But what you all probably don’t know since that time I was diagnosed with Acute Myloid Leukemia, a form of cancer of the blood.

I just thought I would keep you all updated on this rough, but life changing journey.

About 4 weeks ago, after my very prompt (like 2 day diagnosis) going from fit and healthy to no white blood cells or neutrophil cells,
that’s what the chemo in Leukemia kills, so that you can come back to remission (90% chance after first 7 days of chemo).

Anyway, I guess, my learning experience (apart from all the side effects you could expect from chemo) have been to live in the moment,
not to expect any one thing to happen at any one time, because when you’re completely in the hands of doctors who are brilliant by the
way, all you can do is be “In the Moment”!

I know that once I’m out of the dark hole that I’ve been in, and I’ve never taken my eye of the prize of being well, which is very important,
in all things in your life, is I’m going to do “What I LOVE”, I don’t care about the money, the fame, the fortune or anything else, I’m going to
do what makes me happy “In The Moment” and that’s how we should live.

Because we all RUSH through life, experiencing this hyper-plaining effect of trying to “Get it all done” that we end up not getting it all done and
in effect we get less done and enjoy life less also.

These first 30 days of being in my Leaukemia journey have taught me that, I welcome your feedback on this and hope it might help someone
else reading this too.

I’ll keep more posts coming.

This type of pure emotional response can come in the form of passion, surprise, relief, but the one common characteristic with this form of experience is it’s seemingly only temporary.

Once the elation is gone, it’s back to the normal day to day activities, taking for granted the things, people and circumstances that we only a few short hours, days, weeks or months ago were “Ecstatic” to see.

So how can we play our cards right and ensure that this form of happiness, this pure form of immense and intense joy, stays with us forever, in a form which I refer to as enlightenment?

I believe that it stars with a healthy attitude of gratitude, making sure that what ever we have, and whatever we do, we are lucky to be where we’re at “right now”, as things could always be worse.

Once we experience this form of base level gratitude, then we will be thankful for “ALL” the experiences our lives, loved ones, jobs, bosses, enemies, pets, give us, including the seemingly not so pleasant experiences. As this isn’t our lives, we are not who we are, we are just visiting in the body we selected before we made our trip to earth as “Souls in a body”.

As soon as we can learn to “let go” and surrender to the energy that we tapped into, to create ourselves, and be born into this experimental world of human flesh, we will begin to experience ourselves and “non-egotistical” bodiless entities that we were before we came and then the answer of why we’re here will be revealed.

I believe it’s true enlightenment, many do not…

What are yours?

Well, I was sitting here this morning on this Saturday 28th of May, 2010 in my office wondering how on earth I was going to help a specific team of managers in one of the businesses that I run.

And I was getting rather frustrated with some of the attitudes in the replies and so I would “Natter, natter, natter” on the keys as I replied hastily with ideas…

Then a “Bing Bong” sound alerted and into my inbox came a video and a message from a guy who really is “AMAZING”… I want you to watch this and then give me your stories, feedback, reactions and feelings before as you read this, and then again after once you see the video below…

What will this process do for you? What it allows you to do is “GIVE” immense value for free, to a prospect who could really need what you offer (who will thank you for it in many ways you’ve never thought of before).

Please, don’t go and plagiarize articles exactly, but rather take the idea, put your own flavour, ideas, personality and experience to it, that will then be 100% unique, and I guarantee you that you’ll never, ever, be without ideas for information marketing this way.

If you can share about yourself with your prospective clients and at the same time display your credibility and trustworthiness (through social proof e.g. testimonials) then you’ll created a comfort zone for them during this “information giving” process…

Lets know look more deeply into the concept of information marketing and how you can use it in your local area to help a great amount of prospects buy from you “without” even selling to them.

Magazines and television documentary shows on new products emerging on the market and the reviews they do with industry experts see’s us driving to the stores that are recommended at the end of the article or program in the hordes to “buy” with very little interaction with the salespeople required.

A few of the greatest example for online marketing that I’d like to show you and for you to learn from and use, are:
- How-to’s
- Checklists
- Directories
- Statistics
- Measuring tools
- Industry-specific reviews
- Calendars
- Addresses
- Phone numbers
- Web links
- Conversion tables
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Glossaries
- Calculations
- Formulas
- Q&A’s
- Wikepidia.com
- Blogs
- Step-by-step reports
- YouTube.com
- Facebook.com
- Squidoo.com
- Reviews
- Article Marketing
- White papers
- Online Website-Buildit.com

By using the above ideas, resources and websites you will come across so much information and ideas to “give” to your clients, they’re going to recognize you as the industry expert very quickly if you just keep producing and sharing yourself and who you are and what you’re about on a deeper level, you’re going to be discovered and related to.

