Practice Golden Rule Selling
To improve your sales performance, adopt the Golden Rule mentality. The Golden Rule says to, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." It also says, "Love your neighbor as yourself." The Golden Rule mentality in sales, says simply, "Sell unto others as you would have them sell unto you."
Different Strokes For Different Folks
What does this mean? Aren't there all kinds of different personalities that require different approaches and techniques? Well, yes and no. Practicing the golden rule in selling simply means that you sell to other people the way you would like to be sold to. You sell with the same honesty, integrity, understanding, empathy and thoughtfulness that you would like someone else to use in selling to you.
Seek First to Understand
If you would like a salesperson to take the time to thoroughly understand you and your situation before making a recommendation, you practice the same thing with your customers. If you would like a salesperson to give you honest information and to help you make an intelligent buying decision, you practice the same with your customer. If you would like a salesperson to be thoroughly knowledgeable about the strengths or weaknesses of his or her product or service, and that of his or her competitors, then you do the same with your product or service and your competitors.
Care About Your Customers
Perhaps the most important part of golden rule selling is the emotional component embraced in the word, "caring." Top sales professionals care about their customers. They care about themselves, their companies, their products and services, and they really care about helping their customers to make good buying decisions. If you think about the very best salespeople you know, you will recognize that they are caring individuals.
They Don't Care How Much You Know
If you think about your very best customers, you will recall that these are invariably people you care about, and who care about you. When you think about the people you buy from, you will recall that they seem to care about you more than the average. In every part of your business life, you will find that the significant people all have the denominator of caring as part of their character and their personalities.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, resolve today to sell to your customers with the same honesty, empathy and understanding that you would like them to use in selling to you.
Second, take time to genuinely care about your customers, their individual needs and their unique situations. Make people feel important and they will make you feel important.
Saving Time When Dealing with Others
Your interactions with others consume as much time, if not more, than any other part of your day. Even technical workers spend up to 75 percent of their time communicating with co-workers. You can greatly increase the efficiency of your interactions by improving the quality of your communications.
Common Misunderstandings
A major waste of time is caused by misunderstandings between people about roles, goals, and responsibilities. People do not know what they are expected to do, how to do it, and by what time.
Misunderstandings lead to inefficiencies, anger, frustration, and unhappiness. It often requires an enormous amount of time to clear up a misunderstanding and get matters back to normal.
Unclear Priorities
Misunderstandings about priorities often lead to your working at the wrong job, at the wrong time, for the wrong reason, and perhaps aiming at the wrong level of quality. Or the problem may be that you are working for the wrong person.
The single most important cause of positive feelings and high levels of motivation in work is defined as "knowing exactly what is expected." On the other hand, the number-one complaint, or demotivator, of employees is to "not know what is expected."
In order to perform at your best, you need absolute clarity about your job and what you are expected to do.
Poor Delegation
Poor delegation to others, or from others, leads to mistakes and frustration on the part of both the boss and the employee. It is a major time waster. Poor delegation causes even the most sincere talented people to do poor work or the wrong jobs. Therefore, they end up feeling frustrated and unhappy.
Unclear Lines of Authority
Unclear lines of authority and responsibility lead to time wastage. People do not know who is supposed to do what job, when is it be done, and to what standard of quality. People are left to wonder, who is supposed to report to whom? Who's in charge? Who's the boss?
Incomplete Information
Another major time waster in business is poor or incomplete information, which leads to erroneous assumptions and conclusions. It is amazing how often people jump to conclusions or make false assumptions on the basis of wrong information.
The very best managers take the time to ask questions, and they listen carefully to the answers before they make a decision. If there is a key piece of information that suggests a problem or difficulty, they double-check on this piece of information to make sure that it is accurate.
Aimless or Too Frequent Meetings
Too many meetings, or aimless meetings that proceed without an agenda, direction, or closure, are an enormous waste of time at work. These are meetings that start and stop without any particular resolution. No problems are solved, no decisions are made, and no responsibilities are assigned. No deadlines are agreed upon for action.
