Selling is a critical, make-or-break skill for every entrepreneur

If you’re serious about growing your business, hopefully you’ve already got some sales stars helping you achieve the dream.

As a leader, your top objective is to keep those sales people (or yourself) operating at the peak of performance (and profit) with one simple caveat: Never let them burn out.

Many business owners make the mistake of assuming sales management is easy, but without the right skill toolbox, it will always be an uphill struggle.

This article (1st of a series) breaks down a simple psychological formula which you can use to inspire top performance from your sales people and yourself.

In my recent “Leadership Cheat Sheet” post, I revealed the precise (psychological) formula that top leaders use to inspire their teams to the lofty heights of mega-performance.

This article fills in the blanks by breaking down the specifics of that formula when applied to sales.

We’re going to start off with Step 1 of the formula and go through the other steps in the four subsequent posts in this series.

The formula is going to be especially useful for super small businesses – simply because those entrepreneurs have to become their own sales managers. It’s a whole lot more difficult to manage yourself (and kick your own ass from time to time).

For simplicity’s sake, I’ve written this article referring mainly to “the sales rep”… so I may be talking about YOU, or your team, depending on your situation.

Whether you’re a leader of others or still just planning to be one someday, this formula is one you can use right away for an immediate sales boost.

The pre-plan (what we’re after)

We first have to define our reason for using this formula. The goal, in other words.

In this case, we’re really shooting for the basics: High performance and consistency.

The later is the most important. We’ll flesh this out more in part three.

Great beliefs (that are required for effective sales)

There are five basic beliefs that are superbly useful for sales reps to possess, ticking away at the back of the unconscious mind, paving the way for the enormous action and energy that puts dollars in the bank.

It’s worth mentioning that I’m not too concerned with the inherent “truth” of these beliefs… rather, I only care what kind of results we get if we presuppose certain beliefs to be true. (Sort of deep and philosophical for those who care to ponder what this means)

The five beliefs:

The Industry

The sales rep must believe in the industry, what it’s all about and why. Ethical considerations (if any) must be cleared up.

Example:

Most sales reps in Life Insurance struggle with “believing in the industry” – except the ones with a historic family tragedy where cover was much needed, but missing. These folks tend to be big believers and top performers. It’s no coincidence.

 

The Company

It follows naturally that a strong belief in the company is required. The “what it’s all about and why” factor is important. This question is what most lame “corporate values” statements are trying to answer.

Answering the question right simply means having a worthwhile reason and purpose for being in business. Being cheaper isn’t one. Being better is.

Additionally, your sales rep must have a strong belief in your company’s ability to deliver on promises. The bad news (for some) is that this means having an established track record of delivering quality work or product, on time.

The Product

The third belief has to be a faith in the product itself. Many executives tend to (falsely) assume that belief in the company means belief in the product.

Many businesses start out with a product worth believing in.

However, as companies grow and products are revised, phenomena like Feature Creep and changes in competitors products can compromise the integrity of your product.

Many organisations (examples include the big photocopy firms) make another mistake: Using a super-duper, ultimate up-sell.

This is when the sales guys are encouraged to up-sell as many half-useless, secondary products/services as possible.

Typically, sales metrics will reveal very few of these deals get closed (the client picks the cheaper, just-what-is-necessary option) mainly because the reps are never really pushing them very hard.

The sales rep knows the deal is a con and deep down, no sales rep worth her salt wants to turn valued customers (who trust her) into suckers.

The Market

The number one reason (or excuse) for poor performance, which every sales manager hears, is all about the market “being down” or not cooperating in some way.

For a sales rep to really get out there and kick arse, they’ve got to trust (again, at the back of the brain) that the market will afford them the opportunity to hit target and win the vacation.

Good sales people believe “the market” should be ignored (when it’s bad) and that positive thinking and action will win the race.

They’re right, and the best way to convince not-so-good (or inexperienced) sales reps is to put them in the same office as the successful old hands. Incentivising the mentor relationship often helps.

The smartest organisations ensure that there is always someone to go first.

The Self

Finally, predictably, but most importantly: A sales person must believe in themselves and their own abilities.

We all know this.

