GREAT ENERGY SAVING GIFTS FOR KIDS (OR BIG KIDS!)

One of the challenges of shopping for kids during the holiday season is trying to satisfy their tastes that have been shaped by high priced advertisements.


But, it doesn't have to be that way.  Here are several great ideas for both kids and gadget obsessed big kids.

Eco -Racers Powered By Water, Wind or Sun
These cars are moving fast,

Solar racer, powered by the solar panel.

Wind racer, powered by a wind turbine.

H2O racer, powered by water.

$39.95 Each

H2 Go Hybrid Remote Control Car Educational Kits
This battery-free model scale RC car is a real-working version of laboratory vehicles running on renewable and zero emissions hydrogen fuel. This refuelable RC vehicle runs on energy from the sun and water, and combines fuel cells for cruise power, and fast-charge super-capacitors for speed. The result: a fast moving fuel cell car where even the remote does not need any batteries!
$149.95

Miniature Working Wind Turbine

WindPitch is a miniature real-working wind turbine (wind power generator) designed for students to evaluate the pitch (angle setting) of the profiled blades. Up to 12 profile blades can be installed for evaluation.
$99.95

Hydrogen Cell Remote Controlled Racing Car.

Discover the automative technologies of the future by building and driving your own hydrogen fuel cell car. The H-racer 2.0 is the new generation H-racer, featuring a construction kit of the scale model car, as well as remote controlled steering, and light emitting features within the car

NO BATTERIES TO BUY OR RECHARGE!
$119.95

Renewable Energy Kit - The 'Chemistry Sets' of Tomorrow!

America Approved is offering a complete line of renewable energy science experiment sets and battery-free toys. Our kits are designed to explain renewable energy science in a classroom environment, for school projects and science fairs, or as fun and interactive activity sets for the entire family.

The Renewable Energy Science Education Set is a modular experiment set designed to demonstrate the workings of a complete clean energy technology system on a miniature scale.
$199.95

Click HERE to see dozens of other great gift ideas!

The Virtues of a Sales Professional

Virtues are a kind of excellence pertaining to morality. It would be hard to list the virtues of a business-to-business salesperson without including honesty and integrity, but those are table stakes; you’ll never be considered any kind of salesperson at all without them.

But there are other virtues that great salespeople possess in addition to honesty and integrity, all of which lead to a high level of excellence and effectiveness.

Prudence
Professional salespeople, especially the great ones, are extraordinarily self-disciplined. The virtue of prudence is about making choices. It’s about taking the right actions when they need to be taken, and controlling the desire to be impetuous and impulsive.

As a salesperson, you are offered an unparalleled freedom. Succeeding means tempering that freedom with the personal responsibility that results in prudent behavior, especially as it pertains to prospecting activity, keeping your commitments to your clients, and dream clients, and ensuring that you help your clients achieve the outcomes that you promised.

Your prudence is the foundation for other virtues.

Courage
Some of the choices that you must make in order to succeed require that you be courageous. It takes courage to take action in the face of resistance and against long odds. It takes courage to ask for what you need to succeed and to win for your dream client after you have been denied your request multiple times; you do it because it is necessary to your doing excellent work.

It takes courage to face the defenders of the status quo, and to fully engage in the politics of change in your dream client, especially when you are an outsider and have no real authority.

Courage is also required to face the internal politics that prevent you from succeeding for your company and your clients; it means taking on the entrenched defenders of the status quo within your own company.

It takes courage to do what is right when those around you would have you do something less.

Humility
You cannot allow your courage and your confidence to be mistaken for arrogance.

Professional salespeople possess the virtue of humility, being modest and humble, especially as it pertains to their accomplishments. You know that you didn’t win the dream client opportunity alone and that there are many on your own team who helped them to win.

You know that you don’t succeed for your clients alone and that your operations team produces a great majority of the outcomes that you promised and sold. You are standing on the shoulders of many, many others. Sometimes, they are carrying you.

The virtue of humility also ensures that you respect your competitors, never underestimating them or discounting their abilities as competitors or as value creators.

Love
It’s a strong word. You might be thinking too strong, but it isn’t.