Lack of Clarity Concerning One's Job
People need to know everything that is happening in the company that affects their particular jobs. The very best companies are open and honest with all employees concerning those matters affecting the health of the company.
Employees need to know what is going on and how their jobs fit into the big picture. When employees are unclear or unsure, an enormous amount of time is lost as the result of conversations, discussions, and gossip, which lead to ineffective work behaviors and poor productivity.
Action Exercise
Be crystal-clear in explaining to others exactly what is to be done, and to what standard of performance, and by what date.
By Brian Tracy
Fortune Favours the Brave
Boldness is a necessary part of courage but it must be a boldness based on an intelligent assessment of the potential risks and rew ards. The wonderful nature of boldness is that, properly directed, it builds the habit of courage in the person who practices it.
Act Boldly in Every Situation
In my experience, any virtue translated into action leads almost invariably to positive results. This applies to integrity, persistence, courtesy, love and courage. I've always liked the advice of an old man to his grandson. "Act boldly and unseen forces will come to your aid."
Take a Leap of Faith
Perhaps the most obviously important part of courage is the courage to step out in the face of uncertainty. Every great venture in the history of man has begun with faith and a giant leap into the unknown.
General Douglas MacArthur said, "There is no security in life, only opportunity." The creed of Frederick The Great, one of history's most successful leaders was, "Audacity, audacity-always audacity."
Launch With No Guarantees
A 12-year study of successful entrepreneurs conducted by Babson College concluded that the only thing they had in common was the willingness to launch, to step out in faith. Once they had started, they learned the lessons they needed to succeed. Many of them ending up successful in completely different businesses from where they started.
Dare to Go Forward
Dare to go forward. Successful companies are invariably those that continue to research, develop, experiment and introduce new products and services – even during the deepest recessions. Successful executives are those who are continually stretching themselves to move out of the comfort zone, to face the twin fears of failure and rejection and to move forward in spite of them.
Action Exercises
Here are two ways to develop greater boldness in your work and personal life.
First, just do it! Step out in faith! If you think of some action you can take to improve your life, give it a try. You may be surprised.
Second, when in doubt, act with audacity. Audacity may get you into trouble but even more audacity will get you out. Go for it!
By: Brian Tracy
BNI KL10 International Conference in Malaysian
Hi all just back from the BNI KL10 international conference in Malaysian. A couple of the topics I did some training on was “Out Sell Your Competition in Any Market” and “The Art of Closing the Sale”. I will be releasing the seminar called “The Art of Closing the Sale” in Australia. The first seminar will be on the 22nd of July in Townsville. I will keep you posted with new dates and locations. Talk soon Mark Garbelotto
The Law of Clarity…
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.
Here, once more, is the simple, seven-step process that you can use to achieve your goals faster and easier than ever before.
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.
Two Principles of Financial Success
February 9, 2010
Two Principles for Financial Success
By: Brian Tracy
There are two great principles for achieving financial success. The first principle is what we call the law of attraction. The law of attraction says that you are a living magnet. It says that your thoughts create a force field of energy that radiates out from you and attracts back into your life people and circumstances in harmony with them. Any thought you have, combined with an emotion, positive or negative, radiates out from you and attracts back into your life the people, circumstances, ideas, and opportunities consistent with it.
How to Attract the Success You Desire
Many people feel that this is perhaps the most important of all mental laws. It says that if you have a very clear idea in your mind of your desired goal, to become wealthy, and you can hold that idea in your mind on a continuing basis, you will inevitably draw into your life the resources that you need in order to achieve it. Every person who has become wealthy or successful has become wealthy and successful as a result of holding the idea of wealth and success in their mind long enough and hard enough, until they drew into their lives the resources they needed to accomplish it.
Your World Reflects Your Thoughts
The second principle is called the law of correspondence. This mental law is very powerful. It says, "as within, so without." It says that your outer world is like a mirror that reflects back to you what is going on in your inner world. And this law of correspondence says that everything that happens outside of you corresponds to something that’s going on inside of you. When we say that your outer world is a reflection of your inner world, we mean both at a conscious and at a subconscious level.
