Football, Fantasy & Sales Success
Over the last couple of weeks I have been enjoying watching sports on the TV – most notably the football and the start of Wimbledon. After watching England play half-heartedly against the highly motivated US team and then appallingly against Algeria, they showed some flashes of inspiration against the Slovenians but then sat back in the last 10-15 minutes and were lucky to hold onto their win. One of the commentators said that he would forgive them that and I commented to a friend at the time that the Germans wouldn’t have.
Today, against Germany, we saw an English team bereft of team-spirit, energy, commitment or passion. OK, so they got robbed of a goal at 2-1 down but they didn’t deserve to be in the match based on how they had played and now they’re not. On several occasions, when they lost the ball deep in the Germans half, the English defence were so slow to react and so slow to get back, my Mum would have got there faster. I am sure many people will put up many “excuses” for the result and many others will blame anything, everyone and Capello but at the end of the day the least you would expect is players representing their country to chase the ball down in defence as fast as they can even if they had no chance of getting there. It is was the World Cup after all.
On the BBC commentary they mentioned our “world-class” players and that they wouldn’t swop more than a couple for members of the German team. Well, I would, I’d swop the lot, that way we’d be in the running still. And as for “world-class”…
It doesn’t matter how much talent you have, if you cannot make it work on the night, if you cannot get the result, then it’s irrelevant.
By contrast, look at the tennis match between Mahut and Isner. Two tennis players battling on for 183 games over the course of 11 hours and five minutes. The final set alone accounted for eight hours and 11 minutes of that time – 98 minutes more than the previous longest match on record. Now that’s commitment. Two men who wanted to win. Two men determined to succeed. Two men not prepared to give in.
Or what about Federer’s first round match where the defending champion was forced to mount a courageous comeback against Colombia’s Alejandro Falla? Having faced numerous match points in the third set he eventually won 5-7, 4-6, 7-6 (1), 6-4, 6-0. Federer could have slinked off into the night. He could have packed his kit bag and lost three sets to love. He could have claimed “illness” or some imaginary injury after such a bad showing but he hung in there, kept fighting, got a break and eventually came out on top. Likewise, Isner and Mahut, for three days running, went out on court and slogged it out. Giving anything less than 100% was not an option.
I’m not going to try and second-guess the mindsets of the English football team. Nor am I going to try and imagine what was going on in the heads of Mahut, Isner or Federer. I am going to quite simply ask you a question…
What do you want and how much do you want it? What are you prepared to put in to get it? How passionate are you about ensuring that your dreams become reality?
The Business Supremacy Summit, 2010 With Doug Richard…
“Dedicated to the Exponential Growth & Success of SME’s – Spend a day Immersed in Leading Edge Growth Strategies with World Leading Entrepreneurs!!!”
Thursday 1st July – Madejski Stadium, Reading, Berkshire
Hey readers, I thought that you might be interested in this event that I am speaking at. If you read on to the end you will see how to book and please note that there is a code that will get you a discount as you have been referred by me so make sure that you use this…
From BBC’s Dragon’s Den, see Doug Richard live on stage! Sharing “The Mistakes Behind The Scenes: How to succeed when you don’t know what you’re doing!” Making a business go from “Potential to Exponential” Don’t Miss it! See Sahar Hashemi – Co-founder of Coffee Republic Live on Stage Sharing “Switched on” – How to keep the entrepreneurial spirit as you grow!
Joining Doug & Sahar on main stage are: Leading expert in Explosive Sales performance – Gavin Ingham & Reputation, Networking & Referrals Expert – Rob Brown. Gavin Ingham will be sharing his Sales Explosion Secrets Live on main stage and Rob Brown will be sharing his knowledge on “How to Build Your Reputation” – The secret of becoming a “Go To” choice in a crowded marketplace.
And that’s just for starters…
We are running exclusive hard hitting interactive workshops in the main hall all afternoon, all featuring the most current topics that leaders, business owners & entrepreneurs face when addressing & planning for business growth.
