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″.
Better Business Focus: Weathering The Storm
Better Business Focus magazine’s January issue is entitled Weathering the Storm and in it you can read the following articles…
- Weathering the storm by John Stanley
- Best advice I ever got… maybe
- Ask questions by Paul Sloane
- Bestselling business books
- Customer loyalty: why one number is not enough by David Jackson
- Effective purchasing by Colin Coulson-Thomas
- 10 reasons why small businesses fail
- Connect to your customers through your customers by Ron Kaufman
- 7 tips for selling in an economic downturn by Gavin Ingham
- Why postcard marketing works so well in the internet age by Bob Leduc
- US recessions and expansions from The Great Depression to today
Click here now to read this issue of Better Business Focus from Bizezia.
Why Consistency Is Important For Sales And Business Success
[widget:ad_unit-157502571] So this is short and sweet… At 910pm (1010pm here) I got a phone call from a friend to check that I knew that The Apprentice was on tonight rather than tomorrow night.
I didn’t.
I’m currently in Zurich running a sales training seminar and had planned to watch The Apprentice tomorrow night on the excellent BBC iPlayer and report with my sales training and business development tips as usual. As I was out with a client tonight I have been unable to rescedule and do this tonight. I will now watch it later on in the week and post some brief thoughts and tips.
This means that I have missed my first report on the night of the broadcast in two years! I guess that this was always going to happen at some point with me stuck in an airport or something but it got me thinking…
How many others of you who are not glued to the television have also missed The Apprentice tonight?
Search on The Apprentice moving days on the web and you will already find several enraged online comments about it. I predict there will be many more posted tomorrow morning when people get to work having missed the programme only to be told who got sacked by their colleagues! There will certainly be many people in offices up and down the country yelling, “Don’t tell me” and singing, “La! La! La!” with their fingers stuck in their ears like little children!
Did this change get announced last week? If it did, I missed it. With 7 million weekly viewers the BBC runs a risk of upsetting a lot of people here.
So what sales training and business development tips do we learn from us missing The Apprentice? Perhaps surprisingly, quite a few…
Consistency is critical for sales and business success.
Your clients need to know what to expect from you. People thrive on certainty. If you give your clients a coffee one time, you should give them a coffee every time. The BBC might be thinking that they won’t lose any Apprentice viewers over this but they almost certainly will. It may be a slash of the pen for them but for some of their customers this will be seen as sacrilege.
I have a “friend” who runs a café. She is supposed to open at 9am. I went down there the other day for a business meeting and she was shut. No reason, no apology, no excuse… just shut. I won’t organise another meeting there again… ever. Not a lot of lost business just from me admittedly but I am not her only customer. How many other customers felt the same and will not be going back?
Sales training tip: If you want to be seen as a reliable, professional and trustworthy business partner for your clients you need to set yourself sales and business standards and stick to them.
Once you set yourself business standards they are not “like to haves”, or “maybe we do thems”, they should be absolutes. People should know exactly what they can expect and will get when they do business with you and your company. People will judge you on your worst days so consistency is key for your success.
Get your message across.
The good old Beeb must have known for months that The Apprentice was going to clash with England playing the US in a friendly football match. Maybe they told us last week. Maybe they didn’t.
Hey! Let’s be fair to them, they probably did. But I never got that message and I won’t be the only one.
As in sales, the message received by your customer is the only one that matters. They did not broadcast this message clearly enough. That’s their problem not mine the same as it is your problem when your message does not get across to your clients no matter how well you tried. Until the message gets across it’s your reponsibility to get it across.
How much effort and organisation would it have taken to let everyone know before last week’s programme, after last week’s programme and with a message on the screen at points during the programme?
Not much. Which brings me to my final point…
Care about your clients.
A BBC spokesman apparently told the Guardian, “”It is quite usual for us to move programmes to accommodate big sporting occasions. That is the reason for this schedule change.”
Whoop de doo!
Big companies often make statements like this. I read this and I hear, “Blah! Blah! Blah! Us! Us! Us! We don’t have to explain ourselves to you. What, you expected consistency? We can move stuff without an explanation. We’re the BBC you know! We don’t care what you want or think! And we’re not going to say sorry so tough.”
