“Rich Dad, Poor Dad” author Robert Kiyosaki joins host Jay Carter this week on the Financial Survival Podcast. His newest book that was released recently is Unfair Advantage: The Power of Financial Education. Robert Kiyosaki discusses the real “Rich Dad’s Conspiracy of the Rich: The 8 New Rules of Money” that is continuing to impoverish [...]
Source: Robert Kiyosaki Blog
In a word, “Yes” â” In five words, “Yes of course it is!”
Some interesting facts about referral based selling that you may not know:
⢠85% of all sales people do not generate enough quality referrals.
⢠Salespeople who actively seek and exploit referrals, earn 4 to 5 times more than sales people who don’t.
⢠Referral business closes and converts more than 70% of the time.
Why is referral based selling so powerful?
A referred customer is already pre-sold on the credibility of the sales person, their company and the relevance of the products/services sold. These types of opportunities are much warmer than a cold-call based opportunity because it maximizes the goodwill, inherent in the relationship between the referred customer and the referring person. By association, sales people are consequently perceived in a different light compared to those that have made contact ‘out of the blue.’ â” Sounds obvious?
The costs of selling to a referred customer are reduced because they are easier to see and are likely to be reasonably well qualified so that the probability for converting the business is much higher.
Generally speaking, referred prospects will accelerate through the sales pipeline at a much faster rate than other types of opportunities and they will also be more receptive towards providing future referrals.
What are the biggest barriers to obtaining referrals?
If asking for referrals has not been included and communicated in the sales process then this will deter sales people’s focus as they will see asking for referrals as a ‘nice to do’ rather than a ‘must do.’ This in turn usually means that there is no rigorous method for measuring and monitoring how many referrals are generated and what the conversion ratios are for closing referred customer business. Energy goes where attention flows, so without specific attention to this, sales people are unlikely to invest their energy in this direction. (Even if they are firm believers in the positive impact that referrals can create!)
For many sales people, asking for referrals doesn’t come naturally, because they feel unsure about how to do this effectively and they aren’t confident they will get their desired response. If people don’t know how to do something and they believe that what they are doing will damage their existing relationships, then it’s better to avoid it all together. Additionally, if sales people make the common mistake of asking for referrals too early on in the relationship, this can result in more refusals that further erode sales people’s confidence.
Therefore, to optimize the use of referral-based selling the following components are vital:
1. Asking for referrals and acting on them needs to be incorporated in the overall sales process.
2. Metrics around referrals should be sought and evaluated on a regular basis because this contributes towards furthering the rationale for generating them.
3. Development and training needs to be delivered to the sales team so they can maximize the impact of referrals and feel confident with this skill.
What is the best time to ask for referrals?
People will freely give referrals when they have benefited from your product/service and have an established relationship with you. This rarely occurs during the initial meeting because whilst they may like you, they haven’t yet validated what you can do for them. That’s why asking for referrals should be when the relationship you have established is strong enough to ensure their trust and belief in you.
Assessing the strength of your existing customer relationships can be very subjective unless there is a meaningful set of relationship criteria in place. Although these will vary from organization to organization, they may include factors like:
– Communication frequency with key influencers
– Satisfaction with product/service
– Speed of response to queries/problems
– Length of relationship
The customers with the highest scores (based on the relationship criteria) are those that should be approached for referrals.
What is the best way of generating referrals?
1. Prepare a description in the form of a criteria list that specifies the type of person or organization that you are looking to approach. This should be based on the profile of your “Ideal Customer.”
2. Evaluate all your customers using a relationship criteria and identify a list of those with the highest scores. For example, for every customer, your aim is to generate a minimum of 5 referrals. Therefore, if you have 25 customers on your list your target number of referrals will be 125.
3. Contact each customer on your list and take the pressure of them by explaining that you don’t want to sell to them, you would like their help.
You might say:
“Do you know anyone who is (specify your criteria) that would be interested in learning about how our products/services can benefit them?”
Preface your question with a softener such as: “I wonder if you can help me” or “I would really appreciate some advice“
3. When customers give you referrals, ask their permission to use their name when making contact. Alternatively, where your relationship is ‘rock solid’ ask customers to make the initial introduction by letter or email. Often customers will give a glowing testimonial and create a relevant context when introducing people.
4. Finally, thank customers for referrals and keep them apprised of your progress. This creates a positive association towards the giving of more referrals in the future.