Come and spend an explosive, business changing day in the company of 100’s of other SME’s and immerse yourself in today’s most powerful business growth techniques & strategies with world leading enterpreneurs. Our experts will show you how to drive your sales and business forward, against all odds and thrive!
Covering all the essential elements for business success from Sales Explosion Secrets, Breakthrough Marketing Techniques, Motivational Leadership, Streamlining Strategies for rapid profit acceleration to “The Entrepreneurial Mindset” that will change your business life!
Quite simply this is a must attend event for anyone serious about increasing their sales & growing their business…
We look forward to welcoming you at the event.
Book now to secure your place and don’t forget to use my special discount code “GAVIN30″.
Win! Win! Win!
Book now and win the chance to dine with Sahar and Doug and our keynote speakers on the day (that’s me by the way… 
). Every ticket purchased will be entered in to a prize draw to win the chance to dine with our Special Guests on the day in the exclusive Glass Boardroom. The winner will be announced the week prior to the event!.
Off the main stage our delegates will be treated to 8 exclusive hard hitting interactive workshops in the main hall all afternoon, all featuring the most current topics, Leaders/Business Owners/Entrepreneurs face when addressing/planning for business growth.
Choose from…
- “Business Turnaround”. The complete “how-to” workshop.
- “How To Get An Extra 60 Minutes Out Of Your Already Hectic Day”. You can find another hour in your busy day and this workshop will transform the way you look at your time and what you do with it.
- “Secret Of Successful Networking”. The right strategy, the right events, the right execution, the right conversations, the right people, the right results.
- “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Jourmailst?” How to harness the power of the press to raise your business profile.
And then at 400pm you can choose from…
- “The Influential Presenter”. The insider secrets of presenting with power (this one’s with me so highly recommended!)
- “Cyberpsychology”. The answers to gaining huge profit increases using social median in “the right way”.
- “The Right Brand”. Show the world you mean business by using the simplest of marketing messages in the most powerful of ways.
- “The Flip Top Head Phenomenon.” Get inside the heads of your leadership teams and build a powerful business using psychometric profiling for serious results.
Book now to secure your place and don’t forget to use my special discount code “GAVIN30″.
Finding Your Personal Motivation, Part III
The final part of my quick video on Finding Your Personal Motivation. Thanks for your kind comments and thoughts on this one. We’ll be launching the all new GavinIngham.com sales training, personal and business success website in the next few weeks and we will be releasing a lot more videos. This will be one of the last in this more formal format as we’ll be over to a new, exciting format that will allow us to get you sales training and personal success tips more frequently and more often.
Finding Your Personal Motivation, Part II
When people find out that I am a “motivational speaker” they often ask me to motivate them as if it is something that I can do for them or to them. We’re often at a party or in a pub and it is posed as something of a challenge however, many times, it is deadly serious too.
Motivation is internal and the ability to motivate yourself is something that you can learn to do if you set your mind to it. There are many different ways to build self-motivation and hundreds of techniques that you could use. Here is part ii of my video short Finding Your Personal Motivation and these are some of my favourite strategies that you can use to help to develop your own personal motivation.
10 Sales Training Tips That Will Help You To Make More Sales
I am feeling short , sharp and snappy today so here are 10 sales training tips that will help you to win more business…
- Play from a 10.
Attitude is your ability to access your skill. If you’re not on top of your game, you won’t make many sales. We all know that, yet many salespeople don’t fire on all cylinders when they need to. Try measuring your attitude on a scale of 1 to 10 and concentrate on ensuring that you are on top of your game for all important sales tasks such as prospecting, meetings, presentations, negotiations… - Believe & achieve.
If you believe you can, you’re probably right. If you believe you can’t, you more than definitely are! What you believe is one of the biggest predictors of what you will accomplish. Believe you can maintain profit margins, guess what you’ll fight to achieve? Believe you can’t, and guess what? Oh dear! Ask yourself, “What do I need to believe to achieve sales success?” - Care about your clients.
