Archive for June, 2009

I was talking about cold calling to a colleague of mine the other day who said he was having some trouble with connecting to his prospects when making calls. His issue being that he couldn’t connect with the decision maker and it ended with the decision maker finally blasting him on the phone exclaiming “which part of rejection don’t you understand?”… OUCH!!!

However, what he told me next was very interesting and I thought I would post about it today. He told me that after the manager yelled at him, he quietly said “I’m not calling to sell you anything, just have a chat… So I’m not sure why you would think you’re rejecting me?”…

This made the manager seemingly calmed down after that, replying “You’re not!… Ok, we’ll I guess we’d better meet then”…

I thought this was a very useful dynamic, because in typical sales prospecting approaches, when you’re trying to meet with a decision maker “cold” it can often be mistaken as a cold call.

When my friend actually told the manager that he was there “NOT” to sell anything to him, but to talk about a problem he had picked up from their advertising that he had some ideas on, the manager was all ears…

The ironic thing was, in the course of that natural conversation, the manager asked him about what he specialized in as the ideas he gave him were so unique. However, my friend being as skilled as he is, didn’t talk about what he did directly, he took out a snippet of what Michael Port teaches from the book “Book Yourself Solid”…

He said, “Well you’ve probably heard of how most companies have very big advertising bills that quite often don’t pay for themsleves, haven’t you?” to which the manager replied “Yes, of course!”… “Well I take those problems and teach companies how to turn them around, with a number of “non-traditional” approaches that have been proven to work wonders”…

So just by talking generally and not trying to “Push” the sale, but at the same time, relating the natural conversation around the obvious problem that the manager had, he most likely would have been thinking “Yes, that’s me you’re talking about!” but wasn’t going to admit it.

And that’s all you ever need to do, is plant the seed in peoples minds without being obvious, it’s far better that they ask you to help them then, rather than you asking for that.

You’ll find things come to a natural conclusion and sales will fall into place anyway, becuase, as you discuss ideas, examples and past experiences with other clients, you’re demonstrating your ability first hand but in a completely non-threatening way.

Once you get to this place of openness, you can then ask the prospect if he’s ever known anyone in such a position, he’ll say yes and you can then lean back, smile and gently say “Please tell” and it all comes off as a conversation, which is what it should only ever be.

I hope this has helped you a little more with how to open your prospects up, this example was one of the more tougher scenarios, because you’ll find in the real world, unless you really piss someone off or they’re having an extremely bad day, they won’t react violently like that, they’ll just politely say “no thank you!”…

If you rely on selling products, or online services, you need great sales presentation skills to appeal strongly to your prospects and customers.  There are a great number of books and live resources such as Toastmasters, to help you with making great presentations.

The following fundamental points are what I focus on before, during and after my presentations:

1) Practice, Practice, Practice over and over until your presentation is perfect. Do this by standing in front of a mirror and watching your actions.  Also, tape yourself and then play it back.  This will help with your vocal variety and regulation of delivery in your presentation.  Finally get some live practice in front of friends or colleagues, or if you really want to gain some great tips, attend a Toastmasters club near you.  Toastmasters can offer you friendly feedback in a mutually supportive environment.

2) Know your target market, and tailor your presentation to it.  Consider what your target group may need from your sales presentation, the outcome, their terminology and any relative jargon they use in their business.  Knowing this shows that you understand them and will ultimately help them to trust you.

3) Be open and honest.  Don’t try to wing it if you don’t know how to answer a question or handle an objection.  There is high degree of integrity in admitting that you don’t know but will find out.  This also gives you permission to keep the door of communication open in the future.  Plus it gives you the opportunity to put your strongest foot forward to prove you can serve your clients needs effectively.

4) Have a plan.  A good sales presentation has four areas you need to address, as shown below. You should use your plan outline for the main presentation, however you may diverge from your plan for short periods if required.

The Four Areas of a Great Sales Presentation

1. The Opening.  Let your audience know that you are excited to be presenting to them, by thanking them for attending.  Show your enthusiasm also, by letting them know you look forward to working with them after this presentation.

2.The body. Convey your message in an accurate and convincing way.  Be sure to highlight the benefits of what you can provide, whilst being specific and customer focussed.  Show your expertise by painting word pictures of how you can help your prospects to benefit from choosing your product or service.

3. The conclusion. Summarize your main points and restate the obvious benefits of doing business with you.  Thank everyone for attending.

