospect to determine whether or not he can benefit from what you sell you find out his exact needs and then arrange to return for a second appointment with some recommendations and perhaps a written proposal use the sales two-step in selling an intangible product such as insurance policy and investment or any kind of service that requires customizing and tailoring to the specific needs of the customer use the two-step sale on your first call you ask questions to determine if the prospect can benefit from your product or service

on the second call you return with a proposal or recommendation complete with prices and terms and show the prospect how he or she can most benefit from what you are selling the reason you use a two-step sale when selling a more complex service is because you're not in a position to make a buying recommendation in the first call you do not have enough information nor do you have sufficient rapport and trust to ask for the order prior planning prevents poor presentations one behavior that separates highly paid professionals from poorly paid amateurs in the sales profession

is the plan presentation the planned presentation is 20 times more powerful than the spontaneous presentation all sales professionals in the top ten percent use a planned presentation the low money earners those in the bottom eighty percent of salespeople simply say whatever comes out of their mouths when they meet with customers this is not the path for you the plan presentation is a step-by-step process of learning and teaching it begins with your opening question from your opening question you move through the process of learning the situation and needs of the prospect to teaching the prospect what

your product does and what it can do for him you move from the general to the particular from the knowing to the unknown show tell and ask questions the simplest process is a feature and benefit presentation a simple format you can use for every feature and benefit is the three parts show tell and ask questions for example if you were selling a new piece of computer software you show the prospect the software loaded onto the computer you would then tell the prospect how the software can improve his business finally ask a question would this be

helpful to you in your business three-part presenting another three-part method of presenting your product uses the structure because of this you can which means these three parts are the product feature the product benefit and then the customer benefit which is the real reason why the customer will buy for example if you are selling a flat screen television that hangs on the wall you could say because of this flat screen the product feature you can see from every angle product benefit which means that you can turn your living room into a theater for your family and

friends the customer benefit list every feature and benefit of your product or service and then write out both types of presentation show what it is tell what it does and then ask for feedback or approval explain the product feature the benefit of that feature for the product and then the benefit to the customer of both you'll be amazed at how much more persuasive your presentations become what your product does there are two different approaches to presenting any product or service one used by the professionals and the second used by amateurs the first approach used by

highly paid professionals is to focus on what the product does the second approach used by low paid amateurs is to focus on what the product is in reality all the customer cares about is what the product does what's in it for him in selling to businesses the primary reason that anybody buys anything is to either make or save time or money these are the answers to what your product or service does when you speak to business people they're only concerned with the end result the direct measurable outcome that they will get from giving you money

for your product or service four questions you must answer business people ask themselves four questions you must answer these questions clearly and distinctly if you're going to make the sale the questions are one how much do i pay two how much do i get back three how soon do i get these results four how sure can i be that i will get the results you promise your entire sales presentation must revolve around answering these questions to the prospect's satisfaction often you'll have to build a case for buying and using your product or service very much

like a lawyer presenting a case in court you will have to present one piece of evidence after the other in sequence with each feature and benefit leading to and reinforcing the next feature and benefit emotion or logic sometimes i ask my audiences what percentage of a person's decisions is based on emotions and what percentage is based on logic almost everyone will say that people are 90 emotional and only 10 logical but the correct answer is that people are 100 emotional thinking takes time and effort but emotions are instantaneous as i discussed earlier this is why

in sales prospects decide emotionally and then justify logically if a prospect feels good about you and your company if he likes you and respects you if you have a good relationship then the power of liking will very often lead to the sale logic makes sales nonetheless no matter how much the prospect wants your product emotionally he still must be convinced logically that he will get the emotional benefits that he desires as the saying goes logic makes sales when you build your presentation from the ground up moving from point to point offering specific benefits and then

explaining logically how the prospect achieves those benefits your sales presentation is built on a solid foundation once the customer decides to buy he'll remain sold afterwards rather than having misgivings or buyers remorse here's an example of how i used to sell sales training beginning with the emotion the desire to increase sales results and then reinforcing it with the logical reasons why this was achievable my opening question would be mr prospect would you be interested in seeing a way to increase your sales by twenty to thirty percent over the next six to twelve months if the

prospect was responsible for sales and qualified he would say sure what is it i would respond mr prospect this is a proven methodology that has worked for hundreds of companies to increase their sales and is unconditionally guaranteed if it doesn't work it costs you nothing this would immediately relax the prospect and enable him to open up and listen to me with great interest ask logical questions mr prospect who are your highest paid sales people are they the ones with the highest levels of motivation or the lowest levels of motivation the prospect would always say my

top people are the most motivated i would say great that's what everyone says let me tell you what i think is the best definition of motivation it is this motivation comes from an enhanced feeling of competence in other words mr prospect people are the most motivated when they feel they are the most capable of getting results isn't that true the prospect would almost always agree mr prospect what we have found is that the more you train your people with proven sales skills and techniques the more motivated they are to use them to make more sales

and more money for themselves does this make sense to you again the prospect would almost always agree mr prospect what we have found is that when we train people with these advanced selling skills their sales go up immediately more important once they have these new skills they can use them over and over to get even better results and the more they use these skills the better they get at them does that seem sensible give measurable benefits mr prospect if your average sale increased just 10 percent in the first month they would probably continue to increase

throughout the entire year isn't that right again the prospect would agree mr prospect if your sales went up steadily from the first month throughout the entire year they would easily increase 20 to 30 percent on average how much would that mean in terms of total dollars to your bottom line if you increase your sales 20 to 30 percent over the next 12 months the prospect would quickly calculate that his return on investment in sales training would easily be one thousand percent or more for every dollar he spent on sales training he would get back 10