That might not be what they meant but it’s what I read! Oh, and by the way, last night Sir Alan sacked…
… Only joking!
What Should I Set Goals About? Goal Setting Tips & Strategies
Many people know that they ought to set goals but they don’t for a variety of reasons. One that comes up frequently is that they don’t know what to set goals about. There are three distinct groups of people that this article will be of use to…
The first are people who are new to goals, goal setting and personal development. If this is you and you are thinking, “What goals should I set?” don’t worry! This is a very common question and a good one to ask. This article will help you to answer it and to get started setting some goals that can you more of what you want in your life.
The second group of people approaching goal setting are those who already set goals. You set goals already because you know how effective they are. You set goals already because you understand how much focusing on your own personal development and personal success can improve so many aspects of your life. You know that if you get one new thing or “remind” yourself of one core truth in this article then that could bring massive benefit for you.
The third group are the, “I don’t see the point of setting any goals” group. I hear you. This is a very common stance particularly in today’s society when people see goals as something that’s done to them and not something that they do for themselves. If you are in this group it might make sense to read my article “Why people don’t set goals even though they know that they should” before you continue with this article. On returning to this article you will find it helps you to set goals that you will see the point in setting.
Effective goals setting is all about setting the right goals. Setting goals that mean something to us. Setting goals that are in alignment with our values. Most people set goals that they were told to set or that they feel that they ought to set…
- Salespeople chase targets set by their sales managers and directors.
- Teenagers chase careers that their parents have coerced, convinced, cajoled and indoctrinated them to pursue.
- Dieters set goals based on idealistic visions of beauty from magazines, models and their imagination.
You get the idea!
This kind of goal setting is no fun and is ultimately doomed to failure. Failure when you don’t achieve your goals and failure when you do!
When you set the right goals, goal setting is not like this. The right goals will motivate you. The right goals will empower you. The right goals will get you up early in the morning and keep you up late at night. The right goals will be in total alignment with your values and beliefs and every step you take towards achieving them will be an achievement in of itself.
Effective goal setting is also about setting goals that are all about what you want rather than what you don’t. When you think about these core areas that we are going to discuss make sure that you think about your goals in the positive (“I want to work with children and young people”) and not the negative (“I don’t want to be stuck in a stuffy office with a bunch of suits”). We’ll talk more about this and how to set goals another day but in the meantime, think in the positive…
Effective goal setting is about setting goals for all of your life. Many people only set goals for their career and theirfinances with the occasional weight loss goal at New Year! This is a fundamentally flawed plan as chasing one goal in one area of your life at the expense of all other areas of your life is likely to lead to imbalance and collapse. Even if you do want and do achieve your goal the end result could be catastrophic.
To help you with some ideas for what you should set goals about and to make sure you set goals across all areas of your life we are going to look at the core areas within which you should be setting general and specific goals.
1. Money and finance
Despite my protestations to the contrary earlier on in this article you should set money and finance goals. Many people fail to set any goals around this area and consequently fail to ever achieve anything.
One delegate I worked with had no goals in this area and no guidelines. Every month he spent his salary before the end of the month and every month he went further into debt. In today’s society of buy now pay later many people are on the slippery slope to financial ruin. Their short term goal is to get everything that they want as fast as possible! Their long term goal has not been thought through at all.
When I first started out in my career I wanted to save money but I never seemed to get around to it. I had no goal and no plan and I most definitely had no money. Once I set a goal to save a certain amount of money every month leading to a bigger finiancial goals I had a plan. I needed to deduct money from my salary every month to save towards my goal.
Another goal I set was for my daily charge out rate as a consultant. At the time I set this rate I had no idea whatsoever how or if I would ever hit it. It seemed a pipe dream to many around me. Within 5 years however I had overachieved my goal and had “reset” it twice… but more about how to set your sights on the stars and the importance of thinking big in another article (That said, if you haven’t read The Magic of Thinking Big then you really should).
2. Career and work
In my experience many people are going through the motions in their careers. They go to work at 9am and come home at 5pm day in, day out. It’s just like the Sheena Easton song, “My baby takes the morning train, he works from nine till five and then, he takes another home again”, over and over!
