Friday

Top 12 methods to stay motivated in sales: the journey of life


 An excellent reference not only for the mindset of selling, but also for living life.
We all know that a sales job is not the most motivating seen the number of deceptions:
Missing to close deals because thousand reasons
Not getting enough leads
Short and thin pipe line
Half empty funnel
Successful colleagues
Management pressure to close deals
Social pressure to be successful
Bad investments made with hard earned money
Hence staying motivated in Sales is a challenge.

In order to be motivated think about these methods:

1. Think positive – have a positive attitude
When you notice your negative thoughts turn them around or replace them with positive ideas and thoughts.

2. Speak positively
Stop saying negative things about business, competitors, government, regulations or other people.
Just don’t do this as it will only pull you further down.

3. State your goal in pubic
Tell your goal you really want to achieve to a few people or mention it on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.
It will give you a bit of extra social and personal pressure but you will get support and accountability from the others

4. Daily journal
Keep track of your activities on a daily basis: what exactly have you done and achieved today ? how much time have you wasted on nothing productive ?
Normally you should see a progress towards your goals as you will start to eliminate the wasted time.

5. Competition
Most salesmen need competition to get going or to stay in the lead. It drives them.
• If you have no competition around then look beyond your social environment.
• If your peers are Masters of the Universe then focus on people comparable with yourself.

6. Perplexed deception
Don’t get demotivated by the apparent success of others.
Sometimes it is only an appearance made by the others.
People do pretend to be successful but they are not.
You aren’t doing so badly in reality: investigate out their success and convince yourself of your success.

7. Spare-time
Use your spare-time like weekends and a few hours in the evening to do something completely different. Preferably a physical activity.

8. Alcohol / drugs
Don’t drink or use drugs it will only will make you feel older and uglier afterward.
Happiness based on alcohol or drugs is only for a short amount of time.

9. Enjoy
Enjoy the power of your youth even if you are sixty: be glad you still can enjoy and live these challenges. Many people haven’t got the chance to keep going as you do.
Life has still so many more challenges and discoveries for you.

10. No worry
Why worry about the future as you can encounter the next lead in a few seconds or this day.
Worrying won’t help. Don’t worry be happy.
Take decisions to change your future.

11. Don’t look back
Only the future counts as you can’t change the past.

12. Make plans
Making plans is positive thinking for the future.
The journey of life is important

It is not the goal it is the journey of life that is important.
Closing the big sales deal, your retirement or wealth is not the goal.
The journey to achieve these goals is the most important.
The meaning of life.

Wednesday

WHAT GREAT SALESPEOPLE SAY - Harvard Business Review Sales Linguistics Article

Without language, you wouldn't be able to share your ideas, display your personality, or express yourself to the world. You couldn't communicate your needs and desires to others, and the never-ending dialogue within your mind would grind to a halt. The words we speak truly define who we are. However, since we are continually talking all the time, we often take it for granted.

Many well-established fields of language study exist to help us gain a deeper understanding of how we talk to each other. Sociolinguistics is the study of language use in society and social networks; psycholinguistics is the study of how the mind acquires, uses, and represents language; and neurolinguistics is the study of how brain structures process language. "Sales linguistics" draws from these fields to help us understand how salespeople and their prospective customers use and interpret language during the decision-making process.

Successful customer communications are the foundation of all sales, and the most persuasive and effective salespeople — the ones I call "Heavy Hitters" — naturally speak in the language of their customers. The question is, "What do they say?"

The three fundamental principles, drawn from sales linguistics, can help us be more persuasive salespeople: every customer speaks in his or her own unique language, successful salespeople build rapport through harmonious communication, and, finally, that people are persuaded based on personal connections. Let's look at each of these imperatives in turn:

1. Understand that Customers Speak Unique Languages
Most companies arm their salespeople with a "one size fits all" company sales pitch. Unfortunately, each person on this planet speaks his or her own unique language. All the mundane and traumatic experiences of your life have determined the language you use — where you grew up, the language used by your loved ones, where you went to school, your friends, your career, the amount of money at your disposal, and even your spirituality. Just as no one else has had your exact life experiences, no one else speaks your precise language. Therefore, the language two people use to describe the same situation — or the way two people interpret the same language — may be very different.

