There are 4 zones of awareness.

• White
• Yellow
• Red
• Black

When you are in the white zone you are in the zombie state.  The world around you is made up of fuzzy white noise.  You aren’t exactly clear about where you are at.  If you’ve ever driven from home to work and had no awareness of the drive you know exactly what I’m talking about.

In the yellow stage you are aware of your surroundings.  In the red zone you are sensing you need to pay attention.  The yellow and red zones represent the levels of awareness you should experience in any selling situation.  In the yellow and red zones you are cued in on what’s going on around you and alert to the potential opportunities around you.

The black zone is a state of super heightened awareness.  In the military this represents the zone you are in when you are ready to kill anything that moves.  If you need to protect your own life or the life of those around you this is an appropriate state of awareness.

However, when you get desperate to get a client… desperate to pay your bills… all too often you cross over into the black zone.  The black zone does you no good if you are trying to get clients.  The black zone is a very dangerous state of awareness for the wrong situations.

It’s why yelling “fire” in a crowded theater is so dangerous.  When you yell “fire” even a perfectly logical, intelligent, and capable person gets trampled trying to get to the exit.  Otherwise polite and considerate people will kill anything that gets between them and the exit.  Even though finding an exit would easy in a calm state… in the black zone you transition into a blind panic… the black zone is harmful for both you and those around you.

No one sets out to get themselves in the black zone.  It just kind of creeps up on you.  It happens because you get on this roller coaster where you keep doing the same things experiencing both highs and lows.  Eventually the highs get fewer and farther between and the lows get deeper and more frequent.

Some people never get off this roller coaster until they force to because they crash.  The hairier the ride… the steeper the lows… the more likely you are to get and stay in the black zone where you are determined to literally force people into becoming clients.  You set your jaw and refuse to leave until you have a check in hand.

Others realize you can’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results so they make a commitment to get off before they crash.  Those people are in the yellow or red zones.  They are paying attention to the cues that are telling them something has to change and soon.

The problem is… sometimes selling your services feels a little like playing Blackjack with a dealer who’s stacked the deck.  You study all the cards.  You watch each hand dealt. You watch the dealer closely… yet you lose hand after hand.  At one point, in utter frustration, you grab another deck slam it down on the table and demand you play with this new deck.

Yet, you continue to lose because what you didn’t realize is the new deck is missing a few cards.

That’s exactly what’s happening to you.  You get that it feels like the deck is stacked against you.  Yet, hard as you try you don’t even realize what’s missing.  When you do recognize something just might be missing you start feeling like the kid who turns in his homework only to see his work come back with nearly every problem marked wrong.  The effort was there but the understanding wasn’t.

Heck, you may even try copying the competition only to discover your efforts bomb.

It doesn’t have to be that way.  You can completely avoid this black zone of desperation and gain control over your future… your destiny.  Here’s how… 

Coach Cheryl

In the last post I talked to you about the importance of studying the prospect first.  I talked about understanding them and their needs.  Knowing your prospect is more important than product knowledge.  Product knowledge is only important once you engage a prospect to help them make the best choices and options for them.

Okay, but what am I looking for?

That’s all well and good; however, you must be clear about what you are looking for as you study your prospects.  Look for clues that help you understand…

• Logical reason’s why the prospect would choose your product
• Motivating needs that simply drive your prospect to act
• Matching underlying desires to your product

You might say you already do all that yet something is missing.  Something is missing because your local landfill is full of…

• Your business cards
• Your letters
• Your brochures

Here’s why.  You either overlooked or completely missed the motivating emotion that gets your buyers so amped up they have to act.  You need to tap into the emotion that’s on their minds right now, keeping them from sleeping, and driving them nuts.

Let’s look at how one company does this really well.  Nike is just another shoe company, right?  Their shoes aren’t remarkably different than their competition.  So why do they sell so darned many shoes?

Nike tapped into a motivating emotion.  They know we all like to feel like a winner.  They crafted a message that communicates wearing Nike’s makes you a winner and then backed that message up with celebrity endorsements.

