How to Identify Your Goals
Here are seven goal-setting questions for you to ask and answer over and over again. I suggest that you take a pad of paper and write out your responses.
Question Number One:
What are your five most important values in life?
This question is intended to help you clarify what is really important to you, and by extension, what is less important, or unimportant. Once you have identified the five most important values in life for you, organize them in order of priority, from number one, the most important, through number five.
Question Number Two:
What are your three most important goals in life, right now?
This is called the "quick list" method. When you only have thirty seconds to write down your three most important goals, your subconscious mind sorts out your many goals quickly. Your top three will just pop into your conscious mind. With only thirty seconds, you will be as accurate as if you had thirty minutes.
Question Number Three:
What would you do, how would you spend your time, if you learned today that you only had six months to live?
This is another value questions to help you clarify what is really important to you. When your time is limited, even if only in your imagination, you become aware of who and what you really care about.
Question Number Four:
What would you do if you won a million dollars cash, tax free, in the lottery tomorrow?
How would you change your life? What would you buy? What would you start doing, or stop doing? This is really a question to help you decide what you'd do if you had all the time and money you need, and if you had virtually no fear of failure at all.
Question Number Five:
What have you always wanted to do, but been afraid to attempt?
This question helps you see more clearly where your fears could be blocking you from doing what you really want to do.
Question Number Six:
What do you most enjoy doing? What gives you your greatest feeling of self-esteem and personal satisfaction?
This is another values question that may indicate where you should explore to find your "heart's desire." You will always be most happy doing what you most love to do, and what you most love to do is invariably the activity that makes you feel the most alive and fulfilled. The most successful men and women in America are invariably doing what they really enjoy, most of the time.
Question Number Seven:
What one great thing would you dare to dream if you knew you would not fail?
Imagine that a genie appears and grants you one wish. The genie guarantees that you will be absolutely, completely successful in any one thing that you attempt to do, big or small, short or long-term. If you were absolutely guaranteed success in any one thing, what one exciting goal would you set for yourself?
Action Exercise
Study the pad of paper that you used to answer these questions. This paper represents your future goals. Look at what you wrote every day and shape your life the way you see it on that paper.
Written by Brian Tracy and trained by Mark Garbelotto
Factors of Risk in Selling…
The Critical Factor: Risk
The critical factor in selling today is risk. Because of the continuous change, rapid obsolescence, and an uncertain economy, the risk of buying the wrong product or service has become greater than ever before.
One of our powerful needs is for security, and any buying decision that represents uncertainty triggers the feeling of risk that threatens that security.
There are four main factors that contribute to the perception of risk in the mind and hear of the customer.
Risk Factor 1: Size of the Sale
The first factor that contributes to risk is the size of the sale. The larger the scale, the more money involved, the greater the risk.
If a person is buying a package of Lifesavers, the risk of satisfaction or dissatisfaction is insignificant. But if a person is buying a computer system for their company, the risk factor is magnified by hundreds of thousands of times.
Whenever you are selling a product that has a high price on it, you must be aware that risk enters into the buyer's calculations immediately.
Risk Factor 2: Number of People Affected
The second factor contributing to the perception of risk is the number of people who will be affected by the buying decision. Almost every complex buying decision involves several people.
There are people who must use the product or service. There are people who must pay for the product or service. There are people who are dependent of the results expected from the product or service. If a person is extremely sensitive to the opinions of others, this factor alone can cause him or her to put off a buying decision.
Risk Factor 3: Length of Life of the Product
The third factor contributing to the perception of risk is the length of life of the product. A product or service that, once installed, is meant to last for several years, generates the feeling of risk. The customer panics and thinks, "What if it doesn't work and I'm stuck with it?"
Risk Factor 4: Unfamiliarity
The fourth major risk factor is the customer's unfamiliarity with you, your company, and your product or service. A first-time buyer, one who has not bought the product or service before, or who has not bought it from you, is often nervous and requires a lot of hand-holding.
Anything new or different makes the average customer tense and uneasy. This is why a new product or service, or a new business relationship with your company, has to be presented as a natural extension of what the customer is already doing.
Overcoming Risk
In every case, you must overcome the customer's fear of risk if you are going to make the sale. Everything you do, from the first contact, through closing, the delivery and installation of the product or service, and the follow-up to the sale, must be done with the customer's perception of risk uppermost in your thinking.
Successful sales people are those who position their products or services as the lowest-risk product or service available to satisfy the particular need or achieve the particular goal of the customer.
Low-Risk vs. Low-Price
Your job is to be the low-risk provider, not necessarily the low-price vendor. Your job is to demonstrate clearly that your product or service represents the safest and most secure purchase decision rather than merely being the least expensive or highest quality.