For example, reading the word "snake" might cause you to visualize a rattlesnake, python, or a cobra. While these are all specific interpretations of the word, they all may naturally invoke fear and negative emotions. Conversely, if you had raised a pet snake as a child, you probably have a positive mental association. Since the personal meanings of words can vary greatly, you may have thought of an unscrupulous businessperson when you first read the word "snake."

2. Build Rapport Through Harmonious Communication

Unfortunately, when most salespeople meet with prospective customers, they talk in only their own language and only about themselves. The subject of the conversation is me, me, me: my company, my product's benefits, and my product's features and functions. When Heavy Hitter salespeople meet with customers, they talk about them, them, them: their problems, their values, and their plans and desires. They speak their customers' language in order to build rapport.

Rapport is a special relationship between two individuals based upon harmonious communication. However, human communication occurs in several different forms and on several different levels. An immense amount of information is conveyed verbally, nonverbally, consciously, and subconsciously. A Heavy Hitter naturally adapts their mental wiring and language to mirror that of their customer.

3. Persuade People Through Personal Connections

Salespeople are paid to persuade. But what makes them persuasive? Is it their command of the facts and their ability to recite a litany of reasons why customers should buy? In reality, the most product-knowledgeable salesperson is not necessarily the most persuasive one because it takes more than logic and reason to change buyers' opinions. A personal connection must be forged.

Persuasion is the process of projecting your entire set of beliefs and convictions onto another human being. It's not about getting others to acknowledge your arguments or agree with your business case; it's about making them internalize your message because they believe that it is in their best interests. Ultimately, persuasion is the ability to tap into someone's emotions and reach the deeper subconscious decision maker within that person.

Heavy Hitter salespeople are accomplished communicators who know what to say and, equally important, how to say it. Through their mastery of language, they are able to convey and decipher deep underlying messages that less-successful salespeople miss. While using the same language as most salespeople, they develop an uncanny ability to influence nonbelievers to trust them and convince complete strangers to follow their advice. Sales linguistics can help us understand how they turn skeptics into believers and persuade prospective customers to buy.

Monday

INFOGRAPHIC - How Is Wind Power Harvested?

Wikipedia defines wind power as "the conversion of wind energy into a useful form of energy, such as using wind turbines to make electricity, wind mills for mechanical power, wind pumps for pumping water or drainage, or sails to propel ships."

But how does it work?  Check out this interesting infographic for answers.

(click to embiggen)

Friday

Princeton Commencement Address 2010: Jeff Bezos

 What is it about business that makes it so hard to be kind? And what kind of salesmen have we become when small acts of kindness feel so rare? Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com might have some insight via his 2010 Commencement Address that he delivered at Princeton University.


As a kid, I spent my summers with my grandparents on their ranch in Texas. I helped fix windmills, vaccinate cattle, and do other chores. We also watched soap operas every afternoon, especially “Days of our Lives.” My grandparents belonged to a Caravan Club, a group of Airstream trailer owners who travel together around the U.S. and Canada. And every few summers, we’d join the caravan. We’d hitch up the Airstream trailer to my grandfather’s car, and off we’d go, in a line with 300 other Airstream adventurers. I loved and worshipped my grandparents and I really looked forward to these trips. On one particular trip, I was about 10 years old. I was rolling around in the big bench seat in the back of the car. My grandfather was driving. And my grandmother had the passenger seat. She smoked throughout these trips, and I hated the smell.

