BE A SALES SUPERSTAR

This is a wonderful time to be alive and working in the profession of selling. Regardless of the ups and downs of the economy or temporary changes in your industry, there have never been more opportunities for you to achieve more of your goals—and enjoy a higher standard of living—than exist today by selling more of your products and services in the marketplace. Commit to Excellence Ambitious people have one remarkable characteristic in sales. They dream big dreams. They have high aspirations. They see themselves as capable of being the best in their fields. They know that the top 20 percent of salespeople make 80 percent of the sales, and they are determined to be among that top group. Act As If It Were Impossible to Fail Fear, uncertainty, and doubt are, and always have been, the greatest enemies of success and happiness. For this reason, top salespeople work continually to confront the fears that hold most salespeople back. The two major fears that stand as the greatest obstacle on your road to success are the fear of failure, or loss, and the fear of criticism, or rejection. These are the major enemies to be overcome. Put Your Whole Heart into Your Selling Selling has often been called a transfer of enthusiasm. The more enthusiastic and convinced you are about what you are selling, the more contagious this enthusiasm will be and the more your customers will sense it and act on it. Human beings are primarily emotional in everything they so and say. This is why caring is a critical element in successful selling. Position Yourself as a Real Professional Top salespeople see themselves as consultants rather than salespeople. They see themselves as advisors, helpers, counselors, and friends to their clients and customers. They see themselves as problem solvers more than anything else. Dedicate Yourself to Continuous Learning To earn more, you must learn more. You are "maxed out" today at your current level of knowledge and skill. You cannot get more or better results by simply working harder using your present abilities. If you want to earn more in the future, you must learn and apply new methods and techniques. Remember the old saying: "The more you do of what you're doing, the more you'll get of what you're getting." Action Exercise Develop an action plan for personal and professional development. Prepare a "training schedule" for yourself exactly as if you were training for a marathon or a big competition.

BECOMING EVERYTHING YOU ARE CAPABLE OF BECOMING

The turning point in my life came when I discovered the law of cause and effect, the great law of the universe, and human destiny. I learned that everything happens for a reason. I discovered that success is not an accident. Failure is not an accident, either. I also discovered that people who are successful in any area usually are those who have learned the cause-and-effect relationship between what they want and how to get it. Determine Your Personal Growth and Development Values To realize your full potential for personal and professional growth and development, begin with your values as they apply to your own abilities. As you know, your values are expressed in your words and actions. You can tell what your values are by looking at what you do and how you respond to the world around you. Your values are the root causes of your motivations and your behaviors. Clarify Your Personal Growth and Development Vision Create a long-term vision for yourself in the area of personal growth. Project forward five or ten years and imagine that you are developed fully in every important part of your life. Idealize and see yourself as outstanding in every respect. Refuse to compromise on your personal dreams. Set Goals for Your Personal Growth and Development Now take your vision and crystallize it into specific goals. Here is a good way to start. Take out a piece of paper and write down ten goals that you would like to achieve in the area of personal and professional development in the months and years ahead. Write in the present tense, exactly as if you were already the person you intend to be. Determine exactly what you want to be able to do. Decide who you want to become. Describe exactly what you will look like when you become truly excellent in your field and in your personal life. Upgrade Your Personal Knowledge and Skills Set specific measures for each of your goals. If your goal is to excel in your field, determine how you will know when you have achieved it. Decide how you can measure your progress and evaluate your success. Perhaps you can use as a measure the number of hours you study in your field each week. Perhaps you can measure the number of books you read or the number of audio programs you listen to. Perhaps you could measure your progress by the number of sales you make as the result of your growing skills. Develop Winning Personal Growth and Development Habits Select the specific habits and behaviors you will need to practice every day to become the person you want to become. These could be the habits of clarity, planning, thoroughness, studiousness, hard work, determination, and persistence. Action Exercise Decide today to develop yourself to the point where you can achieve every financial and personal goal you ever set and become everything you are capable of becoming. Write down your goals and make sure to look at them every day, then ponder ways you possibly achieve these goals.