Many people confuse branding with an image like the Nike Swoosh.  However, you have to imprint the message first or the image has no meaning.  The more emotionally motivating the message the better.  Then you must tie that message to an image to reinforce and communicate your message with just the symbol.

Now back to you.  Right now your business cards, the letters you send, and your brochures are probably the standard business pablem that address you and how great you are.

Ahem… your prospects don’t care.  If they did your information wouldn’t be littering the planet.

Your prospects have a dominant motivating emotion they are eager to feed.  Tie your product or service to that emotion.  That’s how you get their attention and interest.  Show them a reason to care about you and they will.

Coach Cheryl

This mistake goes way back.  Probably to the very beginning in sales.  In 1937 Robert Collier mentions it in “The Robert Collier Letter Book”.  Funny how some things don’t seem to change.

To help you really understand this mistake I want you to think back to when you first started selling whatever you are selling now whether a product or service.  What was the first thing you thought you had to do?  If you have a sales manager they probably told you…

You Have to Know Your Product Before You Can Sell Your Product

This big fat myth sets you up to make the most costly mistake you will ever make in your sales career or in the life of your business.

So you study all the ins and outs of your products.  You think of objections prospects might have about your product and plan how you will respond.  Soon you are like a walking talking product encyclopedia and that is how you cost your self big money.

“Study your reader first — your product second”

Robert Collier

Now why would he make such a blasphemous suggestion?

Because Robert Collier, a direct response marketer, understood how to sell.  He knew until you understand human nature and human reaction you aren’t just leaving money on the table…

You Are Chasing Money Away!

Just think about how this plays out in everyday life.  Here comes a prospect already in the early stages of the buying process.  When I say already in the early stages of the buying process I mean they at least already recognize they have a need and now they are looking for options to take care of that need.

You greet them exchange a few niceties then you launch into a spiel about your product.  This automatically makes the prospect uncomfortable because they don’t like being sold.  They impatiently wait for you to slow down or pause so they can ask a question.

When they finally get their question in what do you do?  Why you launch into another diatribe about product details that answer their question.  Or at least you think you are answering their question.

In reality, you probably aren’t addressing the real question they have because you did not understand what they were really asking.

The frustration escalates in this back and forth exchange of you streaming the product catalog at the prospect and them trying to get you to shut up long enough to actually hear what they are telling you.  Even the ones who buy aren’t happy with their experience, they aren’t happy with you, and they tend to project their displeasure onto the product meaning you can expect returns.

Now if only you knew about Robert Collier and understood and applied what he suggests things would be so very different.  If you understood your prospect it would be so much easier to help them buy.  Both you and the prospect could relax and actually enjoy the exchange.

Your prospect simply wants to be understood and heard.  The only way they know if you do actually understand them and that you have heard them is if you ask intelligent questions.  Intelligent questions are simply questions that demonstrate your understanding and the fact you are actually listening.

The inexperienced sales person walks up to a prospect and asks, “What are you looking for today?”  The prospect hesitates to actually tell you because they don’t want you following them around pressuring them to buy.

The experienced sales person walks up to a prospect and asks, “What are you looking to accomplish today?”  This immediately snaps the prospect out of the sales person buyer mindset.  Now you are the person who is there to provide expert advice and assistance.

They may say they are just looking for ideas for an upcoming event.  Now you have the opportunity to actually work with them even though they are “just looking” because you can then ask, “What is your highest priority for that event?”  Then keep the conversation going asking questions, listening, and engaging further.  Show them options and have them tell you if this is more like they had in mind or less.

Once you allow yourself to think prospect first and product second things are a whole lot easier.  You stop leaving money on the table and you stop chasing money away.  You will find you make sales faster and the sales you make tend to have larger totals.  All because you put the prospect first.

Coach Cheryl

Both your sales successes and your sales failures are a matter of choice.  You make both unconscious choices and conscious choices.

Unconscious Choices Can Rule Your Life

If you aren’t careful your entire life can become the result of unconscious choices.  In fact, most people live their lives day in and day out like robots.  They get up in the morning and follow the same routine from brushing their teeth in the morning through brushing their teeth before bed.

