Designing Web Success

When it comes to selling your products it is important to ask your potential customers probing questions as well as open ended questions. These types of questions are geared toward gathering information. They commit your customer to giving you anything but a yes or no answer.

For instance, an open-ended question would come across like this:

What is it that you like so much about your current bank?

Now, if you are a banker trying to get a customer to bank with you, you will now be able to compare your products and benefits to what your customer has just told you about their current bank.

Also, by finding out about what they like, you will also find out what their needs are.

Another name for selling a customer what they need is “needs-based selling.”

All sales people have goals and we have a tendency to sell things to people even though they have no need for the product just so we can have our numbers inflated so we can talk about it during the weekly sales meeting or conference call.

The downside to selling something to someone that they have no need for is that your customer will quickly figure out that they don’t have a need for it and will never consider you in the future for your services.

This is the reason why it is so important to find out what your customers needs are before you sell them something. When you sell a customer something that they need or want, they will be truly happy with the product and the service and appreciate your help.

As we all know, a happy customer is a good customer and will always come back to you for your services and refer friends and family to you as well.

Training your salespeople to not waste time working unqualified accounts, or building relationships with the wrong people in qualified companies is imperative to the long the term success of our sales team and your company.

By understanding your salespeople’s natural fear of qualifying, you can better coach them to ask the seven critical qualifying questions early in the sales cycle. Their productivity will improve, and you will acheive more sales in less time.

Why Don’t They Qalify?

There are two reasons why even veteran sales pros lapse into working unqulaified accounts. The first is tactical. Salespeople, who typically have a highly political style, don’t want to offend a prospect by asking questions about decision making, spending authority, and budgets too early in the sales process. They want to make friends first.

The second and primary reason is psychological. It is part of the typical salesperson’s pshychological makeup to want to be liked. And most salespeople are very likeable. Unfortunately, it is more comfortable in the short run for the salesperson to build a relationship with the wrong person than to ask questions that may alienate the prospect.

Succumbing to Temptation

The nature of the sales job reinforces this fear of early qualification. Because salespeople face a lot of rejection, they are vulnerable to the song of praise and positive feedback from their prospects.

For the prospect, it can be almost like having a congenial (and free!) employee doing problem analysis and preparing the way for the prospect’s solution. For the salesperson, it provides frequent strokes. And because the relationship is good, it is natural for the salesperson to assume that he or she will eventually make the sale.

Of course, if the prospect is not legitimately qualified, it is only a matter of time before both parties realize that the salesperson’s solution is not a fit. But by then the salesperson has wasted valuable time. Even worse, he or she may have wasted aditional valuable resources such as sales and technical support.

Teach Early Qualification

It is reasonable, therfore, for the sales manager to require and verify that the seven critical qualifying questions are answered early in every sales cycle.

By all means, this should be done before your company commits sales support or technical personnel to the sales effort. This is especially important in longer sales cycles or more expensive products.

A good time to do this is during the forecast and review sessions that most managers schedule on a regular basis.

During these meetings, confirm that each salesperson is asking the “W” questions (what, why, when, and who) to qualify both the prospect company and the individuals within that company.

What Will They Do and Why?

1. What need(s) does the prospect have that can be met by your solution? Can your salesperson clearly articulate those needs?

2. Why would the prospect be willing to spend x dollars for your product or service? Has it been budgeted?

When Will They Do It?

3. When does the prospect plan to implement your product or service? For many products and services, implementation - not the close date - is the key because it is the purpose of the buying decision. It also focuses on the customer’s perceived benefits, not the salesperson’s sales forecast.

Who Are The Decision Makers?

4. Who will make the decision to buy the product or service?

5. Who are the decision influencers who can bring pressure to bear (positive or negative) on the person who will make the final decision?

6. Who has the budget or spending authority to implement the decision? Don’t confuse decision and spending authority. They may not be vested in the same person.

7. Which decision makers have your salespeople called on? It should be all of them!

Bold, Direct Questions

Given these quesions, there are really only two skills that your salespeople need to qualify properly. The first is confidence. The second is questioning skills. Good questioning skills can create confidence.

Prior to making a call on a prospect, you want your salesperson to get the answers to as many of these seven critical questions as possible. Resources could be the propect company web site or past sales reps who have contacted the prospect company, etc.

The amount of information that can be collected in advance will vary for each prospect. But without fail, once your salesperson is in front of someone in the propect company, he or she should ask bold, direct questions:

“Do you have the authority to implement this decision?”

“Has this item been budgeted? Does it need to be? Do you have the funds available?”

Your salesperson will not get the answers that qualify the lead every time, but it is better to walk away from a sales cycle that will lead nowhere.

Geting to the Decision Maker

Teach your salespeople to convince the influencers to take them to the decision makers. That retains the relationship with the influencer, while opening an opportunity to the decision maker.

If they must, they should go over the influencer’s head without permission. This will almost certainly alienate the influencer. But if the sale is going nowhere, your salespeople may have to take that risk.

Ask yourself: Can our sales strategy overcome the loss of this influencer? If the answer is yes, it’s a reasonable risk.

Rob has been a sales manager and trainer in the sales and marketing industry for over 20 years. Based in Houston, Texas, Rob is the creator of Sales Careers Online, a career web site dedicated exclusively to the sales and marketing industry. If you are seeking a new job in the sales and marketing industry, please visit http://salescareersonline.com

Have you ever been sitting at a stop light and when the light turns green, you step on the gas and your car stalls? That’s the same feeling that you get after you’ve gone through your entire sales presentation with a potential customer, crunched some numbers and asked for the sale, you hear, “Well, it sounds good, but I need to think it over.”

You were doing well, waiting for the customer to give you the green light, and you stalled out. “I need to think it over” is sometimes nothing more than a sales objection or delaying tactic used by the customer to stop the natural progress of the sale. What does the customer really mean by saying, “I need to think it over?” Here are a few ideas and possible remedies:

1)The customer is still unclear about the benefits of the purchase.

