One Day at a Time

Ever have a sales month start slowly? Do you struggle with the idea of starting from scratch every month? Many sales people have a hard time with the idea the each month they're starting all over. For some it's a daunting task to start our each month back at zero. And many sales people struggle with having a month or a pay period start slowly which adds anxiety to hitting their quota for the period.

A conversation I had with one of the sales people working for me reminded me of the challenge. He was asking how he could overcome the slow start he has each month. My answer was simple "Take it one day at a time". I know it sounds like a simple answer but let me explain. When you have a big sales month or period the natural tendency is to relax a little bit once it's over. You want to celebrate and pat yourself on the back. There's nothing wrong with that you need to celebrate your victories.

The problem with relaxing after you hit your goal or have a big month is that when you relax you tend to stop doing all the things you were doing to be successful at the end of the previous month. Some sales people start to take short cuts fooling themselves into thinking they are good enough to get away with it. Usually this results in fewer sales at the start of the month or pay period and then as you get farther into the pay period they knuckle down and get back to doing what works and low and behold they pull it off again. Another month or pay period where they hit the goal even though they started slowly.

Some salespeople have done it like this for so long they have convinced themselves that people don't buy early in the month so it's normal. The fact is when you are doing your job properly people buy any day of the month and it has nothing to do with whether or not is the beginning or the end of the month. The sales person is the one that influences the cycle based on inconsistent work habits.

If you want to end the up and down sales cycle and be more consistent you have to work consistently and the best way to do that is to stop focusing on the pay period or the month and start focusing on each individual day. By taking things one day at a time and resolving to do you best each day you will find that the month or pay period takes care of itself.

Of course that's not to say ignore the closing of your pay period, month or qualification period. You can use these deadlines to create urgency and get business to close in a more timely manner than it would otherwise.

The key is to do your best each and every day and you will find that before long your sales are more consistent and for that matter much higher since the slow start will go away.

Just be patient and know that what you are doing will work because for many sales people it takes a few months to actually see the change in their sales since they have to fill the pipeline with additional prospects.

You might be skeptical if you've been in sales for a while and have always had a slow start each month or period but I can tell you from personal experience the key is in your work habits. I too used to have slow starts until I was shown how I worked differently at the beginning of the month compared to the end of the month. I decided to take it one day at a time and within 3 months my sales at the first of the month equaled my sales at the end of the month. For me that was a 15% increase in sales.

Would you like to give yourself a raise? Then work just as hard or even harder at the beginning of the pay period as you do at the end and treat every day as if it was the last day of the pay period.

Sales Lessons From the Movie Hook

Your emotions have a lot to do with how well you sell. It affects how other people see you and how they believe you feel about what you're selling. Think about it for a minute do you like doing business with angry people? How about doing business with people that are down or depressed? Or people that are self centered and could care less about you? Of course not. If you're like most people you like to do business with people that are happy and upbeat.

Zig Ziglar, one of the great sales trainers boils sales down to the transference of feelings. Basically if you can get your prospect to feel the way you do about what you're selling they are more likely to buy. Bryan Tracy, another great sales trainer, teaches constrained enthusiasm and points out that the last four letters of enthusiasm are I A S M which means I Am Sold Myself. So with that in mind maintaining the right attitude is essential in sales.

There's a valuable lesson to be learned from the movie Hook with Robin Williams that has helped me in my sales career more times than I care to count. It's also a lesson I've shared with hundreds of sales people that have benefited from it as well.

The movie starts in modern day England and Robin Williams is a busy executive married to his cell phone and so busy with work he's missing out on his own children's childhood. 

As it turns out Robin is Peter Pan but he's grown up and gotten serious and has completely forgotten his childhood. So he doesn't remember that he is, or ever was, Peter Pan. Tinker Bell, played by Julia Roberts, brings him back to Neverland to remember who he really is and to fight Hook and save Neverland.

About now you might be asking yourself what on earth does this have to do with sales. Just bear with me and I will make it clear.

