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I believe with all my heart people have the power to achieve amazing things in their life. I also believe many people may WANT to achieve something, yet, for countless reasons - do not. More times than not they don’t realize how very simple it really is to achieve their dreams.

My friend and colleague, Masha Malka, has written a book that addresses the very reasons why people stop themselves from being all they can be and enjoying the success they dream of. Her newest book, The One Minute Coach; change your life one minute at a time, is perfect for anyone who is ready to discover how to build the kind of life they want.

Masha shares powerful information that took her from complete exile at the age of 17 to now enjoying a successful business and a fulfilling home life. Find out her formula for fulfilling your dreams in The One Minute Coach; change your life one minute at a time.

Masha has gathered together leading authors and experts to show you new ways to transform your life like never before. You have the opportunity in THIS moment, to learn from 87 incredible authors, speakers, entrepreneurs and coaches as well as some modern day luminaries Wayne Dyer, Chris and Janet Atwood, Ken Foster, and me. We are here to help you live the best life you possibly can.

If you, or someone you know, is ready to make some breakthrough changes in your personal and professional life like never before do yourself a favor and read more about Masha Malka’s book, The One Minute Coach; change your life one minute at a time.

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P.S. I know you know lots of people who would love to get the book and enjoy all the bonus gifts. Why not share this message with them so they too, can begin to enjoy The One Minute Coach; change your life one minute at a time as soon as possible and receive 91 wonderful bonus gifts.

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Did you know that right now you can be CLOSING sales instead of  LOSING sales!

Did you know your mistakes are costing your business money?

Did you know that there are some major key red flags to watch out for?

Learn these red flags and how to avoid them in the first FREE VantaEDGE Teleseries.

http://www.vantaedge.com/events/index.php

I am SO excited to share with you these key tips to learning the RED FLAGS to watch out for in order to BOOST your business!

And as an amazing added bonus we are providing you with special online access to the teleclass. You will be able to listen to the entire call online, submit questions online and track the timeline of the start of the call.

Sign up now to get access to this special page now!

http://www.vantaedge.com/events/index.php

Can’t make a call? 
NO PROBLEM Recordings of all calls will be provided for you so you don’t miss a thing!

And on top of all of this we will be sharing some extra special bonuses with the registered members of this call but there is limited space so be sure to reserve your spot now!

http://www.vantaedge.com/events/index.php

An influence point is an activity or action that a customer can complete which creates a high probability of generating a sale. 

For those of you that are not familiar with influence points, or maybe just don’t know the terminology, let me give you an example. 

If you were a sales person at a local car dealership, what do you think your number one goal would be?  Selling cars, getting people on the lot, or getting people to take a test drive?  If you said the number one goal is to sell test drives, you are correct, because that is an extremely effective influence point for them.

I think focusing on influence points is a really effective approach to setting your goals for a couple of reasons:

1.       They relate to a tangible / objective action.  Whereas a general financial goal can be subjective and does not describe any action on how it would be accomplished.

2.       Influence points put goals into perspective and make them feel less overwhelming.  Example: Let’s assume that our car salesman has a 50% closing ratio, meaning, for every two customer that go on a test drive, one will make a purchase.  He could focus on one of two things:  a monthly quota of have $350,000 in sales or selling five test drives a week.  Which seems more achievable and less overwhelming?  Of course, selling the influence point.

What is your influence point?  Maybe it is getting customers to order a free sample, tour your facility, or participate in a demo.  There are unlimited ideas that you could come up with.  So if you don’t have an influence point, I challenge you to find or develop one.  If you have one, what can you do to continually improve upon it?

When goals seem overwhelming or unachievable it can totally de-motivate you and / or your sales team.  This is a big mistake that can be simply avoided by utilizing influence points.  It you are interested in the other top mistakes that lose sales, grab the Red Flag Report if you have not done so already.  It lists the top 12 mistakes that lose sales and what you can do to avoid them.

From time to time I like to post information about the resources that I simply cannot and will not live without! 