However, there are a couple of psychological principals here that make all the difference:

Never tear a sales rep’s strategy down to the ground

Even though it’s tempting to “start from scratch” with a new guy, always give them a chance to be themselves and use skills from their previous job.

If the results are less than satisfactory, make sure that you develop a positive coaching relationship from the moment they come to you with questions.

Short term, tangible targets build self belief

Confidence comes from nailing short term milestones and enjoying the success. Twelve month targets are intimidating.

Offer a bonus for a 1 month KPI. Even better, work out a weekly target. Occasionally throw down a crazy challenge to focus on one major sales strategy (“Telesales week” etc). Offer prizes.

I recently offered a sales rep a weekend with a Porsche Boxster – if they successfully booked twenty appointments for the following month. Not only did this tangible, exciting goal tickle their fancy… it also ironed out an annoying too-busy then not-busy-enough cycle from their calendar.

Pay attention to feedback preferences

Humans are conditioned to accept and utilise some feedback formats better than others. It’s strange, but true and everyone is different.

As an effective leader and manager, it’s up to you to spot the preference and utilise it to keep individuals happy, driven and aware of areas for improvement.

These are the two polar opposites to watch out for, but most people sit somewhere in between:

Criticism lover

This guy needs you to tell the bad stuff like it is, but will never need reassurance that they’re doing it right (they’ll figure this out on their own, internally). Will seldom get offended by even the most upfront approach.

Validation seeker

This is someone who needs constant positive recognition of all their wins (even the little ones). They won’t believe they’re doing “good enough” until they get it. If you need them to step up the game, say nothing and watch the flurry of activity unfold.

Mastering the giving of feedback will make your life as a manager enormously easier.

Flexibility is required because even a small team will include folks from both ends of the scale.

Quick conclusion: Integrity and confidence

The two words above are the required abstract ingredients behind any consistently successful sales rep, team or entrepreneur.

The first step is to cultivate these two ideas into your business (if you haven’t already). Then put this formula into action with your sales people.

The following articles in this series will show you how. They’ll be published over the holiday period.

There is a reason for the timing: Sales leaders who want the tools to fast-track their success can digest these lessons over their vacation.

I’ll be wrapping up the series with a quick, step-by-step (free) guide to launching a sales “kick start” workshop for January. You’ll get everything you need to start the new year with some fantastic tools and psycho-savvy tricks… ensuring a record sales year from the get-go.

I’ll also be conducting the workshop in the real world (and commenting on it here) – in a closed door session with two sets of my clients’ staff.

If you’re interested, the best thing to do is to subscribe to my email list by clicking here.

That way, you’ll receive all the rest of the series straight to your inbox – allowing you to happily procrastinate reading them ‘til you’re ready.

Plus, there will be a (yet to be revealed) subscriber-only bonus. Totally free and guaranteed awesomely useful.

It’s super easy to subscribe (and unsubscribe if you want to later on). Just click here. I hate spam and will never sell, rent or share your details.

If you’ve got a question about the series or this article, drop me an email or leave a comment below.

(Click here to read Part 2 of this series)

Ever get frustrated with where you’re at in life or business?

I’m talking about those moments where we turn around, look at our selves with unusual honesty and realise that we’re not living up to our full potential.

Ever feel like you could have done better, tried a little harder or made more of a commitment?

I get these moments all the time – especially on those days where I don’t have meetings or client consultations… Those days, in other words, where I have total freedom over how I spend (or waste) my time.

No one ever plays the game of life at 100% and this article reveals the psychological reasons why.

Additionally, you’ll learn a proven and simple technique that consistently increases your performance – the easy way… even if you’ve never genuinely given anything “your all” before.

The Background…

For the last few years, I’ve run a (offline) coaching programme called “Peak Potential Plus”. It’s a solution for busy entrepreneurs who need a regular (monthly) sounding board and Jedi mind tricks expert to keep ‘em at peak performance.

Fortunately, being “that guy” put me in a position where I could learn from some super successful entrepreneurs – in exchange for tweaking their thinking for maximum effectiveness.

One of the most useful discoveries from this collaboration was a breakthrough in the psychology of “potential”.

“You should stay away from your potential, you know. It’s a lot like your bank balance – you always have a lot less than you think.”

- Irish Comedian Dylan Moran

Working with my entrepreneur clients and pals meant being a sideline spectator to many exciting business ventures.