Remedy: Did you ask enough questions and did you listen to the answers. Ask the customer, what specifically does he or she need to think over? To get to the truth, use what I call a “Linguistic Activator.”

What’s a “Linguistic Activator?” Linguistic Activators are carefully chosen words that can get people to act or respond in a specific way. Lawyers, politicians, magicians, mindreaders, and hypnotist use them all the time.

In my motivational and sales training presentations, I’m known for using demonstrations of ESP and mindreading to reinforce specific points of my presentation, instead of graphs and overheads. I have to rely on people from the audience to help me out on stage. Therefore, to make the magic or mindreading effect “work,” I must be in total control of the situation and make sure that whomever is helping me says or does exactly what I need him or her to do.

I also use linguistic activators to sell my services and products and teach these same techniques to sales trainers and salespeople, worldwide. I can tell you that from the feedback that I receive from the sales trainers and sales people who use these simple techniques, they are always shocked with how easy they are to use and how well they work. (I speak in more detail about this amazing tool, which is incredibly effective in the field or at trade shows, on my audio CD, “Trade Show Selling Power.”)

Let’s look at a “Linguistic Activator” that will help you get to the truth as to why a customer is stalling in making the purchase. I call it the “presupposition activator.” I’ll, first, explain it and then show you how to use it.

The “Presupposition Activator.” Whenever you take a powerful adverb and add the suffix “ly” to it such as obviously, naturally, seriously, and certainly, you create a presupposition. A presupposition is a statement that contains a hidden assumption and the subconscious mind tends to take this hidden meaning as being true. For example, if a magician says to you, “Obviously this is a regular deck of cards,” your subconscious mind will agree, even though it is highly likely that, in reality, the deck of cards is actually a trick deck.

You must then, follow up your statement with a question. Why? Because whatever the person says next is, most likely, the truth.

In our case, you might say, “Seriously, I thought that I answered all your questions and provided a lot of information, what exactly about (the product) do you need to think over?” Now, be quiet. (Do not say a word and I don’t care if it takes a month.) This may make the customer squirm, but that’s okay. If they are squirming, it’s because they have not been totally honest with you about something. Once you have the answer, move the conversation accordingly.

2)You didn’t tap into the emotional needs of the customer.

Remedy: Most sales trainers will agree that people buy first on emotion, and then rationalize their decision based on logic. The primary reason that people buy anything is based on three emotions: greed, lust or fear. (Think about that, for a moment.) With that in mind, ask yourself, “Why would the customer want or need this product? What will it help them do, achieve, or become? “What could happen if the customer doesn’t buy this product or service?”

Before you go out on another call, write down a list of emotions such as: greed, power, strength, respect, etc., and then see if you can link your product to any of these emotions. Develop a sentence or two that taps into those feelings. For example: “When your neighbors see you in this new car they are going to be thinking, ‘Wow, he must be making some money.’” Obviously, you are tapping into the emotions of greed and lust, as well as their offsprings: power, respect, wealth, and envy - all of which can be incredible motivators to make people buy.

3)The customer is trying to be what I call a “big pants” person.

By that, I mean that the customer really didn’t have the authority or ability to make the purchase and instead of letting you know up front, they were trying to appear bigger than they were. You probably just wasted your time.

Remedy: Try to avoid working with “big pants” people. Sometime before you go into your presentation (and if you can do this before you make a call in person, so much the better) ask the customer, “Do you have the final authority with regard to purchasing (this product)?” If the customer says, “No,” ask who does and make sure that that person is at the meeting. Remember, you don’t have time to go through a weeding out process. Your time is important and the time that you spend talking to an “underling” is the same time that you could be spending talking to a decision maker somewhere else. Unless the sale is vital to your career and life, then just state that you will send some information and when a meeting can be planned where all pertinent parties are available, you will be there.

If the customer says, “Yes” you then ask, “Great. I was wondering, approximately, what is your budget?” Get the money out on the table, where you can see it. (By the way, “I was wondering” is a powerful Linguistic Activator. Here’s why. The word “wonder” reminds people - subconsciously - about childhood. It brings about the feeling of magic, amazement, happiness, and so on. People will always respond to “I was wondering” far more than “May I ask you a question?” Try it.)

Also, ask, “When would you want to make your purchase?” If the customer has a time frame, then you are more than likely not going to have to deal with a “big pants” person. Should they need to “think it over” you respond by saying, “Specifically, what can I help clarify for you? You stated that you needed the product by (this time) and that you had the final authority to make the decision?” Now, again, be quiet. Whatever the customer says at this point is the truth.

These are just a few ideas on how to handle, and possibly avoid, the “I need to think it over” sales objection. Hopefully, they will help you to not only get the green light from your customer, but also never “stall out” again.

Bob Garner is a humorous motivational speaker, author, and sales trainer who works with corporations, worldwide. A successful entrepreneur for over 20 years, Bob Garner’s empowering, entertaining, and information filled presentations provide usable ideas that an audience can walk away with and immediately use. His “Trade Show Selling Power” audio CD http://bobgarner.com/products.html can be used not only at shows, but also in the field and is full of proven techniques that will help salespeople develop better relationships with their customers, overcome sales objections, and close sales. For more information Bob Garner go to http://www.bobgarner.com

The Five Cs of Trust

Character
Competence
Confidence
Credibility
Congruence

The Five Points of Presence
Charisma
Enthusiasm
Optimism
Empathy
Vision

Why do you suppose that the first major category deals with trust? The ability to gain and keep trust is a vital factor in being able to influence your team. Research has shown, time and time again, that trust is always a contributing factor in the ability to influence others. When a person trusts you, that trust alone can cause them to accept you. On the flip side, if your team doesn’t trust you, all the evidence, reasoning, facts or figures in the world won’t get them to budge. Character is the foundation of trust.

I also believe that the teaching of Phillips Brooks, a nineteenth-century clergyman, offers profound wisdom on the nature of character: “Character is made in the small moments in our lives.” Stop and think a moment about those individuals in your life whom you respect most deeply. While you may be able to recall a few momentous occasions, it is likely that it is these people’s quiet example that has most impressed you. It is their very nature and spirit, even when they are not “on stage,” that has garnered your respect.