TO EARN MORE, SERVE MORE

Recently, I talked with an entrepreneur whose sales, production and profits have all been flat or falling in the past 18 months, and he’s feeling desperate. He feels the pressure of "having" to make more money! He told me he’s tried giving his staff more training. He’s tried giving more incentives (bonuses) and he’s fired some of his poor performers. Now he’s talking about "having" to raise prices because he just "can't live on what we're making." You can imagine our conversation. I pointed out that the market place never lies. We may not like the message it sends us, but customers never lie to us. If sales are flat, it's because our customers no longer feel we are giving them the bargain they want. He may also need to let more of the right people know that he and his services are available. (Reaching too few or the wrong people is always a problem.) But for the most part, the real problem is that his potential customers no longer see him as a resource. Our customers want stuff. They want more and better service. They want to enrich their lives. They want to achieve their goals, personally and in business. People will always buy goods and services if they believe the purchase will serve them, at a price they are willing to pay. To earn more money, do a better job of serving people. When your customers understand you are eager to help them get what they want, and will do it at a price they are willing to pay, your success is assured. To earn more money, find a way to provide more and better service. Quotes of the Week "Vision isn't enough unless combined with venture. It's not enough to stare up the steps unless we also step up the stairs." -- Vance Havner "It is never too late to be what we might have been." -- George Eliot "Two little words that can make the difference: START NOW." -- Mary C. Crowley "No mistake or failure is as bad as to stop and not try again." -- John Wanamaker

AS WITHIN, SO WITHOUT

Aristotle said that the ultimate aim or purpose or human life is to achieve your own happiness. You are the very happiest when what you are doing on the outside is congruent with your values on the inside. When you are living in complete alignment with that which you consider to be good, right, and true, you will automatically feel happy and positive about yourself and your world.
Know What You Really Want
Stephen Covey once said, "Be sure that, as you scramble up the ladder of success, it is leaning against the right building." Many people work hard to achieve goals that they think they want only to find, at the end of the day, they get no joy or satisfaction from their accomplishments. They ask, "Is this all there is?" This occurs when the outer accomplishment is not in harmony with your inner values. Don't let this happen to you.
Trust Your Intuition
Self-trust is the foundation of greatness. Self-trust comes from listening to your intuition, to your "still, small voice" within. Men and women begin to become great when they begin to listen to their inner voices and absolutely trust that they are being guided to a higher power each step of the way. Living in alignment with your true values is the royal road to self-confidence, self-respect, and personal pride. In fact, almost every human problem can be resolved by returning to values.
Watch Your Behavior
How can you tell what your values really are? The answer is simple. You always demonstrate your true values in your actions and especially your actions under pressure. Whenever you are forced to choose between one behavior and another you will always act consistent with what is most important and valuable to you at that moment. Values, in fact, are organized in a hierarchy. You have a series of values, some of them very intense and important and some of them weaker and less important. One of the most important exercises you can engage in to determine who you really are and what you really want is to organize your values by priority. Once you are clear about the relative important of your values, you can then organize your outer life so that it is in alignment with them.
Determine Your Hearts Desire
The spiritual teacher Emmet Fox wrote about the importance of discovering your "hearts desire." What is your hearts desire? As a friend of mine asks, "What do you want to be famous for?" What words would you like people to use to describe you when you are not there? What would you like someone to say about you at your funeral? What kind of reputation do you have today? What kind of reputation would you like to have sometime in the future?
Your Past is Not Your Future
Many people had difficult experiences growing up. They fell on hard times and became associated with the wrong people. Some were convicted and sent to prison for crimes. But at a certain point in life, they decided to change. They thought seriously about what kind of person they wanted to be known as, and thought of, in the future. They decided to change their lives by changing the values that they lived by. By making these decisions and sticking to them, they changed their lives. Remember, it doesn't matter where you're coming from; all that really matters is where you're going.
Action Exercise
Describe your picture of an ideal person, the person you would most want to be if you had no limitations.

