Professional service marketing
Gaining Visibility
Have you noticed that some workers receive more promotions and greater pay than do their colleagues? This, despite the fact that they are apparently not even as competent. This doesn’t seem fair. Why should some people get ahead when others who seem to be working far harder, and even longer hours, get passed over for promotion and the additional rewards that go with it?
The fact is that to be a great success, it is important not only to be good at what you do, but also to be perceived as being good at what you do. Human beings are creatures of perception. It is not what they see but what they think they see that determines how they think and act. If one person is perceived as being more promotable, then it is very likely that he/she will get additional responsibilities and more money, even though there are others that can do a better job, if given the chance.
Fortunately, there are several things that one can do to increase visibility and accelerate the speed at which they move ahead in their career.
Develop Competence. Determine what parts of your job are most important to your boss and to your company, and then make the decision to become very good in those areas. You must be perceived as being very competent at what you do. That perception alone will bring you to the attention of more people faster than you can imagine. The perception of excellent performance will open up opportunities for greater responsibilities, higher pay and better positions. Becoming good at what you do should be the foundation of your strategy for gaining higher visibility and rapid advancement in your career.
Pay Attention to Your Overall Image. How you appear to others makes a real difference.
A recent survey of personnel executives found that the decision to hire or not to hire is made in the first 30 seconds. There are many elements of your life over which you have no control. But your external dress and appearance are totally a matter of personal preference. Through their choice of clothes, their grooming and their overall appearance, individuals deliberately make a statement about the kind of people they are. The way you look on the outside is a representation of the way you see yourself on the inside. It’s a good idea to dress the way the senior people in your company dress. Dress for the position two jobs above your own.
Join Professional Associations. Research professional associations connected with your business or field. Begin by attending meetings as a guest to carefully assess whether or not a professional association can be of value to you. Determine if the members are the kind of people you would like to know and are well established in their careers. Then, if you have decided that becoming known to the key people in this association can advance your career, take out a membership and get involved. Pick a key committee and volunteer for service. Find out which committee seems to be the most active and the most influential in that organization, and then step up to the plate. Volunteer your time, expertise and energy, and get busy. Attend every meeting. Take careful notes. Ask for assignments, and complete them on time and in an excellent fashion. This gives you an opportunity to perform for other key people in your profession in a non-threatening environment. You give them a chance to see what you can do and what kind of a person you are. You expand your range of valuable contacts in one of the most effective ways possible. The people you get to know on these committees can eventually be extremely helpful to you in your work and in your career.
Join A Well-Known Charitable Organization. Become active by donating your services to its annual fund-raising programs. You may not be wealthy now, but you do have time, and your willingness to give of yourself will soon be noticed by people who are higher up. Many men and women with limited contacts and limited resources have risen to positions of great prominence as the result of getting to know the key community leaders who participate in charitable organizations and professional associations.
Be Able To Set Priorities. Learn how to separate the relevant from the irrelevant when facing the many tasks of the day. Managers place very high value on a person who can set priorities and move quickly to get the job finished. Dependability in job completion is one of the most valued traits in the American work force. When your employer can hand you a job and then walk away and never worry about it again, you have moved yourself onto the fast track and your subsequent promotion and pay are virtually guaranteed.
Upgrade Your Work-Related Skills. Continually look for ways to keep your skills current and make sure that your superiors know about it. Look for additional courses you can take to improve at your job, and discuss them with your boss. Ask him or her to pay for the courses, but make it clear that you’re going to take them anyway. Also, ask your boss for book and audio program recommendations. Then follow up by reading and listening to them and asking for further recommendations. Bosses are very impressed with people who are constantly striving to learn more in order to increase their value to their companies.
Develop a Positive Mental Attitude. People like to be around people they like and tend to promote them. A consistent, persistent attitude of cheerfulness and optimism is quickly noticed by everybody. When you make an effort to cultivate an attitude of friendliness toward people, they, in turn, will go to extraordinary efforts to open doors for you.
In the final analysis, taking the time to become an excellent human being will do more to raise your visibility and improve your chances for promotion than will any other single thing that you can do. And you can do it if you really want to.