The sales lesson is in how, the now serious and adult, Peter who has no magic and can't even remember being Peter Pan gets his magic and power to fly back. You see, his power was a function of his imagination as well as being able to be carefree and happy. He'd forgotten how to imagine and he hadn't been happy in a long time.

When he first got to Neverland he was in denial and just wanted things to stay the way they were. Jumping ahead to that part that's relevant to the lesson. Peter first started to get his ability to imagine back when the whole gang was sitting down to an imaginary meal. Rufio, one of the lost boys,  was upset because the real Peter Pan would have been able to have actual food for them to eat. He didn't believe this was the real Peter Pan. 

In the process of the argument between Rufio and Peter, Peter starts to lose some of his adult ways and starts to have fun. Just as Peter is pretending to throw a spoonful of food at Rufio the imaginary becomes real and all of the sudden the table is full of food. Watch the clip for yourself its fun.

Now having an imagination and being able to have fun is important and it will help you in your day to day sales. But, that isn't the biggest lesson to learn from this movie. You see even though Peter remembered how to use his imagination he still wasn't "The" Peter Pan. He didn't believe and he didn't have the magic to fly.

In the movie Tinker Bell helps Peter remember and realize that the key to his magic comes from being able to be in his "Happy Place". As she helps him remember and realize that he is in fact Peter Pan his happiest memory is of the time when his first child was born. As the happiness fills him up he turns back into Peter Pan and now he can fly.

It's kind of funny as he remembers because without realizing it he is hovering in mid-air but when he starts to think about the fact that he's flying he gets scared. Of course he starts to drop like a rock but just before he hits that ground he remembers his happy place and stops in mid-air. Now, he's really Peter Pan and starts flying all over the place.

Once again I bet you are asking yourself what on earth this has to do with sales or selling. Well, the lesson is about having and being able to hold on to your happy place. Think about the times when an angry prospect or client has affected your mood which affects your performance. Think about the times you've had a setback personally and it impacted you work. The fact is we all get hit with bad news, cancelled sales, personal setbacks and trials of life. The key is how do you deal with it?

We all get upset or have our feelings hurt from time to time but if you take the time to remember a moment when you were extremely happy or a time that you felt totally successful you can use the memory, and others like it, to get back to a point where you can be effective and successful.

There have been many times I have used this to get myself or sales people I've worked with back into a good place to work from. I know it may sound a little out there but what have you got to lose by trying it?

One of the things I picked up from Tony Robbins is to work on remembering things in color with sound and to make them seem like they're on a life size or larger screen. It only takes a little bit of practice but it's worth it. For me and everyone I've worked with the intensity of the feeling or memory is enhanced by making it larger or in color or with sound. Different adjustments have different impacts for each person so experiment with it to see what works best for you. 

Another thing Tony teaches is to anchor a feeling or emotion so that you can get into that state at will. For years, every time I made a sale I would stand up with my arms raised over my head in victory and then I would simulate the cheer of a crowd. This action has anchored for me the feeling of success I enjoy when making a sale. Now, anytime I want to feel this way I simply repeat the action and I'm in that state.

As a sales professional you must learn to be the master of your emotions. That doesn't mean ignore them or suppress them. So find a copy of Hook and enjoy being entertained but let it help you find you very own happy place and learn how to go there any time you want. Your sales will improve and so will your relationships with those around you.

Drive Tons Of Traffic To Your Site

I've talked a little about lead generation and using your website to get prospects but it never fails every time I talk about Internet marketing I get asked about traffic generation.

My first education in traffic generation started a number of years ago when John Reese came out with the original Traffic Secrets. I plunked down my $1,000 the first day it came out. I then had the good fortune to be invited by a number of my friends who were moving their businesses online to participate in a mastermind session going through the Traffic Secrets material.