At that age, I’d take any excuse to make estimates and do minor arithmetic. I’d calculate our gas mileage — figure out useless statistics on things like grocery spending. I’d been hearing an ad campaign about smoking. I can’t remember the details, but basically the ad said, every puff of a cigarette takes some number of minutes off of your life: I think it might have been two minutes per puff. At any rate, I decided to do the math for my grandmother. I estimated the number of cigarettes per days, estimated the number of puffs per cigarette and so on. When I was satisfied that I’d come up with a reasonable number, I poked my head into the front of the car, tapped my grandmother on the shoulder, and proudly proclaimed, “At two minutes per puff, you’ve taken nine years off your life!”

I have a vivid memory of what happened, and it was not what I expected. I expected to be applauded for my cleverness and arithmetic skills. “Jeff, you’re so smart. You had to have made some tricky estimates, figure out the number of minutes in a year and do some division.” That’s not what happened. Instead, my grandmother burst into tears. I sat in the backseat and did not know what to do. While my grandmother sat crying, my grandfather, who had been driving in silence, pulled over onto the shoulder of the highway. He got out of the car and came around and opened my door and waited for me to follow. Was I in trouble? My grandfather was a highly intelligent, quiet man. He had never said a harsh word to me, and maybe this was to be the first time? Or maybe he would ask that I get back in the car and apologize to my grandmother. I had no experience in this realm with my grandparents and no way to gauge what the consequences might be. We stopped beside the trailer. My grandfather looked at me, and after a bit of silence, he gently and calmly said, “Jeff, one day you’ll understand that it’s harder to be kind than clever.”

What I want to talk to you about today is the difference between gifts and choices. Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy — they’re given after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you’re not careful, and if you do, it’ll probably be to the detriment of your choices.

This is a group with many gifts. I’m sure one of your gifts is the gift of a smart and capable brain. I’m confident that’s the case because admission is competitive and if there weren’t some signs that you’re clever, the dean of admission wouldn’t have let you in.

Your smarts will come in handy because you will travel in a land of marvels. We humans — plodding as we are — will astonish ourselves. We’ll invent ways to generate clean energy and a lot of it. Atom by atom, we’ll assemble tiny machines that will enter cell walls and make repairs. This month comes the extraordinary but also inevitable news that we’ve synthesized life. In the coming years, we’ll not only synthesize it, but we’ll engineer it to specifications. I believe you’ll even see us understand the human brain. Jules Verne, Mark Twain, Galileo, Newton — all the curious from the ages would have wanted to be alive most of all right now. As a civilization, we will have so many gifts, just as you as individuals have so many individual gifts as you sit before me.

How will you use these gifts? And will you take pride in your gifts or pride in your choices?

I got the idea to start Amazon 16 years ago. I came across the fact that Web usage was growing at 2,300 percent per year. I’d never seen or heard of anything that grew that fast, and the idea of building an online bookstore with millions of titles — something that simply couldn’t exist in the physical world — was very exciting to me. I had just turned 30 years old, and I’d been married for a year. I told my wife MacKenzie that I wanted to quit my job and go do this crazy thing that probably wouldn’t work since most startups don’t, and I wasn’t sure what would happen after that. MacKenzie (also a Princeton grad and sitting here in the second row) told me I should go for it. As a young boy, I’d been a garage inventor. I’d invented an automatic gate closer out of cement-filled tires, a solar cooker that didn’t work very well out of an umbrella and tinfoil, baking-pan alarms to entrap my siblings. I’d always wanted to be an inventor, and she wanted me to follow my passion.

I was working at a financial firm in New York City with a bunch of very smart people, and I had a brilliant boss that I much admired. I went to my boss and told him I wanted to start a company selling books on the Internet. He took me on a long walk in Central Park, listened carefully to me, and finally said, “That sounds like a really good idea, but it would be an even better idea for someone who didn’t already have a good job.” That logic made some sense to me, and he convinced me to think about it for 48 hours before making a final decision. Seen in that light, it really was a difficult choice, but ultimately, I decided I had to give it a shot. I didn’t think I’d regret trying and failing. And I suspected I would always be haunted by a decision to not try at all. After much consideration, I took the less safe path to follow my passion, and I’m proud of that choice.

Tomorrow, in a very real sense, your life — the life you author from scratch on your own — begins.