or more to his bottom line once the prospect had made this calculation it was quite easy to close the sale guarantee satisfaction whenever possible my closing argument would be mr prospect if anyone who takes this course does not feel that he or she will get a 10 or 20 percent increase in sales by using these ideas there will be no charge for that person if you personally do not feel that your people will get a 10 or 20 percent increase in sales by using these ideas there will be no charge for the entire program how

does that sound using this presentation going from the general to the particular focusing on the benefit but emphasizing the logical financial benefit for the prospect i was able to sell millions of dollars worth of sales training and because the sales methods and techniques were so powerful and effective there were never any requests for refunds or rebates you can design your sales presentation so that it achieves the same kinds of results price comes last interestingly enough it was only when i had closed the sale and gotten an agreement to conduct our sales training program that the

prospect would suddenly become alert and ask wait a minute how much is this going to cost when you have designed and given your sales presentation effectively the question of price will only come up at the end after the decision to buy has been made in fact if the prospect asks you how much it is going to cost before you have finished showing him what he will get and what your product or service will do for him refuse to give the price put off the question say that's a good question i'm going to get to that

in a moment here's a wise proverb from the world of sales price out of place kills the sale if you give the price too early before the customer knows what the price is for he will often become preoccupied with the amount you are going to charge rather than the benefits he's going to receive always delay discussion of pricing until the end of the presentation when the prospect clearly wants to enjoy the benefits that your product or service offers learning and teaching continually in a good presentation during the process of learning the teaching you learn what

the prospect needs and you teach him how he will get it from the product or service that you are selling as you go through your presales presentation asking questions and inviting feedback you'll learn more and more about what the prospect really wants when your presentation is well planned it has an irresistible logic and flow when you reach the end of your presentation the prospect should be ready to buy what you are selling this is why the real close takes place in the presentation when you have made a good presentation and the prospect is convinced that

your product is going to give him benefits that far outweigh the costs then it's simply a matter of wrapping up the details at the end of the presentation take the time to be perfectly clear before you can begin your sales presentation you must be absolutely clear about the specific needs of this particular prospect and how your product or service can satisfy those needs in this qualification phase the very best way to elicit these needs is by asking planned open-ended questions that elicit specific information listening is the key to building trust to learning the true needs

of the prospect it's also the key to establishing a high quality relationship in fact listening is the key to sales success one of the greatest needs that each person has is to feel important to be appreciated and esteemed by other people listening has been called white magic because of its enormous impact on influencing the emotions and personality of the other person become a great listener there are five keys to effective listening you can attend every course read every magazine article and watch every video on listening and they will still boil down to these five keys

number one listen attentively first listen attentively without interruptions listen without any attempt to leap in and share your own ideas face the prospect directly lean forward not smile and agree be an active listener rather than a passive listener focus on the mouth and eyes of the prospect when he is speaking here's a good exercise imagine that your eyes are sun lamps and you want to give your prospect's face a tan as you listen keep moving your eyes up and down over your prospect's face hanging on every word as if he or she were about to

give you the winning lottery number and she would only give it to you once listen as though you have all the time in the world listen as if you would still be here if she wanted to talk for eight years and you would love to hear every single word she says listening affects people when a prospect is intensely listened to he experiences specific psychological changes his heart rate goes up his blood pressure goes up his galvanic skin response increases most importantly when a person is intensely listened to his self-esteem goes up he feels more valued

he likes himself more and as a result he likes the person who is listening to him so intently listening is the most powerful of all techniques in selling all of the highest paid sales professionals are described as very good listeners they seek first to understand then to be understood they concentrate all of their attention on understanding the thoughts feelings and needs of the customer before they make any attempt to sell two pause before replying second pause before replying or continuing when the prospect finishes speaking pause and wait for three to five seconds before you answer

even if the prospect has asked you a question to which you know the answer you must still discipline yourself to pause for a few moments there are three benefits to pausing first when you pause you convey to the prospect that you are carefully considering what he just said this tells him that you value him and his words what he has said is too important for you to respond too quickly as a result you raise his self-esteem and self-respect you make him feel better about himself and by extension better about you the second benefit of pausing

is that it allows you to hear the prospect at a deeper level of mind it's almost as though words soak into your mind as water soaks into the soil when you allow silence after the prospect's words you actually understand what he or she really meant much more than you would if you replied immediately the third benefit of pausing before replying is that you avoid the risk of interrupting the prospect if he is just reorganizing his thoughts and preparing to begin speaking again allow silence in the conversation salespeople must become comfortable with silence this is critical

to selling success most salespeople are a bit impatient sometimes nervous and eager to make the sale as a result they feel that they have to say something in anything when a silence develops during the sales conversation remember the saying selling takes place with the words but the buying takes place in the silence customers need time to process the sales conversation if you do not allow silence which permits what is being said to soak into their minds they cannot process your sales message at the end of your time together they will have no choice but to

say leave it with me let me think it over and when they say this you have in all likelihood lost the sale completely three question for clarification third question for clarification never assume that you know what the prospect really meant by what he just said instead pause and then ask the question how do you mean this is one of the great all-purpose questions for sale success no matter what the prospect says or no matter what his objection you can always follow it up with how do you mean it costs too much how do you mean

we can't afford it how do you mean we're happy with our existing supplier how do you mean we don't have it in the budget how do you mean each time you ask the question how do you mean the prospect will expand on what he just said he will give you more detail and each elaboration increases the likelihood that he will tell you what you need to know to help him to make a buying decision questions equal control let me repeat this all important principle in selling and communication the person who asks questions has control people