Referral selling is the most powerful, most economic, and the most efficient form of selling that exists – fact!
Want to learn more about referral selling? Then I suggest that you familiarize yourself with the “doyenne” of referral selling, and the world’s top expert on the subject â” my very good chum, Joanne Black. You will find Joanne HERE
News: Somebody suggested that the “holding” page put in place prior to the launch of my new consultancy looked like a funeral invitation, so we immediately sorted that out, as you can see HERE
Source: Jonathan Farrington’s Blog
The top 20 percent of sales people earn 80 percent of the money. Your goal is to become one of the highest-paid people in your profession and accelerate your sales career using the vital keys to success in sales. Fortunately, this is easier than you might think.
All truly successful, highly paid sales people, love their sales career. You must learn to love your work and then commit yourself to becoming excellent in your field. Invest whatever amount of time is necessary to improve your sales career; pay any price; go and distance, make any sacrifice to become the very best at what you do. Join the top 10 percent.
Don’t be wishy-washy. Decide exactly what it is you want in life. Set it as a goal for your sales career and then determine what price you are going to have to pay to get it.
According to the research, only about 3 percent of adults have written goals. And these are the most successful and highest-paid people in every field. They are the mover and shakers, the creators and innovators, the top sales people and entrepreneurs.
A key to success in sales is to back your goal with perseverance and indomitable willpower. Decide to throw your whole heart and soul into your success and into achieving your sales career goal. Make a complete commitment to improve your sales career and become one of the most highly-paid sales people. Resolve that nothing will stop you or discourage you.
Your mind is your most precious asset, and the quality of your thinking determines the quality of your sales career. Commit yourself to lifelong learning. I cannot emphasize this too often.
Read, listen to audio programs, attend seminars, and never forget that the most valuable asset you will ever have is your mind. As you continue to learn, you will eventually become the one of the most valuable sales people in your company. The more knowledge you acquire that can be applied to practical purposes, the greater will be your rewards and the more you will be paid.
Your time is all you have to sell. It is your primary asset. How you use your time determines your standard of living. Resolve therefore to use your time well.
Begin every day with a list. The best time to make up your work list is the night before, prior to wrapping up for the day. Write down everything that you have to do the next day, starting with your fixed appointments and then moving on to everything you can think of.
Do what successful people do. Follow the leaders, not the followers. Do what the top sales people in your company do. Imitate the ones who are going somewhere with their lives.
Identify the very best sales people in your field and pattern yourself after them. If you want to become one of the best sales people in your company, go to the top earners and ask them for advice. Ask them what you should do to improve your sales career. Inquire about their attitudes, philosophies, and approaches to their work and their customers.
Guard your integrity as a sacred thing. Nothing is more important to the quality of your life in our society. In business and sales success, you must have credibility. You can only be successful if people trust you and believe in you.
In study after study, the element of trust has been identified as the most important distinguishing factor between one salesperson and another, and one company and another.
Think of yourself as a highly intelligent person, even a genius. Recognize that you have the great reserves of creativity that you have never used. Say aloud, over and over, “I’m a genius! I’m a genius! I’m a genius!”
This may sound like an exaggeration, but it isn’t. The fact is that every person has the ability to perform at genius levels in one of more areas. You have within you, right now, the ability to do more and be more than you ever have before.
Practice the Golden Rule in all your interactions with others. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Think about yourself as a customer.
How would you like to be treated? Obviously you would want sales people to be straightforward with you. You would want her to take the time to thoroughly understand your problem or need and then show you, step by step, how her solution could help you improve your life or work in a cost-effective way. If this is what you would want from a salesperson selling to you, then be sure to give this to every customer you talk to.
Finally, and perhaps more important than anything else, resolve to work hard. This is a great key to success in life. The key to success in selling is for you to start a little earlier, work a little harder, and stay a little later. Do the little thing that average people always try to avoid doing. When you begin your workday, resolve to “work all the time you work.” Don’t waste time. Get going. Move fast.
I hope you enjoyed this article on how to improve your sales career to become one of the highest-earning sales people in your company. If you have a key to success that has worked for you, please share and comment below!