Throughout this process of creating information marketing pieces you’ll be positioning yourself as the authority and knowledgeable guide who actually “cares” enough to help their target audience. This is so powerful and authentic, that you’re going to find people saying to you that they feel like they really know you already, because they could have been following your for months and studying your information (especially if you’re online and doing this, that is so very “POWERFUL”)!

Something to be aware of is, the online world is full of copied articles done by others, this is called “PLR” which is short for “Private Label Rights”.

I’ve personally found that by using ghost writers and PLR products won’t fulfil your authentic image as greatly as implementing your own expertise and knowledge inside your head and putting that into a knowledgeable format. And unless you have a very, very good writer (who will probably cost you a lot) who understands how you think and your own unique writing style, it’s best you create this information yourself.

Should you find yourself stumped for ideas, try searching Google and Yahoo Answers for solutions, an excellent ways to do this is by typing in “Ideas” only.

I hope that at least some of the above ideas have helped you to decide to “begin” using information of some sort, to build trust, authenticity and credibility into your business even more than there is now.
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Plain text version of your resource box:
Adam Price is a full time internet marketer and the founder of Nett Knowledge, a company that helps business owners find and plug the profit gaps in their website strategy. His websites are http://www.NettKnowledgeBlog.com & http://www.Magic-Minisites.com

The other night I was at my weekly country music, band practice and it was a rather special night for me because it was a song recording night, and I was to record my very first song that I had ever written (well co-written actually).

A very good friend of mine and a very experienced singer with many albums to his name had helped me write, compose and create a new song to sing for my local line dancing club. I was extremely excited, having practiced it for hours the day before.

Stay with me here as there is a meaning behind this story…

When it was my turn to sing my song and record it, the difficulties I had with it the day before (and subsequently thought I’d fixed) returned during the recording session and I found myself feeling really annoyed at myself (even though others thought it sounded great).

Not long after I finished the session, I began driving home feeling really frustrated still, it was about 9.30pm and quite dark along this particular stretch of road. When in the distance I saw a car stopped or slowly turning in the middle of the road, to which I found myself quietly abusing them, saying “What on earth are you doing, get out of the way!”…

When I got closer, I found that they’d actually hit something, and I found out that it was a small possum as I drove past… Now I found myself really sad that, that poor little possum a living entity on this earth had been hit.. My attitude all of a sudden “JOLTED” out of “Woe Is Me” syndrome!

Now while I didn’t stop to help, because I was afraid of seeing that poor little possum dead or injured, I noticed that the car in the middle of the road had stopped and was indeed helping that poor little possum… This was the car I abused a few seconds before, now how bad and sad did you think I felt, and how “Stupid” I was for being worried about a stupid song going wrong, that I can easily fix anyway!

So my message to you is, don’t focus on the small meaningless things, becuase in contrast to life itself, it’s all meaningless… Because quite frankly, I would have sung a million bad songs, just to have that little possum to be healthy, well and alive!

How many “bad songs” so to speak, would you sing to save the health, love, well being of the ones you love?

So I decided to use my voicemail different, what I’ve decided to do is what most business owners would “NEVER” do… And that’s update my voicemail each and “EVERY” day without fail.

What’s the point of spending a few minutes each night updating my voicemail you might ask, well for starters it shows that you’re on the ball and have a fresh message each day, so that is very refreshing for people to hear, especially those who contact you all the time. It also shows that you’re around and that you’re business is bubbling away nicely (sort of like blogging, if you go to a blog post and see the last post was 2 years ago, sort of makes you leave very quickly as there is now life on that blog).

So what I do each night before bed with my voicemail is, call in and state they’ve reached me and my company and the day, date and month, then I give them a different message for leaving a message and finally a unique thought of the day, tip, snippet of knowledge from my business experience, life experience or someone elses business or life, that has inspired me.

This strategy has since gotten me a lot of positive feedback from others who noticed it, and some have even decided to do it themselves…

I hope you take on this strategy also, as it’s one that will certainly see you stand out in your marketplace, and it can be one of your many ways of beginning to be very different to others in a marketplace full of “SHEEP” following eaching other…

If you’re going to be a sheep, be a Black one … BAAAAA LOL!!!

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!”…

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.

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 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?