GAP ANALYSIS: DELIVERING A WINNING PRESENTATION

As a salesperson, you are in the business of gap analysis. Think about it. Do you ever feel like a "problem detective"? Your job, somewhat like a police inspector searching for suspects, is to find problems for which your product or service is the ideal solution.

Think of your product or service as a key. You make calls looking for locks that your key will open. In the prospecting phase, you insert the key and find that it fits. In the presenting phase, you twist the key and open the lock. In the closing phase, you turn the handle and push the door open.

Use Questions As Sales Tools

Like a verbal detective, the tools of your trade are questions. You use them to get appointments, uncover problems, and discover gaps between where the prospect is now and where the prospect could be by using your product or service. You then show the prospect how much better his situation could be by owning and enjoying what you are selling.

Clarify the Need

There is an old saying, "No need? No presentation!" Before you begin your presentation, it must be clear to the prospect that there is a distance between where he is and where he could be. The prospect must recognize that he has a need that is unsatisfied or a problem that is unsolved. The prospect must also feel that the gap between the real and the ideal is large enough to warrant taking action.

Build Buying Desire

Buying desire is in direct proportion to the intensity of the buyer's need on the one hand, and to the clarity of the solution represented by your product or service on the other. This process of taking the prospect from cold to luke warm to hot is accomplished by the skillful use of questions that uncover the gap and then expand it to the point where the customer is ready to take buying action.

Putting these Ideas into Action

Now, here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, ask good questions aimed at uncovering the real need or problem the customer has. Listen attentively to the answers. Never assume that you know already.

Second, the larger the gap the customer sees between where he is today and where he could be by using your product or service, the greater is his desire to buy. Show him continually the size of this gap.

ALL BUSINESS IS PEOPLE BUSINESS

All business is people business. The people you attract on the road to wealth will determine your success as much as, or more than any other factor. At the same time, the mistakes you make in choosing these people will hinder you and hold you back as much or more than anything else. People are everything!

Networking Skills and Why Business is People Business

Networking skills are crucial to your business success. Join local business associations and attend meetings regularly. Introduce yourself to other members and ask what they do. Do not talk about your own products or services.

Instead, encourage other members to sell their products and services to you. People in business love to talk about their work. When you show a genuine interest, they will tell you in great detail what they do and how things are going. Listen intently when they speak.

Make No Effort to Sell

In this description of networking, you will notice that I advised against trying to sell your products or services to the people you meet. By the Law of Indirect Effort, the more you don’t try to sell your product or service to people you meet, the more likely it is that they will become interested in learning about what you make or sell. The less you say, the greater the impression you make. The more you encourage a person to talk about his or her product or service, the more likely it is that he or she will be interested in your product or service.

Finding the People You Need for Your Business

When you start your business, you will have to do everything yourself. But as soon as you begin selling and delivering your products and services, you will need help. How do you decide which people you need? How do you select them? Fortunately, these questions have been asked and answered successfully millions of times. One of the most important of all business principles is “think on paper.” Success begins with a pad of paper, a pen, and you.

Describe Every Function

Make a list of every step or function that is necessary for you to create, acquire, market, sell, deliver, get paid, and service your product. What are the steps, from beginning to end? Instead of writing a job description, write a “function description.” Each job is made up of one or more functions. For example, when someone phones your office in response to an advertisement, the functions may include answering the phone, identifying the problem or need of the customer, transferring the call to the proper person, making the sale or taking the information for a sales call, processing the order, shipping the product, collecting payment or billing for the product, accounting for the sale, arranging to replenish inventory, reporting the sale to the business owner, and so on.

Action Exercise

Identify at least one business group or organization that you can join. Attend meetings regularly. Increase your networking skills, make networking with other business people a regular part of your business life. Remember, all business is people business!

9 BEST GOOGLE TRICKS TO TRY

Many people believe that Google is just a popular search engine that helps them find a useful and necessary information. However, there are a few tricks you may want to try and to use every time you need to find something important. These tricks can make your search easier and you will find what you need faster. Change the way you use Google with these simple tips:

1. University researches

Whether you are a student or a writer, this Google trick is a must-try. I’m a huge fan of learning something new each day and when I want to find something true and useful, I just type ‘site:edu’ first and then what I need to find. This option helps limit the number of educational institutions. Sometimes I also type ‘site:edu intitle’ and then what I need to find. For instance, type ‘harvard:edu diet’ to find the best results from Harvard University.

2. Use double quotation marks

Looking for something specific? Try using double quotation marks. I often look for song lyrics (I’m sure I’m not alone) and this Google trick makes my search a bit easier and faster. I put double quotation marks around my search and Google finds me everything containing all words I typed in. I also use double quotation marks to find quotes. This one of the most useful Google tricks you can use daily.