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Source: Brian Tracy’s Blog
As I have said often enough here on this blog, I enjoy negotiating very much: I have worked hard to learn and perfect my skills over many years, and practiced in a variety of circumstances â” so allow me share just four secrets with you today â|
A skilled negotiator will create high levels of rapport and be sensitive and empathetic to the people they are negotiating with, yet can still be hard on the issues. The ability to separate the people from the issues, and recognize that negotiations are often fraught with emotional intensity, can help sharpen the focus on the interests of the other party to better balance perceptions.
If the negotiation doesn’t appear to be going anywhere and your prospect is behaving like a bully, you might feel angry and frustrated. You may already have considered simply agreeing to their demands. In difficult negotiations, there are four vital behaviours that can increase your resourcefulness and consequently your opportunities for getting to “Win-Win.”
1. Manage your emotional state
Build rapport by matching the other person’s style, pace and approach until you have achieved a ‘connection’ Personalize the negotiation by using “I” rather than your organization’s name. This demonstrates your belief in your proposal and highlights your credibility.
In the face of feelings like anger, disappointment, frustration, confusion, and resentment, we often react without thinking. In such a situation mentally detach yourself and think about it before you respond. It helps to reframe attacks and tactical manoeuvres as feedback that the other person’s interests have not been fully acknowledged. Stay focused on your goal of reaching an agreement.
2. Look for quick mutual wins to build the belief “we can agree”
The more abstract your communication the more likely you are to reach agreement. Therefore, seek to gain agreement at an abstract level first and then get into the detail.
For example, if two people wanted what appears to be very different things, such as a) nuclear disarmament and b) more resources spent on defense, if you looked at finding out both sides highest intention, you may discover that ‘peace’ was the desired outcome for both people. Therefore, at this abstract level they have found agreement so the negotiation can continue by gradually getting more detailed.
Questions that chunk up your prospect into the bigger picture include:
– For what purpose?
– What’s your intention behind (negotiating point)?
Seek to address the easy/quickest areas of agreement first to reinforce the process of agreement is simple and straightforward. If you discover an area where agreement may not be reached quickly then agree to leave it until later. If some points become contentious it can help discussions if you both move your body, because the mind and body are connected, physical movement helps to create mental movement. That’s why a walk can work wonders during tough negotiations. Provide regular summaries of what you have both accomplished to install the belief that the negotiation is making progress.
Some sales people write out all the points to be negotiated on separate sheets of paper, then as each point is agreed they move the paper to a different place, so that the buyer can physically see the progress being made which serves to motivate the entire process.
3. Use active listening skills and ask questions to give you a greater understanding of the other person’s viewpoint
Giving good attention to people makes them more intelligent. Poor attention makes them stumble over their words and appear stupid. You are best positioned to change someone’s mind after you have listened to that person. People tend to close down and stick to their position until they feel heard. The goal of active listening is for you to hear and understand other people â” their words, thoughts, and feelings, and to let them know you’ve heard and understood them.
Acknowledge their motivations, feelings, and point of view, even when you don’t agree with what they are saying. Your goal is to understand the message, not judge the validity of what they say.
4. Build trust by negotiating fairly
Demonstrations of power erode trust. If you are on the receiving end of this type of behaviour, describe your observations, and the consequences of continuing the current process. For example: “You know you’ve named what seems to me a low price, and so now I’ll name a higher price, and then we’ll each insist on our position until one of us gives in. I don’t find my best negotiations work like this.”
Then propose a different way to proceed, for example: “It would help me to understand the criteria of a fair offer if we could take a look at some of the relevant standards in this industry.” Before beginning the negotiation it can help to agree the ground rules and stick to them. Act with integrity and hold a healthy respect for the intentions of the individual you are negotiating with.
There is always a reason why a point of negotiation is important to the buyer and if we can appreciate more about their underlying reasons, this knowledge can be used and acted upon.
Strong negotiation skills are absolutely fundamental to becoming a top 5% sales player, so my advice is, do work hard to hone your skills.
News: A good friend of mine looked at the list of Associates lined up for my new consultancy today and remarked that it reminded them of a Pro-Bowl team – I think that is a huge compliment, and you’ll find out for yourselves on June 12th!
Source: Jonathan Farrington’s Blog
…Maybe that’s the problem.
Pursuing happiness is like chasing a rainbow. The faster we go, the harder we try, the farther off it becomes.
I have learned that happiness is not a pursuit— it’s a choice. Happiness is a state of mind, obtainable at any time, in any moment of your choosing.