Discover how to attract more qualified prospects and close more sales at my 2-hour Selling like a Pro Training Workshops in Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Adelaide, Townsville, and Hobart in 2010!
Visualize Your Goals Clearly
If you consciously believe that you have the ability to achieve your goals and you can hold a picture of those goals clearly in your mind long enough and hard enough, eventually your outer world will correspond with it.
Three Reflections of Success
There are three places where we see this law of correspondence. First of all, your outer world of people will correspond exactly with your own attitude. You will always see your attitude reflected back to you in the faces and the behaviors of the people around you. If you have a positive, optimistic attitude, people will respond to you almost immediately, even before you open your mouth, in a positive and cheerful way.
Relationships Show You Who You Are
The second area where we see the law of correspondence is in your relationships. Your relationships will always mirror back to you exactly the kind of a person you are. When you are happy and optimistic and at peace, your relationships will be happy and harmonious and loving. But when your thinking is disrupted or negative for any reason, consciously or unconsciously, this will be immediately reflected in your relationships.
Inner and Outer Wealth
The third place you see the law of correspondence is with regard to your wealth. Your external world of wealth and financial accomplishment will be a mirror image of your inner world of preparation. The only part of the equation that you can control is your conscious thoughts, and if you can keep your conscious thoughts on what you want, on your images of wealth and affluence, eventually your external world of reality and experiences will reflect it back to you.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do to apply these principles in your financial life:
First, guard your thoughts carefully. Whatever you think about, combined with the emotions of desire or fear, you will attract into your life. Be sure that you are attracting what you want by continuing to think only about what you want.
Second, keep feeding your mind with new information, ideas and pictures of the person you want to be and the life you want to live. By creating this inner attitude of mind, you change the outer aspects of your reality.
Create Large Chunks of Time
February 5, 2010
Create Large Chunks of Time
By: Brian Tracy
This strategy requires a commitment from you to work at scheduled times on large tasks. Most of the really important work you do requires large chunks of unbroken time to complete. Your ability to create and carve out these blocks of high value, highly productive time, is central to your ability to make a significant contribution to your work and to your life.
Thoughtfulness may be defined as a careful concern for the secondary consequences of each decision and each action. This is the essence of strategic thinking.
Start Immediately on Number One
Successful salespeople set aside a specific time period each day to phone prospects. Rather than procrastinating or delaying on a task that they don’t particularly like, they resolve that they will phone for one solid hour between 10 and 11 AM and they then discipline themselves to follow through on their resolutions.
Many business executives set aside a specific time each day to call customers directly to get feedback.
Create Specific Amounts of Time
Some people allocate specific 30-60 minute time periods each day for exercise. Many people read in the great books 15 minutes each night before retiring. In this way, over time, they eventually read dozens of the best books ever written.
The key to the success of this method of working in specific time segments is for you to plan your day in advance and specifically schedule a fixed time period for a particular activity or task.
You make work appointments with yourself and then discipline yourself to keep them. You set aside thirty, sixty and ninety minute time segments that you use to work on and complete important tasks.
Create Preplanned Periods
Many highly productive people schedule specific activities in preplanned time slots all day long. These people build their work lives around accomplishing key tasks one at a time. As a result, they become more and more productive and eventually produce two times, three times and five times as much as the average person.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, organize each day to create large chunks of time you can use for key task completion.
Second, make a written appointment with yourself to work on a key task at a specific time.
Imagine having more free time in your life to do the things you really want to do! Learn how to get more free time and achieve your goals at our 2-hour Mini Eat That Frog Training Workshops Australia-wide! Call 1300 795 129 to book.
The Seven P Formula for Marketing Success
January 20, 2010
The Seven P Formula for Marketing Success
By Brian Tracy
Once you have developed your marketing strategy, there is a seven P formula you should continually use to evaluate and reevaluate your business activities. These seven are: product, price, promotion, place, packaging, positioning, and people. As products, markets, customers, and needs change rapidly, you must continually revisit these seven P’s to make sure you are on track and achieving the maximum results possible for you in today’s Market.