Our customers today are the most experienced in customer history. They know that there is usually a close correlation between higher price on the one hand and greater security and after-sales satisfaction on the other. Your task is to make this differential clear in your sales presentation, especially when positioning you product or service against lower-priced competition.
Action Exercise
Identify the risks that a customer might find with your product or service. Once you have clearly defined those risks, it will be easier to find solutions for them to ease nervous customers.
Written by Brain Tracy and Trained by Mark Garbelotto
Eliminate the Time Wasters in Selling…
The first major time waster in selling is procrastination and delay. This occurs when you find every conceivable reason to put off getting there with people who can and will buy from you. Everyone procrastinates. There is always too much to do and too little time. The difference between successes and failures is determined by people's choices about what they put off. Losers put off the important things that could make a difference in their lives. Winners put off low-value tasks and activities.
Stop Wasting Time
According to Robert Half International, half of all working time, in all fields, is wasted. Most of this wasted time is taken up with coffee breaks, phone calls, and personal business, or other useless activities that make no contribution to your work.
Resolve to Overcome Procrastination
The best way to overcome procrastination is to plan each day in advance, set priorities on your activities, and then make your first sales call as early as you possibly can. Get up and get going. When you launch quickly into a workday, doing something important as early as possible, you will work at a higher level of effectiveness all day long.
The Incomplete Sales Call
Another major time waster is the incomplete sales call, requiring a callback. This occurs when you have not thoroughly prepared your presentation or taken all the materials you need for your sales call. When you are with the customer, you find you're missing the correct order forms, or other materials needed to close the sale. You then have to make arrangements to go back and see the prospect a second time, something that often does not happen.
Inaccuracies and Deficiencies
You waste a lot of time in selling when you find yourself with a prospect, but without all the information needed to make an intelligent presentation. You may have the wrong facts, the wrong figures, or the wrong specifications. You have misunderstood what the prospect said she wanted and made a proposal that does not solve the prospect's problem or satisfy her need.
Lack of Product Knowledge
This weakness can cost you hours of hard work. It boils down to ignorance of the product or service you are selling. This is invariably caused by laziness on the part of the salesperson. Fortunately it can be very easily overcome with time and study.
Poor Preparation
Thorough preparation separates the sheep from the goats among sales professionals. The top salesperson takes the time to diligently study every detail of her product or service. She reviews and then reviews again. She takes notes. She decides in advance that no one will ever ask her a question that she cannot answer intelligently and completely.
Unconfirmed Appointments
Here's a common scenario. A salesperson sets off across town to see a prospect for an appointment. It was arranged in advance, so everything should go as planned, right? But when the salesperson arrives, the prospect has been called out of town, is in a meeting, or cannot see him for some reason. As a result, he has wasted the entire trip, including the time it now takes him to get back to the office. Sometimes a salesperson can lose half a day because he did not reconfirm an appointment.
Action Exercise
Plan every day in advance; make a list of everything you have to do, and then set priorities on your list; always start with your number one, most important task.
Written by Brian Tracy and Trained by Mark Garbelotto
Be a Sales Superstar….
This is a wonderful time to be alive and working in the profession of selling. Regardless of the ups and downs of the economy or temporary changes in your industry, there have never been more opportunities for you to achieve more of your goals—and enjoy a higher standard of living—than exist today by selling more of your products and services in the marketplace.
Commit to Excellence
Ambitious people have one remarkable characteristic in sales. They dream big dreams. They have high aspirations. They see themselves as capable of being the best in their fields. They know that the top 20 percent of salespeople make 80 percent of the sales, and they are determined to be among that top group.
Act As If It Were Impossible to Fail
Fear, uncertainty, and doubt are, and always have been, the greatest enemies of success and happiness. For this reason, top salespeople work continually to confront the fears that hold most salespeople back. The two major fears that stand as the greatest obstacle on your road to success are the fear of failure, or loss, and the fear of criticism, or rejection. These are the major enemies to be overcome.
Put Your Whole Heart into Your Selling
Selling has often been called a transfer of enthusiasm. The more enthusiastic and convinced you are about what you are selling, the more contagious this enthusiasm will be and the more your customers will sense it and act on it. Human beings are primarily emotional in everything they so and say. This is why caring is a critical element in successful selling.
Position Yourself as a Real Professional
Top salespeople see themselves as consultants rather than salespeople. They see themselves as advisors, helpers, counselors, and friends to their clients and customers. They see themselves as problem solvers more than anything else.
Dedicate Yourself to Continuous Learning
To earn more, you must learn more. You are "maxed out" today at your current level of knowledge and skill. You cannot get more or better results by simply working harder using your present abilities. If you want to earn more in the future, you must learn and apply new methods and techniques. Remember the old saying: "The more you do of what you're doing, the more you'll get of what you're getting."
