photo credit: Unfurled

Beginners and wimps tremble over objections.  The Pros smile with glee.  Why?

To understand you have to think about how you act when you’re thinking about making a purchase.  Anytime you’re thinking about making a purchase requiring more than a trivial investment you go through a thought process.

• First, you ask yourself if this is something you might like to have?
• You ask, “what would I get if I had this?”
• You ask, “is there something that does the same thing better or at a lower cost?”
• You challenge yourself if you really need it.
• You worry what others will think.
• You wonder if you’re making a mistake.
• You ask, “could this wait?”

The list goes on.

Now if you’d stop acting like a typical salesperson and act like an advisor you’d respect the prospect’s thought process and concerns.  When the prospect shares an objection you might say, “that’s a good point, tell me a little more about what you’re thinking.”  Then you’d continue asking questions until you really understood.

If the prospects objection is valid don’t try to push for the sale.  That just makes you a jerk and ensures you’ll never get the sale.  You may be shocked to learn that when you stop acting like a salesperson and start acting like a concerned advisor you’ll increase sales both now and later.  Because you weren’t a jerk and acted like a decent human being when the time is now the person who said, “no” today will come directly to you when it’s time for “yes”.

Thinking you’ll never get objections is unrealistic, my friend Colleen Francis, recommends “talk 20% and listen 80%.”

photo credit: cecilsav

Yes, selling insurance can be a fun and positive experience.  Contrary to your experience of being shunned and abused.  You may feel like you have a sign on your back that says, “take all your pent up frustrations out on me” because that’s how it seems people react to you.  Unfortunately, you’re getting the exact reaction you’ve earned because you haven’t figured out how to get people wanting to talk to you…until now.

Interrupt.  Whether you’re cold calling on the phone or in-person, networking, or utilizing marketing promotions you have a tiny opportunity to positively interrupt the person you want to communicate with.  And that’s exactly what you have to do.  You have to abruptly interrupt there current existence, and get them to pay attention to you.  Using the other persons name is one of the easiest ways to do that.  When you don’t know their name then the next best thing is to get their attention by calling out to the specific group they belong to such as: ladies, agents, small business owners in Omaha, Ne.

Engage.  Now you’ve been on the receiving end of more sales pitches than you’ve probably given, so what usually happens?

Hint, when it does you immediately and angrily disengage.

The sales person metaphorically pukes on you.  They immediately go into this big spiel about who they are and what they can do for you.

WHO CARES????

Questions are engaging.  Rather than telling try asking.  Use open ended questions to ask a about something relevant to what they want.  You like to ask questions like, “how long has it been since your last insurance review?”

NO, NO, NO.
Your question is about you.  If you want to engage them it has to be about them and something they’re interested in.

Attract.  I’ve yet to ever hear anyone say, “I just couldn’t sleep last night thinking about how I just had to buy life insurance first thing in the morning.”  And neither will you.  However, I have heard people express their concern about all kinds things that are important to them.  As soon as you provide a way to give people what they want they’ll be attracted to you.  One of the things they want is information about how to get what they want.

Increase sales through your communication.  The purpose of communication isn’t helping others to understand you and what you do.  The purpose of communication is to produce an action.  However, you can’t communicate with anyone until you interrupt them, engage them, and give them what they want.

photo credit: Rob Lee

Yes, attitude is important.  A salesperson with a poor attitude won’t ever experience the success they could.  However, a super duper ever so positive attitude alone won’t make you successful.  These are what Robert Ringer refers to as the “all show and no dough” folks.  Strive for a confident positive attitude that makes you a pleasant person to be around.

Attitudes drive your behaviors and your behaviors drive your results.  And that’s why a bad attitude is so dangerous to you.  When you’re thinking to yourself, “I don’t know why I’m even meeting with this person they’ll never buy anyway” you’ve just determined the outcome of that appointment before you even shake hands.  All throughout the appointment your behaviors will shout your attitude so loud it will be as though you’ve actually said it to the prospect.  Consequently the prospect won’t buy and you get the result you predicted.

Sales requires knowledge.  In many cases you can’t even legally speak to a prospect until you’ve demonstrated you have the minimum required knowledge.  But once you’ve got that knowledge you need to run with it.  When you spot a sales person who has to know everything before they can possibly meet with a prospect you’ve just met a sales person who will never get off the ground.

Sales is a highly rewarded skill.  Observing an average sales person and a top producer doing the same thing is like listening to a piano recital in contrast to a concert.  It’s hard to even tell the same thing is supposed to be happening.