Product
To begin, develop the habit of looking at your product as though you were an outside marketing consultant having been brought in to help your company decide whether or not it is in the right business at this time. Ask critical questions such as: Is your current product or service, or mix of products or services appropriate and suitable for the market and the customers of today?
Prices Deserve Attention
The second P in the formula has to do with price. Develop the habit of continually examining and reexamining the prices of the products and services that you sell to make sure they are still appropriate to the realities of the current market. Sometimes you need to lower your prices. At other times, it may be appropriate to raise your prices. Many companies have found that the profitability of certain products or services does not justify the amount of effort and resources that go into producing them. By raising their prices, they may lose a percentage of their customers, but the remaining percentage generates a profit on every sale. Could this be appropriate for you?
Promotion
The third habit in marketing and sales is for you to develop the habit of thinking in terms of promotion all the time. Promotion includes all the ways you tell your customers about products or services and how you then market and sell to them. Small changes in the way you promote and sell your products can lead to dramatic changes in your results. Experienced copywriters can often increase the response rate from advertising by 500 percent by simply changing the headline on the advertisement.
Place
The fourth P in the marketing mix is the place where your product or service is actually sold. Develop the habit of reviewing and reflecting upon the exact location where the customer meets the salesperson. Sometimes a change in place can lead to a rapid increase in sales.
Packaging
The fifth element in the marketing mix is packaging. Develop the habit of standing back and looking at every visual element in the packaging of your product or service through the eyes of a critical prospect. Remember, people form their first impression about you within 30 seconds of seeing you or some element of your company. Small improvements in the packaging or external appearance of your product or service can often lead to completely different reactions from your customers.
Positioning
The next P is positioning. You should develop the habit of thinking continually about how you are positioned in the hearts and minds of your customers. How do people think about you and talk about you when you are not present? How do people think and talk about your company? What positioning do you have in your market, in terms of the specific words that people use when they describe you and your offerings to others?
People are Everything
The final P is people. Develop the habit of thinking in terms of the people inside and outside of your business who are responsible for every element of your sales and marketing strategy and activities. Your ability to select, recruit, hire, and retain the proper people, with the skills and abilities to do the job you need to have done, is more important than everything else put together.
Action Exercise
Position yourself in everything you say and do as the most credible and believable supplier of your product or service to your ideal customer.
The Law of Reciprocity
People have a deep subconscious need to reciprocate for anything that is done to or for them. The Law of Reciprocity is one of the most powerful of all determinants of human behavior. This is because nobody likes to feel that he or she is obligated to someone else. When someone does something nice for us, we want to repay that person, to reciprocate. We want to be even. Because of this, we seek an opportunity to do something nice in return. This law is the basis of the law of contract, as well as the glue that hold most human relationships together.
Concessions
The first party to make a concession is the party who wants the deal the most. You must therefore avoid being the first one to make a concession, even a small concession. Instead, be friendly and interested, but remain silent. The first person to make a concession will usually be the person who makes additional concessions, even without reciprocal concessions. Most purchasers and sellers are aware of this. They recognize that early concessions are a sign of eagerness and are prepared to take advantage of it. Be careful.
Equal or Greater
Every concession you make in a negotiation should be matched by an equal or greater concession from the other party. If the other party asks for a concession, you may give it, but never without asking for something else in return. If you don’t request a reciprocal concession, the concession that you give will be considered to have no value and will not help as the negotiation proceeds. If a person asks for a better price, suggest that it might be possible but you will have to either decrease the quantity or lengthen the delivery dates. Even if the concession is of no cost or value to you, you must make it appear valuable and important to the other party or it will not help you in the negotiation.