Competence is your knowledge and ability in a particular subject area and comes from life-long learning and experience. We consider others to be competent when we see them continually learning and advancing their training and education, being successful in what they do or having a strong track record with the various people they have worked with. Obviously, competency is a crucial element to trust. If your team is to trust you, they have to feel like you know what you’re doing. Confidence is also a major factor in gaining trust and influence. You can probably think of a time when it was very apparent that someone you were relying on was not very confident in her/his abilities. In turn, her/his lack of confidence made you feel uneasy. You must exude confidence or else your team will feel like it’s a case of “the blind leading the blind.” They will not trust in you or your abilities; therefore, you will have very little influence over them.

The next attribute under the trust umbrella is credibility. Gerry Spence, perhaps the most famous trail lawyer of all time, explained the importance of credibility the best: “One can stand as the greatest orator the world has known, possess the quickest mind, employ the cleverest psychology and have mastered all the technical devices of argument, but if one is not credible, one might just as well preach to the pelicans.” To boost your credibility with your team, find out who your team knows and respects. See if you can get their mentor’s endorsement, either in person or in writing, to back up your credibility. If you are a known expert in your field, be sure to communicate that you have studied the subject, researched it and met with its other experts. Also, be prepared to drop the names of people your team will recognize. Another way to boost your credibility is to always present yourself in a calm, organized and authoritative manner. Being overly emotional or flustered throws your credibility out the window.

The last building block of trust is congruence. Congruence means that your words and actions always match. You are not one who is known to say one thing and then do another. Agreement and harmony in your verbal and nonverbal messages increase trust, and hence your ability to influence. When congruence is lacking, red flags go up in your team members’ minds. You can probably think of a manager you’ve known whose words you always had to take with a grain of salt. Such an individual is not the type of person you are likely to be influenced by.

Now that we’ve revealed the Five Cs of Trust, let’s take a moment to examine the Five Points of Presence. Presence is the ability to influence and empower others. Your presence energizes and inspires other individuals. They are compelled to follow you because of the vision you offer. Charisma heads the list of attributes under the Five Points of Presence and is a big part of motivating others.

People who are charismatic often hold us in awe. Their energy prods us, motivates us and inspires us. They fulfill our need to have heroes. We feel better for having met them, seen them, listened to them and interacted with them. Charisma is closely related to enthusiasm. If you are passionate about what you do, your enthusiasm will carry over into your interactions with your team. It is quite possibly passion and enthusiasm that most powerfully recruit the hearts and minds of those around you. Others are more likely to jump on board if they can see your conviction. Enthusiasm is a great moving force that we should seek to permeate into all we do. It is the drive that keeps our motivation up until the goal is reached. Emerson said, “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” Another great thinker, especially in the area of personal development, Norman Vincent Peale, said, “When one gets enthusiastic, the entire personality lights up. The mind becomes sharper, more intuitive; the entire life force and creative ability are enhanced. Such a person is motivated and will certainly make an impact.”

Another key factor is optimism. Optimism is more than a positive mental attitude. It is not just thinking about positive things and then hoping they will come true. True optimism is a frame of reference that governs how you lead. Optimists don’t just hope for but they actually expect success and goodness. Even when there are setbacks, they are able to quickly bounce back. If you can inspire optimism in your team members, they will be grateful for your positive influence and the difference it makes not only in the workplace, but also in their personal lives. Nobody wants to be around a moody, angry or pessimistic manager. Your optimism will attract others and be contagious. Once your optimism spreads, your team will begin working together with a lot of positive energy.

Now, let’s spend some time on attitude. Remember the old adage “Success in life is 85 percent attitude and 15 percent aptitude”? Harvard University actually conducted a study wherein it was determined that “success” (income, status, prestige, etc.) had significantly more to do with attitude than ability. In fact, attitude appeared to contribute more to lifetime earnings than even a person’s level of education. Your attitude reflects what’s going on inside of you and is a strong indicator of what will actually play out on the surface. That’s why, when it comes to teambuilding, an optimistic attitude starts with you. Optimism is something you can control, and you can’t expect your team to develop it if you don’t have it yourself.

Empathy is another major part of being an effective leader. When someone feels your empathy, they will be more open to your influence. The world is full of people who are trying to make us do things for their reasons. It is refreshing to find someone who will take the time to pause and seek to understand. As a leader, once you know whom you are dealing with, what s/he is thinking and why s/he is thinking such things, you will be better able to empathize.

Zig Ziglar points out that this kind of focus on others actually helps us meet our own needs: “The best way to get what you want out of life is to help others get what they want.” When you’re trying to work on being more empathetic, you must remember the universal needs of all men and women: approval, attention, praise, encouragement, understanding and acceptance. We can learn a lot about empathy from the ancient classic Tao-te-Ching by Lao-tzu. It states: “Evolved leaders win the trust and support of the people through their complete identification with them. The interests of people are naturally promoted because they become the interests of the leader as well.”

Vision is the final attribute of the Five Points of Presence. Influential leaders have a clearly defined vision, which in turn serves as a powerful tool in helping others see the big picture. Most people will embrace their leader’s vision if they know exactly where they fit into it and what they have to do to achieve it. Vision should pull the team together and generate energy, passion and a willingness to work hard. Creating a sound vision begins with focusing on our destination. In other words, you must know where you are going. If you hope to achieve outstanding results, give your team clear direction. Stephen Covey said, “To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you’re going so that you better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction.” Lastly, when you plan and execute your vision, don’t be afraid to dream big. Walt Disney once said,

Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency.

Think of the incredible legacy that has been enjoyed by millions and that will continue to touch generations of people because of this one man’s vision. It all started with one man, whose enthusiasm had a ripple effect on all those he worked with. Walt Disney’s mark will forever be emblazoned upon the world.