Now there is nothing wrong with this if you are doing what you want to do and you are on path… It’s when you’re not that the problems occur and most people aren’t.
By a certain age many people fail to set goals for their careers and their work believing instead that they have found their place in life. The can dream of other things, they can wish for other things but they cannot have them. That’s the sort of thing that only happens to others.
By setting goals for our career and our work we can start to reclaim our right to build the career and life that we want.
Most people set goals around work like… doing as little as possible, getting home early on Fridays, getting a small bonus at the end of the year. This is fine if this is what you really want but for many it isn’t, they’ve just long forgotten what they really do want.
Spend some time and think about what you want now and set some goals around this are.
3. Loving relationships
How many people do you think have settled for relationships that are less than they want. I have no idea what the answers is but, as a citizen of this world, my firts thought would be… quite a lot.
Many people set a goal of just being in a relationship (“I want a partner”) but none around the actual quality of the relationship itself. This will often see the relationship bounce around on the turbulent waters of life before being smashed apart on the rocks. Ouch!
Think about what you really want out of your relationship and set some goals around this area. Once you have some goals you can start to think about what you need to do to bring them to fruition.
One friend of mine set a goal that he wanted his relationship to always be as fresh and as exciting as it was when he and his partner first met. Colleagues and peers told him that this was impossible and that life just wasn’t like that! My friend, in partnership with his wife, worked out what they would need to do to head towards that goal and he and his wife set out in pursuit of their goal.
They’re 10 years into their marriage now and seem, if it’s possible, even happier than they were when they first met.
4. Family and friends
How many people do you know who would like better relationships with their family and their friends? It shocks me how many people wish they had closer relationships with their mothers, fathers, siblings and extended familes.
It’s not surprising that in the close-knit bosom of many familes, relationships come under strain and resentment and ill-feeling grows. Spending time to set goals around your perfect relationships with your family and your friends will help and guide you in taking the actions that you need to take to bring that to reality.
5. Social activities and hobbies
Want to learn a language? Leran to play the piano? Travel the world? Got to the pub more often? Got to the pub less? Play tennis? Do regular exercise?
Most people would like to spend more time doing something. Many people would like to do things that they have never done at all. In a world of infinite opportunities this is a shame.
Many of these things may not attract you any more but some may. Taking the time to think about what you really want to do in your spare time and setting goals around it will help you to focus your attention onto activities that get you more of that you want in your life.
6. Personal develoment / spirituality
By personal development or spirituality I am talking about bettering yourself. About learning things. About improving. About seeking out to be everything that you can be.
I am not just talking about religion… although, for some, this is exactly what I am talking about.
Failing to include personal development goals is a mistake. Growth is important for humans as a race and people are happier when they feel that they are growing.
Goals in this area could be things around religion, personal development, learning stuff, communicating getter etc.
7. Health and fitness
Far too people set decent health and fitness goals. Many people set dieting goals or weight goals but these are not necessarily the same thing at all.
Health and fitness is something that many people do not take seriously when they have it but is something that everybody should set goals around if we want to keep it.
I used to run competitively and for years afterwards I ran 6 or 7 days a week and visited a gymn at least three times a week. I also ate incredibly healthily. About 5 years ago I realised that it was 15 years since I had run any kind of race or competition and that I had no plans to ever do so again.
I was also very busy with work so removing my old goal was welcome. Unfortunately, I “forgot” to set another goal to replace this one and over the next few years found myself not do anything enough exercise and eating poor food when I was travelling and in transit! 5 years on I am paying the price of my lack of health and fitness goals as I am having to work hard to meet my newly set goals to get me back to where I want to be.
What to do now!
I hope that this article has got you thinking about the infinite number of goals that you can set and the wide variety of areas in which you can set them. Your next step is to start to think about what goals you would like to achieve in each of these areas. Get your personal development logbook or if you haven’t got one your diary or a large piece of paper and head it with one of the areas we have talked about. Underneath scribble down everything you would like to do or ever thought about doing in this area.