4. The Q&A. Open the opportunity for your audience to clarify any points from your presentation.  Whilst answering the questions, humbly emphasize your strengths on how you would handle any given situation.  Try to think of all the questions that you may be asked, by brainstorming with colleagues and friends before your presentation.  Remember, a question you don’t know the answer to is your opportunity to find out what their needs are and gives you permission to come back to them.

I love to check out sales presentation resources online, as I always seem to find little gems that gives me further in-depth knowledge to increase my sales skills.

While the world’s main sales training companies are making massive profits training new and existing call centre’s and business development managers, they seem to be lacking producing any substantial results for their students.

Knowing what I know now from my extensive experience of over 15 years in the sales industry and having gone through many live training programs, and read many books and have been through many great self-study courses from the likes of Nightingale Conant my favourite online course shop for personal and business development. The results from using the techniques you learn work quite well, and it’s often dependent on the personality of the individual as to how effective they are.

Many of the sales programs taught over time have been high pressure techniques and the typcial scenario that selling is a “numbers game”, especially to telemarketers and cold callers, however this just doesn’t work in today’s marketplace, due to the aggressive way they come across, surprisingly even if the person calling is very polite and happy on the phone.

This stigma of a telemarketer stereotype, has really stuck with salespeople all over the world and has made it very tough for the modern day salesperson. That’s what got me interested in finding an alternative sales training company back in 2004. I found a company by the name of Unlock The Game, and it teaches a refreshingly new and extremely relatable style to connect with prospects based on getting to the truth, rather than pushing for a sale… Wow, what a relief!

You see, many of the sales training companies that exist today, were initially conceptualized back in the day of the high-pressure salesman, you know the ones that used to go door to door and try and make the first thing that came out of their prospects mouth to be a “Yes” so the sale would move forward in a positive way?

This style has since died a very strangled death, along with the high pressure telesales techniques that still exist to this day. It has caused a whole lot of confusion across the board for salespeople, because they don’t like how to sell the high-pressure way, but at the same time cannot work out an alternative way to sell that takes the pressure out of the process.

This dilemma has caused the old style of selling to remain, and it makes it extremely uncomfortable for both salespeople and the recipient of the calls. The awkward silences, abrupt responses from prospects who are sick and tired of repeated prospecting and quite “obvious” calls to sell them something both over the phone and door to door has caused a sales resistance epidemic.

Cold call reluctance in salespeople is higher than ever, and sales resistance and call shut down is also at it’s extreme in those receiving such calls.

No matter what the sales training companies do for training, and I believe they are moving away from traditional sales ideas and attempting to promote and teach “low-pressure” approaches, which is a grand idea but none the less, their methods still have a “hidden agenda” to make a sale and that causes the prospect receiving the call to be sceptical and shut the call down a lot of the time.

Pain is a word that I hear quite often from sales people, because they just don’t know the answer for going out there and reaching their KPI’s required to successfully make their jobs viable. A lot of the time it’s a mixture of marketing, word of mouth referral and inbound sales calls that the more experienced and successful salespeople utilise. But this still doesn’t make the life of the new salesperson who is just starting out in their sales career.

So what would my suggestion be for a new salesperson starting be?

Find yourself a good coach and self-study program, that is unique and guaranteed to work such as Unlock The Game. Their website also has a free test drive that offers articles, audio and tips to help with a completely new mindset on the sales thinking process before you even make a sales call.

If you can learn this process and new mindset that basically in a nutshell, teaches you how to take any assumption away from pre-empting that you will make a sale, and refocuses the sales person to have a two-way conversation around the truth of their situation.

Now you may be thinking, “oh this sounds like such and such a program”, and that’s a completely natural thing to think. But be warned, it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen or heard of before, it may sound similar, but the mindset is completely unique and I highly recommend at least taking the free test drive and if you like what you hear, jump onboard the fully guaranteed program and trial it for 15 days.

I was game to try it back in 2004 and was so surprised to have the founder Ari Galper, who lived in the US at the time, call me from California (I live in Australia) just to welcome and thank me for trying it. Now that instils confidence right from the start, after my very first online purchase and wondering if this program and the money I’m investing on it will be worth it. I very quickly found out that Unlock The Game is one of the most reputable sales training companies for making initial contact with both cold leads and inbound enquiries and has really helped me out.

One of the main points that helped me make my decision was the thousands of testimonials from all around the world, which proves it works for sales from all countries and all industries.

I hope my ideas around sales training companies have helped you and that you’ve gained a whole new perspective and outlook on training yourself and or, your sales staff.

I’ve recently launched a new arm of business that I’ve been wanting to expand for some time now and what I realize is, as things become busier, it’s quite easy for us to become “uptight” and stay that way for quite some time.