I have a bad habit of always dialing 411 for phone numbers.  Granted, there are worse habits, but if you use it a lot, or if you have a large sales force that has this same habit, it can start to get pretty pricey. 

You’re just humming along, minding your own business, and then one day, you open up your phone bill and BAM… next thing you know, you wake up in the hospital.

To help offset the cost of my compulsive use of directory assistance, I use the go-to guys for everything online…. Google.

Google has a free directory assistance service that works great and it is completely free.  The number is 1.800.466.4411   It is easy to use, totally free and yet another example that Google is the master at providing added value to their customers.

This post is not going to explain how to use Facebook – frankly, there are plenty of other people out there that are much more knowledgeable than me on the topic. 

I did however want help answer the question, “Can sales be generated from Facebook?” 

The simple answer is yes, and this is true for any business. No matter if you market over the internet or sell B2B.

I was probably the biggest skeptic of the whole Facebook/Social Networking frenzy, and swore I would never have a profile.  Well, what’s that old adage… “never say never!”

I set up a Facebook profile in June, and in July, I was interviewed three times and generated some coaching business thanks to the profile.  

In addition to generating sales, it has been a great way to set up mastermind groups, collaborate with customers, and a whole slew of viral market efforts. 

There was an article in the June issue of Inc Magazine, about a company called Threadless that generated $30 million dollars in sales – all starting with a presence on Facebook.  The short version of their story is that they established a community and then manufactured T-shirts, based on what the community wanted to see. 

So when it came to meeting the needs of their customers, they hit a home run.

So the question most people are wondering is how does this whole social networking thing work? 

Because the world of social networking is still in its relative infancy, there are still ample opportunities to make money there.  To get started yourself, the best advice I have is to set up a profile and start linking up with your customers.  As you build a larger and larger presence online, new potential customers will begin to take notice. 

And of course, study how other businesses are taking advantage of this exciting new medium.  Do your homework!  Read all the latest magazines and blogs on the topic of social network marketing.  Talk to others and see how they are using the services like Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo Pulse, Twitter and others.

Unless your competitors have switched to an all-hybrid fleet of vehicles, everyone in your industry is facing the same challenges when it comes to high gas prices.   During this stressful time, we really have two options moving forward:

Option #1: Complain about it

Option #2: Find more creative ways to communicate with customers (that don’t involve driving from here to kingdom come!)

Since I know you are not the complaining type, I thought I would share a few creative communication ideas that don’t involve traveling to the customer – and burning valuable gas!

Sell via the focus group model

Have several customers come in for a focus group meeting.  But, instead of focusing on your product or service and generating feedback, focus on the customer’s instead.   Ask the customers to share their most significant issues, struggles, etc. in your field of expertise.  This will do a couple of things for you:

It will get the customer group to open up and discuss problems that you can easily solve.  And even if you can’t solve all their problems, the dialogue alone will endear these people to you and your business.  Either way, you will either get some sales or you learn new ways to enhance customer relationships.

Also, your customers will do the selling for you.  Many times you will have customers become promoters of your product or service.

Utilize webinar services

Webinar software technology has come a long way over the years, and is now an accepted sales tool because of its ease of use and affordability.  If you are new to webinars, here are a few tips:

·         Don’t turn your webinar into a straight-up sales pitch.  Use webinars to build social proof, credibility, and ALWAYS provide something of value – good information your participants can really use.

·         Encourage interaction.  This is probably the hardest to do, so here are a few tips.  Use polling features in the webinar software to ask thought provoking questions, and let the participants answer and then discuss the results.  Provide a workbook that participants can use to follow along with you.  Ask questions (this only works with a small group, so if you have over 25 participants, avoid this because it easy to lose control of the proceedings quickly).

·         Provide a hook at the end for follow-up.  Try things like free initial consultation, evaluations of their current situation, etc.  This will weed out the serious people from the tire kickers and provide a strong reason or next steps for follow-up.