Have you ever gotten in your car and the next thing you knew you were at work with no recollection of the drive there?  This is a clear example of unconscious living.  Thank goodness some things happen without a lot of thought.

If you had to think to take every breath it would be so exhausting you would never be able to remain that consciously aware of your choices to sustain life.  Yet, far too many of us take unconscious living too far and then whine in disappointment because we don’t get the results we want.

How Do You Measure UP?

I’d like you to consciously evaluate how you measure up in your sales efforts.  Now typically you measure your sales results by the dollars in your bank account.  However, when you aren’t selling you already know you aren’t measuring up.  This exercise is designed to help you get a glimpse into why you aren’t getting the results you want.

Grab a Pencil and Paper 

Focusing just on the hours you work in or on your business… how many hours a day are you unconsciously taking various actions like filing, filling out paperwork, or other similar activities?

How much time do you spend directly engaged in the activities required to accomplish your main objective?

List what those activities are and then assign a number to how much time you spend on that activity a day.

Wouldn’t you agree it makes sense to spend as little time as possible on activities that don’t have much to do with the actual accomplishment of your main objective?

So what can you do to take time away from the non-important things to give to the important things?

What are the things you are best at?

What do you need to do to concentrate on doing those things?

Who can you have do the rest?

The time you spend unconsciously and the time you spend on things that don’t move you toward what you want to accomplish is time WASTED.

Please don’t get the idea that I am telling you that you need to work 8 hours a day on just the actions that accomplish your goals.  In reality, it would probably be entirely too draining to do that.  I am telling you though that successful people spend anywhere from 2 to 4 hours consciously aware and completely dedicated to whatever they need to do to accomplish the result they want.

Could you commit to dedicating just 2 hours a day focused entirely on the activities you need to do to produce the results you want?

What could you accomplish if you did?

Did you know most books are written in just 2 hours a day?

Did you know that most highly successful people invest just 2 hours a day on marketing and sales?

Imagine how much freedom you would gain if you completely dedicated 2 hours a day to results producing work and then used the remainder of your time as you see fit.

Coach Cheryl

photo credit: Malenkov in Exile

Congress reminded me this Sunday of a fateful behavior pattern that can cost you, the business owner your business in short order.

As you probably know this Sunday the democratically controlled House of Representatives pressured, manipulated, and used every trick in the book… and some that probably weren’t even in the book, to ram unpopular legislation the voters do not want through.  Even though all Americans want health reform only a tiny percentage of Americans wanted health reform the way it was put together in this legislation.

Congress is jubilant they got the legislation through; however, they may not be as jubilant about what they also get as a result of their current behaviors.

Many sales people make this same fateful mistake in their behaviors.  They don’t care how they have to manipulate a buyer.  They don’t care if they have to lie to get the sale.  All they care about is getting the sale.

Sales people who behave this way will even boast about how they were able to badger a buyer into buyer.  They laugh at their buyers behind their backs, call them rubes, and treat buyers with utter disdain.

To sales people and politicians who choose to behave like this I say yuck it up because massive failure is in your future.

Yes, you got what you wanted today.  However, when sales people act that way they won’t get referrals and they won’t get repeat business.  They don’t just damage their credibility they damage the credibility of the company they represent.

The politicians might get voted out of office.  The sales person might starve out or get fired.  It’s the buyer who really suffers.

The buyer is the one who has to live with the long-term consequences of their purchase or the legislation.  The buyer is the one who is permanently damaged.  The buyer who is already skeptical of politicians and sales people has yet one more reason to never trust them.

As the business owner you have to realize it is never about the one time sale and always about the relationships you establish and the trust you build.  Relationships and trust are what will fill your bank account, not just today but everyday for the life of your business.  If your sales people are not emulating those values and practicing them in their behaviors you are better off firing them today, before they do even more damage, than you are looking the other way while they ring your cash register today.

Rather than celebrating getting the sale celebrate the way you got the sale.