I’ve realized that my daily activities as hectic as they are (and I’m sure it’s the same for a lot of readers) tend to consume us if we’re not careful even when we’re in relaxation mode.

This can have a somewhat detrimental effect on our spiritual being, causing all sorts of imbalances to occur on a deeper karmic level. For example, our lives are a perfect mirror of the energy we exude, only the past couple of days I’ve noticed my computer starting to freeze up and not want to work the way it should to deliver emails.

And because I’m so aware of energy and how we’re just pulses of energy ourselves, our feelings, frustrations and or, happiness and relaxed thoughts portray over into other seemingly “innanimate” objects, but they too are just pulses of energy also. So this makes it very logical from this standpoint that I myself have been in a state of quandary with my new business dealings and getting setup, so therefore my computer when I’m around it (and uptight) decides to freeze.

Saying this, it miraculously ends up working again, once I take time out to meditate or go for a coffee, or just sit at the beach (it could any place you like to go to unwind for 30 minutes) and focus on what you have to be “GRATEFUL” for, this is so important that I can’t stress it enough.

So please practice this and begin to take more notice of how things around you, people, machinary (your car is a great one to take notice of) perform when you’re feeling relaxed and happy, and also when you’re uptight.

The whole idea is, we’re here on this earth to experience and experiment with all of this, our energy, our thought and how our physical beings interact with our spiritual.

Interesting stuff hugh?

You might think that a question like “How are you going to survive in the sales world?” is an obvious one… But let me assure you, people are so very, very tough these days when it comes to sales people! It’s like they’ve developed a new resiliency towards them and can even smell them a mile away.

I’ve been in sales for over 15 years and back when I first started with my true outbound business development role, my three bosses to be in the interview asked me “How are you going to survive in a competitive market place like this?”…

Now just think about it for a moment, how would you answer such a question?

You might say “well I’ve been through a 18 sales training courses, read 103 sales training books, done sales negotiation training and think so from my experience and track record, believe that I’m truly right up there with the best in this industry!”… And good for you if you can say this, the thing is not everyone can!

I’ve coached hundreds of sales people from inbound lead takers through to the toughest of outbound cold callers and believe me, “MOST” salespeople have done tonnes and tonnes of courses, read hundreds of books and even had their immediate sales managers go out with them to try and coach and mentor them through the sales process so they improve.

The “COLD HARD TRUTH” is however, most salespeople are on their last legs, if they don’t get it right this time, they are OUT, FIRED, SACKED… Never to be seen by that company again and yet another chink in their personal pride is gone…

My question is, “How long can you take this?”…

The common answer is, about 3 to 5 years, some quit much, much sooner, but then there is the “hard noses” (like me) who stick around, trying to improve on “IM-Perfect” models of selling that have been taught for years by the so called experts… We all know what the definition of insanity is don’t we folks?… And with that true, I was insane in the sales industry for some 10 years or so!

To cut a long story short, I survived through sheer determination, and a “LOVE” of meeting new people, networking and over-delivering on value, which of course made them very, very happy.

But how on earth did I get them that way to begin with? And espescially in the early days when I knocked on doors of “STONE COLD” prospects who didn’t care about who I was, or what I had to sell them!

Well, what I used to do was a little bit of a stealth sales operation, my very first business that I created was a low-volume business card and printing business. And what I used to do was go into a small store and take a good look around, strike up a conversation with the people working there, suss out if they were the owners or just employees and so on…

If they appeared friendly and the conversation went well, I would ask them for a business card and most of the time they didn’t have them, or if they did, they were very badly done.

So after getting their card, I would be on my way… Little to their knowledge, I would be off to create a brand new image for their card, and then take it back to them next day as a sample.

This quite simply used to “BLOW people away” because they couldn’t believe they hadn’t even asked me to do that, I would tell them that because I’m so passionate about helping businesses with their image, that I often did this and even if they didn’t go any further they had a model of a great card to use at a later date.

Now, most old-school sales managers would think “giving away your secrets isn’t going to get you sales and make you money” however, they also don’t understand the essence of “giving” and how powerful it is!

9 times out of ten the ecstatic business owners would ask me, “how much to make these?” and becuase they were such a small business, I would say I can do 50 to 150 overnight for $X’s, that way if you want to change them next time round we can do that without it costing you for a minimum run of 500.

They loved it, and so I turned my sales survival strategy into a natural cold calling model, that focussed on “helping solve a problem” of the person I was calling, it also revolved around the law of attraction, becuase if I didn’t like the person running the show, I could walk away and not do them a favour, so my success ratio of closing sales was very, very high!