Licking a cone of creamy vanilla Hagen-Dazs makes me happy. But if someone knocks the cone out of my hand, I’m no longer happy. Happiness can be fleeting and unstable, like that ice cream cone. It’s really just a temporary sensation of pleasure, like entertainment, shopping, eating or sex.
Our beliefs about what will make us happy are heavily influenced by other people, Hollywood or commercial media. We race along this “hedonic treadmill” perpetually feeling like something is missing, like happiness is one toy, one trinket or one promotion away, but always just beyond our reach.
And still no rainbow. Disappointing career choices, heartbreaking relationships and midlife crises indicate that our assumptions about happiness and the pursuit of it often miss the mark.
It’s not the pursuit of happiness we should concern ourselves with, but rather the pursuit of fulfillment, purpose and significance. If I have created a life of meaning in which I have a deep sense of purpose and value, that won’t change because someone knocks my ice cream cone over. Fulfillment is a state of existence, not a fleeting emotion.
What then creates a fulfilling life? CLICK HERE TO READ REST OF POST
Most people are familiar with the old saying, “Easy come. Easy go” In the sales world we often observe that sales people who experience success quickly falsely assume that the sales profession is going to be easy.
After a month or two however, those fortunate few often reach a different conclusion. Without much sweat equity invested, they head off and look for the next rainbow. If only we could teach a new saying, “Easy come. Forget That” We may not be familiar with that saying, but we can look at a 19th Century opera composer who expressed it and set the example we may well want to copy.
After experiencing a degree of success with his very first opera, a young and unknown composer, Giuseppe Verdi, hit the big leagues by receiving a contract to compose two more operas for the most famous opera house in Italy – La Scala or to give it it’s proper and original name, Teatro alla Scala.
Talk about a winning sales presentation! One could certainly say that his success came quite easily.
Anything But Easy:
Verdi’s next opera was to be an “Opera buffa” a form of comedic opera, but the life events that preceded the opening night of that opera were anything but comical.
In August 1838, Verdi’s 16-month old daughter died suddenly. Just fourteen months later, his 18-month old son died of bronchial pneumonia. Only eight months after the death of his son, Verdi’s wife died after an illness of just five days. Within twenty-two months, Verdi’s entire family was wiped out. Imagine trying to write a comedy while the family members around you are dying one after another!
Verdi’s first success might have come easy to him, but the bad reviews he received from his second opera hardly sent him away crying. Instead he dug in his heels and decided never to pine for the approval of his critics. From that disaster he developed an intense emotional independence: Now there’s something all sales professionals can use – emotional independence.
One of the Great Secrets of Successful Entrepreneurs:
In the sales business, it’s easy to see our prospects as the critics that hold our fortune in their hands. If our prospects tell us “No“ we think the die is cast.
Time to let Verdi teach you one of the great secrets of successful entrepreneurs! Buck up, spit in the eyes of your critics (figuratively speaking, of course!) and decide once and for all that the only opinion that matters is your own.
Verdi cared little about what the critics said and he learned to face failure and success with equanimity.
One of his famous letters in its entirety simply said, “La Traviatta last night? a fiasco. Was it my fault or the singers? Only time will tell.”
Time told all right. Verdi is considered by many to be the greatest of all the Italian opera composers.
Puccini moves me, but Verdi inspires me and he is certainly my personal favorite.
I believe that we should all learn to face up to a poor result (note that I never refer to failure) and success with equanimity. That is with poise, with imperturbability, with (dare I say it?) confidence.
Let poor results be your instructor. Be willing to learn what you need to learn from each of them and then take three more giant steps forward.
It’s not the approval of the critics that we need to succeed; it’s the approval of one infinitely more precious. It’s the approval of someone who’s been with us for every moment of every day of our entire life.
Why not do what I do and end each day by giving yourself the critique you long for. It goes something like this: “I did the best job I knew how to do today. Well done!”
News: Thanks to all of you who requested details of our new “Sales Team Audit” We go live with it when we launch the new JFA site on June 12th, but I’ll try and send you all a pre-release prospectus.
Source: Jonathan Farrington’s Blog
If you’ve ever led people, you’ve come across followers who would rather act the part than do their part. Those people are pretenders, and while they can sometimes masquerade as players, there are ways to tell the two apart. It’s important to find all the pretenders within an organization, because otherwise, they will steal momentum [...]