How will you use your gifts? What choices will you make?

Will inertia be your guide, or will you follow your passions?

Will you follow dogma, or will you be original?

Will you choose a life of ease, or a life of service and adventure?

Will you wilt under criticism, or will you follow your convictions?

Will you bluff it out when you’re wrong, or will you apologize?

Will you guard your heart against rejection, or will you act when you fall in love?

Will you play it safe, or will you be a little bit swashbuckling?

When it’s tough, will you give up, or will you be relentless?

Will you be a cynic, or will you be a builder?

Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?

I will hazard a prediction. When you are 80 years old, and in a quiet moment of reflection narrating for only yourself the most personal version of your life story, the telling that will be most compact and meaningful will be the series of choices you have made. In the end, we are our choices. Build yourself a great story. Thank you and good luck!
Or, watch the actual speech below.


Wednesday

WATCH THIS! MAKE THAT SALE!

Pretty fascinating video and a good reminder what communication tools you need ready to be able to sell to anyone, anywhere.

Contestants would take part in three segments where they would 1) tell their most memorable sales story in 150 seconds, 2) find a prospect using online tools, and 3) make a 60 second elevator pitch.





Interested in making money selling the one thing everyone uses? Learn more here!

Monday

INFOGRAPHIC - Seven Amazing Facts About Energy Efficiency

(Click to embiggen)

An LED 5 watt standard light bulb replaces a standard 60 watt bulb.  For savings on efficient lightbulbs or other energy savings products, check out the AMA Nation Store HERE!

Friday

The Rarely Told Truth About Network Marketing

Today I am going to talk about something that seems to be one of those things that people either love or hate. What I am talking about is network marketing, also called mlm or multi-level marketing. Right from the beginning I will say that there is no need to have extreme views about this, it is simply a business model that you can use if you wish.

However, it is crucial that you understand HOW the business model of network marketing works.
I think there are basically two reasons that some people seem to be almost electrocuted, simply by hearing someone mention the word network marketing. Either they have tried it themselves, and because they didn't have a clue on how to do it they failed miserably. Or they belong to the group of people who can't get the idea that mlm = pyramid scheme out of their heads.

This second misconception is easy to debunk. Pyramid schemes are illegal almost everywhere, do you really think large multinational companies could operate year after year on an entirely illegal basis?
Secondly, this view on network marketing shows that the speaker is ignorant. He or she hasn't done an ounce of homework on the various businesses that are available to each of us today, and they are ignorant of the industry itself.

This means they aren't serious. It means they "would like" to make more money, but have no intention of making it happen. They continually "look" for home businesses, which is enough to satisfy their minds that they "did everything they could", but everything they find out there is flawed and are "scams". They are looking to buy "hope", not a business.

There is a Chinese saying that goes something like this:"If you spend too much time thinking about your next step, you will be standing on one leg for the rest of your life". Yes, there ARE scams out there, but mlm is not a dirty word and it is not a synonym for scam. Get over it!

BREAKING NEWS! Corporate America a Pyramid Scam?

As for the comparison to a pyramid in general - think of any company that comes to mind. The company will probably have a CEO, president, vice presidents, middle management, a sales force, and hourly employees.

It goes without saying that the guy at the top, the CEO, is going to make the most money, and the compensations continue to decrease down the ladder which starts at his cushy leather chair. The only way to get paid more and move up the ladder is to boot someone else out of their spot - and this is what people call okay and normal!

Not to mention the fact that the corporate slave masters seem to have no problem with working people to the limits...and then kicking them out the door before any of the benefits kick in. (As always there are some exceptions, of course). How is this any less pyramid than network marketing? All people in the company work hard, but ONLY those at the very top has "permission" to make a lot of money.
Now, in network marketing the basic idea is that it will be of great benefit to everyone involved to help people who are new reach the top. In fact the whole business idea hinges on this idea - the only way to become really successful in the long term is to help others. Of course there will always be a mathematical limit to how large a network can become, but with todays global marketplace, and a suitable compensation plan, there is usually plenty of room for everybody.