Action Exercise
Develop an action plan for personal and professional development. Prepare a "training schedule" for yourself exactly as if you were training for a marathon or a big competition.
Written by Brian Tracy and trained by Mark Garbelotto
Seven Steps to Motivating Your Sales Team…
In your next sales meeting ask each sales person the following questions:
1. What’s your greatest sales story ever? (2 minutes max)
2. What specifically made this your biggest sales achievement?
3. What effect did your efforts have on YOUR CUSTOMER?
4. What are 3 THINGS that you have STOPPED doing from your greatest sales story?
5. What are 3 things you are going to START DOING to have your next greatest sales story?
6. Set a new date for your next greatest sales story discussion.
7. Write it down and TAKE ACTION the moment you walk out of the sales meeting.
Watch more sales tips at Selling Like a Pro k
Be a Doctor of Selling..
Top sales professionals see themselves as "Doctors of Selling." They see themselves as professionals, well educated, acting in their "patient's" best interest, and bound by a high code of ethics.
The medical process is the same everywhere. Whenever you go to any doctor, of any kind, for any condition, he will follow the three part sequence of examination, diagnosis and prescription.
Begin With a Thorough Examination
Just as a medical professional would never think of treating you without following these three steps in order, you as a doctor of selling, would never allow a customer to force you to sell without your going through your three stages as well. This is as applicable to selling magazines door-to-door as it is to selling oil tankers to Exxon.
In the examination phase, you ask excellent questions, carefully prepared, in sequence, which are geared to give you a thorough knowledge of the patient's condition, or the customer's situation.
Diagnose the Customer's Need Accurately
The second phase is that of diagnosis. In the diagnosis phase with a customer, you would repeat back the results of your examination and double check to be sure that the symptoms that you had detected were the real symptoms being experienced by the patient. You would ask additional questions to confirm and corroborate. You and the patient would mutually agree that this diagnosis seems to be an accurate description of the condition or problem.
Make the Right Prescription
Once this mutual agreement has been reached, that a treatable condition exists and that you have identified it accurately, you can move on to phase three. This is the prescription phase, where you show the patient (customer) that your product or service is the best available treatment, taking all the factors of the patient's situation into consideration for the ailment that you have diagnosed. You show that, on balance, what you are suggesting is the best of all possible solutions.
Professionals who sell in the way that doctors treat patients find that their sales activities proceed far more smoothly and result in better sales in less time.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, take the time to do a thorough examination by asking excellent questions and by listening carefully to the answers.
Second, repeat back and check your diagnosis with the customer so that you both agree on the need or problem – before you recommend a solution.
Written by Brian Tracy and Trained by Mark Garbelotto
The Endgame to Selling…
In golf, there is a saying that, "You drive for show, but you putt for dough." In selling, you prospect and present for show, but you overcome customer skepticism and gain commitment for dough. Your ability to answer objections and get the sale is the true test of how good you really are as a salesperson.
The True Test of Selling
This is perhaps the most stressful and challenging part of the sales process. It's where the rubber meets the road. It is your ability to answer the questions that the prospect puts to you and overcome his natural reluctance to make a commitment that wraps up the sales process. It is also the part of the sales process that salespeople dislike the most and which customers find the most stressful.
Plan It in Advance
The end game of selling must be carefully thought through and planned in advance so that you are thoroughly prepared to bring the sales conversation to its natural conclusion at the earliest and most appropriate moment. Fortunately, this is a skill, like riding a bicycle or typing with a typewriter, and you can learn it through study and practice.
Handling Objections Comes First
Handling objections and closing the sale are two different parts of the sales process but they are so close together that this chapter will discuss them as a single function. Just as there are reasons why people buy a product, there are reasons why they don't. Often answering an objection or removing an obstacle is the critical element in making the sale. You can answer the objection and close the sale simultaneously.
Make It a Reason to Buy
Objections can be turned into reasons for buying. Just as there is a primary reason for buying a product, a hot button, there is a primary objection that stops the person from buying it. If you can emphasize the one and remove the other, the sale falls together naturally.
Smaller Products Versus Larger Products
In selling smaller products or services, where you can prospect and make a complete presentation in the first meeting, your approach to closing will be different from that required if you are selling a larger product in a multi-call sale that stretches over several weeks or months.
Ask For the Order
In the shorter, smaller sale, the prospect knows everything necessary to make a buying decision at the end of your presentation. Your aim should be to answer any lingering questions and then ask for the order. In the larger sale, you may have to meet with the prospect several times before the prospect is in a position to make a buying decision. You will have to be more patient and persistent.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, prepare yourself in advance for the endgame of selling by anticipating anything the customer might offer as a reason for not buying. Be ready.