Combine your attitudes with your knowledge and developed skills and you’ll increase sales.  Knowledge is the easy part.  It’s the attitudes and skills that take time and experience to acquire.  And it’s easier to acquire those attitudes and skills with personal help spaced over time than it is on your own.

It never hurts to have a few tools to make things easier.  Jill Konrath is sharing some tools  for presentations and cold calling.  Take a look.

photo credit: Thunder Thumbs

My father was the quintessential salesperson. He believed completely in his product. He was confident but not arrogant. He truly cared about the well-being of his prospects and clients. And they knew it. It was a pleasure to watch him interact with his customers.  Needless to say, he was very successful.

Let’s explore each of these aspects of the successful salesperson in more detail.

1. Belief in one’s product or service.

If you are going to sell something, you should believe it is the best thing out there. Understand what makes it stand out; what its benefits truly are. Be realistic. If there is something better on the market  - know what it is and what makes it better. Then ask yourself – can I really sell my product?

I don’t know about you, but I would find it difficult to sell something I didn’t believe in completely.  What you believe emanates from you. If you aren’t completely sold, people will know it. Then they won’t want what you have to sell.

On a separate note, your knowledge of and belief in your product will provide you with your marketing message. What you know and believe about your product or service is what you want to share with others. Small business owners have an advantage here. They believed so much in something that they were compelled to start a business around it. All that is left for them to do is share.

2. Confidence not arrogance

This is critically important. Being confident – in yourself, in your product or service, in your message – is essential. However, being overly confident or arrogant will destroy you. Arrogance leads people to ‘sell’. To talk instead of listen. After all, they believe they know best.

You simply have to think about your experiences with arrogant people to know this is true. They’re self-absorbed but not self-aware. A confident person doesn’t have anything to prove. They possess a depth of belief so they don’t feel the need to convince anyone of anything. You see, arrogance is born from insecurity – it’s overcompensating for what one doesn’t know or believe.

3. Truly care about the well-being of your prospects and clients

It is this caring that creates an environment where you are actively listening, and processing what you are hearing. You are realistic, honest, and capable of seeing things from the client’s point of view. It’s basic respect. You aren’t trying to ‘sell’ them. Rather, you are trying to help them solve a problem.

You care about their well-being when you:

            -Care that they get their problem solved – whether YOU can solve it or not

            -Care that they pay a fair price

            -Care that they make an informed (not coerced) decision

You can see how when you believe in your product or service, are confident in yourself, as well as your message, and care about your client’s well-being, you will develop outstanding relationships. It is those relationships that will bring you quality business for years to come.

Copyright© 2007 Seize This Day Coaching

Diane Helbig is a Professional Coach and the president of Seize This Day Coaching. Helbig works with salespeople, small business owners, and entrepreneurs, helping them realize success as they define it. Diane is also the Co-Founder of Seize True Success, a coaching practice dedicated to working with franchisees. Diane is a Contributing Editor on COSE Mindspring, a resource website for small business owners, as well as a member of the Sales Experts Panel at www.topsalesexperts.com. To learn more or schedule a complimentary discovery session, visit www.seizethisdaycoaching.com or www.seizetruesuccess.com.

photo credit: visualpanic

Click on this link and read the wonderful article by Clayton Makepeace.   I’m serious I want you to read his article first.  Not only will you get a good chuckle, but you’ll learn a valuable lesson.  Go read his article, and then come back here to read further.

Wasn’t that article a delight?  Have you noticed Top Producers always seem to have a smile on their faces and something positive to say about just about everything?  Have you also noticed that those in the bottom 20% have a similar reaction to something good as the little girl in Clayton’s story?  Did you know that pessimism and optimism are both habits?

Yep, pessimism is a bad habit that you can break.  Even though it may be an ingrained habit you can change it by simply:

• identifying how acting like and responding like a pessimist is rewarding to you
• identifying what you’d get out of being optimistic instead of pessimistic
• carefully watching out for those pessimistic behaviors and actions, and immediately changing them mid-thought or mid-act into a positive form 

All this takes place in that critical 6 inches between your ears.  As long as you can’t see yourself as a Top Producer you won’t be.  However, once you sell yourself on the idea that you can be a Top Producer you will be.

Get your head in the game before you go out on the field.  Sell yourself on:

• why and how you add value to your clients
• why your ideal clients should want to work with you and only you
• why your solution is exactly right for them
• why your clients are cheating themselves if they don’t take action now
• how you’re cheating both yourself and your best prospects by not helping them to become clients

So, given your new optimism…

• how can you turn your current situations into an advantage for you?
• how will you help yourself become a Top Producer?
• how will you help others to help you become a Top Producer?

photo credit: jaycoxfilm

7 things you can do to become a goal getter.  Have you noticed how Top Producers seem to consistently hit their goals?  Have you wondered why they hit their goals when you don’t?  Now you too can set goals and get them on a consistent basis.