A network marketing company can diversify and find new markets, just like all companies have to.
But what about the miserable statistics of network marketing, the over 90% drop-out rate etc.?

This is mainly caused by the simple fact that not that many people know how to do network marketing correctly. And I must admit that some network marketing companies are responsible for this themselves, by providing useless ideas like making a "100 list" etc.

You see, this is a somewhat unique industry. Most people don't realize that network marketing is a business of marketing and promotion pursued by people who have NO IDEA how to market and promote.

Read the above paragraph once more and let it sink in...

If you are going to be involved in network marketing you need to develop both the right mind set and acquire the right knowledge (no, they usually don't teach this in college).
  • You must learn that when you do this business right:
  • You don't have to "sell"
  • You don't have to ask people to join your business.. They ask you!
  • You don't have to post "work at home" flyers!
  • People will PAY YOU to prospect them
You should learn that this is not at all about the Vitamins or whatever product your company is selling. In fact, this is one of the single biggest mistakes people make in network marketing.

Wednesday

Why Sales People Need To Use Social Media



Back "in the day" the salesman went door to door selling everything from vacuum cleaners to manufacturing equipment. Catalogs were popular and every visit to the salesman or the catalog took valuable time away from your business.

Today in this highly competitive world the salesman still has to land the clients but can do so from a different venue. The internet. Social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, etc have opened up the market to the world rather than those within driving distance. Websites abound selling everything you may need to make a business grow.

Savvy executives shop the internet for supplies, manufacturers and employees much the same as anyone else would for a new mixer. Quality reviews, prices, comparisons are all available from the desk. It can't be more convenient than that. How many of these executives have your website, Twitter or other internet advertisement bookmarked?

In the days of the traveling salesman it was the salesman's responsibility to find out all he could about his customer. Where are you from, what do you do during your leisure hours, are you married, when is your birthday and all the other information that would help with PR. Today as we fill out our profiles on social networking sites, the salesman can find it in minutes and not be annoying with their long sales pitch and call on the potential or existing client.

This will create a better customer relationship with your clients and puts you on a more competitive edge. Your customers are already out there. Can you keep up with or find them?

Once the sales person has explored the web, he knows more about the client than a competitor would and the client knows enough about him that he won't converse with a competitor.

Expensive advertisement, direct mailing and meetings used to tie up a lot of time with a good percentage of positive response being in the 1-10% neighborhood. Newspapers are hungry right now because the savvy sales person uses the internet rather than the printed word. Chat rooms, social sites and blogs make the world available with a lot less expense and time.

When a customer was dissatisfied with a product, people or company talk would prevail to relay the negative messages. Today conversation face to face has decreased and reviews are up on the same social networking sites and the business owner has very little they can do about it. Often they don't know who posted the tweet or the blog. Feedback is much more prevalent than it used to be. Good sales techniques are all the more important to satisfy the visibility factor.

Get the information out there quickly. What used to take visit after visit to the customer can now be done with one stop on a website. Provide everything your customer needs to know to satisfy their needs.

What used to be a shopping expedition has turned into a buying expedition and the sales person with the most information out there will probably get the sale.

Via David Steel

Friday

Sell to Yourself.. Before Anyone Else

The Engaging Brand Blog has some solid advice that should be looked back on frequently.

When I work with companies on how to engage both their people and their customers...there is one thing that stands out more than anything else....

The foundation of engagement starts with YOU

If you don't know your vision and why it is so important to YOU....

If you are not convinced that YOU can aspire to achieve that vision

If you think it is impossible

If you create mental barriers..then...

You will fail to create the legacy that YOU deserve.

Strategy starts with YOU.
  • You need to discuss with your soul what feels right,
  • You need to speak to your heart about what matters,
  • You need to discuss what you feel would create a great legacy,
  • You need to find that self confidence which will allow you to have a go....
  • You need to accept that failure IS an option, but an option which only makes you try even harder...
You are the salesperson of your own dreams....sell to yourself before anyone else.....ensure you have delivered that contract with yourself before you ask anyone else to commit to your vision.