About the author
Brian Tracy is a legendary in the fields of management, leadership, and sales. He has produced more than 300 audio/video programs and has written 28 books, including his just-released book “The Psychology of Selling.” Special offer: To receive your free copy of “Crunch Time!, just visit www.briantracy.com and click on the Crunch Time! icon. He can be reached at (858) 481-2977 or www.briantracy.com.
“Up Your Cashflow by Next Week: 13 Ways to Have a SALE!”
by Alexandria K. Brown, “The E-zine Queen”
Nothing gets people buying products or programs like a special promotion –online or offline. Now, if you’ve never done this before, you may already be thinking, “I can’t have a sale on my products or services. That’s sooo cheesy!”
Au contraire, mon frere. It’s all how you position it. Here are 13 ideas to consider. Choose one that would work for your business and give it a try.
IMPORTANT: You’ll need to put some type of time limit on the offer to encourage folks to buy now and not later. It’s also better if you explain to your readers WHY you’re having the sale, to avoid coming off like Wal-Mart. Give your prospects a reason. (Even a funny one — see tip 13!)
1. Close-out sale. Have inventory you want to get rid of? Making room for other products or new versions of products? Then offer the current version at a significant discount.
2. “Scratch and dent” sale. Have any books, tapes, or CDs that were returned to you by customers? Offer them at a hearty discount for people who don’t mind if they’re a bit worn.
3. Half price sale. Lop off 50 percent from all your goods, or select just one.
4. Coupon sale. Allow customers to enter a coupon or promo code to get a discount. (If you have a decent shopping cart program you should be able to set this up in seconds.)
5. Free shipping sale. Offer free shipping for a limited time. Or, upgrade folks to express shipping at no extra cost.
6. “We’ll finance it” sale. Offer a payment plan – this works great for higher priced items and programs. (Again, if you have a decent online shopping cart program, you should be able to set up timed, automatic billing.)
7. Free 30-day trial. Get their credit card information at the time of order, but don’t charge them until the month is up. Another variation is the 30 day trial for $1.
8. Pre-publication sale. Start taking orders before your product is even ready. (Seeing orders come in is also a great incentive for you to finally finish creating that product!)
9. VIP discount. Give a special offer to a certain group. Show your e-zine subscribers, your clients, your speaking audiences, etc. that they’re special.
10. Buy one get one free! Yes, this can even work for information products and services. The purchaser can give the extra copy to a colleague as a gift, or two people can split the cost and essentially get your product or service at half price.
11. Special bonus. Give something extra if people purchase before a certain date. (This is a great strategy to up your sales without cutting your prices.)
12. Package discount. Offer a big discount if they order all your products/services or a select combination thereof.
13. Birthday sale. Or any fun occasion… Valentine’s day, your anniversary, groundhog day, your dog just had puppies, your kid just lost his first tooth — have fun with it!
BONUS TIP: Many of these options for coupons, discounts, cutoff dates, etc. can easily be set up with a good shopping cart system. www.QueenCart.com links you to the one I use and recommend.
© 2004-2006 Alexandria K. Brown
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Online entrepreneur Alexandria K. Brown, “The E-zine Queen,” publishes the award-winning ‘Straight Shooter Marketing’ weekly ezine with 20,000+ subscribers. If you’re ready to jump-start your marketing, make more money, and have more fun in your small business, get your FREE tips now at www.EzineQueen.com
A Gold Mine of Information…Paid For in Full
Author Keith F. Luscher
When targeting market prospects in your job hunt or for a targeted, value-based outreach, one of the biggest challenges is researching your prospect list.
Let’s say you are in B2B sales, and you want to reach out to wholesale distributors of durable goods with twenty to 250 employees, headquartered in your county and three counties adjacent. How would you find them? Perhaps your company subscribes to one of the many services out there, such as InfoUSA or Hoovers.
There are plenty of other research tools available on the internet, but I strongly recommend that the first place you check out is your metropolitan library. One of the best library resources is ReferenceUSA (the library division of InfoUSA). This is a database on millions of businesses and households which includes information on census, lifestyle, home values, industry codes and even D&B credit scores. It is access to the same data available commercially through what you may know as Sales Genie, minus the monthly subscription fee. Find out if your library offers it, and if not, find one that does.
Further, you will often be able to access this and other resources online from work or home with your library card. You will not need to make a trip to the library.