Kurt W. Mortensen is one of America’s leading authorities on persuasion, motivation and influence. Kurt spent 15 years researching personal development and motivational psychology and is currently a professor on the university level. He offers his speaking, training, and consulting programs nationwide, helping thousands achieve unprecedented success in business and personal endeavors. Kurt is author of Maximum Influence a bestseller and is endorsed by Stephen R. Covey, Brian Tracy, Robert Allen, and Mark Victor Hansen. Go to http://www.prewealth.com/iq to find out where you rank in your ability to persuade or email askkurt@persuasioninsitute.com.

There are only two ways that you can increase your sales volume… You can increase the number of customers you have by adding new ones, or #2, you can sell more to your existing customers by having a marketing strategy that increases the frequency and amount of their purchases.

Businesses spend most of their time reacting when business is good, and most of their time and money trying to get new customers when business is down. Seldom do they try to generate more business from their existing customer base. Yet, prior customers represent the greatest potential for rapidly increasing sales and profits. They are a ready group of pre-conditioned buyers for which the acquisition cost is already paid.

If, during the time period in which you incurred these marketing expenses, you acquired fifty new customers who had never done business with you before, your cost of acquisition for each customer was $16. Say you ran a newspaper ad for $800. ($800/50 = $16). Companies tend to have no idea how much it costs them to acquire a new customer, much less what the “Lifetime Value” of that customer is. They don’t know that it is six times more expensive to get a new customer than it is to get additional business from an existing customer. Consider at a company with 3,000 customers in their files. It’s not unusual for a company with this size customer base to only do $350,000 to $500,000 in business a year. This equates to roughly $100 to $160 per customer, per year.

In this case, the company could increase its sales and not even add a new customer. If 300 of those 3,000 customers could be offered a “special offer to our preferred customers,” with a “60 day money- back guarantee,” all of which culminated in $200 in additional business from each of that 10%, the increase in sales would be (300 x $200) $60,000.

Funneling new opportunities through an existing access is a lot easier and cheaper than coercing new customers. Taking market share away from a competitor is a lot more difficult and expensive than adding a service or product to your arsenal. It also elevates you above the competition. What extra product or service can you add to your existing line(s)?

Which “special” incentive can you create for your existing customer base?

The point to be made is this: leads are a direct prediction of your sales volume and must be responded to, in some way, as quickly as possible. If you can’t get to them physically, then send them a letter explaining your position (out of stock, over-booked) and how the demand for the value of your product or service has temporarily placed you in that position. Offer a special bonus for those who will bear with you and wait.

Also, with this same letter, ask who feels unable or unwilling to wait, and make every effort to handle those prospects. Both those who commit to wait and those who feel that they cannot wait are telling you what your sales volume will be. This kind of letter will create good will as well as save you otherwise lost sales and the referrals that would have followed. If you don’t respond, you are creating “bad will” (same as bad- mouthing - but you’re targeting yourself) as well as lost sales. You are also undermining your monitoring efforts by losing control of the leads.

Attention to lead response demonstrates dependability, the number one criterion sought by end-users. It’s not the price, it’s not the product - it’s dependability that people want. Pay attention to your marketplace and it will continuously pay attention to you, and secure your future.

Monitor your own response rate to inquiries. Keep records of the inquiry date, first response date and sale percentage in relation to response date.

Daniel Wadleigh is a nationally published marketing consultant and has programs for start-up and existing businesses including effective web sites, e-mail/database, other non-internet ways to drive them to your website, and low cost ways to get more new customers.

Go to: http://www.more-new-customers.com to get free copy of “Marketing to Men vs. Women- the 8 different responses” and a Free copy of “Market Research- 7 Questions to Ask to Start-up and 7 to Ask to Improve Any Business.”

There is the “fear of failure” and “failure” itself. The purpose
of this article is to change your perspective on both, as this
may be one of the things that is holding you back from the sales
success you deserve.

Your “fear of failure” may stop you from talking to potential
clients. Fear is nature’s way of protecting you and it is very
normal, the only challenge is that it sometimes manifests when
not required. So when you’re about to talk to a potential client
and you feel this fear, acknowledge it, thank it, and say that
its services are not required at this time! The next step is to
move your focus from “fear of failure” to how you can help your
potential client. Move your focus from yourself to your
potential client.

A negative view of “failure” will not only stop you from talking
to potential clients but it will severely influence the outcome
of the conversation.

Imagine that you are about to talk to a potential client and you
have the perspective that failure is a bad thing. What sort of
impact does that have on you and how you come across? Are you
hesitant? Unenthusiastic? Uncomfortable? Would this be
attractive to a potential client?

Just suppose that instead you have the perspective that
“failure” is just feedback and a natural part of the sales
process. How do you think you will then come across? Relaxed?
Confident? Natural? You may say, “easier said than done” to have
this perspective. I say read on.

Thomas Edison failed over 3,000 times to develop the light bulb.
Think about scientists. They are the failure masters; they never
get it right the first time. Did you know that Colonel Saunders
went through nine years of failure to perfect his secret blend
of herbs and spices that is still used by KFC today? JK Rowling,
turned down by several publishers, never let “failure”stop her.
There are now over 103 million Harry Potter books in print.

Look around your house at all the appliances and gadgets you
have. Look at your house, your car, and the kind of transport
you use. Look at everything you come into contact with and use
on a daily basis and think about the number of people who
“failed” over and over so you could have all these things. I
hope this is changing your perspective on failure.

Instead of thinking of “failure”, think of just an “outcome”.
There is no such thing as failure, just feedback. Look at the
outcome and feedback and ask yourself what you can learn from
it. Find the lesson, learn from it and then move on to the next
sales conversation. Instead of seeing unsuccessful outcomes as
the enemy, see them as your friend guiding you to success.

Your services can really make a difference in people’s lives.
Don’t you think you have an obligation to risk “failure” and
have as many sales conversations with as many people as
possible?

I challenge you to make this year the year of putting yourself
“out there” and having as many sales conversations with
potential clients as possible so you can help as many people as
possible. Will you accept my challenge?