are conditioned to respond to questions from early infancy when you ask a person a question he or she almost automatically gives you an answer when you are talking at about 100 to 150 words per minute the prospect can process words at the rate of 600 words per minute this means that the prospect has three quarters of his time available to think of something else while you are speaking very often prospects drift off into their own thoughts because they have so much thinking time available to them when you are given your presentation but when you ask

a question one hundred percent of the prospect's attention will be focused on answering you it's almost as if you grabbed the prospect by the lapels and jerked him towards you when you ask a question the prospect cannot think of anything else but the answer until it is given giving you the control four paraphrase it in your own words feedback what the prospect just said in your own words paraphrase the prospect's comments or questions this is known as the acid test of listening when you can feedback what a customer says you prove to the customer that

you are really paying attention you are not just like one of those toy dogs in the back of a car window with his head nodding up and down you were really listening only after you have listened attentively paused before replying question for clarification and fed it back in your own words are you in a position to comment intelligently or to make a sales presentation listening builds trust and the very best way to get an opportunity to listen is to control the conversation with questions number five use open-ended questions earlier we covered the use of open-ended

questions these are questions that cannot be answered with yes or no whenever you ask a question beginning with the pronouns or adverbs who why where when how what and which you encourage the prospect to talk and give you more information that can help you to make the sale closed-ended questions use closed-ended questions to bring the conversation to a conclusion these are questions that can be only answered with a yes or no closed-ended questions always begin with verbs such as are is and do are you ready to make a decision today is this what you are

looking for do you want to get started right away remember to design your sales presentation around questions that you have planned in advance as you have already learned telling is not selling presentation methods your presentation should always move from the general to the particular in a logical order use what is called the ascending close with this you present your product features and benefits in the order of importance from the most to the least usually your most powerful benefit will arouse buying desire but this is not always the case be prepared to walk through your features

and benefits remaining alert and aware of the prospects reactions sometimes your third or fourth benefit will be what interests your prospect more than anything else get the prospect involved get the prospect involved and keep him involved cause him to move a prospect who is sitting there like a lump of stone either reacting or responding is not likely to buy when you have finished your presentation the very best sales people are active in the sales conversation not only do they talk but they move use their faces and gesture with their hands they pass the prospect information

and take it back they ask him to calculate numbers and percentages ask the prospect to sit somewhere else don't be afraid to pull your chair around the prospect's desk and sit next to him while making your presentation even better get the prospect to move to a table or to another office where there's more room for your materials as you present your product the more a prospect talks and moves in a sales presentation the more likely it is that he will agree to buy at the end of your presentation use visual aids to sell use visual

aids whenever possible there are 22 times the number of nerves from the eye to the brain as from the ear to the brain if all you are doing is talking the prospect will have a hard time paying attention or remembering anything that you say use pictures graphs illustrations and even financial comparisons on paper to reinforce and drive home your key points the average attention span of an adult is about three sentences once you have spoken three sentences in a row without asking a question showing a picture or giving an illustration the prospect becomes lost in

his own world he will be busy thinking about what he will do when you leave but as soon as you ask a question you jerk the prospect awake and force him to focus his entire attention on your presentation when you use illustrations combined with questions you keep the prospect totally involved throughout your presentation telling is not selling there's that adage again that's because your most effective way of presenting is by taking every important piece of information you have to convey and rephrasing it as a question instead of saying this costs 295 per person you say

do you have any idea how much something like this normally costs per person once you have asked it as a question you will have the prospect's complete attention when you answer the trial close begin using the trial close very early in the presentation it's one of the most powerful of all closing techniques and it can be used throughout your selling work sometimes it is called the signpost close or the check close you use it to find out if you are on the right track or to check if what you are talking about is important to

the prospect it's a wonderful way to get feedback continually throughout the presentation the beauty of the trial close is that it can be answered with a no without stopping the presentation you do you like this color prospect no i hate it it's the worst color i've ever seen you no problem we've got lots of other colors that you would like better ask for feedback some of the most popular trial closing questions that you can ask are does this make sense to you so far is this what you had in mind do you like what i've

shown you up to now would this be an improvement on your current situation are we right so far this new photocopier will produce 150 copies a minute versus the standard of 100 copies per minute would this be important to you and your business no i don't think so we never need to produce a large number of copies in a short period of time no problem this machine has several other features that i think you will really like and then you go on with the presentation feedback is essential when the prospect says no to a particular

feature or benefit he's giving you valuable feedback he is not saying no to the entire offer he's only saying no to that particular feature the difference between experienced salespeople and inexperienced salespeople in this area is that experienced salespeople present one feature or benefit and then ask for feedback they make sure that they understand what the customer is thinking at each state of the sales presentation inexperienced salespeople out of nervousness present every feature and benefit one after another without hesitating or stopping to get feedback at the end of the presentation the customer has gone into overload

and has no choice but to say leave it with me let me think it over the power of suggestion close you can use the power suggestion closed throughout the presentation to plant seeds of readiness in the customer's mind people think and make buying decisions largely based on stories and word pictures people take in information in a logical form but your brain can only hold a certain amount of data however your brain can hold millions of pictures and stories the very best salespeople are those who continually paint emotional word pictures about their product word pictures create

images in the customer's mind these images often trigger emotions such as buying desire long after the presentation the prospect will forget all the facts you gave but will still remember clearly the pictures and stories create word pictures for example imagine that you are selling a car you can say you are really going to love the way this car handles in the mountains what happens when you say this the prospect sees and thinks about the car driving through the mountains he or she instantly transports into driving this car around curves with forests and lakes on either