First - set your own goals.  While Top Producers may be influenced by others and take what they have to say into consideration they only set the goals they want to set.  That means they never allow a company or sales manager to establish either their goals or the specific targets they want to hit.

Second - focus on the ultimate outcome.  For most people, even Top Producers, numbers alone aren’t all that motivating.  Your goals should be so exciting for you so motivating for you that you’re like you were when you were a little kid marking off and counting down the days until a major holiday.  It’s never the numbers themselves that have you on the edge of your seat in anticipation eagerly and tirelessly taking action.  It’s the outcomes those numbers produce in terms of what hitting those numbers allows you to do.

Third - your goals are written and actionable.  You’ve heard a thousand times that you need to write your goals down, however, simply writing them down isn’t working for you.  Top Producers makes certain the goals they write down are written in sufficient detail so they know the specific actions to take, and they track and measure their progress toward completion.  Fuzzy or hazy goals produce equivalent results.

Four - plan your way around the obstacles.  Top Producers know they can expect the unexpected in addition to the things they can predict will get in their way.  The best way to attain success is to plan for success by planning how you’ll work around anything and everything that gets in your way.

Five - adopt, adapt, act.  When a Top Producer is exposed to an idea that is in alignment with what they want to accomplish they ask, “how could I adopt and adapt this idea in my business?”  Most of the most profitable ideas will come from taking an idea from another industry and applying it to your business.  Never exactly copy any idea and never ever exactly copy an idea from a peer.  Without adaptation the idea will never produce the results for you that it does for the originator.  No matter what, the biggest secret to goal getting and results is action.

Six - focus.  No matter what a Top Producer stays focused on the prize.  How you get there can and will change, but your focus shouldn’t.  Your focus should be on the ultimate outcome.  Be willing to adapt how you get there.

Seven - accountability.  Top Producers hold themselves accountable.  They don’t set themselves up for failure by committing to actions they know they won’t take.  Just like you there are certain things they don’t like, don’t want to do, and don’t feel they’re good at.  Just like you they know there are many things they do like, they will do, and that they feel competent at.  It makes more sense to build your plans around those things, the things you know you will do, than trying to fool yourself into thinking you’ll make yourself do the things you don’t want to do.

photo credit: Steve Rhodes

You’d think if you just shouted loud enough your prospects would hear your message.  But that doesn’t work, and it doesn’t make them think well of you.  So how do you formulate a message that gets your prospects to pay attention to you, and want to more about how “you” can help “them”?

Last week I pointed out that your communications must focus on your prospects. Your prospects want to know what’s in it for them.  They won’t listen to your message, and they certainly won’t respond to a message that doesn’t have a big benefit for them.

You want to keep that message tight.  There are a couple of reasons for that.

• our attention span is shorter than ever, and we just won’t listen to a long message unless that message is so powerful it literally has us riveted
• it helps you to gain clarity about what you’re doing
• you can re-purpose that message in a number of ways

Dean Rieck poses an exercise for developing a 60 second radio ad.   This is a great idea because if you can say everything you need to say in 60 seconds you have a message your prospects will listen to.  In essence your just following the old marketing principle of AIDA:

• Attention - get the attention of the prospects you want to talk to
• Interest - give them a clear reason why they should listen to what you have to say
• Desire - build there desire to want to take action
• Action - give them a way to reach out to you to learn how to get what they want

How could you use a short message like that?  Well, most of you aren’t going to run a radio ad, however, you could use that short message to:

• develop your core marketing message to introduce yourself to others
• use it to make a post card in your direct mail campaign
• use it to develop a small ad placed in a publication frequently read by only your best prospects

And that’s just a few ideas.  The major point to developing an effective communication is to:

• keep it brief with a powerful impact
• it should clearly resonate with your ideal prospects
• there should be no doubt who the message is for, the ultimate outcome they want, and the reason why you are the person to make it happen

You may also want to check these out:

• Report on the 7 Secrets Top Producers Know
• How to market to the near sales
• My inner circle coaching program

photo credit: Daquella manera

You want to increase your sales.  Yet you approach sales from:

• what you want
• what you have
• what you can do

Because of this “you” focus you don’t know:

• who your best prospects are or how to reach out to them
• what they want
• how they want what they want

“Prospect” focus means you communicate:

• who you can best serve and why
• the big reason why these people should listen to you
• how you can give them what they want the way they want it

As a result:

• you understand your best prospects
• you empathize but don’t sympathize
• you sell more than you can even imagine now

photo credit: markhillary

You are in for a special treat today.