Originally posted at: John Maxwell on Leadership
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Knowing the difference between players and pretenders
Source: John Maxwell on Leadership
Robert Kiyosaki talks about his new book which is co-authored by Donald Trump. They are both extremely concerned with the level of poverty in the USA and have come up with some suggestions to help the country out.
Source: Robert Kiyosaki Blog
Your ability to persuade and influence people to help you get the things you want in life is one of the most important skills you can develop. By learning how to persuade and influence people, you can achieve greater personal power and get more of the things you want faster than anything else you do. It can mean the difference between success and failure. It can guarantee your progress and enable you to use all of your other skills and abilities at the very highest level. Learning how to persuade people will earn you the support and respect of your customers, bosses, co-workers, colleagues and friends. The ability to influence others to do what you want them to do can make you one of the most important people in your community.
Your job is to become absolutely excellent at influencing and motivating others to support and assist you in the achievement of your goals and the solving of your problems. All truly effective people have mastered the art of getting lots of other people to work with and for them in the accomplishment of their objectives. You can learn this skill set to achieve personal power and master the art of influencing others.
The opposite of being influential is having little or no influence at all on the behaviors of other people. It is the difference between being powerful and being powerless. You can either persuade others to help you or be persuaded to help them. It is one or the other. Most people are not aware that every human interaction involves a complex process of persuasion and influence. And being unaware, they are usually the ones being persuaded to help others rather than the ones who are influencing people to help them.
All successful people with personal power are persuasion experts. They give a lot of thought to how they can get other people to help them. They plan and strategize before they act. They define their goals clearly and then they choose the people whose cooperation they will need to achieve those goals. They then think about what they will have to do in return to get the other people to help them. They achieve their goals of persuasion and influence indirectly.
The key to persuasion is motivation. Every human action is motivated by something. In order to learn how to persuade others, you must find out what motivates other people and then to provide that motivation. People have two major motivations: the desire for gain, and the fear of loss. The desire for gain motivates people to want more of the things they value in life. They want more money, more success, more health, more influence, more respect, more love and more happiness.
Human wants are limited only by individual imagination. No matter how much a person has, he or she still wants more and more. When you can show a person how he or she can get more of the things he or she wants by helping you achieve your goals, you can motivate them to act in your behalf and achieve greater personal power.
You can learn how to persuade others by using leverage. Leverage means that you learn how to multiply yourself and get far more out of the hours you put in rather than doing everything yourself.
You leverage yourself through other people’s efforts by getting other people to work with you and for you in the accomplishment of your objectives. Sometimes you can ask them to help you voluntarily, although people won’t work for very long without some personal reward. At other times you can hire them to help you, thereby freeing you up to do higher value work.
The definition of management is “Getting things done through others.” To be a manager you must improve your personal power and know how to persuade and influence people to work in a common direction. This is why all excellent managers are also excellent low-pressure salespeople. They do not order people to do things, instead, they influence people to accept certain responsibilities, with specific deadlines, and agreed upon standards of performance. When a person has been persuaded that he has a vested interest in doing a job well, he accepts ownership of the job and the result. Once a person accepts ownership and responsibility, the manager can step aside confidently, knowing the job will be done on schedule.
You can learn how to persuade others and can develop your personal power by always remembering that there are only two ways to get the things you want in life, you can do it all yourself, or you can get most of it done by others. Your ability to communicate, persuade, negotiate, influence, delegate and interact effectively with other people will enable you to develop leverage using other people’s efforts, other people’s knowledge and other people’s money. The development of your personal power will enable you to become one of the most powerful and influential people in your organization. By learning how to persuade and influence people, it will open up doors for you in every area of your life.
I hope you enjoyed this post on how to achieve personal power by learning how to persuade and influence people. Do you think that the ability to influence people is useful in your line of work? Please comment with your answer below!
Source: Brian Tracy’s Blog
Why gold and silver? In today’s video clip, Christopher Greene explains why the dollar collapse will bring hyperinflation and ultimately the birth of a new underground economy.
Source: Robert Kiyosaki Blog
Watch Billy Cox Video: "How to make more money in sales?"
"All-Star Sales Book" Why do such a small percentage of people reach the elite performer status? Why do these top few make most of the money? And, how can you become one of them?
Watch Billy Cox Video "Motivation"