Love is the greatest of all virtues and describes the act of caring enough about someone else to ensure that they get the outcome that they need. For salespeople, this virtue manifests itself in the ability to listen to their client, to seek to understand their needs, and to work with them to ensure that they achieve the outcome that they need.

It doesn’t end with your client. That deep caring that is love extends to the people on your own team. It means caring deeply enough about your own group to ensure that you do all that is necessary (and then a little bit more) to ensure that they succeed for your dream client with you.

Humor
Sales comes with lots of thankless and humorless tasks and events. The competition can be stressful and intense, as can delivering once an opportunity is won.

Possessing the virtue of humor allows you to release the tension in the difficult situations that are part of sales—and business. Humor allows you to make unpleasant circumstances and unpleasant tasks more tolerable for everyone.

This virtue can especially be seen in your having a sense of humor about yourself; a self-deprecating sense of humor helps lower the barriers to your message, and makes it easier for your dream clients to perceive you as less threatening—especially since your change effort brings with it a hell storm of disruption.

Your dream clients don’t believe that the stiff, dispassionate, medical demeanor is professional. Your virtue of humor allows you to be the authentic you, and it gives your dream client the permission to be their authentic selves.

The business of sales is about people. Your virtue of humor makes you more human.

Gratitude
You must be grateful for the opportunities you are given.

You must be grateful for the opportunities your clients give you to share their most precious resource: their time. You show your gratitude by respecting their time and using it well.

You must also be grateful for the opportunity to compete for their business, win or lose. Once the business is won, you must be grateful for having been trusted to help them achieve the outcome that they need, and you show your gratitude by digging in and ensuring their results are achieved.

You also demonstrate this virtue with a simple, heart-felt thank you.

This virtue must also extend to your own internal team, those who have served as your teachers and mentors, and all of those who have supported your endeavors.

Via

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Wishing you and yours a happy and healthy holiday!

POWER UP YOUR INCOME

By simply showing others they have a choice of who they buy their electricity from you can earn unlimited residual income.

Take advantage of the Deregulation of

ELECTRICITY!

The Perfect Business

• Used By Everyone
• No Buying Habits To Change
• No Customer Product Training
• Can Save People Money
• Last Major Industry To Deregulate
• Energy Is A Hot Topic
• Expanding Opportunity
• $297 Billion Industry

The Perfect Product

• Free Enrollment
• No Credit Check - In Most Cases
• No Desposit
• Easy to Switch
• No Hidden Fees
• Physical Service Remains The Same

Our goal is to help you deliver to customers multiple products, services, and information related to Electricity and Energy savings!

You can profit from the deregulation of electricity!

ASK ME HOW YOU CAN ENERGIZE YOUR INCOME!

JOHN HARONIS

888.909.4982

Click HERE For More Details

IDEA! A Gift For The Person Who Has Everything

Warm White LED Light Bulb for use in all incandescent screw-in base fixtures. 

This is a professionally engineered LED light bulb (often called LED Lights or LED Lamps in the trade) that fit into any screw base incandescent lamp socket. The H33 model produces a warm white color light and emits enough light to replace incandescent and CFL's for many ambient lighting tasks.
There has been plenty in the news about green gadgets and environmentally friendly LED lights recently. You probably already know the potential energy and environmental savings that can be achieved by switching to LED's. If not, then let us give you a simple rundown of the primary benefits:

• Energy savings (save 90% versus incandescent)
• Incredible lamp life
• Environmentally friendly (no mercury or harmful gases)

The design and manufacture of these LED lights is beyond compare - from the all metal die cast cooling fins to the IC boards that drive the diodes, every part has been manufactured to exceed world performance standards. You simply cannot find a better built 5 watt LED Light than the H33!
Great for retrofitting into existing table lamps, downlights, wall sconces, or other lighting fixtures with a diffused lighting distribution, these white LED light bulbs deliver smooth and uniform light without any flicker. The warm white color of this LED light is as natural looking as your old incandescent bulb, but will save you $100's every year on your energy bill!

