I loved it when she disagreed with the Prime Minister of Australia Kevin Rudd who had called her a ‘hero’, and she didn’t agree with the hero status and that she had simply applied her skills and determination to achieving a dream (that’s my interpretation of what she said).

This week I’m practicing the affirmation “I have more than enough inner strength to help me through the tough times.” 

A mate of mine Mark Horton wrote a great book called “Power To Choose – Challenge To Change.  In the book Mark writes “Life is not a matter of being dealt a good hand but, more so, the ability to play a poor hand well.”  Mark was dealt a pretty poor hand when he was diagnosed with both diabetes and multiple sclerosis, and yet his ability to continually deal with the hand he had been dealt is and will continue to be a source of inspiration to me.

When the customers aren’t calling, the referrals aren’t coming, or the repeat business is dropping off, we have the power to choose proactivity and the challenge to change whatever it is we are or aren’t doing that will help us achieve our goals.

Have you ever played the Blame Game?

It’s easy to play the blame game, and easier still to get distracted by our ‘coping activity’ (you know what I mean….all those other things we get sucked into doing other than the goal producing activity we know we need to do more of).

To what extent do you believe that you have more than enough inner strength to help you through the tough times?

It’s a great question to ask, because if our answer is no, then it just says we’ve got some work to do on our skills, knowledge, attributes or motivation….and when we constantly work on our competence, our confidence grows with it.

Are you spending a minimum of 60 minutes each week on your own development?

I heard this fantastic quote recently when in Wellington New Zealand.  It was from the actor Tony Barry…. “If you don’t go looking for personal growth, it will come looking for you.”

Wow!

Book time in your diary right now…..make it a 60 minute meeting with yourself….make it as best you can a not negotiable meeting, one that you will commit to having.  At the meeting with yourself  use the following as an agenda (this is the agenda I recommend for my SalesCoachCentral.com members – if you’re not a member yet, now’s a great time to join):

Personal Growth Weekly Meeting Agenda

1. Note your sales, marketing and personal growth weekly wins
2. Note your sales, marketing and personal growth setbacks over the week
3. Note what you will do to have more wins and less setbacks next week
4. Note what you need to learn
5. Read your SalesCoachCentral.com SalesCoachTips newsletter
6. Note your action plan based on the SalesCoachTip
7. Read, watch, listen to an eClass from SalesCoachCentral.com
8. Note what you will Start, Stop, Continue to do to achieve your sales targets
9. Confirm your find, win, keep clients strategies for next week
    (Who will you contact, what about, why, and when?) – are your proactive sales
     and marketing activities in your diary?
10. Share your findings/learning with a trusted friend(s), colleague(s) or manager

This will be one of the  most important meetings you’ll have every week, and it will certainly help you to develop the inner strength to handle the tough times and make the good times even better.
Let me know how you go.

Unfortunately, the ‘soft sell’ revolution has created salespeople who in the main are just providing a service…..and what that means is that many sales are lost.

Let me explain the difference.

Recently I went to buy a new high definition digital video camera.  As usual, I received the typical customer service that I’ve come to expect.

The so called customer service person was almost apologetic in his approach to help me, almost expecting me to say “I’m just looking at the moment”……But to his surprise I said that I would like some help in choosing a camera.

He then immediately started to tell me about the differences between four cameras……I have no idea how he knew that any of them might be what I was after, because he didn’t ask me any questions at all.

He was capability selling…..just telling me about all of the products.

Now here’s my point……

 Choice Without Advice Kills The Sale!

When I go to buy something that is important to me, I don’t want someone just to ‘serve me’.  I want someone to provide me with the advice I need to make a wise buying decision.

You can’t give advice and a confident recommendation as a customer service (sales) person, unless you have found out about my situation, expectations, experiences, concerns, wants, needs, and goals that I’m seeking to achieve from buying a product or a service.

The difference between typical customer service and someone who steps up and provides advice and recommendations is what selling is all about.

Buyers today, whether business to business, or business to consumer are looking for sales and service people to help them sort out the most appropriate purchase from the many choices they have in front of them.

Expert advice wins sales.  Choice and capability, without advice loses sales and creates buyer apathy.

This is a fascinating discussion on a blog I recently visited. I highly recommend you check it out here…

For my part, most, not all, but most of the time, I believe 100% commission based sales is for entrepreneurs who are looking to build and or run their own business. All the risk and ‘skin in the game’ is with the entrepreneur/business owner…..who is also the salesperson.

That’s what my own business model is….and it’s pretty motivating!

But when you’re an employee salesperson……I’m wondering where the ‘shared risk’ is if a business owner, sales manager, or HR manager decides that they only want to remunerate the salesperson with 100% commission based sales.

Now, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t pay by 100% commission. What I am saying is you need to understand the potential consequence of that.

For many salespeople if the biggest issue they’re thinking about all of the time is how can they pay their basic bills (food, mortgage/rent, utilities and getting from a to b) then they’re probably not focusing on how they can create value for prospects and existing clients when they sell what they sell.

Sure……you might increase their ‘hunger’ for the sale…..but at what cost?

On the other hand, if you pay a ‘wage’ that is easily covering the ‘basics’ for the salesperson, and there is no consequence for under-performance, then this too just breads apathetic salespeople.