COPING WITH OVER-WHELM

Every business owner or manager has more to do than anyone can accomplish in the time available. We all have marketing and research to do, meetings to attend, people to supervise or a website to build. It's easy to feel over-whelmed.What's a leader to do?Failures succumb. They let themselves get over-whelmed and have the feeling that it's "too much," or that they "can't do it all." Winners, on the other hand, accept reality. Of course you can't do it all! No one can! That's the way life is. You can't fight it. Instead, you have to figure it out, develop a strategy, and over-come the inevitable, over-whelming daily "list." Winners employ three simple steps, and I highly recommend them.
1. They say No! They understand that some have-to's are simply unrealistic and they say no, even if it would be "nice" if they could do them. Some of the things on any manager's list simply won't get done, at least not today. Delegate or out-source as many things as you can. When necessary, just say No.
2. They Sequence. This is another word for prioritizing. A few things must be done now, or soon. Others must be done, but can wait until tomorrow or next week, perhaps even until next year. Do the things of most importance, leave everything else until it's turn.
3. They Focus. Successful leaders do one thing at a time, and each individual item, at that critical moment, gets their full attention. When you're in a meeting that you've decided is the most important thing at the moment, BE THERE! Pay attention. Be alert. Stay focused.

LEADERS ARE MANAGERS

Richard Kerr of United Technologies Corporation explains the difference between leadership and management: "Leaders clearly know that people don't want to be managed, they want to be led. Whoever heard of a 'world manager'? 'World leader'? Yes. Educational leaders, political leaders, religious leaders, Scout leaders, community leaders, labor leaders, business leaders - they lead, they don't manage. The carrot always wins over the stick. Ask the horse. You can lead your horse to water, but you can't manage him to drink. If you want to manage somebody, manage yourself. Do that well and you'll be ready to stop managing and start leading. After all, if you can't manage yourself, how can you legitimately expect to manage others?"
The manager must understand that a superb leader is far more likely to be loved than is an outstanding manager. One deals with his people daily; on the other hand, the leader will have several managers and will deal with the manager's people only indirectly and seldom. For that reason, managers must have thicker skins and learn not to take things personally.
The leader dreams the dream and sets the direction of the company, but it's the manager's responsibility to produce the results. Managing is an "all-the-time thing," while the leader stands aside and encourages his manager who directs his people. The leader and manager must communicate effectively and regularly so all the people understand the support each supplies to the other.
Peter Drucker said that the secret of management is never to make a decision which ordinary people can't carry out. General Norman Schwarzkopf says, "The leader lays out the concept but he lets the people execute it. Yes, the leader is responsible for putting the right people in place, but then he steps back and allows the people to do their work."
That's leadership. Think about it; adopt that as a principle and I'll SEE YOU AT THE TOP!