Coach Cheryl

photo credit: Speaker Pelosi

It’s not fair to pick on an entire industry yet I’ve had this experience repeatedly with Real Estate agents.  It happens in every industry.  However, it is one of the easiest things you can do to increase your sales and make your buyers feel a whole lot better about their buying decision.  It’s a win-win.

Stop Leaving Your Buyers Hanging

Each time you contact or engage a potential buyer never EVER end that connection without spelling out next steps.  Both you and your buyer should know who is going to do what, when you will reconnect, and what the next contact is suppose to achieve.

This is top of my mind right now because I am in the process of buying some property.  The first agent I contacted never got back to me.  This agent just left me hanging even after I made follow up contact.  Gee, guess that agent doesn’t want a commission.

The agent I am currently working with regularly ticks me off because he fails to meet those 3 criteria every connection.  Come on… it’s not that tough.  At the end of each contact we both need to know…

• The expected day and time to reconnect
• Who will be bring valuable information to that connection
• What we are trying to accomplish and what we need to do next

 Shut the F@#! Up and Listen

Plus the agent makes another fatal mistake all too many people make.  The agent talks entirely too much and fails to listen to critical information I tell him.  Yet again another sales person who loves the sound of his own voice so much he can’t bring himself to listen for information that directly impacts his income.

If you are making these mistakes you are getting what you deserve.

Don’t be surprised when you don’t get referrals and previous clients want nothing to do with you when it comes to future business.

Take responsibility and make these simple little changes and avoid the negative consequences of these poor sales habits.

Coach Cheryl

Think back to the last time you went out to purchase a product you knew just enough about to be dangerous but not enough about to feel confident you could make the right choice.  This might have been a technology based product.  I realize you probably aren’t selling a product.  You are selling a service.  Yet this example is just as relevant to you as it is to the sales rep selling products.

In reality no matter what you are buying you have a mental checklist of the things you think you want, and the things you think you don’t want before you go to the store.  When you get to the store you start comparing products against that mental checklist.  You are able to determine whether or not a particular product fulfills the items on your checklist on your own.

However, there are usually at least a couple things you can’t seem to find the answer to on your own.  So you search out a sales person for help or perhaps a sales person notices you might need help.  At any rate you ask the sales person a question.

Here’s what usually happens.  The sales person simply answers “yes” or “no”.  It’s too bad their guardian angel doesn’t immediately whap them upside the head with a nerf bat.

That “yes” or “no” response presents a 50-50 chance the sales person has just lost the sale.  You allow that to happen to you when you are talking with a prospect too.  Wait… it gets even worse.

All too often you not only respond “yes” or “no” you then follow that up by trying to tell the prospect their objection isn’t valid.  At that point you have really blown it.  You have probably made a none recoverable mistake and lost the sale.

Worse yet this mistake is entirely avoidable.

Let’s say a prospect asks you a question about whether your product or service has a certain feature.  It doesn’t.  Rather than simply responding “no” ask these questions…

• Is that important?
• What do you want to accomplish?
• How will you use that?

When you ask questions like these rather than just responding “yes” or “no” you now engage the prospect and find out exactly what the prospect wants and why.  You then have the ability to focus on what the prospect really needs.  You and the prospect may find out they don’t really want that feature they want to achieve something else and they need another feature to do what they want.

There may be another way to do what they want and complete the sale.

Bottom line ask more questions and listen.

Coach Cheryl

photo credit: Xtreme Xhibits

The words you use and the way you use those words has a big impact on your ability to get clients.  The words you use may leave a potential client flat, turn a potential client off and end the conversation, or…

When you use the right words in the right way those words can:

• Evoke curiosity
• Open a conversation
• Generate interest
• Spark questions
• Make a positive impression

When the U.S. Hockey team, a rag tag group of amateurs and collegiate players; took the gold from the Soviet team, considered the best hockey team in the world, in the 1980 Lake Placid, NY Winter Olympics Sports Caster Al Michaels  could have simply said, “and the U.S. wins gold.”