I provided pearls of psychological wisdom while my clients did things like:

• Launch a new national television service
• Dealing with a 120 million dollar corporate takeover
• Starting a micro niche therapy practice
• Sharing the secrets of ancient Indian medical wisdom online
• Open a new flagship retail store

Massive diversity between clients, in other words, but also identical in one critical area:

Effort

Each person heading these revolutionary projects was forced to harness every scrap of their potential. They had to attempt to play a 110% game – all the time.

And guess what…

They failed.

Not a single one of these folks (including serial entrepreneurs with a track record of massive success) was able to consistently kick ass, day in, day out.

Any attempt resulted in the following:

An initial 12 – 48(max) hours of total, extreme performance

Followed by :

3 – 5 days of half-baked effort

OR

On going, overwhelming action but zero productivity

OR

Total “emergency vacation” burnout

It seemed that playing a “110% game” was not a long term option. The most common result was the 2nd one – loads of work hours (16+ per day) but very little useful action or productivity.

Why do we do this to ourselves

When we get fed up with our current performance or we decide we really want something, many people make a decision to go nuts… they invest enormous action and energy in a very short space of time.

They believe this will turn their life (or business) around.

They keep it up for a day or two, before going back to their old habits of procrastination… or worse, they burn themselves out and have to take a complete break.

The solution

The folks I was working with figured out that their new projects were doomed to failure if they kept up their old patterns of thinking and behaviour.

So we set out to create a smarter, sustainable approach to “getting stuff done” and “changing your life” that my clients field tested each day for six months.

The “Daily 1%” principal

Instead of “maximum performance” we committed to minimum performance!

Each day for the six month period, each client (and me too) would identify one area of our lives where we could take a tiny action to improve things.

The rules were simple: The proposed action must be SO tiny that it was effortlessly easy to accomplish – almost without noticing.

The only catch was this: Once we made the tiny change, we had to keep it…. Each and every day, forever.

This made everyone be very, very careful about each day’s new commitment.

“You don’t want to find out that the most you could possibly achieve, if you gave it your all, if you harvested every screed of energy within you, and devoted yourself to improving yourself, that all you would get to, would be maybe eating less cheesy snacks.”

- Dylan Moran

The trick to it was exactly that – committing to eating less cheesy snacks. We can all make a tiny change and keep it for ever.

In fact, we can all make a tiny, tiny change… every single day (and keep them for ever).

In the real world, this resulted in:

The TV entrepreneur broke his to-do list into teeny, tiny micro steps and started off only achieving one (a single email written) the first day. On the second day, he did two tasks and three on the third. Rinse and repeat.

The therapist committing to jogging either 1 minute longer (or 100 metres more, but in the same time) than the previous day. Every, single day.

The Indian life-science internet entrepreneur committed to things like posting a comment each day (for SEO value).

One client made one cold call on day 1… then two the next day, three calls on the 3rd day and so on. By the time he got to 100 days, he had enough cash flow in his business to hire a full time telemarketer!

Slow and steady incremental success

The real value of the Daily 1% strategy is the mathematics of “exponential” performance.

Instead of jumping to the top of the 110% game and burning out, we can slowly, incrementally work our way up to serious levels of performance… proving ourselves and practicing consistency along each step of the way.

The possibilities are endless here. Imagine working your way up (over 75 days) to 75% performance in some area… like your fitness, or cold calling for your business.

Imagine how easy it would then be to go to 76% (make just one more call…. run just one more minute).

Suddenly 80% isn’t so far away.

The real magic

The big point here is that the Daily 1% continues every day of your life – or at a minimum, 5 days per week.

The value of consistency (in cold calling, exercise or simply checking off the “to-do” list) is absolutely enormous.

Business empires are not built on 355 days of half-baked effort interspersed with 10 days of random, manic enthusiasm.

My clients and I personally discovered that true value of consistency.

The Daily 1% principal forces you to systematically increase your true potential.This opens up a whole new capacity for extraordinarily powerful stamina.

By committing to Daily 1%, you’ll be able to comfortably play a bigger and better game.

Imagine what that will feel like – when you look back 6 months, to the day when you committed to just trying a tiny bit harder and doing 1% more.