Wednesday

THE LAST AMERICAN LIGHTBULB

GE and its products are part of the American iconography. Its founder was Thomas Edison, one of America's foremost thinkers, inventors, and tinkerers. His invention of the light bulb in 1876 marked the moment of GE's genesis. If you can say that light bulbs capture the spirit of American ingenuity, you can also say that GE's soul is encapsulated in that inverted pear-shaped, "A-line" light bulb. Generations of Americans see the GE logo, in their mind's eye, on the round base of a glowing light bulb.

On September 24, that classic American light bulb was switched off. Changing American preferences and looming government regulation resulted in the shuttering of the only remaining U.S. factory to make 100-watt A-line incandescent bulbs, in Winchester, Virginia. The bulbs are still being made in Monterrey, Mexico, but the empire of the classic incandescent light is in its decline. Over the past five years, says Kim Freeman of GE Appliances & Lighting, "the demand for these incandescent bulbs has declined by 50% -- and that's all customer preference."






Rest in Peace

For savings on efficient lightbulbs or other energy savings products, check out the AMA Nation Store HERE!

Monday

Home Improvements That Will Help Conserve Energy

Energy deregulation has provided consumers in various states across the country the power to select their electricity provider. This is true in the state of Texas where consumers can choose which Texas electric company will power their home or business. Texans have an option to choose an electricity plan from several electricity providers’, they also have a choice and option to select an electricity plan that supports energy developed using alternative or environmental friendly means.

However, despite this freedom to select an electricity provider, there is a need to conserve energy and this can be done by having an energy-efficient home. New and modern homes have already embraced green building methods during the initial construction phase, but owners of older homes can increase their energy efficiency by making basic home improvements and changes.

What are the Biggest Energy Drainers in a Home?

Depending on which state you live in, heating and cooling are the number one energy-drainers in a typical home. Many homeowners lose hundreds of dollars each year due to cracks, openings and inefficient windows and doors in their homes.

Old appliances, particularly those 10 years or older are electric power guzzers and not very energy efficient. Appliances have gone more energy-efficient over the years, sometimes as much as 50%. Lighting is another source of energy losses in a home, particularly those homes still using incandescent bulbs.

What Improvements can be done to Help Conserve Energy?

Consumers can follow these suggested home improvements that can help lower their electricity bills and help conserve energy:

  • Changing windows can help improve the heat loss and exchange in a home. Old windows have single glass panes, but the more energy-efficient windows use double-glass panes with insulators in-between or special coatings/ glazed that will help decrease or stop air leaks.
  • Replace old appliances with Energy-star compliant units to assure better energy-efficiency which will help you decrease your electricity bills.
  • Doors can be replaced or modified to make them more energy-efficient. This can be done by improving seals around the doors that would prevent heated or cold air from passing through.
  • Some households may not be able to afford certain changes in the home like replacing windows, doors and appliances, but they can perform simple home modifications that can help reduce energy consumption. Caulking or weather stripping doors, windows and other openings in the home can help even out the temperature in the homes. Coverings on floors and windows are other improvements that are cost-effective but provide good results.
  • Change incandescent bulbs with the more energy-efficient compact fluorescent lights or the new LED-based lighting systems available in the market today. These new generation of lights can save as much as 70% in energy consumption and costs, and will last much longer than ordinary light bulbs.
  • Smart and efficient usage of home appliances can help you save on electrical cost and help conserve energy. One example is your refrigerator, which can handle keeping your food fresh even if turned up a little to 37 degrees. Set your AC to 76 degrees, use ceiling fans to cool your home is more energy efficient than turning you thermostats to full blast.

AMA Nation not only lowers your cost, but we help you conserve energy with over 70 energy saving products. Check them out HERE!

Friday

How Salespeople Can Differentiate Themselves


An interesting article that illustrates 4 small ideas that will dramatically and positively impact your effectiveness in the sales process.

Read it HERE!