The ReferenceUSA database can produce a list of wholesale distributors of durable goods with twenty to 250 employees, headquartered in your county and three counties adjacent. You can narrow your search even further by any number of parameters (each record has data in up to 221 fields—we are talking detailed!). It all depends on what you are seeking.
This first step is unlocking a gold mine…and I am constantly surprised at how many sales professionals and business people I encounter in my own community who are completely unaware of this resource.
Let’s suppose your research yields a list of 28 companies. Which ones will you contact first? Will you start with the companies with the most employees, or the fewest? Will you further qualify by reported gross revenues or credit rating? Perhaps you want to start in your own county first, and expand outward.
Starting with your top priority suspects, begin researching the key decision makers. Depending on the size of the company, the data in ReferenceUSA will give you either just the owner or the entire executive staff and even the board of directors (It even identifies gender—quite helpful when targeting people with transgender names!).
Whatever you find, it is just a start. Their data is well researched and updated, but it is NEVER one-hundred percent accurate. To further identify who’s calling the shots, check out additional data sources (Hoovers for one). The company’s website may give you all that information up front, and may even include biographical information.
ReferenceUSA will even highlight stories in some media sources related to each company record, and even identify competitors. For further research, check out BizJournals online—the media company that publishes business weeklies in the nation’s top metropolitan areas and business markets. In your research, you are seeking any information that may prove relevant to your approach. Knowledge is power.
For further direction on what to do with this knowledge, learn the eight steps of WedgePower. Learn more at WegePower.com.
Keith F. Luscher, (Google Search) is a business development director for The Money Foundation, an independent investment professional’s think tank and production group operating within a broker-dealer. Prior to this he served professionals in the insurance and financial services industries as a management consultant. In that role, he advised producers on issues related to marketing and prospecting, and developed groundbreaking educational curriculum. In addition, Luscher is also a nationally known author, speaker, and expert in media, interpersonal communication and marketing.
The Qualities of Skillful Leadership
by Jim Rohn
If you want to be a leader who attracts quality people, the key is to become a person of quality yourself. Leadership is the ability to attract someone to the gifts, skills, and opportunities you offer as an owner, as a manager, as a parent. I call leadership the great challenge of life.
What’s important in leadership is refining your skills. All great leaders keep working on themselves until they become effective. Here are some specifics:
1) Learn to be strong but not rude. It is an extra step you must take to become a powerful, capable leader with a wide range of reach. Some people mistake rudeness for strength. It’s not even a good substitute.
2) Learn to be kind but not weak. We must not mistake kindness for weakness. Kindness isn’t weak. Kindness is a certain type of strength. We must be kind enough to tell somebody the truth. We must be kind enough and considerate enough to lay it on the line. We must be kind enough to tell it like it is and not deal in delusion.
3) Learn to be bold but not a bully. It takes boldness to win the day. To build your influence, you’ve got to walk in front of your group. You’ve got to be willing to take the first arrow, tackle the first problem, discover the first sign of trouble.
4) You’ve got to learn to be humble, but not timid. You can’t get to the high life by being timid. Some people mistake timidity for humility. Humility is almost a God-like word. A sense of awe. A sense of wonder. An awareness of the human soul and spirit. An understanding that there is something unique about the human drama versus the rest of life. Humility is a grasp of the distance between us and the stars, yet having the feeling that we’re part of the stars. So humility is a virtue; but timidity is a disease. Timidity is an affliction. It can be cured, but it is a problem.
5) Be proud but not arrogant. It takes pride to win the day. It takes pride to build your ambition. It takes pride in community. It takes pride in cause, in accomplishment. But the key to becoming a good leader is being proud without being arrogant. In fact I believe the worst kind of arrogance is arrogance from ignorance. It’s when you don’t know that you don’t know. Now that kind of arrogance is intolerable. If someone is smart and arrogant, we can tolerate that. But if someone is ignorant and arrogant, that’s just too much to take.
6) Develop humor without folly. That’s important for a leader. In leadership, we learn that it’s okay to be witty, but not silly. It’s okay to be fun, but not foolish.
Lastly, deal in realities. Deal in truth. Save yourself the agony. Just accept life like it is. Life is unique. Some people call it tragic, but I’d like to think it’s unique. The whole drama of life is unique. It’s fascinating. And I’ve found that the skills that work well for one leader may not work at all for another. But the fundamental skills of leadership can be adapted to work well for just about everyone: at work, in the community, and at home.