(c) Tessa Stowe, Sales Conversation, 2006. You are welcome to
“reprint” this article online as long as it remains complete and
unaltered (including the “about the author” info at the end).

“Selling worth doing is worth doing badly … at first!”
~ Gavin Ingham, 2002

Have you ever wanted to learn something new but just found it too difficult? Or started something but gave up because you just couldn’t get the hang of it? Or maybe you just find the thought of ringing new clients far too scary? Perhaps you sometimes get great results but don’t know what you’re doing differently? Could you be stuck in your ways?

If any of these could possibly be true then this article is for you.

Everyone would agree that the ability to learn, understand and utilise new information, strategies and behaviours is important particularly with a topic such as sales where you may well have tried before with limited success. In order to help this process it is important to understand the learning process itself and the stages through which we develop new skills, behaviours or attitudes.

Whenever we learn anything new we go through 5 steps.

Sometimes we will do this so quickly that we may be unaware of the process whereas other times we may be made much more aware of the process by our emotions. Understanding this process, why we do it, the pitfalls and the strengths will allow you to maximise your learning capabilities.

Step 1) Unconscious Incompetence. You are unaware of what you don’t know. You don’t know all that you don’t know!

Step 2) Conscious Incompetence. You become aware of what you don’t know. You’re ignorant and you know you are!

Step 3) Conscious Competence. You become aware of how to do things properly. You can do something but you have to be concentrating on it.

Step 4) Unconscious Competence. You are unaware of how you do things you know. You do things without even thinking about it!

I think one of the best ways to really understand this process is to consider a specific situation such as learning to drive. Do you remember learning to drive? I think that most of us do! It was for most of us a fairly sizeable landmark in our lives so it tends to stick in our memories! I certainly remember learning to drive! Like most teenage lads it meant a lot to me - freedom, adulthood and sex appeal!

On my 17th birthday I dragged my mother out to the car and hopped in to have a go. I knew that I would be able to drive! I had been watching others for months in preparation - this was going to be easy! How unconsciously incompetent was I?! I was totally ignorant of how difficult this was actually going to be! Ah well, ignorance is bliss. Easing into the seat I grasped the wheel, started the engine, depressed the clutch, punched the accelerator and … stalled the car! Not deterred I had another go … same result. Another … another … another.

Suddenly I was overtaken by the dawning recognition that this was going to be really difficult and challenging. Welcome to conscious incompetence! Gavin you’re useless and you know you are! But I was determined to learn to drive so I persevered and practised. After a lot of heartache and effort I eventually reached the point where, if I could maintain my concentration, I was actually quite a proficient driver. Now I don’t know if you remember your driving test? I do. There was so much to concentrate on wasn’t there! Keeping your hands at 10 to two, mirror, signal, manoeuvre, the examiner, the speed limit, the road signs and that’s without mentioning the other road users! Remember taking your test and that’s probably a fair gauge of conscious competence!

“Now you really go out and learn to drive!” That’s what everybody said to me when I passed my test and they weren’t wrong. Your whole concept of driving changes. You don’t have to focus on every little detail all of the time infact you might not have to think about it all. Have you ever driven somewhere got out the car and thought … how did I get here? I don’t even remember driving here. Welcome to unconscious competence! Fabulous the way that the brain works isn’t it!

Being able to operate at unconscious competence clearly has many advantages. We’re able to multitask, we generally operate fluidly and easily, it’s within our comfort zone, it’s stress free, it’s the way we do things and for most people we spend the vast amount of out lives here. Just think about it for a moment. How many things do you now do that you once had to think about consciously. Walking, talking, picking things up, bodily awareness, writing, driving are all great examples but we also become unconsciously competent at responding to certain stimulus in certain ways. If I were to walk into your office and say, “Right! Time to make 100 cold-calls” you’d probably be unconsciously competent at producing a feeling and a response. Maybe not a very nice one! When a client snarls, “That’s too expensive, you must be having a laugh!” chances are that you will also be unconsciously competent at producing an emotional reaction.

So unconscious competence does have disadvantages too. We are unconscious or unaware of our responses or our behaviours therefore we may gradually change what we are doing and be unaware of it. We may find it very difficult to teach others our skills because we are not aware of how we put them together. Maybe we continue to do things in a way that used to be unconsciously competent but external changes now mean that what we are doing is now wrong. And here’s the challenge and the danger of unconscious competence. When does unconscious competence become unconscious incompetence? It’s very difficult to say for sure because the one commonality between the two is that we are unconscious!

Reacting in a certain way to a certain stimulus may be right for one situation but it may be wrong for another. Take the example above of the snarling client. Many salespeople would feel frustrated and angry without having to think about it. When we unconsciously learned this response there may well have been good reasons for it however I’d suggest that if you want to be a sales superstar then this kind of reaction is unconscious incompetence. One of my first clients used to frequently tell his salespeople that they should sell products that were a 50% match and that if they couldn’t they were bad salespeople. Maybe in his day the clients were happy with this kind of product but in today’s competitive markets they certainly would not be! Maybe this boss was once unconsciously competent but changing market conditions, changing client attitudes and his lack of flexibility had left him unconsciously incompetent. Most dangerous of all was the fact that everyone in the business knew it but him!

So it’s clear that if we are doing things unconsciously we need to periodically step back and have a look around to see if what we are doing makes sense and is getting us the results that we want. If it is great, if it’s not - change it for something that does work.

But if unconscious is where most of us are most of the time conscious incompetence is what most of us try to avoid at all costs. When you are learning a new skill or behaviour and you reach conscious competence how does it feel? Take a bit of time to think about it. Typical associations with unconscious competence are feelings of stress, frustration, challenge, obstacles, pain, outside your comfort zone, lack of control, uncomfortable, fear and uncertainty. When we think about ringing new clients on the phone this will often occur the moment that you step outside of your comfort zone and have a go. Indeed this barrier is so great for many people that they would rather give up than actually break through. But the human mind is a clever animal and it won’t punish you for this - nope! It will give you reasons, other things to do. It will rationalise, explain and help you to feel OK. As you slip back to unconscious incompetence you will feel perfectly great because ignorance is bliss!