What are the areas in your life where you’re frustrated with your efforts?

For me (at time of writing), it has to be exercise and promoting my online business (I need to think less and do more).

What Daily 1% could you commit to, to improve things?

Let me know by leaving a comment below.

Cold calling tips and sales techniques leave most sales-people in the cold.

Most companies and biz owners would rather pretend cold calling doesn’t work than spend time calling freezing cold prospects.

Don’t let yourself (or your business) ignore these cold calling tips while your competitors are (secretly) using it as a bottomless goldmine…

BEST PART: The tips below literally make cold calling so comfortable, your grand mother could do it (and make loads of sales).

Cold Calling Tip #1 – Set Realistic Goals

I’m going to go ahead, be honest and level with you: The “real deal” freezing cold calling will not sell anything directly.

So many entrepreneurs (and wannabe sales-folk) set unrealistic cold calling goals – only to quit (prematurely) when they don’t work out.

Phoning total strangers and asking for credit card numbers is going to win you no friends (and the consolation prize is verbal abuse).

The cold calling “phone and ask for a sale” approach works in very few industries (I’d struggle to name three).

The realistic alternative is to incorporate cold calling as the first point of contact which feeds new prospects into your sales funnel.

When you set a realistic goal for your calling, then it’s easy to be successful. The feeling of achievement itself, for you and your sales reps, is gonna breed more success.

Here’s a couple of realistic, achievable and profitable cold calling goals:

100 “Permissions” to send info (via post or email) and follow up by phone call

If your product is top notch, you can hit this milestone in less than a week of part-time 8am-12pm calling. Try mailing out something remarkable (like a brochure in the shape of a giant tree – whatever) to ensure it gets opened. The recipient needs to notice it.

10 Sales appointments with qualified prospects

This works well in the B2B market and in industries like Insurance and Finance where cold calling for home appointments is appropriate. A masterful cold caller can convert around ten percent. Beginners can expect around five.

Just a single day of full time calling will net this result. I know Insurance guys who do it all on Sunday evening.

Cold Calling is for selling “the opportunity” to sell another day

These examples show that, when cold calling works really well, it is because it bags an opportunity to contact the prospect and sell to them.

There is a psychological reason this works so well…

People are conditioned to be immediately distrustful of anyone trying to pitch them. Any attempt to accelerate the sales process beyond the comfort zone of the prospect will be met with increased resistance and resentment. Don’t do it.

A couple of points of contact will give your prospects time to warm to you, your company and your pitch. Many effective cold-callers keep a database of numbers from 6 months (or a year ago) to continue “calling back”. Do this.

Cold Calling Tip #2 – You’ve got 3 seconds. No pressure

The crucial element of cold calling (where 95% of the wannabes get it wrong) is the first three seconds after saying hello.

Three seconds is the size of the “window-of-opportunity” you have to get your prospect interested. If they’re not curious after three seconds, it means they’ll dismiss you and your offer. Instead of listening, they’ll start thinking up objections and excuses to hang up the call.

How do you create Cold Call curiosity in under three seconds?

Have a legitimately exceptional product/service: Easier said than done, it really helps if your business is doing something so extraordinarily awesome that people can’t wait to hear more. This is a long term goal for some.

Offer a quick, easy and commitment-free next step: This could be asking for permission to keep talking, or even better, asking for permission to send a free sample.

Make the prospect feel special: If they feel like the 200th prospect you’ve spoken to that day, they’re not going to enjoy the call. In B2B cold-calling you can get immediate interest by mentioning vertical market competitors who you’ve “spoken to”… and explaining why you thought your prospect would be interested.

Have an eloquent, concise scripted three second intro: You’d think this would be obvious, but so many businesses and sales reps fail to recognise the importance of a fluid introduction. DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP

A good three second intro that adheres to these principals would look like this:

“Hi <Prospect>! I’m calling for ACME gardening co. We’re doing a crazy promotion in your street by expertly mowing people’s lawns for free. If you’re interested, I just need to get a preferred date and time for your free mow.”

Regardless of how realistic it would be to mow lawns for free, do you see the cold calling principals in action here?

P.S. Secret cold calling tricks

I won’t lie – I added a few extra secret strategies into the example above. Let me know if you spotted them by leaving a comment below…