To Your Success,
Jim Rohn
To read previous articles, quotes, and Q and A from the Jim Rohn Weekly E-zine Archives, or to get a complete listing of Jim Rohn’s books, audios, videos and seminar schedule, or to place an order; please go to: http://www.jimrohn.com or call 800-929-0434 M-F 8:00-5:30 CST.
Sales Has a New Beginning-Demand Generation 2.0
by Axel Schultze
So here is an interesting story of a security products company that is using social media – no, not in marketing – but in sales.
Sales teams have always been the key connector to the customer base. But in the last few years sales got in trouble for hundreds of reasons that I don’t want to repeat here.
So here is what happened at Company S. After some weeks and months exploring what sales could do better than in the past, the company implemented a new social selling model in its outbound customer acquisition team.
Before:
A team of 25 did primarily cold calling and emailing prospects trying to setup appointments or getting a demo scheduled. The average call out volume was 80 calls a day, the top sales people did close to 100 a day. Typically 10 people where reached and 1 to 2 appointments could be setup. Some of the team mates called for three days to get only one appointment. It looked like a rather typical scenario. Team mates rotated or were replaced within a year as the burnout rate in that business is very high.
The new beginning:In an initial experiment we started with three people for a “social outreach initiative” 1 hour a day. The task was to identify the prospects social presence and then learn what is on top of their mind by reading what they communicate. In most cases it was everything but the company’s products. Over the course of two weeks the sales team was able to connect and build social relationships. Pretty much the same way as the golf playing superstars build relationships with their clients without pitching a product or promotion.
As a result, the prospects communicated with the sales team and both began to understand each other’s tasks. If a security product was of any interest, it was rather likely to get a presentation or an introduction to a person who the company should present to.
The number of touches within that one hour per day reached the 30 mark and it became quickly obvious that two hours a day would get to 60 touches and four hours to 120. In other words the new outreach initiative would get to the same number of contacts in half the time. The success rate even grew twice as much. Out of the 30 connections 4 agreed to have a conversation about the product. That was more than the 100 calls a day achieved in the past.
Obviously it is important to provide social media tools to the team to alleviate distraction, and get the team straight to the clients profiles, track touches, last connection and more. Those tools also act as an important feedback mechanism to teach the teams to be most effective in their engagement.
In the following weeks the program was expanded to four hours a day social outreach program and 4 hours calling. The program not only was more successful but the burnout rate of the team was reduced through this more diverse work pattern.
6 month later
The company decided to do no more cold calls. Phone calls were only “permitted” after the contact had a social engagement or the prospect was not to find in the social web.
The implementation of the whole program took only a few hours of developing a strategy and a plan and training for the sales team how to use social connections, the do’s and don’ts and best practices to keep the relationships over time.
The team named it “Office Golfing”, based on the thought now we can do from our office what the sales stars do on the greens.
After 9 month: 2 of the 25 people left the team because they couldn’t get acquainted with “the social media thing”. The average daily outreach grew to 200 touches per day and then slowed down to 150 as more and more conversation happened. The 1-2 appointments per day per person grew to 7 per day so far. The team is spending most of the time now with their clients in the social web. Clients appreciate the attention and the social touch of the organization.
Marketing is now shifting gear to provide leads with more and better social credentials (the lead quality discussion will never stop) and involving social media monitoring tools to identify additional conversations relevant to their business.
Sales had an all new beginning.
On Nov 18 we show how it works in a live demo http://bit.ly/SCRM1118
You can find Axel at http://xeesm.com/AxelS
If Selling, Listen to the Symptoms
by Ron White
‘Doc…I got this cough.’
‘Is it a light cough?’
‘No Doc it is a deep hacking cough like this….KUUH… KUUH’
‘Okay, anything else?’
‘Yeah, I got the shivers and this red bumpy rash.’
‘Oh, well you have got the Jungle hemoglobin neuro-cardio virus. Take these pills for two weeks and you will be as good as new.’
Isn’t it amazing how a doctor can listen to the symptoms and then accurately diagnose what is ailing you? Well, if you are in sales you should be able to do the same. Listen to what your customers are telling you and it will tell you where you are going wrong in your presentation.