Many clients don’t engage with salespeople fully or honestly because they have been “abused” by a salesperson who was only interested in themselves at some point or other. Most salespeople care only about the sales and themselves, not their clients. Prove you are different by focusing on adopting the mindset of genuinely caring about your clients. - Set big goals.
Set your sights on the stars. Go for gold. Think big and go for it. Mediocre goals and targets are for sales wimps not sales superstars! What do you want to achieve in 2010? What clients do you want to engage with? How much revenue do you want to secure? What are your goals for yourself, your business and your life? - Take action.
Nothing happens when no-one does anything. Most people sit chatting, surfing the internet and faffing around with their “to-do” piles whilst sales winners make money. What can you do today that will take you one step close to your dreams and goals? - Ask great questions.
Sales superstars ask great questions. Great questions come from a mindset of genuine interest in the client, their business and their life. Do an audit of your questioning skills and habits. Plan and design some new questions to try out. What can you do to improve your questioning techniques? - Listen.
No point asking questions if you don’t listen to the answers. Listen to what your clients say. Listen to what they nearly say. Listen to what they didn’t say. Listen to what they meant. Listen to genuinely understand. Listen without an agenda. The objective of listening is to understand, really understand, what your clients are talking about… from their perspective. How would you rate your listening habits? - Add value.
How can you add value for your clients? How can you help your clients? Without knowing how you add value you will be constantly battling with your clients over price. You should be selling on value not price. What questions can you ask your clients to better understand why they want and need you and how you add value. - Match don’t pitch.
Pitch – the worst and most misleading word in selling. Pitch is what you do to a baseball, not a client.Dictionary: Pitch – to throw, fling, hurl, or toss. So that’s going to work then! You shouldn’t talk solutions until you know what a client wants and needs and why. Match don’t pitch. Ask yourself, “What does this client want and need and why?” Don’t guess, ask! - Keep learning.
Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone loses sales. Everyone gets knocked down by the express train that is life. How fast are you going to get up and what are you going to learn so that you can perform better next time? Great salespeople keep theirsales techniques and sales strategies sharp by reading sales books, attending sales seminars, learning from others and self-assessment. Do you?
What Would You Achieve If You Knew You Couldn’t Fail?
I was meeting with a good friend of mine, Andy Smith (NLP and EI trainer), the other day and, over a tasty Chinese buffet lunch, we were talking about “things that truly make a difference”. Interestingly, and despite all of the training courses that we had both been on, we were in total agreement that you could track back the things that had truly made a difference for us to a handful of techniques and strategies. Perhaps more interesting still was the fact that, even with our very different backgrounds, it was very similar topics that had made the difference for both of us…
And, most interesting of all, the really powerful techniques that really changed our lives were the simplest ones.
Now, I’ve talked before about how sales people and business owners ask for the “advanced” sales training strategies, rushing headlong into studying “advanced sales skills” when they’re not even covering the sales training basics so I’m not going to say again how important nailing important sales principles and reviewing and practising them regularly is…
I am however going to share with you one of my favourite ever questions…
What would you achieve if you knew you couldn’t fail?
A simple question, and one which is easily overlooked. Don’t make this mistaake. Really thinking about this question and your answers to it could well change your sales results, your career prospects and your life.
I was reminded of the power of this important question this week when one of my readers sent me the following passage…
“Let’s imagine that for one day only, you will be guaranteed success on every single new business call that you make, and you absolutely cannot fail……..
What time would you set your alarm in the morning?
What time would you start prospecting?
What time would you finish prospecting?
How many new business calls would you make?
How long would you take for lunch?
How long would you spend socialising?
How long would you spend in the supermarket?
How long would you spend chatting to colleagues?
How long would you spend on ‘admin’?Now, compare your answers to the questions above to what you actually did do today.”
You’ve probably seen a question like this before. You may have even thought, “Good question”. Perhaps you were even slightly motivated by it. But you probably moved on and read something else without really benefitting from the inherent wisdom behind this question.