I found the comments by the many contributors to the blog great reading……I hope you do too……you can check it out here if you haven’t already and would value your thoughts here on this blog as well.

The problem with the old ABC’s of selling is that it builds on the concept of the negative stereotype of a salesperson.

The value of the new, is that it builds on the positive professional image of a salesperson.

In this post, I want to highlight how sometimes the negative stereotype of a salesperson just keeps getting reinforced by the media……no wonder many salespeople feel their efforts and performance are not valued by some.

What’s Wrong With Rewarding Sales Success?

Those of us who own our businesses and/or are in a sales role, know only too well that if we haven’t got sales, we don’t have a business.

I’m a big believer in rewarding people for performance. Sure….rewarding for effort is good….but performance and sales success deserves rewarding.

Let’s talk Banks for a moment…..I’m still stunned when people say that the major banks’ profits are too big…..I wonder if it was their own business….would they want to limit their own profitability?

In a recent media attack on one of the major banks who rewarded their top performers in their Insurance business for their sales performance….out of the profits they have generated through their sales success, and provided them with a holiday on one of Australia’s Island Resorts……I just don’t get why the media takes the high moral ground to say that it’s wrong to reward performance.

If you missed the reports in the news a couple of weeks ago, then I won’t bother bringing you up to speed here, but suffice it to say, the key point I want to make here, is that business owners and salespeople should be proud of their sales success and the rewards that they either provide for themselves, or are provided for them by their employers, are absolutely justified.

My financial adviser many years ago gave me a great piece of advice…..”when you have a good and profitable year, remember to reward yourself”.

So to all business owners and salespeople, my tip for you, is remember to reward yourself for both effort and for performance….and when others who have no idea what it is to build a business, develop sales opportunities and deliver great value for their clients, decide to be jealous or envious…..take pride in your achevements and enjoy the spoils of your successa and rewards.

Reward yourself for effort first….then for performance!

Sometimes the rewards that we pay ourselves for our efforts (doing the sales and marketing activities that are essential to give us our best opportunity for sales success) will prove to be the inspiration for us to achieve the sales performance we are required to meet.

And then it’s time to reward ourselves for our sales performance.

Anyone who doesn’t see merit in rewarding salespeople for their sales performance, has obviously never sold anything in their life, have never owned their own business, or just doesn’t believe in the wonderfully powerful adage of “Behaviour that gets rewarded gets repeated!”

My first ever training course….way back in the early 1980’s (how time flies) was called the A.B.C.’s of Selling.

The ABC’s of selling stood for….

Always….Be…..Closing

and the mantra was something like, “close early, close often and close hard.”

What a load of rubbish it all was…..well at least the hypey ‘technique based’ part of it was anyway.

I learned the puppy dog close, the press hard there’s 3 copies close, the getting to yes close, and the “if you’re not feeling guilty now you will be soon close.”

I was relating this at a recent multi-speaker event in Melbourne where I was presenting and a number of business owners and sales people approached me at the end of the program, eager to tell me there ‘horror stories’ of when they’d tried to use some of these manipulative type of closing techniques, and how bad they felt and the poor results they actually achieved.

So I thought it was time for some new A.B.C.’s of selling…..and here they are, and when you first see the key words, keep reading because the true meaning behind them is not necessarily at first obvious:

The New ABC’s of Selling

We first of all need to be Attentive

We also need to be Branded, and finally

We need to be Consistent.

Let’s look at each in turn.

We need to be Attentive:

This is all about being absolutely clear and able to articulate who our ideal client is and who are the influencers of our ideal clients’ buying decisions.

More importantly, it is being attentive to their individual and collective needs, wants, problems and situations.

Here are three questions for you to consider:

1. Who are your ideal clients?  Define them in as many ways as you possibly can.

2. Who are the influencers of your ideal clients’ buying decisions?  Think beyond just partners and advisers…..what about media, social networks etc.

3. Where can you be seen by your ideal clients and their influencers?  Again, think beyond just client visits or when they come to you at your office or place of business.

Let’s move onto our B in the newly defined ABC’s of selling.

We need to be Branded.

This is all about taking the concept of traditional branding of our products, service and company and extending it to something at a much deeper and more inspiring level.

Here are three questions for you on being Branded:

1. What’s your premise about what you do?  Write down you personal beliefs and philosophy about why you are in the role that you are and about the value that your products and services create for your customers when they buy from you?

2. How would you like your customers to describe their buying experience?  Map out the ‘moments of impact’ that your prospective and existing clients experience.  A process map of the customer buying experience through to after they buy, can be an extremely revealing exercise.

3. What are/could you be doing with your personality, style, and/or business processes to help your clients, when they buy from you, to have incredible buying experiences where they will want to recommend and refer others to you?

And finally let’s move onto Consistent.

We need to be Consistent

Consistency is about having the discipline and process in place to be able to do answer and act on the A and B.

Here’s just one question for you to answer…..

1. To what extent are you managing your A’s and B’s?

Now, I’m aware that none of this is new, but perhaps a refocus on these areas might just be the ignition you need to spark some new, repeat or referral sales.

Let me know what you think!