I recently heard a speaker say, ‘Yeah, I didn’t sell but one package of CDs – the owner stood up and said he was going to buy one package of CDs for the office library and everyone could share.’ The speaker then shook his head as if there was nothing he could have done to sell the group. I never heard that speaker’s sales pitch; however, I know exactly what he did wrong by listening to the symptoms. In his sales pitch, he sold the value of his products, which he should have done – however, he did not pitch the value of building your own personal development library. If he would have closed this way, the owner would have never of stood up and said he would buy one for the group to share because he would have been contradicting the value of your own personal library that was just discussed.
I didn’t have to hear his sales pitch; listening to his symptoms, the diagnosis was easy.
What about you? What are the objections you are receiving? Listen closely because they are the symptoms that will diagnose your problem:
” Sounds great! I will definitely get this product one day! – Diagnosis – you didn’t establish the benefits of purchasing today. You did not make it clear that inventory was low, the special price of purchasing today or other incentive.
” I need to think about it – Diagnosis – 50% of the time this will be because you didn’t show them how to purchase (i.e. where to sign) or ask for the sale. The other 50% of the time it is because they have a hidden objection that you did not answer. Your response,’ Is there something in particular I can answer for you as you think about it?’
” Let’s buy one and share! – Diagnosis – you didn’t establish the value of this being a personal purchase.
” It cost too much – Diagnosis – price is rarely the objection, you failed to build value and didn’t demonstrate how this product will actually save you money over a period of time because it is durable or it will save you time and time is money.
Just as a doctor – listen to your symptoms and they will tell you where you are failing. Do not blame the symptoms on your prospects incompetence. Instead – listen, diagnose and treat by altering your presentation the next time. The answer to catapult your sales success is in the symptoms. Listen carefully!
Now, if you will excuse me I have to run. I have the Jungle hemoglobin neuro-cardio virus and I have some pills I need to take.
– Ron White
Ron White asks: What if you could Discover… In Just Hours… A Simple, Proven, 7-Step Sales Formula That Will Supercharge Your Earning Power! If you’re in sales, and you’re interested in supercharging your earning power, then we’ve got GREAT news for you! You see, if you want to earn a high income through sales, what you need is a proven system that hauls in massive amounts of cash whenever you use it. Once you’ve mastered this system, making a great living through selling would be easy. To learn more, go to http://www.yoursuccessstore.com/sales or call 877-929-0439 in the US. International and/or Dallas/Ft. Worth, call 817-442-8549.
Is Everyone in Your Business Market Driven?
I’m sure you get calls every day from people you don’t know about things you don’t need. What happens when a company invests their cash into marketing and advertising programs, but then doesn’t tell everyone on the team about the new programs?
In the past, I ran marketing for a large specialty retailer. I used to get in trouble with my boss all the time because I made sure the cashiers and customer service people were trained on the weekly ads and special events. My boss would say he had sales people to sell and the cashiers and customer service people had other jobs to do. I knew, without a doubt, several customers a day would come in and be introduced to my business by team members who normally didn’t interact with customers but, for whatever reason, they had to deal with customer questions.
How does this relate to a technology business, you’re asking? In the last several weeks, I’ve had conversations with several individuals who wanted to find out more about a technology company’s service offerings. When they called into the company’s office, all they got was a run-around. The person who picked up the call didn’t really understand what the company does or to whom to direct the caller. Now I know this would never happen in your business but just as a test, have a friend call in to your business. See what how your consultants and customer service people provide potential clients with the initial guidance to get them to the right people. Do your people make them feel glad they called or are a problem to be dealt with?
I know what you’re thinking, customers are always calling in so I can’t get my projects done, or worse interrupting my social media agenda. Don’t they understand it’s not my job to answer the phones and spend time talking to you, my potential clients?
It’s funny but I thought customers are part of why we are in business. I know it’s popular to use voice mail because it’s less costly to have potential clients leave messages. But most clients want to feel like more than just a number. If you’re going to have people answer the phone, you might want to invest the time to bring them up to speed on what’s going on in the business and who is still with the company. I’ve heard of several examples of potential clients calling in to discuss a project with an account manager. The person answering the phone didn’t know the account manager was no longer with the firm and they didn’t make sure the right individual got the message. In one case, it cost the company a several hundred thousand dollar deal. I know you still have to win the business but the client was not looking for several bids on the project because of the confidential nature of the project. The fact they knew the account executive meant they were will to pay more for working with the account manager’s team.