At this stage it matters not where you are in relation to that goal or how likely you think it is that you think you can achieve it. The important thing is that you let you mind be more open to possibility and you capture that creativuty and energy. To get your mind in gear think about what you wanted to do when you were a child, a teenager, between 20 and 30, between 30 and 40 and so on…
We’ll be talking more about goals, setting big goals and avoiding roadblocks in the near future. In the meantime, get thinking about what you want to achieve and look through my recommended resources below.
Resources:
The Magic of Thinking Big, Achieve Your Goals, Unlimited Power, The Ultimate Goals Programme.
Have your say:
Why not share some of your ideas, goals and experiences by commenting below.
Gavin Ingham Interviewed By Keybank On Successful Goal Setting
I was interviewed by Keybank on goal setting for students but before you switch off and decide this is not relevant for you, it might well be!
The answers are relevant for everyone no matter where you are in your career!!
Everytime you see the word student or education below you will see that it can either be ignored or switched to make the answers relevant to you!
1) Why is it important to set personal goals in order to succeed educationally?
Setting goals is an essential part of achieving “success” not only educationally but also in your life in general. The skill of goal-setting is something which should be taught to everyone from a young age. Setting goals encourages individuals to look at what they want to achieve, to create route maps to that success and to prioritise correctly.
Effective goal-setting requires the goal-setter to ask themselves “why is this important to me?” This is particularly important in education as many young people assume goals that have been set for them by others rather than chasing their own dreams and aspirations. Assuming other people’s goals is unlikely to be successful and if you do succeed in achieving “your” goals, you may well discover that you don’t like where you have arrived!
2) What are some examples of realistic goals commonly set among college-age students?
When setting goals we need to be wary of the word “realistic”. I could name at least a dozen friends from school age who abandoned their “dreams” because someone told them that they were “unrealistic”. As motivational speaker Les Brown says, “Shoot for the moon and if you miss you will still be among the stars.”
Goals for college-age students could include goals about what qualification they want to achieve, at what level and by when. Or maybe what job they want to secure after they qualify, where and working in what kind of company and with what kinds of people. They can set goals about their finances, their hobbies, the people they want to socialise with, what they want to do for their community.. And they can also set longer term goals about their life, finances, hobbies, social life, friends, families, vocations…
3) Why is it important to set goals in order to succeed in life?
Setting goals is an essential life skill. It is akin to setting your compass before embarking on a cruise. If you didn’t take your compass, how would you know where you would arrive or whether you were on course or not? Metaphorically, many people are travelling through life having never even bought their compasses so they end up bobbing around with little or aim or direction.
In today’s society many people seem to be “anti” goal-setting. Maybe this is due to fear of failure, perhaps it’s because they see goals as “greedy” and maybe it’s because they are sick and tired of striving for goals that other’s told them they should go for, Goal setting does not have to be “greedy”” and indeed it should be about all areas of your life not just money! You should set goals that you care about and you should go for them. Failing to set goals and go for them is just failure.
Going for goals and not achieving them is learning and experience. Often with goals it’s not about whether you achieved them or not, it’s about the journey.
4) Is there a correlation between the behaviors established in college and those used in the career-world?
I have no educational statistics for this question however my suggestion would be a resounding “Yes”. Habits once formed are difficult to break. Someone who sets goals which mean something to them and who lives their life “on purpose” will form the habit of living that way is likely to carry on doing so. The opposite is unfortunately true.
5) What are some examples on how students can be sure to reach the goals they set?
Students should start by visualising themselves achieving their goals. Actually having them, being there and experiencing them. Then they should walk back down the “timeline” of the goal looking at the steps along the way to achieving those goals and making a note of them. From these steps you should create mini-stepping stones along the way to reaching your goal. These are smaller, more achievable, bitesize chunks so that you can see your progress and celebrate along the way.
Reminding yourself of your goal and taking time out to visualise yourself achieving it regularly will also help. An important point so I’ll say it again is that one of the most effective ways to achieve your goals is to ensure that YOU wanted them in the first place.
6) Any organizational tips?
Break your goals down into achievable chunks. Enlist the help of others to support you and get help with resources that you may not have had. When planning look for “blocks” where you may need help and work out where this is coming from. Constant small activity that moves you towards your goal is the key. Try asking yourself, “Is this activity moving me towards my goals?”
7) Ways students can reward themselves for accomplishing goals?