To achieve anything worthwhile you must break through this barrier. And you can! As children we achieved some absolutely amazing feats. One of the most impressive was learning to walk. How many times do toddlers fall over? Thousands and thousands but the one thing that you can count on is that they always get back up again. Crawling for the rest of their lives is never an option - they are going to walk just like the rest of us. It’s a certainty. Yet as adults we’re not so resilient. We don’t tend to push, push, push our limitations. Infact there are many people who, even with the weight of the medical establishment behind them, fail to teach themselves to walk again properly after an accident even though physically they could. Somehow life and growing up seems to programme us to not try as hard.

There might be many reasons for this however I think that one of them is the perpetuation of the win / lose culture in our society. There can only be one winner and for every winner there must be a whole group of losers. You often cannot win unless you’ve beaten someone else. Now don’t get me wrong I do not subscribe to the no competition brigade - that’s just sop - what I do believe however is that we should create ways for us to win by being the best that we can be. In cold calling many salespeople set unrealistic targets that they are never going to hit because they have benchmarked someone else. Had they benchmarked themselves they would have found that they were winning all along.

On the other side of the coin we need to realise that everything in life is a learning experience. Eddison’s much hyped quote as he failed to invent the light bulb for the umpteenth time was that he had eliminated another way to not make a light-bulb! In sales we have to accept that we will continue to be put through the learning experience for the whole of our career. As a director, author, business owner and sometime sales guru (!) I believe my sales ability to be a real asset to my business however I am constantly put through learning experiences. And I wouldn’t want it to be any other way. My feelings as yours are telling me something. They are reminding me to be prepared to practise and to make sure that I am at the top of my game.

So how do we break through from conscious incompetence to conscious competence?

Persistence.
Determination.
Self-belief.
Drive.
Tenacity.
Repetition.
Add your own here!!!

But if I was to say to you, “Hey look! Just go out there and be tenacious, persistent, determined and have drive!” you’d tell me to tell you something that you didn’t know! And quite rightly so! Because we all know that this is what’s required - it’s maintaining it that’s the challenge.

I was reminded of this when I first started sales coaching. I was working with a client who had a small telesales team. Two of his staff were organising a campaign focused on a specific niche market. They were targeted to make 100+ outbound calls per day, to speak to 25 decision-makers and to organise at least 2 interviews. For the market they were working in this was about average. One of them was very positive and was consistently surpassing his target. He was a joy in the office and great to have on the team. The other however was really struggling, not good around the office and mostly fairly negative. I wasn’t specifically working with these chaps and therefore hadn’t really spoken with them much but we had been introduced. One afternoon as I was sitting there I found myself alone with the chap who wasn’t doing so well. I asked him what he was doing and how it was going. He turned to me, scowled and said, “I’m cold calling, what’s it look like! It’s awful!” Needless to say I left him alone.

About half an hour later the other chap went to make a coffee so on a whim I followed him determined to ask him the same question. As I asked him he turned to me and smiled, “I’m developing an new and essential part of the business. This project is going to get me into major account sales and get me noticed within the company. I should be promoted within 6 months. It’s hard work but I know that it will be worth it!” Interesting! Same job, same opportunity, same potential clients, same products - totally different meaning.

The meaning we attach to things determines the impact that they have on us. When you attach a strong personal meaning you don’t have to remind yourself to be motivated or persistent, you just are. The successful sales professional in the above example doesn’t constantly have to harry himself to be motivated because he knows why he is doing the cold-calling and he knows what it means for him. He’ll still have days when he feels less motivated, outside his comfort zone, challenged and uncomfortable but he will view them differently because he will accept them as part of the essential development process on his journey to success.

Exercise: Take a moment to review your goals. When you’ve done this make note of why setting up client meetings plays a vital part in helping you to proactively achieve these goals. If one of your goals is materialistic, try getting a picture of it and sticking it by your phone. Every time you make a call think to yourself - “one step closer!”.

Top Tips for the 5 Steps to Sales Success

1. Look around at what you habitually do and how you habitually react once in a while.

2. Most things worth learning will feel uncomfortable or challenging at some point.

3. Practise, practise, practise!

4. It takes several week’s worth of telesales to beat your fear.

5. Challenge yourself one step at a time.

“But Gavin - you said there were 5 steps.”

Correct. And in my opinion there are.

I have been teaching the 4 steps to success now for several years and in several different forms and I have used it successfully in individual coaching sessions with both myself and others. Powerful as I know that it is I believe that the fundamental construct has inherent challenges…

If many times we find ourselves back at unconscious incompetence despite our best efforts or we have to keep dropping back to conscious competence to check ourselves then we are performing below our potential. There must be a better way…

Step 5) Mastery. Mastery is something more than unconscious competence - it has an extra, somewhat mystical quality. It’s the sort of state that most of us only experience once or twice in a lifetime - you probably never quite know how to describe it. Top athletes would call it being in the zone. I remember the first time I saw it in action. I was nearly 13 and the athlete in question was Sebastian Coe. He smashed the world record for 800m running 1 minute 41.72 seconds, a time nearly two seconds faster than the next fastest person ever. But it wasn’t the time - it was the way that he ran it. Majestic, graceful, relaxed. He made it look easy! Of that race Seb himself said,

“Other sportsmen say there are moments when they are outside themselves, watching from the stand, as it were, and I’ve only experienced that in the 800 metres.”

I believe that we all have the potential to enter this state if only momentarily and I believe that this is the state that top salespeople reach when they are playing their best possible game. When I present, this is what I strive for and, having achieved it a few times, I can say no more than that once you taste it you know that you have the tools to recreate it and become the best that you can possible be.

Exercise: Describe what cold calling will be like when you achieve a state of mastery? What will you be doing? Feeling? Thinking? What is the one most important thing that you need to learn to help you to move towards mastery right now?