All of this leads me to the following point; if your business isn’t market driven, you are probably being driven out of the market by well intended associates who get paid the same if they produce revenue of not.
Here’s a question to consider if you’re still wondering why your phone isn’t ringing as much as it used to in the good old days. Try my call in test. You might be surprised to find that in these challenging economic times some of your employees have forgotten who they work for and why.
If You’re Not Screwing Up, You’re Fired.
Most people in their jobs or client relationships worry about “getting fired” for making mistakes. Indeed, we all make them—and as Alan Mooney, a close friend and work colleague likes to put it: if we aren’t making mistakes, then something is wrong. In fact, he sums this policy up in one simple statement:
“If you are NOT making mistakes, then you’re fired.”
Fired, indeed! The point he emphasized with a touch of jest is that if you are working and focused on desired outcomes, mistakes are inevitable.
Don’t allow this reality to keep you from stretching outside your comfort zone. The only way to avoid making mistakes is to slack off and do nothing. And none of us get paid for that, now do we?
Harry Beckwith (Why am I always quoting this guy?) in his book Selling the Invisible puts it plainly when he cites a common false belief: “Failure is failure.”
In the brief chapter, he cites one historical example after another, from companies such as Avis, 3M and Federal Express of how their leaders made more mistakes than not to reach their ultimate victory. He concludes: “If you’re doing anything worthwhile at all, you will suffer a dozen failures. Start failing so you can start succeeding.”
It also leads me back to when I was leading my earlier Prospect & Flourish bootcamps, and one real estate agent sitting in the program made this remark about making canvassing calls: “Every NO that I receive over the telephone brings me one step closer to a YES.” Indeed, while every “no” you may hear over the phone may not constitute a mistake or failure on your part; it does get you closer to creating a result that’s closer to the one you seek.
As this country grows and matures through what history will eventually refer to as a true economic depression, adopting this mindset will be crucial if we are to arrive safely on the other side. In fact, the word “failure” ought to be removed from our vocabulary. From a purely objective standpoint, there is no such thing as success or failure…there are only results. You either create a result you seek, or you don’t.
Consider this deeply the next time you reach out to set up an interview with a prospective client or employer. Indeed it is one of the greatest barriers to effective prospecting: not trying. An outcome is inevitable, be it from your action or inaction. Act. If you do not create the outcome you seek, so be it. But the question before you then is this:
“How can I use this outcome to bring myself closer to the result I seek to create?”
But don’t let this question overwhelm you. In some ways, the best method to achieving our desired outcome is to not obsess over it. Hence the age-old expression: “It’s not the destination; it’s the journey.”
We’ll talk more about this next week. Until then, blessings to you and yours.
Keith F. Luscher, (Google Search) is a business development director for The Money Foundation / H. Beck, Inc. Prior to this he served professionals in the insurance and financial services industries as a management consultant. In that role, he advised producers on issues related to marketing and prospecting, and developed groundbreaking educational curriculum. In addition, Luscher is also a nationally known author, speaker, and expert in media, interpersonal communication and marketing.
Why the Right Words Matter
As I was looking through my bookshelves for a particular reference, I came across my very first sales training book, How to Master the Art of Selling, by Tom Hopkins. I pulled it off the shelf and starting thumbing through it. I had gone to see Tom Hopkins speak and bought the book there. He even autographed it for me. I took that book home and studied it. I don’t know how many times I read it. Why? I wanted to master the art of sales. Even at the beginning of my career, I knew the key to success was being good at selling.
I haven’t changed my point of view in the decades since I read How to Master the Art of Selling. I’ve read other sales training books. I’ve gone to other sales training courses. But I find that I probably use more of Tom Hopkins ideas in how I sell day to day than anyone else. There are probably a number of reasons for this. But I think it’s because his ideas are easy to learn and easy to implement. That’s not to say they’re simple, just easy for you to say, “I can do this.”