side if you're selling homes you could say you're really going to enjoy living on such a quiet street it's just beautiful here there's not a sound in the evenings it's so relaxing when you describe a house like this the individual immediately reaches out mentally and emotionally for the benefits when his friends later ask why he bought this particular house he'll almost invariably talk about the house in terms of how quiet the neighborhood is your responses when i was working as a sales consultant for a residential real estate company we developed a powerful telephone question that

doubled the number of people coming in to look at houses in the business of residential real estate companies place advertisements in the newspapers for homes for sale inviting prospective buyers to phone for more information in most cases prospective buyers will telephone ask for the very best price and terms available for that house and then hang up too often the real estate company won't even get a chance to meet and talk to these people answer questions with questions rather than giving facts and details on the home we taught them to answer inquiries with a simple question

thank you for calling may i ask you a question are you looking for an ideal home in a quiet neighborhood this question was carefully formulated when the person answering the phone ask this question it immediately triggered two mental pictures in the mind of the prospective buyer the first metal picture was his or her personal definition of an ideal home this picture is different for each person but the three words instantly caused the caller to visualize what he or she personally considered to be an ideal home the second picture this question triggered was the scene of

a quiet neighborhood the two pictures in combination invariably elicited the answer of course do you have something that fits that description the real estate agent would say well as a matter of fact we have two houses that have just been listed that you might like to see they aren't even in the newspapers yet when would you have time to take a look at them this simple approach using the power of suggestion close more than doubled the flow of prospects coming through this real estate office once prospects had come in and gone out to visit homes

with one of the real estate agents they typically stayed with that agent until they had found the type of home they were looking for talking past the sale close in conjunction with the power suggestion close you can use the talking past the sale close this method is very simple you talk to the prospect as if he has already bought the product or service you don't even ask him for a buying decision you simply talk about how much he's going to enjoy the product or service now that he owns it for example the prospect is considering

retaining the services of your company you say you're going to love the type of service that you get from our company when you place an order it's confirmed within 30 minutes and out within three days faster than any other company in the business this immediately creates a mental picture of speed and efficiency in the customer's mind the customer projects himself into the person of a satisfied customer and sees himself enjoying the benefits you just described you're really going to adore living in this neighborhood even though it's quiet and peaceful it's close to schools shopping and

the freeway to get to work this is a good choice with this photocopier in your office it will sit over there in your staff room producing a hundred copies a minute and it will be so quiet that you won't even know it's on in every case prospects become customers when they have a clear exciting emotional word picture of themselves enjoying the benefits of the product or service that you are selling your job is to create as many exciting pictures as possible of the customer benefiting from what you sell the more of these pictures you can

create the more irresistible your offer becomes top sales strategy one of my graduates is a top salesperson for a recreational vehicle dealership she sells rvs that cost as much as 500 000 each she outsells her competitors both at her own dealership and throughout the state by three to five times she is a superstar in her field and she has a simple technique to achieve this goal when a couple comes in to look at a recreational vehicle she first qualifies them to determine that they are serious buyers she then shows them several vehicles to determine what

size and price range they are interested in finally she arranges to take them out for a combination lunch and test drive in the vehicle that they seem to like the most a couple of days later as prearranged she arrives at their home driving the vehicle she has them make themselves comfortable inside and then she drives them to an idyllic spot in a park overlooking the lake with the mountains in the distance she swings the vehicle around so that this beautiful scene is facing the couple as they sit at the kitchen table she then takes out

a picnic basket lays out a beautiful luncheon and serves it to them as they sit looking at the mountains after lunch and after answering all their questions she says isn't this a beautiful way to live wouldn't you just love to be able to get away in this vehicle any time you wanted the couple looks at her looks at each other looks out over the mountains in the lake and the decision is made she sells more recreational vehicles than anyone else in her industry and for good reason now here are seven action exercises for you number

one plan every sales presentation in advance design it so that it moves from the general to the particular from the knowing to the unknown starting with your most attractive benefit two ask trial closing questions throughout invite feedback and responses after every feature or benefit three take the time to determine the buyer personality style of the prospect you are talking to make note of the questions he or she asks these are good indicators number four practice flexibility with your prospects and customers speed up or slow down be general or specific so that you can sell to

more diverse people five create emotional mental pictures of how happy your prospect will be while owning and using your product or service six design each part of your presentation to show tell and ask questions about each feature and benefit you present keep the prospect involved and active seven become an excellent listener ask good questions listen without interrupting pause before replying and feed it back in your own words to prove that you fully understand the prospect's situation augmentino wrote the only certain means of success is to render more and better service than is expected of you

no matter what your task may be chapter 8 10 keys to success in selling hw dresser wrote be true to the best you know this is your high ideal if you do your best you cannot do more the top twenty percent of salespeople earn eighty percent of the money the top five percent or ten percent of salespeople earn vastly more than that your goal is to become one of the very best and highest paid people in your profession fortunately this is easier than you might think success is predictable one of the turning points in my

life was when i learned about the law of cause and effect this law says that for every effect such as high income there is a specific cause or causes if you do what other successful people do you will eventually get the same results that they do in the remaining part of this program i would like to pass on to you some of the causes or reasons for great success the more of them you practice the better results you will get once you learn these ideas you can practice them time and time again the more you

practice them the less effort will be required for optimum results you will move on to the fast track in your sales career number one do what you love to do all truly successful highly paid people including salespeople love what they do you must learn to love your work and then commit yourself to becoming excellent in your field these two go together like a hand in a glove invest whatever amount of time is necessary pay any price go any distance make any sacrifice to become the very best at what you do commit to excellence join the