Second, look for the hot button, the reason the customer will buy, and press it. Meanwhile, find out his major reason for not buying and remove it.
Written by Brian Tracy and trained by Mark Garbelotto – Australia’s #1 Corporate Sales Trainer
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See you there…
The Key to Sales Success 2011
Learn to Listen Well
A vital key to sales success is listening. The ability to listen well is absolutely indispensable for success in all human relationships. The ability to be a good listener in a sales conversation is the foundation of the new model of selling. It leads to easier sales, higher earnings and greater enjoyment from the sales profession.
Being A Good Talker is Not Enough
Many salespeople have been brought up with the idea that, in order to be good at your profession, you must be a glad-hander and a good talker. You have even heard people say, "You have the 'gift of the gab'; you should be in sales!"
Focus On the Other Person
Nothing could be further from the truth. As many as seventy five percent of all top salespeople are defined as introverts on psychological tests. They are very easy going and other-centered. They would much rather listen than talk. They are very interested in the thoughts and feelings of other people and they are quite comfortable sitting and listening to their prospects. They would much rather listen than talk in a sales situation. Poor salespeople dominate the talking, but top salespeople dominate the listening.
Practice "White Magic" With Everyone
Listening has even been called "white magic." It is too rarely engaged in by business people. When a salesperson develops a reputation for being an excellent listener, prospects and customers feel comfortable and secure in his or her presence. They buy more readily, and more often.
Practice the 70/30 Rule
You've heard it said that God gave man two ears and one mouth, and he is supposed to use them in that proportion.
Top salespeople practice the "70/30 rule." They talk and ask questions 30 percent or less of the time while they listen intently to their customers 70 percent or more of the time. They use their ears and mouth in the right ratio.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, resolve today that, from now on, you are going to dominate the listening in every sales conversation. Become comfortable with silence.
Second, practice the 70/30 rule in every sales conversation. Listen 70% of the time and only talk and ask questions 30% of the time.
Written by Brian Tracy and trained by Mark Garbelotto
The Law of Clarity for 2011
Clarity accounts for probably 80% of success and happiness. Lack of clarity is probably more responsible for frustration and underachievement than any other single factor. That's why we say that "Success is goals, and all else is commentary." People with clear, written goals, accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than people without them could ever imagine. This is true everywhere and under all circumstances.
The Three Keys to High Achievement
You could even say that the three keys to high achievement are, "Clarity, Clarity, Clarity," with regard to your goals. Your success in life will be largely determined by how clear you are about what it is you really, really want.
Write and Rewrite Your Goals
The more you write and rewrite your goals and the more you think about them, the clearer you will become about them. The clearer you are about what you want, the more likely you are to do more and more of the things that are consistent with achieving them. Meanwhile, you will do fewer and fewer of the things that don't help to get the things you really want.
The Seven Step Process for Achieving Goals
First, decide exactly what you want in each area of your life. Be specific!
Second, write it down, clearly and in detail;
Third, set a specific deadline. If it is a large goal, break it down into sub-deadlines and write them down in order;
Fourth, make a list of everything you can think of that you are going to have to do to achieve your goal. As you think of new items, add them to your list;
Fifth, organize the items on your list into a plan by placing them in the proper sequence and priority;
Sixth, take action immediately on the most important thing you can do on your plan. This is very important!
Seventh, do something every day that moves you toward the attainment of one or more of your important goals. Maintain the momentum!
Join the Top 3%
Fewer than three percent of adults have written goals and plans that they work on every single day. When you sit down and write out your goals, you move yourself into the top 3% of people in our society. And you will soon start to get the same results that they do.
Review Your Goals Daily
Study and review your goals every day to be sure they are still your most important goals. You will find yourself adding goals to your list as time passes. You will also find yourself deleting goals that are no longer as important as you once thought. Whatever your goals are, plan them out thoroughly, on paper, and work on them every single day. This is the key to peak performance and maximum achievement.
Action Exercises
Here is how you can apply this law immediately:
First, make a list of ten goals that you would like to achieve in the coming year. Write them down in the present tense, as though a year has passed and you have already accomplished them.
Second, from your list of ten goals, ask yourself, "What one goal, if I were to accomplish it, would have the greatest positive impact on my life?" Whatever it is, put a circle around this goal and move it to a separate sheet of paper.
Third, practice the seven-step method described above on this goal. Set a deadline, make a plan, and put it into action and work on it every day. Make this goal your major definite purpose for the weeks and months ahead.
Get ready for some amazing changes in your life.
Written by Brian Tracy and trained by Mark Garbelotto at the eat that frog seminars www.eatthatfrog.com.au