For the last 10 years, Gavin Ingham has been helping sales people to explode their sales performance by turning self-doubt, fear and lack of motivation into self-belief, confidence and action. With his inspirational approach to sales performance and motivation Gavin combines commercial experience, personal excellence and communications technologies in delivering personal and business sales success.

Visit http://www.gaviningham.net now to join my free monthly newsletter packed full of sales secrets and strategies. Join now and get my ground-breaking 9-part objection handling course absolutely free.

There are two kinds of people when it comes to accountability.

•Those who point their index fingers outward
•Those who point their index fingers inward

We all know too well that most people are quick to blame others and slow to take responsibility. They make excuses or tell a long-winded story about what went wrong and why. Obviously these people feel their success or failure is “outside of their control.”

The more powerful belief is that things are within our control. It then follows that we are, in fact, responsible for what happens around us and to us.

I’ve developed a disciplined system that helps people accept accountability. This system breaks down all the components into essential elements. We can develop a less emotional view and a more scientific one.

But before I share that with you, let me take you back a few years in my own life.

In my first career, I was a professional pilot. In the flying business, Captain is the only job to have. But before you can be a Captain, you must first prove yourself as a safe, competent and proficient co-pilot.

(By the way–Here’s a little “behind the scenes” secret info for you. The reason everybody wants to be the Captain? He’s the guy, or girl, who does half the work for 3 times the money.)

Now, why do you suppose the Captain is so well paid for so little work? It’s all because (and this is according to the FAA), no matter what happens on his flight or who does it…HE is held responsible.

As a young man, I was trying to build up my flying time and experience. But, most of the Captains would order me to just sit there, work the radios and “DON”T touch anything else!”

You see the problem here. How in the world was I ever going to learn? How was I going to gain the experience I needed to make captain?

I was really getting frustrated.

Then one day, I had the shocking experience of meeting and flying for Jeff Brinkerhoff, a strong-willed Captain of a Lear 25 Business Jet.

Jeff shouted out…”Hop in the left seat and start ‘er up. I’ll show you how to really fly this thing!”

Talk about transformational experiences…

From that moment, I knew the kind of leader I wanted to be!

So let me ask you…

Are you in the type of sales organization that helps people “Get in the left seat and start ‘er up?”

In other words, do you have the organizational commitment to create Self-Sustained Professionals through providing proven structures for learning and application?

Jeff Hardesty is President of JDH Group, Inc. and the Developer of the X2 Sales System®, a blended training system that teaches sales professionals the competency of setting C-level business appointments.
Jeff has been featured in numerous National publications such as Business First, Dartnell’s SELL!NG , Chief Learning Officer and Training Magazine with reference to Blended Learning Systems and improving sales teams Key Performance Indicators.

He travels the country conducting live X2 ‘Boot Camps’ and Train-the-trainer sessions helping sales organizations get more reps to Quota in less time, shorten new-hire ‘Ramp-to-Quota’ and eliminate Turnover costs due to low sales activity.
Jeff can be reached at jeff@convertmoresales.com.
To view a complimentary suite of sales training ROI calculators and determine your sales team’s Key Performance Indicators in line with your sales objectives visit http://convertmoresales.com/roi_calculators.php.

How high is your sales trust factor?

Is it higher than the sales trust factor of your competition?

It should be, if you want to increase your success in sales.

Your trust factor represents the level of trust that buyers have in you as a seller. In the buy/sell relationship, perception is the reality under which sellers operate, and trust is based on the buyer’s perception of you.

You may be the most honest, trustworthy person in your field, but if buyers don’t perceive you to be trustworthy because of your selling behaviors, it doesn’t matter how trustworthy you are in reality.

Buyers Don’t Trust Sellers
What is the greatest challenge, usually unspoken, that sellers face when working with buyers?

Distrust.

The simple truth is buyers don’t trust sellers. Unfortunately, because of the way a lot of people have sold in the past and still sell today, buyers have very good reasons not to trust sellers.

We all like to think we’re trustworthy. In fact, a study has shown that we think others trust us at significantly higher levels than they really do. For example, you may think that buyer A rates you as eight out of ten on the trust factor scale. When asked by a third party, however, the same buyer may actually rate you as five out of ten, the same they rate most other salespeople. Again, the reality is that most people mistrust sellers regardless of what they may tell you.

Trust - YOUR Competitive Advantage
To win more business, especially in today’s competitive environment, it’s imperative that you create a separation point between you and your competitors based on trust. Notice I said YOU. For most products and services today, there is relatively little functional difference for the buyer among the available choices, even though companies continue to spend billions of dollars in advertising each year to attempt to create separation points in the minds of buyers.

Today’s buyers are so busy and exposed to so much information that often they either ignore or do not recognize these efforts. Buyers have a difficult time making a purchase decision because they are not able to identify one product or service that is clearly superior to the others.

It’s critical, then, that sellers focus on trust-building activities with prospects and customers and avoid trust-breaking activities. You must take it upon yourself to create a separation point in the mind of potential buyers between yourself and your selling competitors.

The best way to create this separation point is to increase your trust factor with your buyers.

You Need a Plan
Given the perception of buyers, trust-building is not likely to occur simply as a result of your sales process.

If you attend the same training courses as other sellers in your industry, read the same books, say the same things, and use the same sales tools and techniques, chances are you’re not going to create much of a separation with buyers based on trust.

Despite the fact that level of trust is the number one decision factor in many purchases, it is rarely addressed. If you were to take a look at the indexes of the ten most popular sales books, how many do you think would include the word “trust” in the index? Try it. If the books you read are like the books on my bookshelf, only one or two will even have the word listed in the index. The others probably have only a few paragraphs discussing the topic of trust.

So what IS your approach to overcome distrust, one of the most significant obstacles in the buy/sell relationship? Do you have a specific, well-thought out plan designed to overcome this obstacle and to build greater levels of trust with your prospects?

