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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!

Have you ever been caught in the cold calling trap of voicemails? You make your calls and more often than not get hit by the brick wall we know as voicemail. I wouldn’t blame you if you just “hung up” and didn’t even bother leaving a message, because you’re more than likely thinkg “it’s no darn use, they’ll never get back to me” right?

Well this could be the case if you’re locked into the old way of thinking about cold calls, and it’s not your fault becuase you’ve been trained by a sales trainer that didn’t know any better either. The sad facts are, we quite often “leave a message anyway” because we feel so relieved that a real person didn’t answer the phone to “shut us down” and abruptly hang up, so it doesn’t hurt to blurt out your sales pitch!

This can be more of a frustration over time than a relief, because what happens when the sales manager does your KPI and you quickly realize that you “weren’t even close” to reaching your goals. You show that you’ve been making lots of calls and playing the numbers, however, you’re Not Getting Any Results!

When you learn a smarter, more open, way of channeling your sales message with more a more conversational, exploratory, yet low-pressure methodology, you’re going to find you “want” to connect with a live person, whether it’s the gatekeeper or prospect themselves. You’re going to find yourself wanting to dig out the receptionist, becuase all of a sudden there is no “sales rejection” and that feels really nice.

You might end up chatting with someone other than the prospect, but instead of trying to “dig out” who they are and bombard your way right over the top of that person, you ask their direction for the right way to go about finding that person. You will ask them questions that will open them up to conversationally telling you exactly where they are no problem at all.

Once you have this intelligence and befriended the receptionist in a low-pressure, to the point and open way, you’ll have a far better chance of getting through when you call back as they requested.

You might have come across the problem solving mindset in marketing and sales training before?  However, when cold calling you never quite knew how to assimilate the problem you solve in quite the right way and end up being shut down with a “No Thank You” before you get to your second sentence.

If you have a natural cold call mindset, you’re going to be met with questions to tell them more, rather than statements ending in “beep beep beep beep”!…

It’s a harsh reality, but if you can’t get rid of the usual initial pressure and tension felt when making your calls, which is inherent with sales pitching and trying to open the call with a “hello, my name is, I’m from and we do” you’re bound for limited success… Very limited success!

So my message to you today is, start your calls with absolutely no intention of getting through to a prospect, no intention of making a sale, no intention of pitching your product, but rather focussing on seeing if you can solve a problem for the person you’re talking to, and being present with whoever that is.

It could be the receptionist, other staff members who aren’t the prospect, the boss even, it doesn’t really matter and I coudln’t care less who you talk to, if you spark up an open ended conversation with no-pressure, then you’re going to be met in a “refreshingly” open way I guarantee you, I’ve done this for over 5 years now and it’s truly beautiful.

“Allowing,” in relation to the Law of Attraction is a difficult thing to describe because it’s a state of being, rather than a state of doing. It’s a process of letting go any effort to control what happens around you and instead letting the universe work on your behalf.

Staying in a state of allowance can be challenging for some people because they are so used to taking action in order to get what they want. Allowing your heart’s desires may seem contrary to this approach, but it’s really just a matter of taking different actions and choosing the right mind-set.

Below you will find some simple steps to help you move easily into a state of allowing.

Sit in silence.

Meditation is the quickest and easiest way to get into a state of allowance because it places you immediately into the process of observing and being, rather than doing. As you focus on letting go of fear and frustration, you invite a flood of inner peace and acceptance to replace them. This mind-set dissolves blockages and removes resistance, which leaves only . . . allowance!

Do what you love as often as possible.

Allowing is not just about getting something you want, but rather learning to open to the natural flow of joy, passion and abundance that is available to you at all times. When you do what you love, you automatically attract a flood of positive energy into your life. Yes, this can definitely help you attract something you want, but it also sets you up to receive a lot more than you asked for. Rather than just receiving one thing you wanted, you find yourself in a constant state of surprise and joy as more and more wonderful things come your way.

Think positively.

This should be a no-brainer, because most of us are fully aware of the benefits of positive thinking. However, don’t limit your positive thinking in relation to your immediate goal only! Learn to develop a true positive thinking habit, and spread it evenly through your entire life. Think positively, speak positively and act positively as often as possible. You’ll feel happier, increase the frequency of your energy and stay in a consistent state of allowance.

Have unwavering faith.

Many of us tend to flip-flop between immense faith and overwhelming doubt. Our faith is strong when everything is going fine but as soon as we run into problems, doubt knocks us off-center. The true test of faith is being able to hold it while in the midst of difficulty! It may not be easy, but remember that having faith is a choice. You can choose to believe and know that everything will be fine, or you can choose to believe it won’t. When challenges come knocking on your door, choose your mind-set wisely.

Detach completely.

Most of us tend to revert back to childish antics when we want something. We figure if we can just nag the universe to death, it will give in and give us what we want. So we keep meditating and praying and visualizing. We spend hours mentally begging for what we want, and obsess about it constantly. This is not allowing – it is clinging and grasping! The universe heard your request the first time, so there is no need to keep asking. Instead, remember that time may be needed before it will show up, or it’s also possible that you won’t get what you asked for – but you might get something much better!

When you begin working with the Law of Attraction more proactively, you may wonder whether you need to take physical action in addition to your mental and emotional exercises.  The answer to this will vary according to who you ask.

There are people who claim that no action is needed; just directing the right frequency of thought and emotion toward a desired outcome is enough.  Then there are those who believe that action is always necessary, because action is the vehicle through which all desires are manifested.

In my experience, it can easily work both ways.  Depending on the situation, you may or may not find yourself needing to take specific actions toward your goals.

Here is a simple process to help you know for sure:

• Do the inner work first.  Focus on getting your thoughts, emotions, beliefs and expectations into complete alignment with what you want.  Don’t worry about “how” it’s going to come about, just focus on putting forth the right frequency of energy to attract it.  You can do this by meditating, visualizing, affirming, making a vision board, and so on.

• Completely let go.  Once you are in alignment with your desire, turn it over to the universe.  Don’t worry about whether it will arrive, or drive yourself crazy trying to come up with a plan.  Just step back from it and let it ferment for a little while.  The length of time is up to you, but I recommend at least a week or two.

• Tune into your intuition.  During this letting go period, turn your attention inward regularly.  Tune into your intuition and ask if there is anything you can do to bring this desire into your life.  You may or may not receive any insights about it.  If you do feel a hunch or nudge to do something specific, by all means do it.  If not, simply keep on the lookout for any opportunities that might show up later.  Don’t try to force or hurry the process along, because you’ll probably end up causing more delays.  These things have a way of arriving at exactly the right time, regardless of how we try to mess it up!

The truth is, there is no right way or wrong way to use the Law of Attraction.  Interestingly, the way it works usually seems to correspond with your beliefs.

If you believe you MUST take action to attract your desires, guess what?  You’ll probably have to take some kind of action.  Likewise, if you believe that you do not necessarily have to take action, the universe will find a way to deliver your desires without a bit of additional effort on your part.

However, there are instances when you will be prompted to take action even if you initially didn’t believe you’d have to do so.  When this happens, simply follow where your heart leads.  The actions you are encouraged to take will ALWAYS be for your highest good, and they’ll usually be a lot of fun too!  Learn to trust your intuition for guidance whenever you want to attract something, and you will be shown the way to get it as quickly and easily as possible – whatever that may involve.