If you really wanted the goal in the first place then achieving it and the journey itself should be reward enough. Sometimes however there are activities which we do not enjoy that we need to undertake in pursuit of a greater goal that we really do want. Small rewards such as a night out, having a relaxing hot bath, going to the cinema or meeting up with friends could be just the ticket!
8) Any examples of things that can get in the way of reaching goals or
Many things can get in the way of goals that are not properly set:-
- Setting the wrong goals
- Allowing yourself to accept other people’s definitions of “realistic”
- Well meaning people saying that you "tried" when what they should be saying is "try harder"!
- Giving up
- Not chunking the goals in manageable pieces
- Getting distracted
- Fear of failure
- Not taking consistent action
- Dreaming not doing!
9) How can college students develop leadership skills?
Read about leadership from text books. Study biographies of people you consider to be great leaders. Visualise what kind of leader you want to be. How will you act? What will you be doing? What value will you add to the world and others? Grab opportunities to lead, to work as part of a team and to serve others.
10) Why do you feel that it is crucial for students to remain goal-oriented throughout their college career?
Setting goals is a fundamental life skill and one which everyone should learn. Taking the time out to plan your goals and then to constantly review them is essential for your success – educationally, personally and in your career.
Any other comments you might have?
Take the time to check out my website at www.gaviningham.com for more tips on goal setting and success. Visit your local library or bookstore and invest in some books on goal setting and personal development in general.
Why not share your tips for goal setting below by joining in and commenting?
How To Destroy Sales Loser Beliefs & Catapult Yourself To Sales Success
In my life I have the joy and pleasure of helping others to achieve their goals and ambitions. I regularly get calls from people who have attended one of my seminars or who have bought one of my products telling me that they have doubled or trebled their sales. Whilst this is personally gratifying I have long wondered what it is that actually changes for these individuals that propels them to get these phenomenal results…
As many of my seminars are purely mindset / motivation based it’s often not the skills (important as they are) , it’s usuall some element of mindset, but what?
What is that empowers some individuals to walk out and double their sales virtually over night?
My opinion is that people who get instantaneous results are the ones who manage to locate and destroy sales loser beliefs that are holding them back from what they want to achieve. This 10-step exercise will help you to find and remove any limiting beliefs that are stopping you from achieving the success that you deserve….
1. Consider different sales situations e.g. cold calling, presenting, negotiation…
Think about your job on a day to day, week to week and month to month basis. Think about different sales situations that you get involved in, particularly ones which you may find difficult or challenging. Examples might include cold calling, making sales presentations, negotiating, closing, prospecting, dealing with awkward customers, managing service level issues, handling complaints, fielding sales objections…
Think of at least three specific situations which your find difficult, challenging or stressful.
2. “What emotions do you experience?”
Get in touch with how you really felt about these situations. If you felt bad it will effect your approach, pace, tone, pitch, words, body language and therefore the results that you get. Our society is focused on repressing emotions and managing behaviours but ultimately your behaviour will stem from your emotion so it’s important that you reclaim this valuable information. Without this information and this personal awareness you will be unable to dramatically improve your result.
3. Does this support or limit me? Help or hinder me? Drive success or failure?
Take a moment and consider whether this emotion was useful in this situation or not? If you’re walking into a major negotiation and you feel scared is that the emotion that you’d like? Or would you prefer to feel confident and empowered? If you need to cold call and you feel nervous or devalued does that help? Not likely. What would it mean to you if you could feel enthusiastic, focused and up for it.
Be as honest as you can be here. Everyone experiences unresourceful emotions from time to time. The questions should not be whether you do or not but whether you do anything about it or not!
4. “What do I believe that causes me to feel this way?”
Our emotions are mostly driven by our beliefs about a situation. Two salespeople in the same situation will often feel entirely differently. This is down to their beliefs about that situation. If sales person 1 thinks that their product is too expensive, when the client says, “It’s very expensive!” they’re likely to think, “Damn it! I knew it!” They’ll probably get depressed and either walk away or "give away" their product or solution.
If salesperson 2 on the other hand thinks their product is absolutely worth the money and the client says, “It’s very expensive!” they’re likely to think, “Yeah! But it’s worth it!” and set about asking questions to start to build up the value again in relation to the client’s business situation.