If you want a great day, stop now and take a break. Get a coffee and consider…
How would you spend your time today if you knew you couldn’t fail? What would you do? Who would you prospect? What would you ask of them? What would you achieve? What would you ask for that you’re currently not asking for? Who would you ring who you are currently avoiding? What price would you aim for? What targets would you set for yourself? What would you stop doing? How would you deal with distractions? How would you protect your valuable time?
You get my point.
What are you going to achieve today?
Check Out This Loser!
Check out this loser…
- 1831 – Lost his job
- 1832 – Defeated in run for Illinois State Legislature
- 1833 – Failed in business
- 1835 – Sweetheart died
- 1836 – Had nervous breakdown
- 1838 – Defeated in run for Illinois House Speaker
- 1843 – Defeated in run for nomination for U.S. Congress
- 1848 – Lost re-nomination
- 1849 – Rejected for land officer position
- 1854 – Defeated in run for U.S. Senate
- 1856 – Defeated in run for nomination for Vice President
- 1858 – Again defeated in run for U.S. Senate
Sorry! Did I say loser?
Meet Abraham Lincoln, elected President of the United States of America 1860.
Success in sales, in business and in life means playing the long game and that means cultivating two powerful attributes – tenacity and persistence. If you keep going after everyone else gives up and goes home then you are going to be very successful.
To be successful in 2009 you need more than your fair share of tenacity and persistence. In my role as a sales motivational speaker, sales training expert and sales consultant I meet a lot of successful and inspirational people and they all say the same thing…
There are only three ways to outsell the market,
1. Out work it
2. Out live it, or
3. Out smart it.
Why not all three?
The Sales Apprentice 2009: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Week 12, The Final
The final of the Apprentice. Cool, professional Kate versus passionate, entrepreneurial Yasmina. Their brief, design and pitch a new brand of chocolate. Sir Alan said they were his best candidates ever and that it was his hardest decision yet. Either could have won. Yasmina did.
So that done (!), I thought I would sum up some of the core sales training lessons from this year’s Sales Apprentice…
On sales motivation and mindset…
- Top sales performers perform, they don’t talk about performing. Sales is not about what you say you’re going to deliver. Sales is all about what you actually do deliver.
- Sales success is all about action. Success in sales does not come to those who watch the game. Success in sales comes to those who pick up the ball and play their hearts out, right the way to the final whistle.
- Maintain your focus because sales superstars are focused. They know what they want. They work out how to get it. And they take action to achieve it.
- Sales success is about taking responsibility – responsibility for yourself, your sales activities and your sales results.
- Sales success is directly related to effort.
On prospecting…
- Know your client, know your client, k-n-o-w your client.
- Set objectives for all sales activities and prospecting calls.
- Get proactive and get your prospecting done. Procrastination and lethargy are the enemy of successful new business winners.
- Get yourself in the right mental state for cold calling. Attitude is your ability to access your skills.
- Know where to expend your energy. Working smarter is the route to success.
- Know your product. Know your product. Know your product.
On selling…
- Under promise and over deliver. Delivering on your promises is essential in any business.
- Develop trust and credibility if you want top class client relationships.
- Always give 100%. Nothing short of 100% if good enough if you want to be a sales superstar.
- When negotiating, sound like you believe in what you’re saying and plan your negotiation tactics and strategies.
- Sell on value and not price.
- Maximize the impact and effectiveness of your sales activities.
- Understand your clients, their markets and their needs. Your sales presentations need to be matched and tailored to suit their wants and needs and not just your own.
- Ask better questions. Listen harder. Seek to fully understand your clients.
- Know that people buy on emotion and justify with logic.
On presenting…
- To make powerful and persuasive sales presentations you need to know your stuff, you need to know what you’re presenting, you need a solid and proven structure.
- Know your audience. Know your audience. Know your audience.
- Do your preparation and planning.
- Have a call to action. People need an incentive and encouragement to buy now.
- Practise. Practise. Practise.