top 10 percent excellence is a decision sadly enough the majority of people will often spend their entire lives in selling and it will never occur to them that they should commit themselves to becoming excellent in doing it the good news is that you do not have to be the best in the world to live an extraordinary life success in sales goes to the person who's just a little bit better in the critical areas of selling if you take the time and make the effort if you really put your whole heart into what you're doing and

learn to love the profession of selling you will move into the big money ranks of sales professionals self-esteem and success we spoke earlier about the importance of self-esteem and success psychologists have discovered that you can never really feel happy about yourself until you know that you are good at what you do you can never genuinely like yourself and accept yourself as a worthwhile person until you have become very good in your chosen field the reason many people are unhappy is because when they wake up in the morning and look at themselves in the mirror the

person who looks back at them is not very good at anything that makes much of a difference men especially get their sense of self-worth from knowing that they are competent in their fields if a man is not particularly good at what he does and is not recognized by others for his competence and ability he feels unhappy and unfulfilled you can be the best every single person has the ability to be good at something everyone has the ability to excel it's almost as though nature has built an excellence gene into each person and it is up

to each person to discover what his or her area of excellence is and then to put his or her whole heart into becoming really good in that area michael jordan was once complimented on his skills as a basketball player the journalist said to him you were lucky to be born with such tremendous athletic ability jordan replied everybody has ability but talent takes hard work many people make the mistake of thinking that if they have the ability to excel in a field it will come naturally but the fact is that excellence is the result of years

of hard dedicated effort in a single direction there is no substitute for hard work two decide exactly what you want don't be wishy-washy or vague decide exactly what it is that you want in life set it as goal and then determine what price you're going to have to pay to get it most people never do this according to the research only about three percent of adults have written goals and these are the most successful and highest paid people in every field these are the movers and shakers the creators and innovators the top salespeople and entrepreneurs

almost everyone works for them the goals formula here is a simple seven step formula for setting and achieving goals i teach it everywhere i go and it has often been life-changing for my seminar participants first decide exactly what you want if you want to increase your income be specific about the exact amount that you want to learn second write it down a goal that is not in writing is merely a fantasy it has no power or energy behind it it is like a cartridge with no powder or like cigarette smoke in the air third set

a deadline on your goal your subconscious mind loves deadlines it requires a forcing system to activate all its powers if it is a large enough goal set sub-deadlines if it's a 10-year goal set a goal for each year and then for each month of the coming year continually measure your progress against your goal and your deadlines fourth make a list of everything you can think of that you can possibly do to achieve your goal when you think of new activities add them to your list keep working at it until your list is complete the more

individual steps you write down on your list the more excited you become about achieving your goal and the more motivated you will be henry ford said any goal no matter how large can be achieved if you break it down into enough small steps fifth organize the list by sequence and priority when you organize by sequence you decide what has to be done before something else has to be done you determine what comes first what comes second and so on when you organize by priority you determine the most important item on your list and then the

second most important then the third fourth and fifth and so on once you have a list of steps organized by sequence and priority you have a plan a person with a goal and a plan will run circles around a person with only a wish and a hope sixth take action on your goal whatever it is the primary reason that people succeed greatly is because they are action oriented the primary reason that people fail is because they do not take action failures always have an excuse to procrastinate until finally their energy and desire are gone and

they're back to where they started and seventh do something every day that moves you towards your most important goal whatever it is at that time do this 365 days per year develop the discipline of working on your goals daily so that it is as normal and natural to you as breathing in and breathing out set 10 goals immediately here's an exercise for you take a sheet of paper and write the word goals at the top of the page plus today's date then write down 10 goals that you would like to achieve in the next 12

months write as quickly as possible this exercise should only take you three to five minutes once you have your list of 10 goals go over the list and ask yourself which one goal on this list if i were to achieve it within 24 hours would have the greatest positive impact on my life the answer to that question becomes your major definite purpose this becomes the organizing principle or focal point for your life transfer this goal to the top of a clean sheet of paper and write it out clearly and in detail make it measurable set

a deadline for when you intend to achieve it make a list of everything that you can think of that you will have to do to accomplish the goal organize this list by sequence and priority into a plan and then take action on this goal and do something every day until you achieve it your major definite purpose when you get up in the morning think about this goal as you work through the day think about this goal discuss this goal with the important people in your life in the evening before you go to sleep think about

this goal and what it will look like when you achieve it continually visualize your goal as if it were already a reality resolve in advance that you will never quit until you achieve this goal failure is not an alternative change your life this exercise will change your life if you have the discipline and determination to follow all the steps listed above within one year and perhaps sooner your whole life will be different both your sales and your income will increase dramatically you will feel terrific about yourself you will start to make rapid progress in every

area of your life you'll attract people and circumstances into your life that can help you miracles will happen at the end of the year you will look back and be speechless at what has happened over the past 12 months all it takes is a pad of paper yourself and less than 10 minutes give it a try write down 10 goals select one make a plan and see what happens number three back your goal with persistence and determination once you begin refuse to even consider the possibility of failure back your goal with perseverance and indomitable willpower

decide to throw your whole heart and soul into your success and into achieving that goal don't hold anything back make a complete commitment resolve that nothing will stop you or discourage you you can tell where you're going to be in one two or three years by how well you respond to the inevitable adversities objections and disappointments that you experience each day your level of persistence in the face of setbacks is your measure of your belief in yourself the greek philosopher epictetus once said circumstances do not make the man they merely reveal him to himself adversity

shows you what you are made of as my friend charlie jones said it's not how far you fall but how high you bounce that counts you can always tell how successful you are going to be by how quickly you bounce back your degree of resilience is the mark and measure of your character your ability to take the hard work and rough shocks of selling had to keep on keeping on is the ultimate determinant of your success number four commit to lifelong learning your mind is your most precious asset and the quality of your thinking determines