Develop a Strategic alliance group

This is like a leads group on steroids.  A strategic alliance group typically consists of a group of people that offer different products / services to the same market.  Take a realtor’s group for example - some likely participants in their group would be a mortgage broker, insurance agent, home inspector, interior decorator, architect, etc.  There are a couple of things that make this different than your typical leads group.  The participants you are looking for are those that service the same market or niche.  And most importantly, together you provide or add more value to the client or end-user.

I recently had a person ask me what I thought was the number one sales skill a sales professional needs to have.  This individual was looking for that one ace-in-the-hole skill that only the top five to ten percent of professionals possessed.   The thing that truly separated them from the pack.

I thought long and hard about this and lots of things came to mind, including:

-          Being a master at asking questions

-          Having  a “sales” continuous improvement process

-          A willingness to learn new things

-          Awareness of their strengths and weaknesses

-          Being tremendously focused

I bounced these, and other ideas around for a while but could not come up with a true “number one” skill. 

So what separates the good from the spectacular? 

The answer is twofold: being effective and being efficient. 

Being effective means closing the sale, building great relationships and doing what you do best each and every day.

Being efficient means knowing the difference between working harder and working smarter. 

Efficiency is all about organization and making the most of your time.

The great ones continue to improve on these two key skills. They strive to master them, and as they do, everything continues to get easier for them.  As a result, they make more money AND get to enjoy more of life!

I have a two year old sales prodigy.  Now I will try to keep this post focused on her selling skills, but be forewarned – I tend to drift off into the role of proud father.

If I would have known that being a parent was this fun, I would have started much earlier.  My first child, Olivia, is a two year sales prodigy, not to mention the cutest little girl that I can never say no to, to begin with.  We have been told by people who look like they know what they’re talking about that she’s smart and has a vocabulary well beyond her age.  What is interesting is that when she asks for something she is very creative.  For example, one of her favorite things is “fruit snacks”, which are a treat that is similar to a gummy bear, although the company that sells them brands them as “fruit snacks” to get us parents to think they have some nutritional value.  Well, the other night she went into the pantry and got out a package of the fruit snacks. She knows she is supposed to ask first,   but before I could tell her no, she said, “Daddy I thought you might like some fruit snacks”.  I was a little taken back, impressed that she was sharing and thinking of other people.  Little did I know it was all a ploy.  After taking the fruit snacks she offered (how could I turn them down).  She asks me, “are they good”.  I say yes, then she asked, “can I eat some with you”?  Well, you can guess my answer.

What struck me most was the creativity of her sales pitch.  She knew that I would have said no if she would have first asked because she is only allowed one package a day, which she consumed earlier..  So she tried a more creative approach.

But, creativity is not her only skill.  She is also a master at questions.  When she is told no, Olivia does not get upset, but she always asks why. I will provide an answer (never because “I said so” because I find answering all the questions fun, entertaining, and educational).  She then proceeds to ask why again.  After she gets three, four, or five “why answers” she then gives me her pitch.  Although sometimes her response is not real clear, I always manage to get the point.  Of course, about 50% of the time I give in and say yes.  I give in for a different reason.  It is not to avoid the break down that I am sure will come if I continue to say no (which does happen, rarely, but it happens).  But, I don’t want to stifle her attempt and passion to never give up.  Persistency can be a difficult characteristic to possess, and is actually rare because it is easier to give up.

Although my daughter is not focused on customer needs yet, I am still impressed with her:

-          Ability to negotiate

-          Creativity

-          Passion to persevere

-          Ability to ask questions

-          Curiosity

Aren’t those some good characteristics of top sales professionals? 

Instead of going to a high-powered negotiation class.  Save some money and get a group of toddlers around or visit a day care and listen to them.  The question I ponder is if we all had these skills as a toddler, where did they get lost along the way?

Have you heard these promises, “our product is so good customers sell themselves” or “our training program for your sales people is so good, their customers will be selling themselves?”

I have not only heard these promises, but I have been guilty of the latter because we show people how to do this on our Strategic Selling Process.  But, getting the customer to sell themselves is different than what it is typically portrayed.  It does not mean that a customer is just going to call you up and place an order or that you or your sales person are going to be so smooth the customer will ask to order before going through their process.  That is not what we are talking about.