Those words would have conveyed the end result in an accurate and truthful manner.  There would have been no flaws in his phrasing their win in that manner.  Yet Al Michaels said…

“Do you believe in miracles? YES!”

What a tremendous difference in the impact those words had on the audience.  Those simple words said it all in such an inspirational and quotable manner that even 30 years later this quote is one of the most often repeated quotes in the history of Sports Casting.

Al Michaels might have been lucky when he blurted out those words.  Yet, with his countless hours experience as a Sports Caster he has had a lot of practice at using words and phrasing things for a powerful impact.

What might happen in your business if you chose your words carefully and paid close attention to phrasing?

Might you start to gain appointments easily?

Would it be easier to help potential clients understand why they want to become clients now?

You have experience and knowledge in the service you provide.  Perhaps you could benefit from a little help with the words that convey your message.

Coach Cheryl

photo credit: quinn.anya

There are times when you want to move forward so bad.  You don’t lack enthusiasm, motivation, or commitment.  However, there is something that has you stuck and you can’t move forward until you figure out how to get unstuck.

There are three ways to get unstuck.

1. Find an alternative approach
2. Learn how to do it yourself
3. Pay someone else to do it for you

Depending on what has you stuck each approach is entirely appropriate in different situations.

Sometimes there is an alternative approach.  The challenge is either you are too close to the situation and can’t see it or you are completely unaware another approach exists.

There are some things you simply have to know how to do yourself.  When that is the case it is time to pony up the time and money, search out the right source(s), and get to work learning how to do it.

Then there are certain things YOU really don’t need to know how to do.  Perhaps you don’t even want to know how to do them… ever!  What you really want is someone who understands your objectives to use their already existing skills and knowledge to do it for you so you can move on to other things.

Things like the things you get paid to do;-)  Wow, what a novel idea.

Recently, thanks to many of you, I came to realize a lot of you are stuck in a holding pattern because there are certain things you don’t know how to do.  Plus you want someone else to do it for you.

If that sounds like you then perhaps it’s worth talking about how I might help you get unstuck by doing some of the things listed below for you.

Coach Cheryl

P.S. If you don’t see what has you stuck listed go ahead and let me know what it is.  I might either be able to help you with that or direct you to someone who can.

One thing I have clearly learned through personal experience is an important lesson that impacts all areas of your life.  The lesson I have learned is this…

Run in the Opposite Direction of the Herd

When you need help rather than screaming “help”.  Police will tell you to yell, “Fire!”

In a fire Firemen tell you never to run to the main exit because that’s where everyone else runs.

I have to chuckle when I see all these commercials on TV telling you to buy gold.  They are advertising because they want to SELL you gold.  Gold is at an all time high making now the time to sell not buy.

As it gets tougher and tougher to gain new clients most people think of what they can cut back on when you should be thinking about what you should be spending more on.  Now is the time to adapt then ramp up your marketing not cut back on your marketing.  There will be fewer competing messages in your ideal clients mail box now making your message more likely to get read.

The same is true when it comes to investing in yourself.  Now is the time to gain new skills, improve the skills you have, and adapt the way you get clients to better fit their needs.

I found a perfect example of this while on vacation.  Everyone is hemming and hawing about whether the real estate market has hit bottom.  Everyone wants to buy at the bottom.  Yet, that almost never happens.

Now is the perfect time to buy investment real estate.  In fact, I discovered a fantastic investment opportunity on the West coast of Florida.  In reality, you want to buy when real estate is on the way up not down.  Plus if you want to play in real estate right now you need two things most people do NOT have patience and…

CASH

While everyone else was leveraging themselves up to their eyeballs you should have been squirreling away a hefty nest egg.  It’s never too late to get started on that nest egg.  However, your first priority should be investing in things that make money now so you have more money to set aside now and forever moving forward.

Another thing I know for certain.  If you insist on doing what everyone else does you lose.  You have a lot riding on your business.  Does it make sense to risk everything because you insist on following the herd rather than stepping out and taking the lead?

There is nothing stopping you from becoming the top dog, the pack leader that everyone else wants to follow.

Coach Cheryl

photo credit: kevindooley