the quality of your life commit yourself to lifelong learning i cannot emphasize this too often not long ago a college student sent out a 39-point questionnaire to all the presidents of fortune 500 companies 83 of those presidents completed the questionnaire and sent it back this is an extraordinary number of responses from such a busy group of people the student went through the questionnaires to find out what these business leaders considered to be the reasons for their success perhaps the most common piece of advice from these top people repeated over and over again was never stop

learning and getting better this applies to you as well your mind can appreciate in value read listen to audio programs attend seminars and courses and never forget the most valuable asset that you will ever have is your mind but your mind can be made to appreciate in value if you purchase a car it begins to depreciate to lose its value as soon as you drive it off the dealer's lot if you buy any kind of a physical object it begins to deteriorate immediately you can increase the value of your mind by continually feeding it new

information that you can use to get better results increase your value each person starts off in life with a limited amount of practical knowledge that he can use for the benefit of other people as you learn you become more valuable the more knowledge you acquire that can be applied to practical purposes the greater will be your rewards and the more you will be paid as you go through life gaining additional experience reading more books and articles and upgrading your skills your knowledge grows and your rewards in life increase as you move forward in the line

of life toward the success that is possible for you the law of cause and effect applies in success the law of cause and effect is summarized by learn and do every time you learn and practice something new you move ahead in the lying when you stop learning and doing you stop moving forward when you start once more learning and applying what you've learned you start moving forward again the more you learn and do the faster you move toward the front of the line keep filling your bucket imagine that your current quantity of knowledge and skill

is like water in a bucket the water level determines your income when you start off in life your bucket has very little knowledge and skill in it your results and rewards are minimal as well as you increase your level of knowledge and skill your bucket gets fuller your level of rewards and recognition increases over the years your bucket gets fuller this level increases and your income goes up but here's the problem there's a hole in this bucket if at any time you stop learning and practicing new skills or adding new knowledge and ideas you don't

stay in the same place your water level drops you actually begin to fall back in the line of life people start to pass you if you do not continually upgrade your knowledge and skill you lose your edge your current knowledge and skill becomes increasingly obsolete and of less value never stop learning an enormous number of adults do not understand this they get their basic education and then they try to coast on their minimal knowledge and skill for many years they're flabbergasted and angry when younger people pass them in the race they become frustrated no one

has ever told them that continuous learning is as essential as bathing or brushing their teeth each day if you don't do it for any period of time it soon becomes evident to everyone around you if you are not continually learning and growing the knowledge you have is actually diminishing the incompetent person of tomorrow is the person who has stopped learning today the illiterate person is the person who is no longer learning growing and increasing his value every single day the person whose does not read is no better than the person who cannot read we saw

that you are going to learn and practice something new each day read every morning listen to audio programs in your car take all the training you can get and continually put your new knowledge into action five use your time well your time is all you have to sell it is your primary asset how you use your time determines your standard of living resolve therefore to use your time well because of the 80 20 rule some things you do are worth vastly more than other things even though they take the same number of minutes and hours

your goal is to focus on those activities that contribute the very most value to your life in your work begin every day with a list the best time to make up your work list is the night before prior to wrapping up for the day write down everything that you have to do the next day starting with your fixed appointments and then moving on to everything you can think of never work without a list time management experts say that you will increase your productivity by 25 percent or gain two extra hours per day by the very

act of planning your day in advance your list becomes the key to your time and life management system set clear priorities once you have a list set priorities on your list determine what is more important and what is less important ask yourself if i could only do one thing on this list before i was called out of town for a month which one thing would it be whatever your answer put a circle around that item then ask yourself if i could only do two things on this list before being called out of town for a

month what would the second item be circle that item as well then ask yourself this question one more time this exercise forces you to think about what is really important rather than what is merely urgent or busy work once you've determined your highest priority task you know where to start and what to work on select your most important task a good time management question for you to ask is what one thing if done in an excellent fashion would have the greatest positive impact on my work there's always one thing that you can do that if

you do it well can have a significant influence on your results and your rewards a variation of this question is what can i and only i do that have done well will make a real difference every hour of every day there's only one answer to this question there is something that only you can do that will make a real difference this is something that no one else will do for you if you don't do it but if you do do it and you do it well it can make a real difference what is it the

final question you ask in setting priorities is what is the most valuable use of my time right now again ask this question every hour there's always a single answer to this question your job is to make sure that whatever you are doing it is the most valuable use of your time at the moment focus and concentrate the final key to time management once you have made a list and set priorities is for you to begin on the most important task before you and then to concentrate on it perfectly until it's complete your ability to focus

and concentrate to be absolutely clear about your most important task and then to do only that task until it's done will do more to double and triple your productivity and performance than anything else number six follow the leaders do what successful people do follow the leaders not the followers do what the top people in your field do imitate the ones who are going somewhere with their lives follow the people who are achieving the kind of things you want to achieve sometime in the future look around you who are the people that you admire the most

which ones are getting the results that you want to achieve in the months and years ahead identify the very best people in your field and pattern yourself after them decide to be like them associate with them as much as possible if you want to know how to be a successful salesperson go to the top people in your business and ask them for advice ask them what books you should read and what audio programs you should listen to ask them what courses you should take inquire about their attitudes philosophies and approaches to their work and their

customers learn from the best successful people will always help other people to be successful people who are extremely busy with their own lives and work will always find time to help you if you genuinely want to be successful when you ask for advice from a successful person take that advice do what the winner encourages you to do buy the book and read it get the audio program and listen to it attend the course and practice what you learn then go back to that person and tell him or her what you have done that individual want