Small concessions on small issues enable you to ask for large concessions on large issues. One of the very best negotiating strategies is to be willing to give something in order to get something. When you make every effort to appear reasonable by conceding on issues that are unimportant to you, you put yourself in an excellent position to request an equal or greater concession later. Use Reciprocity to your Advantage
Use the reciprocity principle to your advantage. Before negotiating make a list of the things the other party might want and decide upon what concessions you are willing to give to get what you want. This preparation strengthens your negotiating ability considerably. Action Exercise
Prepare your best price or offer before you begin. Then, think through your first "fallback" position and how far you are willing to go to make a deal. Prepare your final fallback position as well, along with the maximum you are willing to concede. This exercise of thinking through these issues in advance will make you a much better negotiator.
Selling in Tough Times
December 7, 2009
Recession Selling 101
By Brian Tracy
Sales and profits down this year? Frustrated with the current economy?
Are your customers coming up with more and more objections? Are they telling you the price is too high, they’re not ready to buy right now, want to think about it, can’t get the boss to approve it, or worst of all, "aren’t interested," when you know for a fact they need your product or service.
What’s your plan?
So how can you ramp up sales in this tough economy?
Take Action to Find Out What Works
I’m amazed at the number of savvy business owners I talk to who complain about their sales. They have the idea stuck in their heads that this recession is bad and there is nothing they can do about it.
Nothing could be further from the truth!
Did you know Bill Gates started Microsoft during a recession?
Just because money was tight, it didn’t keep him from becoming the most dominant software provider in the world. And he didn’t accomplish this feat by blaming the economy.
Recessions only come along once every ten to twenty years and ones like this only happen every 50-70 years. And they create huge opportunities for those quick enough to take action and use them to grow their business. People like you!
Find out how you, too, can profit from this economy.
Shift Your Selling Strategy
When I first started out in business, I didn’t know how to get past the common objections that were killing too many sales. But then, when I went through my first recession, I discovered one simple truth about selling.
I’ll tell you what it is in just a second, but let me ask you two questions first:
- Who are prospects more likely to believe; themselves, or you?
- Who is better at closing the sale; the prospect, or you?
The Truth About Selling In Tough Times
The simple truth about selling—and the secret to selling more—is that your prospects are better at closing the sale than you are, if you lead them to it.
Once you understand this and put this breakthrough technique into practice, you’ll close many more sales. This approach turned my career and my business around in the midst of recession and changed my life. It can do the same for you.
Why is it so easy to increase sales when the prospect does the selling instead of you?
Close More Sales By Pre-Selling Your Prospects
The ideal prospects have already heard about you and your products and services and know that you’re the expert to turn to. They’ve heard from people they trust that your products and services work well, so they understand their value.
Prospects like these arrive ‘pre-sold’ and ready to buy from you. Getting them to close the deal becomes a foregone conclusion when you use this amazing selling technique. The result? You’ll close many more sales with a lot less effort.
Don’t you wish you could ‘pre-sell’ all your prospects? Instead of spending your time countering objections from prospects, you could be talking to people who want to buy. Discover how to structure your sales process, establish your credibility, and clarify the value you provide so your prospects ‘pre-sell’ themselves.
Ready to learn the secret to pre-selling your prospects so you can grow your business?
Eliminate Obstacles to Maximize Sales In This Economy
If you drive to work every morning, I don’t have to remind you that it takes much longer to get to work in rush hour traffic. Even a well-designed and well-built freeway slows down to a mind-numbing crawl when it’s overloaded with cars.
Nothing is more aggravating. You’ve got a well-tuned driving machine that could easily do 60 miles an hour and get you to work in 15 or 30 minutes. Instead, you can spend an hour or more stuck in traffic.
Your prospects’ objections are like the cars in that traffic jam, slowing down the sales process. Eliminate those objections in advance, and you and your prospect get to the sale in half the time.
Move the obstacles off the road and clear the way for your prospects to buy. You’ll melt their resistance and sell more of your products and services—again and again.
Want more sales and higher profits?
To earn more, you must learn more.
To order one of Brian Tracy’s best-selling books or CDs on sales, such as ‘Advanced Selling Strategies’, ‘The Psychology of Selling’, and ‘The Art of Closing the Sale’, call our office now on 1300 795 129.
