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
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 Selling Secret No One Tells You
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What’s the biggest bottleneck every business owner and sales person faces to selling more? What is it that is keeping you from doubling your sales next month or tripling them this year?
What’s the most common mistake that prevents 97% of business owners and sales people from becoming a huge success and living the life they want? What’s the one thing keeping you from pulling in more sales even in a tough economy?
For most marketers and sales people, the problem isn’t due to lack of hard work or the quality of your product and services. You’re already working 60-hour weeks and your current clients love you.
The bottleneck to your growth is being able to attract a steady stream of new business and keep existing clients buying again and again. No matter how hard you work or how good your products and services are, without a steady stream of new prospects and sales, you can’t grow your business.
The Secret You Need to KnowEvery savvy sales person and business owner knows that to grow their business they need to market it. You know that you need to generate leads, advertise, use mailings, and you may even already have a website. But these are just individual pieces of the marketing and selling puzzle.
The secret that no one tells you is how to put this marketing and selling puzzle together so it works to steadily grow your income and business. And without this knowledge, you can easily bleed your bank account dry. What’s the solution? How can you make more with less effort?
To grow your business, to build wealth, you need a proven marketing and sales system to succeed. I’m always amazed at how many business owners and sales people constantly try to attract new business without one.
You could be making ten times as much with a lot less effort.
Discover the fastest way to ramp up sales and profits.
With a proven system for getting prospects’ attention, generating leads, converting leads to clients, maximizing sales, and generating repeat sales, you can easily double or triple your sales and have time to take a well-deserved vacation.
A System That DeliversNew York City has a system for catching rain in upstate reservoirs and then piping it to residents in the city. The only problem is that the delivery pipes are so antiquated that 10-15% of the water leaks out along the way before it gets to the tap.
Most business owners and sales people’s marketing and sales processes leak prospects at a much higher rate. Of all the people who view your marketing and sales materials, what percent contact you and buy from you?
Most sales and marketing systems are so leaky, they only deliver a fraction of a percent of the prospects they should. Such an inefficient system is both costly and requires a lot of time in maintenance.
Now imagine you had a proven marketing and selling system one that you could put on autopilot to generate a steady stream of leads, sales and profits. You would make at least double what you are now if not ten times as much.
To help you plug the leaks in your sales and marketing, and realize the profits you’ve targeted, you’ll need a proven wealth building system. For many people, this simple system has quickly generated more business in a month than most people do in a year.
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Remember, if you don’t take action today to increase sales grow your business and be more successful, who will? Smart people like you recognize a great deal when they see one. Then they move forward to improve themselves and their business. Here’s how…
Learn how to generate a steady stream of new and qualified prospects at our upcoming Selling like a Pro Training Workshops!
As seen in Australian Business Solutions Magazine, Mark Garbelotto will be travelling throughout Australia in March and April to show business owners and salespeople the secrets to selling faster and easier in tough markets!
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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.
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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.
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.
Ensuring Success at Work
November 22, 2009
Ensuring Success at Work
By Brian Tracy
The very best times you will ever have at any job or company are when you are getting along wonderfully well with your boss. On the other hand, the very worst times you will ever have at any job are when you are not getting along well with your boss. And the major reason why employees have problems with their bosses is because of a lack of clarity about what exactly is to be done, and to what standard, and in what order of priority.
It is important to your boss that you are making the appropriate decisions for the company and completing your job. In order to make decisions effectively, you must know the three types of decisions.
Three Types of Decisions
There are three types of decisions in any organization or family. When decisions involve other people, it is important that everyone is clear about what kind of a decision is under consideration.
Command Decisions
These decisions have to be made by the boss or the person in charge. These decisions are so important that one person is solely responsible for making up his mind about what is to be done.
Hiring a key staff member, firing a poor performer, making an important investment decision, or even negotiating a new loan with the bank are all command decisions. They must be made by the person in charge.
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Consultative Decisions
This is a decision where you, or the boss, ask for advice and take input from other people. You combine the opinions, ideas, and inputs of others, together with your own, and make a decision. Even though it invites the advice and participation of others, a consultative decision is not made based on that advice.
You may be thinking of hiring a new person, assigning someone a particular task, spending a certain amount of money on a business activity, or embarking on a new sales or marketing campaign. If you are the boss, you can ask for advice from everyone before you finally close the door and make your final decision.
Consensus Decisions
The third type of decision is one that is made on the basis of consensus. This is a democratic decision where everyone gets involved, discusses the pros and cons, and then agrees on what is to be done.