You must create an action plan and constantly focus on executing the plan in order to build trust. And once you’re able to increase your trust factor with buyers, you will also see an increase in your sales.

Summary Three Key Points to Remember:

• Regardless of what you believe about your own level of trustworthiness, your trust factor with buyers is low.


• To increase sales, individual sellers must create their own separation point from competitors rather than rely on their product, service, or company to create the separation point.


• Sellers can create a separation point by building a greater level of trust with buyers versus their competitors.

Robert Reed is a consultant, speaker and president of TrustBuild. TrustBuild offers the Trust Seal Program to identify and differentiate trustworthy sales professionals from traditional competitors. Sealholders are provided with easy-to-use tools and information to help them break through the buyer “trust barrier” to gain a competitive edge and win more sales. Visit TrustBuild.com to learn more about the Trust Seal Program for trustworthy sales professionals.

I am pretty sure I have listened to and read at least 2,000 to
3,000 books and videos on selling, how to sell and customer
service and one theme that I have found has been - The Customer
Is Always Right?

This is the biggest load of rubbish I have ever heard. If you
take on this philosophy, from my experience, you will go broke
let me explain …

One of the most common stories I hear bandied around the
customer service industry, is the case of a Manager at Wal-Mart
who had an irate customer who had bought a set of tires and
wasn’t happy with them. She went to Wal-Mart and abused the
manager and told him the tires were no good and the Manager gave
her a full refund. The point to this example was that Wal-Mart
didn’t sell tyres and the manager went above and beyond the call
of duty and gave her a full refund. But as far as I am
concerned, he didn’t do the right thing, he should have politely
informed the customer they didn’t sell tyres. Could you honestly
imagine giving a refund for a product in which you didn’t sell.
As a small business owner, you would go broke but…

So, many of the customer service guru’s use that story as the
shining light in the way that we should be serving our
customers. To me, that’s crazy to be pushing such a philosophy.
I wrote this article because I felt it was important as a small
business owner to share with you a few things I have learnt
about balancing the needs of the customer to the needs of your
business as a small business owner. But also, as a small
business owner that believed in the philosophy of the Customer
Is Always Right and how it almost sent me broke.

For years, I have been in small business and I had bent over
backwards to accommodate my customers and I still do, but what I
realised about 6 months ago, is that by not setting clear
guidelines on how I was prepared to do business but also
sticking to those guidelines, my business in the end was being
dictated to by other companies. My company has done a lot of
work with Government agencies and big business and many people
who work in these organisations think they are high flyers and
can railroad small business and many of them do.

When I started picking up work from some of these organisations,
I would get a call saying, we want your training but this is how
we are going to do business. We only buy services on purchase
orders and that’s the only way we do business and we will pay
you in 30 days or on the cheque cycle run (which might be 90
days). If you want our business you either accept our terms or
we will go somewhere else.

Now as a small business owner and somebody who wants to grow
their business, you think, excellent, okay, yes sir, no sir, we
accept your terms. Then you do a fantastic job, on time, within
budget, then it comes down to payment. On some of our work we
had to wait six months to be paid. Now like most small
businesses we work on credit and being so small we rely heavily
on credit cards. But its this reliance that almost destroyed my
business. We found that because some of our large clients didn’t
pay us for six months, the interest from the credit card
payments actually cost us more than the business in the first
place.

One of the government agencies I worked for had a policy of
putting 10 people on a purchase order for training, but their
policy was that you didn’t get paid for any of the training
until everybody on that purchase order had completed the
training. In this particular case we had 2 people over a 12
month period change their course dates at least four times and
in the end one person cancelled altogether. Now the training
manager of this government agency had the audacity to tell me
that they didn’t have to pay for any of the training because
they hadn’t finished the training. In the end, I realised for
the first time, why many of my larger competitors ended up going
broke. They simply weren’t getting paid and being railroaded. It
was at this point I realised one important lesson, the Customer
Is Not Always Right!

I will say one thing, when you get to the point where you are
about to lose everything, your perspective changes and I think
personally its incredibly liberating. I decided it was time to
act and I learnt a very important lesson. This is my business
and I decide how I want to do business! Not my customers!

In the end, I wrote to everyone of the customers who owed me
money (we are talking tens of thousands of dollars) and I was
quite blunt to them and I said, your failure to pay has damaged
my business. The terms you wish to do business on are no longer
acceptable and as such we no longer are prepared to accept your
business. Pay now or else and then I set out the rules of how I
was going to do business.

I figured in the end I would lose all of my big customers but it
really didn’t matter they weren’t making me money, in fact they
were losing me money in a big way because of the interest owed
on my credit cards. So I didn’t care. You know the funny thing,
I never lost a single customer and now every single business
pays upfront and with a credit card. It wasn’t until I put my
terms on that table that things changed. In reality, I should
never have accepted their terms but I guess hindsight is a good
thing.

I did come to a really important realisation; I would rather
have a small business that makes a profit, than all the business
in the world but not make a single cent. If you are in business
or thinking about going into business let me share my strategies
I now use for surviving my customers …

1. I set the rules on how I want to do business not my customer
2. Set very clear rules on how a customer must pay for your
services or products 3. If the customer doesn’t pay cash up
front (this includes credit cards), require them to give you
authority to debit their bank account. 4. Be wary of any
business that only buys using purchase orders only (Very few
companies do this, many of them have credit cards so tell them
you only accept payment by credit cards) 5. Don’t be frightened
to say No 6. Don’t be frightened to say to a potential
Customers, “I am sorry, but your not the sort of customer I am
looking for” 7. Don’t be bullied into doing any product or
service. Do only what you can handle and want to do. 8. Be
Assertive and Stand Firm on your decisions 9. Be upfront to a
customer if they are hurting your business 10. Always treat the
customer fairly and equitably

The world is a big place, there is lots of business out there
for you to go after, no customer is that important that they
should be in a position to bankrupt you.

I keep getting told by my business mentor that business is
supposed to be fun. I think it should be too, but its only fun
if you have the money to enjoy it.