5. Is this true? Is this absolutely true?
Most of us see our beliefs as reality so once you capture this little bug you need to question it’s reality by asking whether it’s true or not. Often you’ll get the answer that it is true so keep asking yourself over and over and ask like you mean to get an answer. If it’s not absolutely true then chances are it’s a belief.
6. Has there ever been a time when this wasn’t true?
Your objective now is to find just one time that this wasn’t true. If you can, it’s a belief. Let’s say for example that you believe that cold calling is a waste of time. This belief might well cause you to feel unmotivated and down when forced into cold calling. Ask yourself if there has ever been a time when this wasn’t true? Can you find just one time when either you or someone else got something out of cold calling? If there has then it’s a belief and not a reality.
7. Would a sales superstar believe this?
Still struggling to shake the little critter? Try an out of body experience….
Imagine the best salesperson you can envisage standing next to you. Would they believe this to be true? When negotiating some people are consistently more successful than others when defending revenues and profits. Much of the reason for this is down to belief. Try spending some time with the best negotiator you can find and ask them about their beliefs. Next time you enter a situation and you find yourself thinking, “We’re going to have to offer X here to get this?” try asking yourself if your sales superstar would truly believe this? If they wouldn’t, what would they believe?
8. What’s it costing me to believe this?
One powerful way of getting leverage on yourself so that you can change your beliefs is to work out the cost to yourself of holding your belief. I once worked with a chap who believed that selling at a 20% margin was the most that he could ethically commit to. After considering his ethical reasons we studied the performance of the rest of his team who were selling at 25-30% margin. We calculated the personal financial cost to him of this lost commission over 6 months, 12 months and 10 years! When he realised that 10 years of holding this belief would cost him a villa in Spain he was far more willing to let it go!
What is your belief costing you… personally, financially, emotionally, spiritually?
9. What evidence contradicts this?
Search for evidence to contradict your limiting beliefs. Most people spend most of their lives collating evidence to support their beliefs. This is fine if they’re superstar beliefs but totally unproductive when they’re not. Find people who don’t believe the same as you. Study top performers. Listen to clients. Create your own loser belief rebuttal programme. The more evidence that you have to contradict a belief, the easier it is to let it go.
10. How would I benefit by letting this go now?
Consider what you could achieve by letting your belief go now and adopting a sales superstar belief. How will it benefit you financially and personally? How will you benefit in your career? How will others see you? What will it do for your relationships? Your morale? And your long-term health? What about your security and your happiness?
Work Life Balance For Salespeople – Realistic Or A Pile Of Steaming Dung?
Seems to me that there’s been a lot in the press recently work life balance. So many people have thrown their hats into the ring that I’m beginning to think that it’s the precursor to some sort of twilight world of badly dressed, Brut drizzled, 70’s wife swap party.
Even David Cameron has been on record saying that people are more interested in work life balance today than money and possessions.
Really?
See, as a sales training specialist I meet thousands of people every year and I think the politicians are right that there has been a change and they are right that people are TALKING about work life balance but they are WRONG in their intepretation of this information…
Here’s the world according to Gavin…
- People are richer than ever
We are. Just face it. Look at the luxuries people take for granted these days that people would not have dreamt of thirty years ago… holidays abroad, meals out, binge drinking, designer clothes, house styling, coffee shops etc etc. - People have short memories
People say money is important when they don’t have any but once they have it (most) people don’t see it as that important. If you can afford to drink coffee at Starbucks you’re not really worrying about money therefore you start to worry about other stuff, “Ooh, I feel unhappy. It’s all so bad. Things used to be better”. Take the money away and most will quickly tell you that they want the money back and start saying they’re short of cash! - People want possessions – more than ever
Don’t kid yourself otherwise. I see car parks full of BMW’s. I see shelves full of designer clothes. I see young people starting out in life with massive flat screen TVs. People want possessions. - People don’t want work life balance they want less work for the same possessions
That’s the truth. We’ve got it better so we want to work less. But we want the stuff too. People aren’t talking about forsaking stuff for this so called balance – they just want more for less. I believe we’re creating a society that expects something for nothing.