I did this for years, with computers sales, homeware items and a range of many other products too long to mention here, but the basic factor still remains, natural connection with clients works.

Do something for them and most often they’ll remember you and do something back when the time is right, if nothing else you’ve gained a friend and some very, very positive and willing referrals from them to their colleagues who do buy.

I hope this has been a useful bit of information on how you might survive in a tough sales (or even an easy sales) environment, it works every time, I know this because I’ve done it and coached it.

You can find out more about my natural cold calling methodology at www.naturalcoldcalling.com which is my information marketing site and I’m adding new articles in there for you to learn from all the time.

I just wanted to post a quick message today about the results I’ve been experiencing with stealth social marketing online and how it can work for you in your business what ever that might be.

I’ve discovered that by growing my facebook and twitter following and connecting one-on-one with targeted followers, I’ve been recieving some excellent leads for work and also joint venture partners, as well as meeting some very interesting friends from the whole process.

I know this is just from a couple of the hundreds of online networking hubs, and I’ve found that it works best if you just choose a couple and focus on them, as there is so many of them you’d be full time networking online.

The only other one online lead generation and specific business networking hub, which is rather new online but I’ve been focussing on it for the past 6 months and it’s brought me some excellent local connections for business in my area, and it does so for any local business in any area of the world because it’s setup to create sub-networks in any local business town, city or suburb. The name of this program is SynergyBizNet and it has a 14 day trial, where you can get your money back, it’s well worth checking out also as a paid option (as the value you recieve from it is well worth it I think).

I invite you to post your success, struggles and ideas for effective social marketing online.

Just a quick post today, but an important one for us all to understand…

I’ve just finished watching a DVD called “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” where Brad Pitt played an award winning role along with Cate Blanchett…

I’m not going to give the jist of the story away, as I would love for you to go and hire it and watch it yourselves to learn the story at the deepest level.

However, some of the lessons that this story teaches are “AMAZING” and even though it’s only a fictional story, it’s a touching one that each of us as human beings all have to go through in our lives.

Here’s what I got from the movie:

1. Live your life in the present and enjoy “EVERY” single moment we have  with our loved ones!
2. “NOTHING” stays the same, we’re all evolving and the only thing to be certain of is uncertainty and change itself!
3. Be grateful for the signs of love from the universe that have guided us to where we are today, everything happens for a reason!
4. Life is fragile, things happen that we don’t understand, we cannot control fate, but rather we need to “SURRENDER” to it!
5. Be the “BEST” you can be, with your limited knowledge of life… And we all have limited knowledge of life (even the enlightened ones)!

I would recommend you watch this movie a few (if not a hundred) times over to get the full and varied meanings of it.

Once you’ve finished watching it, please comment on what you felt, experienced and learned from this truly beautiful movie.

Here’s a video review of what I believe to be one of the best combined contact management software programs online today “Oprius”, it combines unlimited autoresponders, landing pages, squeeze pages, thank you pages and a contact management system that can be used by anyone in sales (even though it’s pointed towards MLM type businesses, I use it myself for my internet marketing coaching practice).

Here is the video review, I hope you enjoy it:

There are many information marketing systems out there today, blogs, forums, videos, audios, and the myriad of information marketing site builders that make life so easy to create a stable online presence.

However, which ones are the easiest and most cost effective to use?

Well in my experience as an international information marketing coach, and someone who has multiple information marketing presences online, I would have to say I’ve used many of them and they all work quite well.

I know you might’ve come to this post looking for the best option out there, but really, it’s a very personal preference and while I’ve used quite a lot of them, I would have to say there are two that are my favourites.

The first being SiteBuildIt mainly becuase it takes a beginner and “holds them by the hand” and walks them step-by-step through the process of starting, growing and consolidating their business online. It’s a complete system that helps any niche or industry to get off on the right foot with a stable, proven, information marketing system that’s been around for over 10 years and helped hundreds of business owners, hobbyists and work at home businesses.

The second information marketing system I think is very useful would be Wordpress, why? Because its free when you get web hosting with a lot of online hosting providers, it installs in a few seconds and you can get very powerful theme templates such as WP Remix and WP Premium Themes which is what I’m using to build this blog, and it basically gets you traffic within days of starting targeted, keyword rich posts. And there are literally hundreds of free themes to choose from also if you’re on a tight budget, but the paid themes just seem to look, operate and get better results faster.

The third system I use is a product called XsitePRO I’ve seen my colleagues build amazing sites with this software, and the beauty of it is, you can build as many website presences as you wish all in the one program.