America Approved offers this LED Light Bulb with an astounding no M.O.Q. (no minimum order quantity) so you can try one for yourself to see how it works.

At a Glance...

• Warm white color LED Light
• For use in any standard incandescent base light socket
• Long life as compared to incandescent and CFL bulbs
• Uses only 3 watts of energy

A perfect holiday gift that will last years, save money and make this world a better place.

Click HERE to see LED Lighting options and dozens of other great gift ideas!

Out With The Old, In With The New (Sales Thinking)

1. Stop the sales pitch. Start a conversation.
When you call someone, never start out with a mini-presentation about yourself, your company and what you have to offer.

Instead, start with a conversational phrase that focuses on a specific problem that your product or service solves. For example, you might say, "I'm just calling to see if you are open to some different ideas related to preventng downtime accross your computer network?"

Notice that you are not pitching your solution with this opening phrase. Instead, you're addressing a problem that, based on your experience in your field, you believe they might be having. If you don't know what problems your product or service solves, do a little research by asking your current customers why they purchased your solution.

2. Your goal is always to discover whether you and your prospect are a good fit.

If you let go of trying to close the sale or get the appointment, you'll discover that you don't have to take responsibility for moving the sales process forward.

By simply focusing your conversation on problems that you can help prospects solve, and by not jumping the gun by trying to move the sales process forward, you'll discover that prospects will give you the direction you need.

3. When you lose a sale, it's usually at the beginning of the sales process. 

If you think you're losing sales due to mistakes you make at the end of the process, review how you began the relationship. Did you start with a pitch?

Did you use traditional sales language like, "We have a solution that you really need," or "others in your industry have bought our solution, you should consider it as well"?

Traditional sales language leads prospects to label you with the negative stereotype of "salesperson." This makes it almost impossible for them to relate to you with trust or to have an honest, open conversation about problems they're trying to solve and how you might be able to help them.

4. Hidden sales pressure causes rejection. 

Eliminate sales pressure and you'll never experience rejection. Prospects don't trigger rejection, you do. When something you say and it could be very subtle, triggers a defensive reaction from your prospect.

Yes, something you say.

You can eliminate rejection forever simply by giving up the hidden agenda of hoping to make a sale. Instead, be sure that everything you say and do stems from the basic mindset that you're there to help prospects identify and solve their issues.

5. Never chase prospects. Instead, get to the truth of whether there's a fit or not. 

Chasing prospects has always been considered normal and necessary, but it's rooted in the macho selling image that "if you don't keep chasing, you're giving up, which means you're a failure." This is dead wrong.

Instead, ask your prospects if they'd be open to connecting again at a certain time and date so you can both avoid the phone tag game.

6. When prospects offer objections, validate them and reopen the conversation. 

Most traditional sales programs spend a lot of time focusing on "overcoming" objections, but these tactics only create more sales pressure.

They also keep you from exploring or learning the truth behind what your prospects are saying.
You know that "we don't have the budget," "send me information," or "call me back in a few months," are polite evasions designed to get you off the phone. Stop trying to counter objections. Instead, shift to uncovering the truth by replying, "that's not a problem." No matter what the objection, use gentle, dignified language that invites prospects to tell you the truth about their situation without feeling you'll use it to press for a sale.

7. Never defend yourself or what you have to offer. This only creates more sales pressure. 

When prospects say, "Why should I choose you over your competition?" your instinctive reaction is to defend your product or service because you believe that you are the best choice and you want to convince them of that. But what goes through their minds at that point?

Something like, "This 'salesperson' is trying to sell me and I hate feeling as if I'm being sold."

Stop defending yourself. In fact, come right out and tell them that you aren't going to try to convince them of anything because that only creates sales pressure. Instead, ask them again about key problems they're trying to solve.

Then explore how your product or service might solve those problems. Give up trying to persuade. Let prospects feel they can choose you without feeling sold.

The sooner you can let go of the traditional sales beliefs that we've all been exposed to, the more quickly you'll feel good about selling again and start seeing better results.

Via

Successful Selling to Customers is Just Like Persuading a Jury

Here’s how you can use persuasion to sell.