What an education that was. not only did I have the benefit of the material but I got to hear what others got out of it as well. The session were invaluable and John really put out an incredible product. The list of things you can be doing to drive traffic to your site is quite extensive. You don't have to take my word for it you can go get his newest traffic course Traffic Secrets 2.0. John covers all types of way to drive traffic but in this course he really helps you understand how to take advantage of social media. Oh, don't worry, it isn't $1,000 like his first course was.

When it's all said and done with nothing beats organic traffic for sales.

Apart from becoming a student of traffic generation something you can do right now to drive traffic to your site while seriously boosting your search engine ranking is article marketing.

Article marketing works for the simple reason that it provides exactly what the search engines are looking for. Content. The key of course, is quality original content. Search engines are getting smarter and smarter. So, the better and more relevant your article are the more likely the search engines are to pick them up. The next thing you need is for your article to be in lots of places. The more places your article is the more back links you have to your site making the search engines believe your site is a good authority on the subject the article is written on.

You used to be able to submit you article to all the article sites and the rest would take care of itself. Webmasters would pick up your article and put it on their site so they have more content and the search engines would see your article all over the web.

Now it seems as though some of the search engines have figured out whats going on and they penalize the ranking when it's just a bunch of duplicates of the original article.

With that in mind the key is to submit a unique article to each article directory. That way you won't have hundreds or thousands of copies of the exact same article out there. The problem though is who has time to write that many original articles? I know I don't.

I've tried the submission services and they're alright. I own a number of programs to do it for me and they aren't bad.m But either way you're just submitting the same article over and over.

About a year ago I found the perfect solution Unique Article Wizard. It's nothing short of amazing the way it takes an article I write and then with a small amount of work on my part it actually submits a unique version of my article to hundreds of high ranking article directories.

Go see what Dr. Noel Swanson has to say about article marketing on steroids is like. At the very least be sure to sign up for the free article marketing course.

To your success,

Mike

Selling in a tough economy

So what do you do to continue selling and even increase your sales in a tough economy?

The simple answer is stick to the fundamentals. No matter how bad the economy appears to be there are always people ready and willing to buy what you have to offer. The fundamentals of sales don't change just because the economy is taking a tumble. In fact this is when they are the most important.

Some of you in sales probably have sales managers that are trying to tell you that the economy doesn't have any impact on your sales. I beg to differ. The fact is sales are down across the board for almost every single sector. Unless, of course, your goods or services are the type that are really popular and needed when the economy is going through a tough spot. Being in denial is not going to help you pull your sales out of a slump and it certainly won't help you take your sales to a whole new level.

So unless you're in a truly recession proof industry the economy is going to have an impact on your sales. The real question is what are you going to do about it?

That brings us back to the fundamentals. These are the things you should be doing consistently but when things are going well we tend to take short cuts and develop bad habits. The key to maximizing your sale efforts and making the greatest number of sale possible is to work each step of the sale to it's fullest. When you take the time to properly qualify a lead so that you genuinely know if it's a suspect or a prospect you are saving yourself time in the long run. When you work with a prospect to determine if they are a lead or not you are moving along the sale process.

The key to making more sales in a down economy, or any economy for that matter, is properly working the steps of the sale and paying particular attention to properly qualifying your leads. You can't afford to spend time with someone who will most likely never buy. The primary difference between top closers and the rest of the pack is their qualifying process. How else do you think they could have such a high closing ratio?

In order to properly qualify a lead you need to have your sales process mapped out so that you know where you at with a lead. If you're spending all your time educating prospective buyers about your goods and services you're not working smart you're working hard. Sales people need to spend their time with people that are ready to buy and the best way to do that is through qualifying and education based marketing.

It's marketing's job to educate the prospects to the point that when sales gets involved most of the major questions have already been answered. Look at it like this; if you are grading your leads on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being a sale then you really should only be talking to 7's, 8's and 9's. Anything lower than a 7 should be getting what they need from your companies marketing process. So, if you talk to a prospect and determine they are a 6 or less you put them back in to the marketing system and you follow up when they have done something to indicate that they are now a 7 or better. Occasionally you can work a 6 to a close and get the deal but that isn't the best use of your time.