to help you even more choose your role models at a seminar for more than a thousand sales professionals not long ago a salesman came up to me at the break and told me an interesting story i knew immediately that he was successful because of his appearance he was well dressed well groomed confident positive relaxed and easygoing he had the feeling of success about him he told me that when he started out he hung around with the junior sales people over his first six months he noticed that there were four top salespeople in his company who

seemed to associate mostly among themselves they did not spend time with the junior sales people he observed the junior sales people himself and the top sales people and noticed one thing immediately the higher paid sales people were dressed far better than the lower paid sales people they were sharp and professional looking they looked like successful people ask for advice one day he asked one of the top salespeople what he could do to be more successful the salesperson asked him if he used a time management system as it happened this young fellow had never been introduced

to a time management system the successful salesperson told him the system he used and showed him where to get it and he did and he used it and he began to use his time more efficiently after that he began to model himself after the top salespeople not only did he ask them for advice about what to read and listen to but he observed them and made them his role models each morning before he started out he would stand in front of his mirror and ask himself do i look like one of the best sales people

in my branch look the part he was critical of himself especially with regard to his stress and grooming if he did not feel that he looked like a top salesperson he would continue to make changes until he did only then would he go off to work within a year he was one of the top salespeople in his branch he only associated with the other top salespeople he had become like them moving up as a result of his high level of sales he was invited to the national sales convention at the convention he made a point

of going to each of the top salespeople from around the country sometime during the convention and asking for their advice not surprisingly they were flattered and told him some of the things that they had done to move from the bottom to the top of their field when he got back home he wrote them letters of thanks and put their ideas to work his sales went up and up and up soon he was the top salesman in his branch and later the top salesman in the state over a period of five years he transformed his life

at the national sales conventions he was invited onto the stage to receive prizes and awards by his eighth year in the business he was the top salesman in the country what he told me was interesting he said that all of his success had come from asking other top salespeople what they were doing and then following their guidance but what he learned was that even though these top salespeople had been going up on the stage and receiving prizes for sales excellence year after year he was the first person who had ever sought them out and asked

them for advice fly with the eagles david mcclelland of harvard author of the achieving society observed that the main difference between success and failure in life is your choice of a reference group he concluded that birds of a feather flock together the reference group the group that you choose to associate with most of the time largely determines what you accomplish in life you tend to take on the values attitudes stress and lifestyle of the people around you if you associate with successful people you tend to adopt their attitudes philosophies manners of speaking and dress work

habits and so on in no time you start to get the results that they do the fatal error what mcclelland also found was the choice of a negative or unmotivated reference group could be enough in itself to condemn a person to lifelong underachievement and failure a person could go to the best university get the finest education and have the greatest talents and abilities but if you associate it with unsuccessful people he would be a failure as well what we have found is that a change in your reference group moving from one company to another or

starting to associate with successful people can transform your life and your results but as zig ziglar said you can't fly with the eagles if you keep scratching with the turkeys human beings are very much like chameleons we take on the attitudes and the behavior of the people with whom we associate we become like these people we adopt their opinions the power of suggestion especially the outlooks and view of other people exerts an enormous influence on how we think and feel about ourselves and how we behave on a day-to-day basis seven character is everything guard your

integrity as a sacred thing nothing is more important to the quality of your life in our society in business and sales success you must have credibility you can only be successful if people trust you and believe in you in study after study the element of trust has been identified as the most important distinguishing factor between one salesperson and another and one company and another as stephen covey said if you want to be trusted be trustworthy honesty means that you always keep your word and you always tell the truth be true to yourself there's another element

to integrity that is equally important as shakespeare said to thine own self be true and then it must follow as the night the day thou canst not then be false to any man you must be true to yourself to the very best that you know you must live in truth with yourself and refuse to engage in self-delusion you must be perfectly honest and not wish that things could be or would be other than they are develop the ability to face the world and see life as it is not as you wish it would be or

could be most people are pretty honest they don't lie cheat or steal they do their work pay their taxes and deal straightforwardly with others but even the most honest people sometimes wish and hope and want to believe things that are not true practice the reality principle jack welch president of general electric said that the most important principle in leadership is the reality principle and that this principle is based on the need to seek the truth wherever it may lead deal with the world as it is he said not as you wish it would be whenever

he had to deal with a problem or difficulty at general electric his first question would be what's the reality in your life it's absolutely essential that you be true to yourself and that you live in truth with yourself it is vital that you be true to the best that is in you you must do the things every day that lead to the goals you have set for yourself face the reality of your life whatever it is this is the mark of the truly honest person number eight unlock your inborn creativity think of yourself as a

highly intelligent person even a genius recognize that you have great reserves of creativity that you have never used say aloud over and over i'm a genius i'm a genius i'm a genius this may sound like an exaggeration but it isn't the fact is that every person has the ability to perform at genius levels in one or more areas you have within you right now the ability to do more and be more than you ever have before you have the inborn capacity to exceed all your previous accomplishments you have enormous reserves of creativity and intelligence as

dennis waitley says you have more potential than you could use in 100 lifetimes use your inborn talents one of your foremost aims in life must be to identify your special talents and then to develop those talents to a high level this is where your intelligence shines through in testing 95 percent of young children performed at genius levels but when those same children were tested as adults only five percent still performed with high levels of creativity and imagination in the intervening years they learned that if you want to get along you have to go along the