Hi Readers,

Today I’ve been able to secure a special article for you from my friend Jonathan Farrington.
Jonathan Farrington is a globally recognised business coach, mentor, author and consultant, who has guided hundreds of companies and thousands of individuals around the world towards optimum performance levels. If you aren’t familiar with Jonathan yet I strongly urge you to sign-up for his newsletter.

Cheryl

Enjoy….

Emerging salespeople typically believe that all business is good business and to an extent, I can understand this viewpoint. If you are trying to make a name for yourself, being put under pressure by your sales manager to get “runs on the board” and earn the respect of the more experienced and successful members of the team, it is difficult to walk away from any opportunity if you believe you have the remotest chance of winning it.

However, it is essential that more seasoned professionals fully understand both the value and importance of rigorous objective qualification, not just at the front end but right the way through the sales cycle. Qualification is a process not a single event and even internal and reactive salespeople should be fully skilled in asking a small number of basic questions regarding precise requirements, time scales, budget, competition etc before they are prepared to reveal their price and delivery.

As the value of the product, service or solution increases, the depth of the qualification should increase proportionally.

External salespeople have the opportunity to meet with prospective customers and it is far easier to extract information face to face than it is via the telephone, however, it is vital that some initial answers are elicited prior the that first exploratory meeting in order to ensure that the meeting will be worthwhile to both parties. With sales costs spiraling upwards and sales time becoming limited, considerable prudence is required on the part of the salesperson.

During that first meeting, a considerable amount of detail can and should be uncovered e.g. background and history of the company, the key individuals, the composition of the DMU (Decision Making Unit) if there is one, timescales, budget, competition, current suppliers, buying criteria etc. Only by rigorous questioning will the salesperson be able to answer the following questions when they get back to the office: Is there a requirement/need that my company can satisfy? Is it winnable? Do I want it?

The very best sales professionals will not pursue the opportunity, after proper objective analysis, if the answer to any of those questions is “No”. They will rather invest their precious selling time seeking out and closing opportunities that will provide a profitable return on that investment.

At the very highest selling levels i.e. strategic “big-ticket” selling and marketing, clearly the sales cycle is much more protracted, complex and typically moves through four stages i.e.

- Rigorous Opportunity Assessment
- Develop A Strategy
- Present The Solution and Re-Assess The Opportunity
- Gain Formal Commitment, Sign The Order and Develop

In my latest newsletter, I have provided a link to the full document entitled:

“The Four Stages Of A Consultative Sales Cycle”

In Summary:
Having a tilt at every windmill that presents itself, is neither practical nor profitable. Qualification, is a core competency that every professional salesperson should take on board as quickly as possible. Working to the maxim that “All business is good business” is unrealistic and totally erroneous. It takes just as long to work an unprofitable opportunity through the pipeline only to lose it at the death, as it does a profitable one – the ability to determine which is which, can have a huge impact on your ultimate success in a front-line sales role

Copyright 2008 Jonathan Farrington. All Rights Reserved

photo credit: preciouskhyatt

Are you tired of sitting around waiting to be seen, tired of being stood up, tired of being treated like you’re a zero?  It’s embarrassing, frustrating, and unproductive.  Unfortunately, you’ve positioned yourself to be treated this way.

You actually fuel this negative treatment through the way you think.  You think you have to work long and hard, pay your dues, in order to “make it” in your profession.  You’re even told this by others in your profession who’ve supposedly “made it”.  If you’re willing to bite on that it will hold true for you, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

You actually further fuel the negative treatment you’re experiencing when you believe that if you just think positive thoughts you’ll think your way to success.  You do need to have a positive attitude so you’re a pleasant person to be around.  However, you can’t simply think happy thoughts and end up with a bundle of success because you’re just so darned positive.

You earn the position you’re earn.  And it begins with the first contact.  That’s why cold calling is such a bad thing for you to do as your first contact.  When you cold call a prospect they immediately categorize you as a loser and an unwanted pest that must be swattted away ASAP.

Position yourself for increased sales by preparing the way for the position you want.  You want and deserve a position in the prospects mind as a trusted adviser.  To get that position from the onset you must:

•  confidently know the ultimate outcome you help your clients to get that they want
• refuse to invest any of your valuable time and energy on anyone who doesn’t fit your profile for an ideal qualified prospect
• develop the systems that set you apart as a professional they can count on to get it done.