For example, one of Tom’s key ideas is being aware of the language you use. Words can have a positive or negative impact, even seemingly innocuous words like deal or contract. Words trigger an emotional response. I’ve mentioned in this blog before that people buy based on emotions and justify with logic. By inadvertently using a word with negative emotions, you might kill the sale without ever knowing why. The first step is to stop using the word “deal.” Most of us think of it in the terms of a good deal. If the client has doubts about getting a good deal, they may back out of the sale and leave you hanging. A better word to use is opportunity. Opportunity connotes opening doors, new options. It’s filled with positive energy.
I’ve only talked about one word that can change the course of your sales. As a technology entrepreneur, you need to be aware of the words you and your sales team use. Are you moving clients along the process with your words, or turning them off? Use more positive words and you can increase the number of sales you close in record time.
How to Be a Transformational Leader
In the two previous parts of this article, Brian Tracy talked about the myths of communication, as well as the communication process and the elements of face-to-face communications. This part focuses on the importance of preparing for your communications. As a leader, your communications need to influence and persuade the people you come in contact with. For example, you need to create a vision of the future your employees can understand and strive to achieve. You need to explain your purpose and value proposition to clients, bankers and others that support you financially. How well you do as an organization is dependent on how well you can communicate the goals of your company. Are you getting your ideas across? Read on to find out how to maximize your ability to communicate.
Getting Your Ideas Across, Part 3
By: Brian Tracy
So your choice of words is important, but even more important is your tone of voice and your body language. The better you can coordinate all three of those ingredients, the more impact your message will have, and the greater will be the likelihood that a person will both understand it and react the way you want him to.
You’ve heard the saying that God gave man two ears and one mouth, and in conversation, you should use them in those proportions. Truer words were never spoken. The best communicators are excellent listeners. The worst communicators are continuous talkers. In fact, often the most important part of the message is the part that is conveyed by the pauses you make between thoughts and ideas. The message is conveyed in the silence that takes place during the lulls in conversation. All master communicators have learned to be comfortable with silence. Remember that a person can absorb only a certain amount of information, as ground can absorb only a certain amount of water. If you pour too much water onto the ground, it will form into puddles instead of soak in. A person’s mind is very much the same. If you don’t give someone an opportunity to absorb what you’re saying, by pausing and waiting quietly and patiently, he will be overwhelmed by the continuous stream of thoughts and ideas, and often will distort the message and miss the point.
One of the most vital requirements for effective communication, especially with important messages, is preparation. Preparation is the mark of the true professional. The late Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant of the University of Alabama football team was famous for saying, “It’s not the will to win but the will to prepare to win that counts.” In all communications, the will to prepare in advance of talking and interacting with people is the key to achieving maximum effectiveness.
Remember that in communicating, people do things for their own reasons, not for yours. Everyone’s favorite radio station is WIIFM, which means “What’s in it for me?”
The more important the communication, either in business or personal life, the more important it is to prepare for it. Think through where the other person is coming from. What is his or her point of view? What are his or her problems or concerns? What is he or she trying to accomplish? What is his or her level of knowledge or information about the subject under discussion?
In getting your point across, perhaps the most important word of all is the word ask. The most effective people are those who are the best at asking for what they want. They ask questions to uncover real needs and concerns. They ask questions to illuminate objections and problems that people might have with what they’re suggesting. They ask questions to expand the conversation and to increase their understanding of where people are really coming from.
You get your message understood by getting out of yourself, by putting your ego aside, and by focusing all of your attention on the other person. You get people to do the things you want them to do by presenting your arguments in terms of their interests, in terms of what they want to be and have and do. You prepare thoroughly in advance of any important conversation. You think before you speak, and you think on paper. You can say almost anything if you say it, or ask it, pleasantly, positively and with courtesy and friendliness.
The ability to communicate is a skill that you can learn by becoming genuinely interested in people and by putting their needs ahead of your own when sending a message or asking them to do something for you. When you concentrate your attention on building trust, on the one hand, and on seeking to understand, on the other hand, you’ll become known and respected as an effective communicator everywhere you go.
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About the author
Brian Tracy is a legendary in the fields of management, leadership, and sales. He has produced more than 300 audio/video programs and has written 28 books, including his just-released book “The Psychology of Selling.” Special offer: To receive your free copy of “Crunch Time!, just visit www.briantracy.com and click on the Crunch Time! icon. He can be reached at (858) 481-2977 or www.briantracy.com.