- Give 100% and be yourself.
On sales leadership…
- Watch out for sales terrorists in your business who focus everyone on the negative and undermine your business. In today’s turbulent economy you cannot afford to have negativity like this in your teams.
- Utilize the skills of your team effectively. Different people have different strengths and different weaknesses and using these to best advantage is key.
- Be approachable and personable so that your team will communicate with you, confide in and support you.
- Encourage involvement and participation and create team spirit.
- Take responsibility and make decisions.
- Judge the reality of a situation not just what you believe it to be.
- Learn to delegate. Being a great leader is not about being able to do everything yourself.
- Get the right salespeople into your business to build high performance sales teams and get great sales results.
So that’s it for another year. What did you learn and what are you going to do differently to get the sales results that you want?
Successful Selling Lying On Your Back
I never cease to be amazed by how little effort many salespeople put into improving their sales skills. Ironically, of course, if you’re reading this I am probably not speaking to you. If you didn’t care about your sales development and your sales results then you probably wouldn’t be reading this at all.
One of the questions that I ask of the audience in my Selling in Tough Markets (or Selling in a Recession) keynote speech is, “Who is currently reading a book on selling?” The answer is usually about 2% of the audience at any one particular sales conference. Even if you widen this to, “Who has read a sales book in the last 6 months?” the percentage of sales professionals answering in the affirmative is still well under 10%… a very low figure by anyone’s reckoning.
Reading a book on sales, business, personal development or even a biography of a successful person can benefit you in many ways. You can benefit by…
- Learning new skills, strategies and techniques. If each book that you read delivered you even just one new strategy, one new skill and one new technique what would that mean for you, your sales results and your business over the next 5-10 years? A heck of a lot – that’s what. Top performing salespeople tell me that they always learn something from every sales seminar they attend or every sales book they read. It’s only less successful salespeople that come up with the line, “I knew it all already”.
- Revising, improving and reenergizing existing skills. As Anthony Robbins is fond of saying, “Repetition is the mother of skill”. If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it. I am constantly amazed by how much I “get” from rereading really quite basic books that I have read before. Sometimes, several times. It’s not that there is something new in there, it’s that you see stuff differently and make critical distinctions that you did not make on the first read.
- Building motivation and self-confidence. People who study have an inner confidence. It comes from knowing that you know your stuff, knowing that you are in the top 5%, knowing that you can do a professional job and knowing that you have put your time in.
- Continuing professional development. All professionals undertake ongoing learning programmes to improve, refresh and update their skills. Why should salespeople be any different?
- Empowering yourself with a sales superstar mindset. In today’s economy, there is far too much negativity and far too many people moaning about how bad things are, how we should be prepared for the worst, how things are all going to go wrong and why there is nothing you can do about it. Spending time focusing on what you can do, what people are doing and sharpening your sales and business skills is the perfect antidote.
Listening to the news and reading many experts at the moment is like being bitten by a deadly snake – the bite won’t kill you but the poison seeping through your veins just might. I have two tips…
- Take lots of pre-emptive antidote &
- Try not to be bitten in the first place
That means, surrounding yourself with motivational books, audios, seminars and people and avoiding negativity as and when you can. Still not convinced? Check out what someone wrote having read Objections! Objections! Objections! recently…
I am a sales professional and have been selling for about 15 years… I have contracts that require a lot of cold calling. I seemed to not be getting anywhere and was feeling pretty de-motivated. I saw your book Objections, Objections, Objections and read it cover to cover. I put the advice into immediate practice, and from getting an appointment rate of 1 per 10 phone calls, I am now getting on average 6 per 10 phone calls – simply by changing my approach.
Now I don’t know about you but that seems like a real sales result to me. Here’s what you need to do…
- Think about the areas of selling and business that you could do with a boost in.
- Research books or other learning products that meet your needs.
- Check out their reviews online.
- Buy them.
- Commit to reading 15 minute per day.
It’s amazing what you can achieve in such a short period of time. Have a great week
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