3. Specific websites

When you need to find some information on a specific website, use this sneaky Google trick. Just type in the word ‘site,’ a colon, the website and the key words of the information you are looking for. For instance, if you want to find something about healthy lifestyle here on Womanitely, type ‘site:womanitely.com healthy lifestyle’, and enjoy reading!

4. The power of asterisk

I’ve been looking for this Google trick for months since I have trouble remembering lyrics of the songs. If you like a song but you don’t remember all of the words, try using asterisks as place fillers. For instance, type in ‘all I want*life*good time,’ and you will find that it’s Three Days of Grace The Good Life! You can use the power of asterisk with quotes or anything you want to find too.

5. The power of tilde

Usually, we don’t use the tilde key and many people think that this key is unnecessary. However, it’s actually useful! If you search something important and you want Google to show you results with its synonyms, type in a tilde before a word. For instance, if you’re looking for Spanish salads only, type in ‘spanish~salads’ to find Spanish salad recipes and omit other recipes you don’t need.

6. Dots

Use this trick when looking for dates, statistics, or measurements, add two dots to your search between two numbers, and Google will show you the information you need. For instance, if you’re looking for some important historic facts of 50s, type in ‘historic facts 1950..1959,’ and hopefully it will help you to find what you’re looking for.

7. New websites

If you want to find a few new websites related to your favorite ones, you don’t have to spend hours searching for them. Just specify your favorite website in your search, add the word ‘related’ and a colon and see the results. For instance, if you are looking for the website related to Amazon, type in ‘related:amazon.com.’ Sure, you won’t use this Google trick daily, but it’s worth remembering.

8. The power of hyphen

If you Google something regularly, you know how it’s hard to find what you need when you have two meanings. To make your search easier and quicker, type in a hyphen between those two meanings. This will help you to avoid unnecessary information and get what you’re searching for.

9. Do a barrel roll

While this Google trick won’t help you in your searching, it’s still interesting to try. Have you ever tried to type in ‘do a barrel roll’? Give it a try! Google will do a 360-degree spin. I think there’s no point in describing this trick, just try it and see what you think.
Whether you work or study, these Google tricks can come in handy. Learn to use them and enjoy a quick and easy search every time you need to find some specific information. Have you ever heard of any of these Google tricks? Did you know any other tricks? Let me know!

FEAR: THE #1 CAUSE OF STRESS AND UNHAPPINESS

Fear is, and always has been, the greatest enemy of mankind.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” he was saying that the emotion of fear, rather than the reality of what we fear, is what causes us anxiety, stress, and unhappiness.

When you develop the habits of courage and unshakeable self-confidence, a whole new world of possibilities opens up for you. 

Develop the Habit of Courage

Fortunately, the habit of courage can be learned just as any other habit is learned, through repetition. We need to constantly face and overcome our fears to build up the kind of courage that will enable us to deal with the inevitable ups and downs of life unafraid.

The starting point in overcoming fear and developing courage is to look at the factors that predispose us toward being afraid. The root source of most fear is childhood conditioning, usually associated with destructive criticism. This causes us to develop two major types of fear.

These are the fear of failure, which causes us to think “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,” and the fear of rejection, which causes us to think “I have to, I have to, I have to.” Our fears can paralyze us, keeping us from taking constructive action in the direction of our dreams and goals.

The More You Know, the Less You Fear

Fear is also caused by ignorance. When we have limited information, our doubts dominate us. We become tense and insecure about the outcome of our actions. Ignorance causes us to fear change, to fear the unknown, and to avoid trying anything new or different. But the reverse is also true.

The very act of gathering more and better information about a particular subject increases our courage and confidence in that area. You can see this in the parts of your life where you have no fear at all because you know what you are doing. You feel competent and completely capable of handling whatever happens.

Analyze Your Fears

Once you have identified the major factors that cause you to feel afraid, the next step is to objectively define and analyze your personal fears. At the top of a clean sheet of paper, write, “What am I afraid of?”  

Remember, all intelligent people are afraid of something. It is normal and natural to be concerned about your physical, emotional, and financial safety and that of the people you care about. A courageous person is not a person who is unafraid. As Mark Twain said, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.”

Action Exercise

Begin your list of fears by writing down everything, major and minor, that causes fear, stress, or anxiety. Think about the parts of your work or personal life where your fears might be holding you back or forcing you to stay in a job or relationship in which you are not happy. Once you have written down your fears, arrange them in order of importance, and then pick them apart one by one.