SELF IMPROVEMENT AND MOTIVATION

Unspoken Objections The first type of objection you will get is an unspoken objection. The customer has concerns with you offering but doesn't tell you anything. The solution to unspoken objections is to let the prospect talk more. Ask open-ended questions, lean forward, and listen intently to the answers. The more a prospect has an opportunity to answer your questions; the more likely it is that she will tell you exactly what might be holding her back from buying. Excuses, Excuses The second form of objections is excuses. These are usually instinctive reactions to any sales approach. Excuses are not really serious. The best salespeople nod, smile, agree, and then ask a question to take control of the conversation. The very best way to handle any initial sales resistance, including excuses and impulse responses is with these words: "That's all right. Most people in your situation felt the same way when I first called on them. But now they have become our best customers...

In physical terms, a single blockade of a key artery can lead to a heart attack and the death of an otherwise healthy individual. Some years ago, James Fixx, a leading authority on jogging for physical fitness, one of the top runners in America, and in Olympic condition, dropped dead of a heart attack while running at the age of fifty-two because a single piece of plaque that came loose and lodged in his heart. James Fixx was an incredibly healthy man until one blockage was sufficient to end his life. This same principle applies to business, careers, and one's personal life as well. One fatal flaw can cost you a lot, if not everything. Identify Your Limiting Factor In your business, for example, there are almost always critical constraints of "limiting factors" that determine how fast you achieve your goals. Not only can a constraint slow you down and keep you from achieving the sales and profitability you desire, but a serious constraint can bring your business to...

You become what you think about most of the time. And the most important part of each day is what you think about at the beginning of that day. Start Your Day Right Take 30 minutes each morning to sit quietly and to reflect on your goals. You'll find when you read the biographies and autobiographies of successful men and women that almost everyone of them began their upward trajectory to success when they begin getting up early in the morning and spending time with themselves. Feed Your Mind With Positive Ideas This is called the Golden Hour. The first hour sets the tone for the day. The things that you do in the first hour prepare your mind and set you up for the entire day. During the first thirty to sixty minutes, take time to think and review your plans for the future. Use Your Quiet Time Effectively Here are four things that you can do during that quiet time in the morning. Number one is to review your plans for accomplishing your goals and change your plans if necess...

Nothing happens until a sale takes place. Your actual ability to sell your product or service to your customer determines your profit or loss, success or failure, in business. The sales process, to be effective, must be planned and organized in detail from start to finish. Every word and action must be scripted, rehearsed and memorized. Nothing can be left to chance. Sales Recipe Making a sale is like cooking with a recipe. You must use the correct ingredient and blend them in the proper quantity with the right timing. All successful companies have developed a proven sales process that can be duplicated over and over. By using a proven sales system, you can accurately predict the quantity of your sales, the average size of your sales, and the profitability of your sales activities. Prospecting It is important to speak directly or by telephone to people who can and will buy and pay in a reasonable period of time. Start with your ideal customer profile. Who is he or she exactly-in ...

The customer demands the very highest quality for the very lowest price. This seems simple except that many companies try to violate this law on their way to the bankruptcy courts. The customer is very smart. The customer will always act to satisfy the greatest possible number of his or her needs in making any particular buying decision. Only companies that cater to the customer's relentless insistence on even higher levels of quality at even lower prices are successful in the marketplace. Quality is What the Customer Says it is Only the customer can define quality. Sometimes even the customer cannot define it clearly, but the customer will vote for quality by the way she spends her dollars. And more than 80 percent of buying decisions today are either made or strongly influenced by women. Quality Includes Both the Product and Service Quality also includes the way that it is sold, delivered, and maintained. The customer's definition of quality includes all of the activiti...

There are two great principles for achieving financial success. The first principle is what we call the law of attraction. The law of attraction says that you are a living magnet. It says that your thoughts create a force field of energy that radiates out from you and attracts back into your life people and circumstances in harmony with them. Any thought you have, combined with an emotion, positive or negative, radiates out from you and attracts back into your life the people, circumstances, ideas, and opportunities consistent with it. How to Attract the Success You Desire Many people feel that this is perhaps the most important of all mental laws. It says that if you have a very clear idea in your mind of your desired goal, to become wealthy, and you can hold that idea in your mind on a continuing basis, you will inevitably draw into your life the resources that you need in order to achieve it. Every person who has become wealthy or successful has become wealthy and successful as a...

Problems, difficulties, and setbacks are a normal, natural, and unavoidable part of life and business. When you set a new goal or launch toward a new destination, you will experience challenges and difficulties that you never expected or anticipated. By the true test of character is the inevitable and unavoidable crisis. Your ability to solve problems is important, but your ability to deal with a crisis largely determines your success or failure in life. Leadership Abilities In a multi-year study conducted at Stanford University, researchers examined the annual performance appraisals of hundreds of presidents and chief executive officers of Fortune 1000 companies, some of the most successful executives in every business or industry. This study revealed that top executives had two dominant qualities in common. The first was the ability to function well as a member of a team. When they were starting out, they were good team players, making valuable contributions to the teams they were ...