Now, in order to do this you have to lay out the steps of your sale and determine for yourself what value to put on each lead based on where they're at in the process. For example just having their name might make them a 1 but if they filled out a request for information form and sent it in maybe that makes them a 2 or 3. Take a look at your sales process and assign values to each step of the process and start tracking your leads based on this system. When crunch time comes at the end of the month, quarter or year only spend your time working with 7's or better and you'll be pleasantly surprised at your increased sales.

If you don't have the luxury of a company marketing department then you need to automate a nurturing process on your own to free up your time so you can continue to prospect and work with leads that are ready to buy.

Don't' let the economy be the excuse for less sales. Look at it instead as an opportunity to capture more market share and hone your skills. Practice what you've learned and continue to improve your skills. Get out there and network. Be more diligent in your qualifying process and make sure you nurture your leads. Also, think about this. Tough economies have a way of eliminating the competition which puts you in the drivers seat if you are nurturing your leads and listening to your clients and prospects.

Champions meet and exceed their goals in all types of economies but usually have record breaking years when the economy is supposedly bad.

Go sell something and help the economy recover,

Mike McMahon

Lead Nurturing

It seems like these days everyone talks about lead generation and that the money is in the list. What most of them don't talk about is lead nurturing.

Below are some of the questions I get asked about leads on a regular occasion.

• Now that I have the lead what do I do with it?
• If they don't buy right away what good are they?
• Can I really turn a lead into a client with marketing?

After you spend your money,time and effort to capture someones information into your lead base what are you going to do with it? Most people that are new to online marketing think they can just send out the sales letter or an email inviting the lead to a sales page and the sales are just going to flood right in. I wish it were that easy.

The reality is you have to nurture your leads. That means you have to feed them and prove you are in this game for more than just the money generated by the sale. Sure you might get some sales simply by email them and asking for the order but how would you like to get two or three times the sales how about eight times the sales or even more? Well, the way to do that is to care about your list and treat them accordingly. In other words nurture them.

So what does nurturing your list look like? One of the ways you can nurture you list is to give them great information on a regular basis for free. That's right I said free. Help them understand things in you area of expertise that they might not already know. Give them good advice and pointers to help them along the way. Don't be afraid to really open up. It shows them you care but it also shows them you are the expert in you particular area of knowledge.

As far as what to do if they don't but right away be patient. The fact is that most of your customers aren't going to buy from you right away unless you happen to be selling something people buy in an emergency or on the spur of the moment. For most of us we need to understand that the majority of our customers are going to get on our list and then evaluate what we have to say against what they already know. If you do a good job of nurturing you will overcome their fear of doing business with you and they will become a customer.

We all know of a Guru or two on the Internet that only sells their products or services using marketing. So the answer is yes you can sell just using marketing. With low ticket items you may find you have no choice but to build an automated sales team and get everything done with marketing. On the other hand if you are selling higher end products or services you are much more likely to make more sales if you blend your sales and marketing efforts.

Basically your marketing should get the prospect to the point they are ready to buy but maybe they need a little more information. This is where your sales team would come in to the equation. That means if your sales team starts working with a prospect that simply isn't ready to make a commitment they would go back into the marketing process until they indicate at a future time they're again ready to be contacted by the sales team.

Figuring out the points in your marketing that make sense for sales to contact the prospect takes time and effort but the pay off is huge. When you sales team is spending it's time with people that are ready to buy versus people still needing to be educated you will get a much higher conversion rate and greater number of sales.

In short use your marketing to educate your prospects to the fact that they have a need for your solution and how your solution will work for them. Use call to action steps to get the prospect to signify they are ready to take he next step and then have your sales team follow up and close the sale.

Marketing and sales should have a synergistic relationship where one ends and the other picks up. Both of them need each others feed back to continually improve their process.