Sometimes, everyone is in agreement, and sometimes the decision is made by a democratic vote, where the majority rules. Once the decision has been made, everyone commits to making the decision successful, however they may have voted during the discussion phase.
Action Exercise
Practice participative management with your staff, hold weekly staff meetings and invite everyone to participate and ask questions.
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Call 1300 795 129 to place orders for books and CDs like Flight Plan, Speak to Win, and The Psychology of Selling.
Maximise Profits
November 13, 2009
Maximize Profits
By Brian Tracy
Sales are only one barometer for success. Your ultimate goal is to increase profits in order to achieve the greatest possible return on your investment of money, time, and energy. Every customer, activity, product, or service yields a specific profit of a specific amount. In some cases, you may actually be losing money in one or more of these three areas. One of the most important things you can do for your growing business is to determine where to focus the investment of your time and money based on the return thrown off by this investment.
Personal Profitability
To truly analyze the profitability of your business, you must first examine your personal rate of return. From this personal perspective, what is your major expense? It’s your time. By now, you should have developed the habit of continually asking yourself this basic question: Would I pay someone else my hourly rate to perform this task? If not, you are failing to maximize the return on your time. In other words, you are investing your time in an area that yields less than the optimum rate of return. You are incurring a "loss of opportunity" cost. This, in turn, affects the overall profitability of your business.
People Profitability
Payroll represents one of the largest expense items for most businesses. As a business grows, it typically hires additional staff according to the most pressing need at the moment. Once a person has been hired, often she or he can become a permanent fixture, even when the company’s needs change. Many entrepreneurs are too busy creating products, designing services, and generating revenues to pay close attention to employee performance. Over time, the result can be an inefficient and ineffective staff and a bloated payroll.
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Do you want to learn how to maximise your profits and increase your sales? Come to Mark Garbelotto’s Selling like a Professional Training Workshop in November!
Customer Profitability
Some customers are more profitable than others; some may actually be costing you money. Can you identify your most profitable customers? Do you know any who are unprofitable? There is not necessarily any connection between the size of the customer or the volume of business he produces and his profitability. There are several questions you should ask as you examine your customers profitability: How often does each customer purchase from you? What is the average size of each purchase? What is the profit margin of the product(s) purchased? How much time is spent providing customer service after the sale? What is the "product returns" record of each customer?
Concentrate on Profitable Customers
Many companies regularly “fire” the top 10 percent of their customers. They stop doing business with those who generate the least revenues or yield the lowest on their return purchases, choosing to concentrate on their more profitable customers and attracting more like them. At the very least, be diligent in rooting out those customers who actually cost you money—regardless of the revenues they generate. You cannot afford to carry this unprofitable load.
Action Exercise
Identify your most and your least profitable customers. Focus on the most profitable.
Learn how to identify your most profitable customers and generate business through Brian Tracy’s proven sales system. Don’t miss out on the Selling like a Professional Training Workshop in Melbourne and Townsville in November!
Call our office on 1300 795 129 to register before this event sells out!
Delegating and Supervising: Five Steps
By Brian Tracy
The ability to delegate is one of the key result areas of management. Fortunately, it is a skill that can be learned with practice. Delegation is an art as well as a science. Effective delegation requires time, thought, and careful consideration. It is something that you must learn to do if you want to leverage yourself to the maximum.
Step One
The first step in delegation is to become perfectly clear about the results that you desire from the job. The greater clarity you have with regard to the results expected, the easier it is for you to select the right person to do the job.
Step Two
The second step is to select a person based on his or her demonstrated ability or success at doing this job. Never delegate an important job to a person who has never done it before. If the successful completion of the task is important to the success of your business, it is essential that you delegate it to someone who you confidently believe can complete the task satisfactorily.
Third, explain to the person exactly what you want done, the results that you expect, the time schedule that you require, and your preferred method of working. The reason that you are in a position to delegate a task is because you have probably already mastered this task. Taking the time to teach and explain the best way to do the task based on your experience is an excellent way to ensure that the task will be done as you wish and on schedule. Step Four
Step four is to set up a schedule for reporting on progress. If it is an important task, set up a deadline for completion that is a day or a week before your actual deadline. Always build some slack into the system. Then, check on the progress of the task regularly, very much like a doctor would check on the condition of a critical care patient. Leave nothing to chance. Step Five
Step five, inspect what you expect. Delegation is not abdication. Just because you have assigned a task to another person does not mean that you are no longer accountable. And the more important the task, the more important it is that you keep on top of it. Action Exercise
What task can you effectively delegate to someone else? Which one of your employees can handle the task efficiently?
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