With SiteBuildIt, you buy one license and that builds one information marketing system for you, but a very, very, effective one at that. With Wordpress, you install it once and it builds one blog for you, but you can basically do that over and over again for free and customize each one as you need with the myriad of free tools that we refer to as “Plugins” and “Widgets”.

I got my education on information marketing with SiteBuildIt for the first couple of years and I always return to the principals it teaches for blogs, XsitePRO and other online information marketing systems, becuase what it teaches works.

If you want to know more about the process, I’ve created a 10-part video series that is free when you go to my other blog www.thrive-online.com or my main site www.digital-business-architect.com and subscribe to it, unfortunately those videos are all you will recieve and I won’t be sending you any further emails as I’m very focussed on other marketing projects at present, but at least you’ll get an instant feel for it and 1 good hours worth of video explaining the process and logic behind “WHY” it’s information marketing system is one that is stable and works!

You may have been to the odd personal development human resource related seminar, and if you are in constant contact with co-workers who read self-help books and go to self-help seminars you’ll notice how polished they are in their work and interactions with others.

On one hand, when explained, personal development growth can sound like a whole lot of usual life lessons packaged into a sensationalized whole. On the other hand, it can sound like something worthwhile and encouraging to undertake – especially when work takes its toll on you and makes you feel more down and discouraged than ever. So: What is your Personal Improvement Plan ?

The development process can be difficult to explain if you do not acknowledge your uniqueness first. Believe it or not, you are different from any person who has ever lived, and from any person who is to come. Genetics will tell you that unless you are part of a set of identical siblings, your DNA is different from any DNA that has existed or will ever exist. This should be enough to tell you that you are special!

So, what makes you special? You have a combination of different factors that lend a definition to the real you: your educational background, your upbringing, the food you like to eat, the way you think, the way you reason, the language you speak, your culture, your likes and dislikes, your dreams and ambitions, your strategies for keeping money – all of these contribute to your personality. So, what is personal development, and how can you adapt it into your own personal growth and development systems ?

Personal growth entails improving everything about you by completely knowing everything there is to know about you. First, you are a product of your upbringing. How you were raised in the womb, how you were raised as a child, how you were disciplined, what food you ate, all of these contribute to your personality.

What is personal development ?
It is complete recognition of all these aspects of your childhood, and acceptance of the fact that such things cannot be changed. If you were disciplined using hurtful words or methods, you should not dwell on the past and instead use your discipline to improve your future.

How does it relate to your childhood?
It means letting go of the past, because it cannot be changed; it also means anticipating the future, because you can make it better.

It also entails identifying your goals and ambitions in life. What do you want to do in the next five years? What do you want to accomplish in the next ten years?

It is identifying what you should prioritize in life, and what dreams you should run after. And how you’ll achieve them through many self-improvement courses . It is the use of your strengths to meet your goals, and the improvement on your weaknesses so that you can be better as a person.

You can answer this question through many methods. You can have a personal development plan, which you can make on your own, or which your psychiatrist or therapist can assist you with. You can also join classes, seminars or read and listen about your own personal improvement, where you can know yourself better and find ways to improve your life and reach your goals.

Simply by knowing yourself, and all your strengths and weaknesses, all your dreams, goals and using all these to fuel your life and lead you to greater heights. With complete personal development, you can be sure of success not only in your career, but in many other important aspects of your life as well.

A Life Coach for Your Personal Development
Finally, everyone requires help at some point to unblock areas of their lives which they themselves, cannot free up. This is where a road tested, life coach can keep you on track. By selecting the right coach you’ll most definately move out of any ruts you may be in. Here’s a quick note on life coaches, over time you may need to work with numerous coaches to see which ones resonate the best with you, before you find your ideal trusted coach.

Over time, your personal development will come from within yourself, your feelings and intuition. You won’t need as much approval from outside sources, because the universe will open up and become your life coach and talk to you in the only way it knows how, through out of the blue thoughts (espescially when you meditate and sit in silence), manifestations, or repeated situations that you find yourself in, messages you read or hear on the radio… Yes, there are numerous ways you can learn to “tune in” to the universal mind, so that you have a “knowing” about what’s right in your life and what’s out of alignment.

Overcome Fear and Overcome Your Fate. See how to overcome fear in one quick step. Stop the primitive emotional rush that limits your ability to think clearly. Create a new response that turns problems into solutions and attracts wealth. Overcome fear is the best piece of advice you’ll ever get.

Yes! Transformation is beginning!
As a student of personal development, we know the journey begins with us. We are in the process of creating our ideal life. It starts today!