Establish common ground quickly and early.  It’s your job to quickly create a ‘we-ness’ with the customer. This means helping the customer see how similar you both are.  Look for something you could comment on that you both share.  It might be a college diploma from a school in the same state you attended college.  You would make a statement instead of asking an open ended question.  You could say, I see you attended State College.  I also attended school in Illinois. Time is the issue to establish this common ground, Establish it on general terms and don’t be too personal or specific even when you’re invited to.  Get right back on task. If you’re selling something what you have to respect is customers’ time. You’re there to sell, not to share personal details. 

Prepare to persuade.   You have to prepare to persuade.  You should have an outline in your head of what you want your customer to hear before you make your sales call. Plan three or four key phrases about your product or service.  These words should be descriptive words that create visual pictures for your customers to more easily understand your message. 

You should speak your customer’s language. To speak their language you have to look and listen for their key words.  Key words are used a lot; are specific to their products and services and are usually descriptive and purposeful.  They tend to be unexpected.  They are found in customer promotional materials.  Customers also use these words in their speech.  Here’s an example. A banking client may use ‘member’ as a key word.  In the company sales literature, the bank refers to customers as members, not clients or customers.  In your sales call, make sure you refer to members.  If you can take your customer’s key words and your key words and use them together, it’s more persuasive.  That’s why it’s so important to be a good listener.  Take notes.  Use "tell me more" to get your customer to elaborate more.

Punctuate to persuade.  Salespeople need to highlight their important points. Pause before an important point.  Make sure nothing is in your lap.  Women tend to keep objects in their lap.  Remove the pad or packet of materials from your lap and put it aside before making your point.  This is a way of helping the listener distinguish from the listening and the persuading.  With your legs and arms uncrossed, look your customer in the eye and lean slightly forward.  Then speak the important words slowly as you make your major point. 

Use everything you’ve got.   Watch your customer’s body position and mirror it.  Every nonverbal clue you give should convey confidence and credibility.  Start with a firm handshake. Your hips should be directed at your customer and your shoulders should be squared with your customer’s.  Pay attention to distance between you and your customer.  Watch that you are not too close or too far and lean forward as you speak.  Materials must be prepared so you are not sifting though your suitcase.

You’ll know your persuasion is working if your customers ask more questions; want more information and use the key words you use. 

Successful selling is being innocent of pushiness and coercion.   If you’re going to be guilty, it had better be for using persuasion effectively. 

Via

Regulation and Deregulation of Energy Sectors

This video is a long one folks.  It runs over an hour.  It's produced by M.I.T. and features Paul Joskow, and is well worth your time.

After viewing Paul Joskow’s meaty history of the nation’s energy industries, the baffling line items on your monthly utility bill may make more sense.

Joskow describes energy as perhaps the most regulated area in the U.S. economy. The natural gas, electricity and oil businesses have seen price caps and floors, as well as regulations around service quality and safety, environmental impacts, energy efficiency and entry of new suppliers. Different rationales spur these rules, from interest group politics to the need for more reliable energy production.

Some of these regulations have led to unanticipated and negative outcomes. Joskow describes the “sorry history of price regulation” of crude oil in the 1970s and early ‘80s, which followed a public outcry against high oil prices. When the government tried to set prices on this volatile market, so many loopholes emerged that “the only effect was to distort domestic petroleum markets.” Over a half century, Joskow notes the paradox that price controls generally corresponded to higher oil prices and lower domestic production.

Joskow demonstrates with graphs and slides how all energy industry sectors have undergone complex regulatory phases, many with ambivalent outcomes. Partly in reaction to this regulation and to increasing demand for energy, energy industries are being restructured and deregulated. In the case of natural gas, Joskow views the changes as a success, in that the “market meets consumer needs in a more efficient way,” with more domestic production and additional supplies coming into the U.S. market.

Electricity, Joskow’s “favorite topic,” is the last sector to be restructured, with the end of utility monopolies in electricity generation, transmission, networks, and distribution. A model of comprehensive reform “has been contentious and slow to evolve,” and with high natural gas prices, the evidence is far from in that deregulation will make electricity cheaper, at least in the Northeast. Some states, like California, “embraced competition, then unembraced it.”