So why these thoughts on a sales training blog? Because it’s fools gold. Don’t buy it. Don’t believe it. Don’t subscribe to it. If you want stuff, if you want possessions, if you want to buy yourself a comfortable living, if you want to retire comfortably at some point in the future you have to do your time. Least in sales you do. Sales is not some reality tv instant gold rush. It requires consistent hard work and consistent effort.
Sales hurts and this is where you start to pay…
Get Up, Get On, Get Over It Already!
Sales is a funny vocation, one minute you´re on top of the world, the next it´s crashing around your ears! Every year I meet thousands of sales professionals in my sales training seminars so I really do see the good, the bad and the downright lazy! As my mum likes to say, "It takes alsorts!" It´s not my job to judge salespeople nor is it my job to chastise them! My job is to motivate them, inspire them and educate them. With some this means teaching them everything from the basics up, with others it´s more a case of fine tuning, you know, a bit like your tv going on the blink!
I was thinking about this the other day and about a good friend of mine. My friend had been an incredibly successful salesperson. He set up a business with another friend of mine and together they really made some waves. They had a passion for their business and a passion for selling. Just being with them was a delight. They had swanky offices, prestigious cars and money to spend. They were in their late 20’s. Things could not be brighter.
And you know, isn´t that just when life comes and jumps on you.
First off the two of them started to work on different projects and gradually moved apart. Eventually they both went different ways. Our hero stayed with the business and ran it by himself but, as a complementary team, there were areas of the business that he had never really been involved with.
He lost it.
The business went. The cars went. The cash went. The self esteem went. To try and bail himself out he got a job working for another sales organization and tried to sell but even his sales skills seemed to have abondoned him! He had, it seemed, blown it.
But this is the beatiful thing about sales and selling, every dawn brings with it a brand new day. My friend picked himself up from his worst year since he started working, he reassessed his skills and his strengths and he got himself a job where he had the products, the back up and the support on which he could capitalise. The very next year he sold fractionally short of 1 million pounds worth of services and put himself back into the elite of his chosen field.
Hero to Zero and back to Hero on the turn of a button!
Sales training moral of the day… No matter what happens to you, remember that you´re always one step closer to your next sale! Luck never spreads itself evenly but if you´re in the middle of a dry patch and you´re still doing all the right stuff, a nub of butter and jam is just around the corner!
If things aren’t going quite how you would like, if your morale has taken a hit, if it seems that you just can´t close a wide open barn door… remember…
Review your mindset and your skills, get back to basics and focus on activity. Make sure that you are still playing the sales game full on. As some wise person once said, you have to be in it to win it!
Sales Prospecting Persistence On The Costa Blanca
Happy Easter to you all. I hope that you´re having a great one. I´m here in Spain and the weather is miserable! 330+ days of sunshine per year and I´m here when it´s raining! I suppose that´ll teach me to burn the environment up on short haul flights! At 55p per minute my sister took great joy in telling me that it´s glorious at home. I hope you´re all having fun!!
They are the most persistent salespeople you will ever meet…
I´ve just enjoyed a tapas Easter Sunday lunch on the front at Guardamar in the wind and rain. Just like a good old Yorkshire summer! Whilst we were eating we must have been approached 5 or more times by people selling sunglasses. It´s really quite annoying! That said, I have a lot of respect for these people… they are some of the most persistent salespeople that you will ever meet.
This time of the year is not exactly peak sunglass sales weather…
And they do not have it easy. Firstly, they all sell the same sunglasses. Exactly the same. Secondly, they are in a very competitive environment – there are loads of these guys and they are not all working together. Thirdly, this time of year is not a good time for sales as there really aren´t that many customers around and those that are aren´t exactly blinking in the radiant sunlight!
There’s a sales training lesson here!
But they persist anyway. They don´t sit down and moan that the market is saturated. They are not on the phone to their managers telling them that they cannot differentiate their products. And when the customer keeps his head down and refuses to look up they employ every rapport building trick that they can think of to get and hold your attention.
People are rude to them. People dismiss them. The vast majority of people say "No" to them but they know that if they persist they will sell sunglasses – by the fake Armani, bucket-load.
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