very best area of genius or special talent for you would be in the art of selling only about ten percent of sales people are completely suited to perform all seven of the key skills in selling at a high level if this is the case for you then you are virtually guaranteed a lifetime of high earnings and great professional success how to detect your special talents there are several ways that you can detect your area of special talent first it is something that you enjoy doing when you're not doing it you think about it and about

getting back to it second it's something that absorbs your attention completely when you are doing what you are uniquely suited to do you lose track of time you often forget to eat drink or rest when you are doing what you are meant to do third you love to learn about it and become better at it throughout your life you are hungry for books audio programs and courses that give you ideas to be even better in your area of special talent fourth you love to talk about it discuss it hear about it and associate with people

who are doing what you are ideally suited to do yourself sometimes you hear people say when i'm at work i do my work but when i leave i don't think about it at all this type of person has a limited future in whatever he is doing a person who does not think about his work when he is away from it is a person who is not suited to that line of work if you are doing the right work for you your work and your personal life are interwoven with only a thin dividing line between the

two fifth and perhaps the best indication of your natural talent is that it is something that is easy to learn and easy to do in fact you forget how you learned it in the first place it was so easy for you it seems to be a natural expression of your personality you do it easily and well almost without effort one of the reasons for underachievement is that many people consider themselves to be average rather than exceptional they look at other people who are doing better than they are and they assume that those other people are

better than they are but if they think in that way their logical conclusion is that if someone else is better they must be worse if someone else is worth more they must be worth less this feeling of worthlessness and mediocrity can lead to an acceptance of average performance even when they are really capable of superior performance number nine practice the golden rule practice the golden rule in all your interactions with others do unto others as you would have them do unto you think about yourself as a customer how would you like to be treated obviously

you would want a salesperson to be straightforward with you you would want her to take the time to thoroughly understand your problem or need and then show you step by step how her solution could help you improve your life or work in a cost-effective way you would appreciate honesty and straight dealing you would want the salesperson to explain the weaknesses as well as the strengths of her product you would then want the salesperson to follow through on her promises and to fulfill her commitments to you if this is what you would want from a salesperson

selling to you and be sure to give this to every customer you talk to the universal maxim practice the universal maxim of immanuel kant the dutch philosopher he said conduct your life as though your every act were to become a universal law for all people imagine that everyone in your world was going to behave and treat every other person the way you did when you set this as your standard for behavior you will find yourself practicing the golden rule and treating each person like a million dollar client ask yourself what kind of a company would

my company be if everyone in it were just like me imagine that each person who meets you is going to judge your entire company management products services guarantees and warranties and follow-up support based on how you treated him or her one-on-one the mark of superior people is that they set high standards for themselves and they refuse to compromise their standards they imagine that everyone is watching them even when no one is watching you can tell the character of a person by what he does and how he carries himself when he is alone and number 10

pay the price of success finally and perhaps more important than anything else resolve to work hard this is one of the great keys to success in life in the background research for the millionaire next door doctors stanley and danko interviewed thousands of self-made millionaires asking them to what they attributed their success an astounding 85 percent of self-made millionaires in america admitted that they were no more intelligent or talented than others but that they worked much harder than anyone else for a much longer time the key to success in selling is for you to start a

little earlier work a little harder and stay a little later do the little things that average people always try to avoid doing when you begin your work day resulted work all the time you work don't waste time get going move fast develop a sense of urgency a bias for action give it full throttle hard work and life success can be compared to taking off and flying an airplane when you get into the plane and taxi to the end of the runway you call the tower and request clearance for takeoff as soon as you get your

clearance you give the plane full throttle 100 to move yourself down the runway and into the air here's my point if you only gave the plane eighty percent or even ninety percent throttle you would never reach takeoff speed you would stay on the ground until you ran out of runway and crashed don't hold back in life it is much the same many people work hard but they do not work all out with 100 commitment as a result they never reach the point of takeoff that puts them in the top 10 percent in their field they

always stay aground among the average they remain in the eighty percent of sales people who only earn twenty percent of the money that's available the good news is that if you push your throttle on full and barrel down the runway gaining speed and lift you soon take off by keeping your throttle wide open you will climb and climb until you finally reach cruising altitude once you reach cruising altitude you can pull back on the throttle take it a little easier and you'll remain at that high altitude throughout your journey in your sales career especially at

the beginning you must work all out with 100 of your energy to get free of the earth's gravity and break out of the pack of mediocrities but once you reach your cruising altitude and get into the top 10 percent of money earners in your field you can pull back on the throttle spend more time with your family and friends and still maintain your income and results at high levels your future is unlimited you have within you right now the ability to be more do more and have more than you ever have in your life by

becoming absolutely excellent in your chosen field of selling you can achieve all your goals and fulfill all your dreams you can create a wonderful life for yourself and your family you can become one of the most valuable people in your company in industry you can earn the respect and esteem of all the people around you you can make a significant difference in the lives of your company your customers and your community by learning and practicing the psychology of selling you can reach the stars and there are no limits action exercises number one make a decision

today to become one of the very best salespeople in your industry pay any price make any sacrifice and never quit until you make it number two dedicate yourself to lifelong learning read listen to audio programs and attend seminars your life only gets better when you get better number three manage your time well plan carefully in advance and resolve to make every minute count four do what you love to do throw your whole heart into your work and never stop getting better five resolve in advance that you are going to be a big success in life

and that you are never going to quit until you achieve your most important goals six sit down immediately and make a list of 10 goals you would like to achieve in the next 12 months select the most important goal on that list and work on it every day and seven work all the time you work live at full throttle start early work harder and stay later pay the price of success in full in advance as napoleon hill said nature cannot be tricked or cheated she will give up to you the object of your struggles only

after you have paid her price thank you very much for listening to the psychology of selling