Joskow lauds the success of energy efficiency standards in appliances, but bemoans the stagnation in fuel efficiency for vehicles in the U.S. He says a key challenge for economists is “to persuade policy makers that they ought to increase the price of gas if they’re concerned about vehicle efficiency and alternatives to oil.” He advocates as well replacing EPA regulations with a cap and trade system for various air pollutants, which in Europe seems to be working well.

Why Buyers Don’t Like Salespeople

If buyers could get by without salespeople, do you think they would? It is an interesting question if you stop and consider the role of the salesperson. Of course, considering the role in an abstract way is one thing, but what about when you consider it from a personal perspective? What happens as a salesperson when you put your emotions aside for a moment, relax, take a deep breath and honestly ask yourself, “What role do I play with my buyers?”

When I ask salespeople what value they bring to their buyers, I usually get a typical answer that is full of a lot of smoke puffery. When I ask this question of buyers, and in particular professional buyers, I get an entirely different answer. For professional buyers who see a wide variety of salespeople, the value they place on them is usually very minimal. Are you wondering why?

There’s one simple reason that can sum it all up: Most salespeople bring to their buyers only information. Interestingly, information is something any buyer can gather from other sources. At the end of the day, you as a salesperson must ask yourself, “Am I merely a conduit of information?” If you are, then you’re wasting your time, your company’s time, and your customer’s time. You might as well just email your buyer the information and then go play golf.

If you can’t as a salesperson honestly lay claim to problems you’ve helped your customers overcome, then you really have to begin questioning the role you play. Yes, I’m being quite harsh, but with the advent of technology and communication, the role of the salesperson has changed. If you as a salesperson have not recognized and embraced this change, then you are nothing more than the walking dead.

Buyers don’t want people who bring them nothing more than information. They want solutions. Unfortunately, because buyers often have far too much to do, they don’t even know what their problems are or what challenges their company is facing. This is the role the salesperson needs to play -- the role of helping identify the problems, whether blatant or obscure, and turning them into opportunities you can solve for the customer.

So how do you go about identifying problems? You as the salesperson must become an investigator – someone who is determined to find out what really is happening in an organization, industry and global marketplace. Then, you need to show your customer how what you found is impacting them now or will be impacting them in the future.

Start this process by shifting your focus. Instead of just delivering information to your customer, begin to ask more questions. A very simple rule I tell salespeople is for every minute you spend gathering information to share with a customer, you need to spend an equal amount of time developing questions to ask that customer. Don’t develop questions for which you already have the answers or could easily find the answers. In fact, those are the wrong type of questions.

Instead, you need to develop questions to which you don’t have answers. More than likely, these will be questions to which your buyer doesn’t have answers either. By asking these questions, you’re helping move the buyer to viewing you differently. Your role is to be seen as the one salesperson who is genuinely committed to helping them move themselves and their company to a higher level. This may be by growing their sales or helping them reduce their costs.

When you can clearly identify ways you’ve helped your buyer achieve either of these outcomes, then you will know you’re no longer the type of salesperson that buyers love to hate. Plus, you’ll be growing your bottom line at the same time. And that’s a lot better than simply doling out information!

Via

Selling Value, Not Price

Sales professionals who don’t know how to sell value, at some point won’t sell at all. Closing sales based on the lowest price is neither a long-term, nor highly profitable growth strategy. Even in today’s marketplace, you can still be a solid competitor without being the cheapest. You just need to sell value, not price.

Salespeople need to master the art of selling value and stop using the same overused mantras on why they can’t sell in today’s economy, mantras like “if I just lower my price, I could close this sale,” or “if I am cheaper than my competition people will buy from me.”

People don’t always buy based on the lowest price, and no one believes that the lowest price ever equals the best offer. Customers who buy a product or service because it’s the cheapest are not loyal.
If you don’t believe me, think about this: if price is the only thing that matters and people are just looking for “cheap,” then everyone would be driving a Kia, Nordstrom would be empty, flying first class would not exist and we would all be drinking Folgers instead of Starbucks.