CREATE YOUR PERSONAL STRATEGY PLAN

Your success in life is determined, to a large extent by your ability to think, plan, decide, and take action. The stronger your skills are in each of these areas, the faster you will achieve your goals and the happier you will be with your life and career. Personal strategic planning is the tool that takes you from wherever you are to wherever you want to go.
Difference between Train and Plane
The difference between people who use strategic planning to organize and direct their lives and those who do not is like the difference between taking a train and taking a plane. Both will get you from point A to point B, but the plane—personal strategic planning—will get you there much faster and without frequent stops.
Systematic Way of Thinking
Skill in personal strategic planning is not something you are born with, like eye color or perfect pitch. It is a systematic way of thinking and acting and is, therefore, something you can learn, like riding a bike or changing a tire. With practice, you can master the many different elements that make up this key skill, and you will get into the rhythm of thinking and acting strategically for the rest of your life. When you do acquire rhythm, you will realize extraordinary results. Your life and career will take off, and the sky is truly the limit.
Save Time and Money
Why is strategic planning and thinking so helpful? The answer is simple: it saves you an enormous amount of time and money. When you review and analyze key strategic questions of concepts of your career or business, you find yourself focusing on the critical tasks necessary to achieve your goals. At the same time, you stop doing those things that keep you from achieving success. You do more of the right things and fewer things that get and keep you off track. You set performance goals for people and projects. You become skilled at measuring and tracking results. You move into the express lane in both work and life.
Design Your Life and Career
Your goals in personal strategic planning are similar. The key difference is that rather than improving your return on equity, your planning efforts will allow you to realize a greater return on energy. You might say that personal strategic planning will increase your return on life. A business measures its equity in terms of financial capital. On the other hand, you measure your personal equity in terms of your own human capital. Your personal equity consists of the physical, emotional, and mental energies you are able to invest in your career. Set a goal of achieving the very highest return possible on the investment of your energies.
Critical Question
Ask yourself this critical question: What is it that I do especially well? Examine the areas where you excel or are clearly superior to others in your field. You need to know what you can claim as your personal competitive advantage. This is the lifeblood of personal strategic planning. Your success is tied directly to how excellent you become at the most important part of your work. Action Exercise
Clarify your career or business vision. What could your ideal career or business look like? What could you be doing most of the time? How much would you be earning? What kind of people would you be working with? What level of responsibility would you have? What kind of industry would you be in?

THE SEVEN P FORMULA FOR MARKETING SUCCESS

Once you have developed your marketing strategy, there is a seven P formula you should continually use to evaluate and reevaluate your business activities. These seven are: product, price, promotion, place, packaging, positioning, and people. As products, markets, customers, and needs change rapidly, you must continually revisit these seven P's to make sure you are on track and achieving the maximum results possible for you in today's Market.
Product
To begin, develop the habit of looking at your product as though you were an outside marketing consultant having been brought in to help your company decide whether or not it is in the right business at this time. Ask critical questions such as: Is your current product or service, or mix of products or services appropriate and suitable for the market and the customers of today?
Prices Deserve Attention
The second P in the formula has to do with price. Develop the habit of continually examining and reexamining the prices of the products and services that you sell to make sure they are still appropriate to the realities of the current market. Sometimes you need to lower your prices. At other times, it may be appropriate to raise your prices. Many companies have found that the profitability of certain products or services does not justify the amount of effort and resources that go into producing them. By raising their prices, they may lose a percentage of their customers, but the remaining percentage generates a profit on every sale. Could this be appropriate for you?
Promotion
The third habit in marketing and sales is for you to develop the habit of thinking in terms of promotion all the time. Promotion includes all the ways you tell your customers about products or services and how you then market and sell to them. Small changes in the way you promote and sell your products can lead to dramatic changes in your results. Experienced copywriters can often increase the response rate from advertising by 500 percent by simply changing the headline on the advertisement.
Place
The fourth P in the marketing mix is the place where your product or service is actually sold. Develop the habit of reviewing and reflecting upon the exact location where the customer meets the salesperson. Sometimes a change in place can lead to a rapid increase in sales.
Packaging
The fifth element in the marketing mix is packaging. Develop the habit of standing back and looking at every visual element in the packaging of your product or service through the eyes of a critical prospect. Remember, people form their first impression about you within 30 seconds of seeing you or some element of your company. Small improvements in the packaging or external appearance of your product or service can often lead to completely different reactions from your customers.
Positioning
The next P is positioning. You should develop the habit of thinking continually about how you are positioned in the hearts and minds of your customers. How do people think about you and talk about you when you are not present? How do people think and talk about your company? What positioning do you have in your market, in terms of the specific words that people use when they describe you and your offerings to others?
People are Everything
The final P is people. Develop the habit of thinking in terms of the people inside and outside of your business who are responsible for every element of your sales and marketing strategy and activities. Your ability to select, recruit, hire, and retain the proper people, with the skills and abilities to do the job you need to have done, is more important than everything else put together.
Action Exercise
Position yourself in everything you say and do as the most credible and believable supplier of your product or service to your ideal customer.