You see, the individual who coined the term “sales person” really didn’t do the profession any favors. That’s because when you are with a customer and if you are truly customer-focused, the only selling you are doing is selling yourself. 

You’ve got to establish yourself as credible, honest and trustworthy - the rest of the time you are really just a facilitator, asking questions, guiding them through a process to help them make the best decision -which is the exact opposite of the old stereo type of being self-centered, pushy and demanding.

So what does this have to do with the customer selling themselves?  Well, if you are a facilitator of the sales process, it is the customer  who will verbalize the pain or severity of their situation, and it is  the customer  who will verbalize the value of your product or service (as long as there is a need and value present).  Is it more effective if you  tell your customer the value or if  the customer  verbalizes the value?  The correct answer is the latter, if the customer  verbalizes the value.  The key to getting to this point is facilitating the process, verses telling them.  A friend of mine, Gil Gerretsen (President of Biz Trek Marketing Mentors) recently posted on his blog a unique analogy that helps address the point, in way that everyone can relate to.

I am sure that your products and services have a bunch of features and benefits, and that if someone purchased them from you they would benefit tremendously.  The challenge is getting people to picture that before they make the purchase – that is the disconnect we are challenged with bridging.  Now, from all of those features and benefits, which ones are important to the next customer you will be calling on?    Unfortunately, there is simply no way of knowing.  Instead, you have one of two options.  The first one I call “fishing”.  This is the process of throwing out “bait” such as features, benefits, product services, etc. in hopes that the customer is going to bite on one.  The second is…you simply ask.  Ask questions and then present the benefits that solve the problem and ask the customer how they would benefit from “x”.  Use their answer as a building block for the value story. In this situation, they are telling you how they would benefit, what they value, etc. and that is what it really means to have the customer selling themselves.

So how, exactly do you gain customer loyalty? The quick and easy answer to gaining customer loyalty is simply to do what others are not willing to do.  Sounds like a cop-out answer…right?  Well it is basically that simple.  I think that right now we are living in a very unique period where it is genuinely simple to do what others are not willing to do. 

Let me give you an example. 

In July, I had the opportunity to speak at a conference for a national franchise, and give a presentation on sales and business development for all of their franchise owners.

During my preparations, as I do before any speaking engagement, I had prepared a list of 30 franchisees ranging from the top producers to brand new owners.  I contacted everyone to see what their number one challenges were so I could develop a presentation that was customized to their needs and provide the best value I possibly could.  There was one franchisee that stands out in my mind.  He had only been in business for nine months or so and was already way ahead of the typical projections, in fact he may have even been on track for some type of record.  After telling me his biggest challenges, I had to ask the question, “to what do you contribute your rapid success?”  He did not hesitate with his answer (and it was not anything magic).  He told me that he did not hire superstar sales people, he did not dump a bunch of money into advertising and marketing.  What he did was really simple.  Here is his response.

“When I got started I said I was going to do something different.  I am going to do what none of my competitors are willing to do.  I am going to make sure there is a live person answering every single phone call 24 hours a day.  And not just some answering service, but either myself or an employee that knows the business, can talk intelligently, and can answer questions.”

Is that something different?  Is that something difficult to accomplish?  Of course it is not, but there are amazing benefits to his concept.  What do you think this person is going to be known for?  He is known as the business that truly cares about their customers and always answers the phone. 

The reason I think we have a unique window of opportunity is because ten years ago everyone answered their phones.  We seemed to have paid more attention to the details that have a big impact and I don’t know how long the window of opportunity is going to be open.

The easiest way to set the foundation for customer loyalty is to put forth the effort up front.  Focus on that initial customer experience.  It is a lot easier to do a good job up front than it is to recover upset, frustrated customers.  The answer isn’t to just hire someone to answer your phones.  Look at the competition, find out where there are opportunities to do something they are not doing that you can take advantage of.  You will be surprised how easy this can be, you just need a few good ideas and pick the one that works best.