In this highly competitive sales environment, salespeople find it difficult to differentiate their offer from their competitors’ in any way but price – but price-cutting is a losing proposition. This dilemma is faced by all business types – whether selling sophisticated high-tech products, real estate, intangible services, or individual/commodity products.

Selling value requires that salespeople have the ability to justify in dollars and cents how the customer will benefit from their solution. If they cannot sell value, they leave the customer no choice but to view their solution as just another commodity. Selling value is not some short-lived sales fad; it’s a comprehensive set of knowledge, tools and techniques that can be incorporated with any sales approach you are currently using.

If the lowest price is your business model, then go for it and sell on price. But if it isn’t your business model, you need to disqualify customers who want the cheapest price and spend your time creating the value you and your company were designed to deliver.

Your competitors say they have similar offerings. They say they have the same features and produce the same benefits. They look like you. They sound like you. They provide the same product or service as you, but they are cheaper. Now what?

The best way for sales professionals to create compelling value propositions is to add value by improving processes and solving problems for their customers.

To break out of the price trap, you have to work extremely hard at differentiating your offering on results and the return on investment. Don’t learn to sell price! Spend your time learning to create more value than your competitors and focus on showing you can create greater outcomes. If you believe that lowering your price is the only way to make a sale, then you have two, and only two, choices in this economy. Either learn how to sell more effectively or get out of sales altogether.

To attract and gain new customers, you need something dynamic and memorable to set yourself apart and not fall into the low-price trap. If you think of yourself as offering a solution to a problem rather than offering the cheapest price, then you are well on your way to succeeding in sales and in your business.

Via

INFOGRAPHIC - History of Solar Energy

Solar energy, radiant light and heat from the sun, has been harnessed by humans since ancient times using a range of ever-evolving technologies. Solar radiation, along with secondary solar-powered resources such as wind and wave power, hydroelectricity and biomass, account for most of the available renewable energy on earth. Only a minuscule fraction of the available solar energy is used.


Solar powered electrical generation relies on heat engines and photovoltaics. Solar energy's uses are limited only by human ingenuity. A partial list of solar applications includes space heating and cooling through solar architecture, potable water via distillation and disinfection, daylighting, solar hot water, solar cooking, and high temperature process heat for industrial purposes.To harvest the solar energy, the most common way is to use solar panels.


Solar technologies are broadly characterized as either passive solar or active solar depending on the way they capture, convert and distribute solar energy. Active solar techniques include the use of photovoltaic panels and solar thermal collectors to harness the energy. Passive solar techniques include orienting a building to the Sun, selecting materials with favorable thermal mass or light dispersing properties, and designing spaces that naturally circulate air. (Wikipedia)

(click to embiggen)

SEX SELLS, Or 20 Reasons Why Selling Is Better Than Sex

The world’s oldest profession involves selling.

One might even argue about which came first – the selling or the sex?

In fact, selling and sex are so closely related that succeeding at either one of them can be euphoric, addictive, and good fun. Some people might like to argue that selling is not better than sex. They believe it’s the other way round.


Business can be fun and should be fun. Love what you do and do what you love. It’s about passion…it’s about creating the pathway for your own success and doing it with enthusiasm and zeal.

Here are 20 reasons why selling is even better than sex:

1. You are never too young or too old to sell. And just because you may be over 65, you don’t have to rely on those little blue pills to help you make a sale.
2. A new sales job comes with an instruction manual – complete with graphs and pictures and everything that you might need to come to grips with the basics.
3. When it comes to selling on an airplane or just chatting to a prospective client in the seat next to you, you’ll realize that it’s so much easier than trying to sneak into the bathroom for a quickie in order to join the “mile-high club”.
4. You don’t have to fear retribution for showing the proof to back up your claims of success and achievement. On the contrary, your prospective clients will want to see that. And the more sales history you have, the better! Your prospects may be very keen to see who you have listed as your previously satisfied clients.
5. If your customers decide to take photos or film you while you’re making your pitch, you don’t have to worry about those pictures or videos showing up on the internet when you become famous.
6. You don’t have to check for a wedding band or make sure that the person you’re chatting with is, in fact, a real woman or man.
7. It’s possible to close with a customer in two minutes or less and it’s actually something to be proud of.
8. You can be absolutely certain that nine months after a sales meeting, the customer’s lawyers won’t contact you asking for half of your pre-tax income for the next eighteen years.
9. You can invite your previous, current and potential customers to come together in a same room – it is called a “Customer Appreciation Day”.
10. If you’re practicing your presentation at night in the comfort of your own home, you don’t have to be concerned about keeping your neighbors awake.
11. With sales it matters not how young or how old you are – you can always find a fresh prospect – and they’re generally not interested in your age. They’re really only concerned about your expertise.
12. With selling you always know how good you are. The proof is in the purchase of the product that you’re selling.
13. A customer doesn’t get jealous when you get a new one. Actually, you look weird if you don’t have any customer at all. Being single is not good.
14. If you’re having trouble with selling and you’re not feeling as confident as you should be, it is perfectly acceptable to pay a professional to show you how you can improve on your technique.
15. Managing large numbers of sales or co-coordinating a group of salespeople makes you neither a pimp nor a prostitute.
16. You can keep your socks on during selling (or prospecting).
17. Finding customers on the internet isn’t illegal.
18. You can do sales by the book and you can choose the book (or DVD).
19. Selling publicly won’t get you arrested.
20. You can sell even in a moving vehicle and not be apprehended for breaking the law.

Via

NO Trust? NO Sale!

You can't trust someone who isn't honest!

 Trust is the single biggest motivator of buyer behavior and one of the key components to establishing a successful buyer/seller relationship. Do your potential customers trust what you say? Do they trust you as a salesperson and a business professional? Not putting your customer’s interests ahead of your own is a recipe for disaster.

Customers overwhelmingly buy from people they trust. These customer relationships are longer lasting, more effective and more efficient than relationships not built on trust. But building trust takes time, and the only way to do it is to sell in a trustworthy manner.


So, do you have a specific, well-thought-out plan designed to overcome this obstacle and build greater levels of trust with your customers?

In the past, customers had negative perceptions of salespeople because selling itself had been associated with manipulation, dishonesty and trickery. That stereotype of untrustworthy, lying salespeople still comes back to haunt the sales profession today. But salespeople can play a critical role in its dismantling.

You may be the most honest salesperson on the planet but if your customers don’t perceive you to be trustworthy because of sloppy sales skills and negative selling behaviors, it doesn’t matter.

Do you follow these 4 principles of selling to build trust?

1. Begin and end from the customer’s perspective and walk in their shoes
2. Think in the long term; the relationship is the customer
3. Behave in a collaborative manner and openly conduct honest conversations with customers
4. Be transparent and trustworthy in all meetings and phone calls

Knowing, understanding and possessing the traits that customers like are the best way to gain trust and close the sale. So, in addition to being honest, you need to be knowledgeable, punctual, solution-based and customer-focused, just to name a few. It’s the way you relate to others that determines your customer’s level of trust.

I see salespeople destroy client trust in the sales process and rarely recover, but it does not have to be that way! Always check your behavior. Focus on trust-building activities with customers by creating an action plan and then constantly focus on executing that plan. Once you’re able to increase your trust factor with buyers, you will also see an increase in sales. Salespeople who fail to put an emphasis on developing trust and rapport actually do a disservice to their customers and leave the back door open to their competition.

To be a professional salesperson, conduct yourself as a true professional. Your buyers will like it when you do – and you’ll be more successful. The most effective way to build that trust is to put customers first; always. You must do this by design, not by default.

In today’s highly competitive marketplace, your customers have many options and they are looking for a salesperson they know they can trust to work in their best interest. It’s not what you sell, it’s how you sell.

Via

INFOGRAPHIC - The Best States for Alternative Energy

As we move towards an electricity grid made up of renewable energy, it's a good idea to see from where that energy is going to come. Some places in the country are more naturally suited towards generating certain kinds of power; it's much sunnier in the southwest and windier in the Great Plains.

(click to embiggen)