You can increase your efficiency and your effectiveness by becoming better and better at your key tasks. One of the most powerful of all time management techniques is for you to get better at the most important things you do. Your core competencies, your key skill areas, the places where you are absolutely excellent at what you do, are the key determinants of your productivity, your standard of living, and the level of achievement you reach in your field. Work Excellence The market pays excellent rewards only for excellent work. You are therefore successful to the degree to which you do more things better than the average person. Your great responsibility in life is to determine what things you can and should do very well and then develop a plan to become very, very good in those vital areas. Key Question Here is the key question: What one skill, if you developed and did it in an excellent fashion, would have the greatest positive impact on your career? Your weakest important s...

You can always get a better deal if you know how. You never need to settle for less or feel dissatisfied with the result of any negotiation. There is almost always a way that you can get better terms or prices, whether you are buying or selling. Your job is to find that way. If You Want a Better Deal, Ask for it The word "ask" is the most powerful word in the world of business negotiating. Most people are so paralyzed by the fear of rejection and disapproval that they are afraid to ask for anything out of the ordinary. They just accept what is offered to them and hope for the best. But this is not the case with top negotiators. The top negotiators will quite calmly and confidently ask for any kind of price or term that is remotely within reason. You will be quite astonished at the better deals you will get by simply asking for a lower price if you're buying and asking for a higher price if you're selling. Real Estate Salesmen One of my seminar graduates is a rea...

Most executives have never been taught how to properly interview people for a position. Fortunately, the most effective interviewing process is quite simple, as long as you can discipline yourself to learn it and then follow it. Suitability of the Candidate A variety of excellent assessment instruments and personality tests are available that you can use to get a better feeling for the suitability of the candidate. In my business, we use various instruments with each person, score them, and give copies of the results to the candidate. We then discuss the findings with the candidate in a spirit of open inquiry, mutually seeking the best way to interpret them as they relate to the job under consideration. Don't Start Selling Until You Have Decided to Buy In other words, resist the temptation to begin the interview by telling the candidate what a great job is being offered and what a great company you have before you have concluded that this is the kind of person you want to hire...

The Parable of the Talents is the primary reason for wealth or poverty throughout history. Reasons for Rich or Poor Why do some people retire rich and most people retire poor? This subject has fascinated philosophers, thinkers, mystics and teachers throughout the ages. There have been so many cases of hundreds or thousands and even millions of men and women who have started with nothing and become financially independent that people are naturally curious to know why it happened and what are the common rules or principles that others can apply to become wealthy as well. Why People Become Rich One illustration of this key principle is called the parable of the talents. In the Bible, it says, "To him that hath, shall more be given, and he shall have abundance. But from him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away." Accumulation Leads to More Accumulation What does it mean? In the modern world, we say "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer....

The greatest need we have today, in every area, is for men and women to practice the values of integrity, discipline, responsibility, courage, and long time perspective, both as individuals and in their families. These are the key qualities of leadership. Our society needs leaders at all levels who practice the principles that lead to long-term success. Especially, we need people in positions of authority and political power to support and encourage others, whose lives and work they influence, to develop character and resist the tendency to act expediently in ways that are harmful to themselves and others. Everyone needs to take "The Values Pledge," to live by it, and then encourage others to live by it. It is only the solid bulwark of character, based on values, virtues, long-term thinking, and the accurate assessment of secondary consequences that can curb and mitigate the destructive influences and behavior of the Expediency Factor (the E-Factor). Live In Truth The ...

Clarity accounts for probably 80% of success and happiness. Lack of clarity is probably more responsible for frustration and underachievement than any other single factor. That's why we say that "Success is goals, and all else is commentary." People with clear, written goals, accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than people without them could ever imagine. This is true everywhere and under all circumstances. The Three Keys to High Achievement You could even say that the three keys to high achievement are, "Clarity, Clarity, Clarity," with regard to your goals. Your success in life will be largely determined by how clear you are about what it is you really, really want. Write and Rewrite Your Goals The more you write and rewrite your goals and the more you think about them, the clearer you will become about them. The clearer you are about what you want, the more likely you are to do more and more of the things that are consistent with achieving t...

To achieve all your goals and become everything you are capable of becoming you must get your time under control. Psychologists generally agree that a "sense of control" is the key to feelings of happiness, confidence, power, and personal well-being. And a sense of control is only possible when you practice excellent time management skills. Choices and Decisions If the front side of the coin of success is the ability to set clear goals for yourself, then the flip side of the same coin is the ability to get yourself organized and work on your most valuable tasks, every minute of every day. Your choices and decisions have combined to create your entire life to this moment. To change or improve your life in any way, you have to make new choices and new decisions that are more in alignment with who you really are and what you really want. The Right Thing to Do The only way that you can determine that is right or wrong, more or less important, high or low priority is by firs...