Search Results for: mindset

Mindset of a Winner

How you feel will determine how you act and most importantly what you say and how you say it. You need to adopt this mindset and be totally present with the prospect at the sales call. If you watch this video you will discover what your mindset has to be. The real trick is to maintain this mindset no matter what else I going on in your life outside of the sales call. If you can’t pay the electric bill, put it out of your mind, if your kid is sick, forget about it for an hour or so. If your company is in turmoil don’t think about it. If you are not confident in any way, imagine what it would feel like if you were confident. If you adopt the proper mindset, you will usually do and say the best that you are capable of and you will win more often than not. In the ART OF WAR the author states “The battle is won before the fighting has ever begun”. This is what he was talking about many centuries ago. It still applies today in your sales career.

IT’S YOUR MINDSET THAT MATTERS IN SALES

mindsetMost salespeople are oblivious to their own belief systems and other hidden weaknesses. Yet that is what determines your mindset on a sales call and ultimately how successful you will be in sales. When you feel reluctance to asking a particular question that is your mindset getting in the way. When you shy away from using a sales technique that others use successfully, that is your mindset limiting your income. So what is your mindset and how can you determine what it is? You may ask. It’s simple to talk about but not so simple to actually do. As I mentioned in this one minute video sales tip you have to pay attention to what you do or say or more importantly, what you avoid doing or saying. The sad truth for salespeople is that their belief systems and hidden weakness such as call reluctance or need for approval, or discomfort discussing money WILL have a dramatic negative effect on how much you earn. This is not true of other professions. Heart surgeons can have all of those mindset issues and it will not inhibit them from doing their job at the highest level of effectiveness. The same is true for brick layers, engineers, scientists and most others. Another tactic to help uncover your hidden weaknesses and increase your sales is to debrief yourself after every call as I describe in this one minute video sales tip. The great news is that if you overcome your mindset issues, the sky is the only limit on your earnings and the even better news is, unlike most of the other professions, you can achieve great leverage and earn far more than them in dollars per hour of work. If you really want to see how these hidden weaknesses affect your income watch this video which goes into great detail.

Prepare Your Mindset Before The Sales Call

Beliefs are more important to sales success than sales techniques or sales processes. Everyone knows that if you don’t believe in your product you will not be very effective at selling it. Not everyone knows why that is true. Part of it has to do with the fact that you will not be willing to stretch the truth by saying something is good if you don’t think that it is. But it is more important to understand how beliefs affect everything you say and how believable or effective your words are. It well established that we communicate more by our tonality and body language than we do by the actual words we say. One study showed that as much as 93 percent of communication is non-verbal. If you think about it we all learned to communicate non-verbally first because we did not know any words until we were about 18 months old.

What we believe will be communicated non-verbally whether we want to communicate it or not. For example, many salespeople believe that a client will not be willing to give them a referral. Suppose we train that salesperson to ask for referrals by teaching them what to say and how to say it. But, we do not address the belief that he has. When he goes to a meeting with a client and asks for a referral in exactly the way he was taught, the chances are that the salesperson will return home empty handed. The reason is that when he asked for the referral 7% of what he communicated was “please give me a referral” (more or less). However 93% was screaming out at the prospect (through his tonality and body language) “there is no way you are going to give me a referral”. His belief was not congruent with his words.

Before you go on a call you must get your mindset straight. If you are going to ask tough questions make sure you believe you have the right to know the answers or else the prospect will either refuse to answer or dodge you by dancing around the subject. If you are not sure your product is the right fit or is worth the money, then work on selling yourself first so that your beliefs can match your words. If you don’t, your tonality will try to “un-convince the prospect” in very subtle almost undetectable ways. If you have ever had someone from your company come in behind you and close a deal you failed to close and said to yourself “but how come he didn’t buy when I said that?”, now you know the reason. Before you go on a call make sure your mindset is congruent with what you are planning to do on the call. Click this link to watch a short video for more explanation.

Role Play With Your Salespeople

Follow the link to schedule a call: https://www.advisorycloud.com/profile/Daniel-Caramanico

Role playing is one of the best ways to train your salespeople. When you role play with your salespeople, you should play the part of the salesperson and let the salesperson play the part of the prospect. There are 3 reasons for this. The first is that the salesperson will expose for you his or her self-limiting beliefs in the role play. They will also show you what obstacles they anticipate happening on the sales call. When you know what obstacles they are anticipating, you can demonstrate the proper way to handle the objection or the obstacle. You can also condition their mindset (i.e. give them an empowering mindset which is the opposite of the self-limiting belief). That is the second and probably the most important reason for role-playing. Salespeople will role-play the worst prospect you are ever likely to see so that gives us the third reason for role-playing. It will sharpen your own sales skills. You will get to practice against the worst objections you will ever hear.

Follow this link to see how you can test your people for free https://info.objectivemanagement.com/ExpressScreenTrial.aspx?DistNum=100&L=1

Updates are not coaching

Follow the link to schedule a call: https://www.advisorycloud.com/profile/Daniel-Caramanico

One of the primary functions of the sales manager is to coach the salespeople. However, most sales managers are severely lacking in coaching skills. One of the biggest mistakes is substituting status updates for coaching. The coaching session degenerates into a pipeline review with little to no coaching involved. Status reviews give answers to questions like: “what is the next step”, “when will it close”, “what changed since the last ‘coaching’ session”, etc. This is all valuable information for the sales manager to know, but it is not coaching. The Sales manager should be able to get all that information from the CRM if the salesperson is keeping it up to date. Coaching, on the other hand, involves debriefing what happened on the last call and providing input on what could have been done better or reinforcement of what was done right. It involves understanding the salesperson’s mindset for the call and correcting it if it was not supporting the desired outcome. The sales manager should provide guidance for upcoming calls and advice on what the salesperson could be doing better. This venue does not allow for a complete description of what to coach on and how to provide the coaching. But stop turning your coaching time into status updates and pipeline reviews. Pipeline review and coaching are two separate things.

Follow this link to see how you can test your people for free https://info.objectivemanagement.com/ExpressScreenTrial.aspx?DistNum=100&L=1

Holidays are a great time to sell

“You can’t sell over the holidays.” “Nothing happens this time of year.” Etc. Etc., I hear this every year. It’s an excuse and a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you believe that this is true, you don’t work as hard and low and behold, nothing gets sold between Thanksgiving and Christmas. But I believe the opposite. People are nicer this time of year. Business people try to avoid travelling so they are at home for family events. There are many parties which are great networking events. But most of all it is your mindset that matters. So reset your beliefs and get out there and do the sales activity and follow your sales process and see what happens. At the worst you will set things up to get next year off to a great start.

If you have a sales question you would like to discuss follow the link to schedule a call:
https://calendly.com/dancaramanico/callwithdan

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Change a Belief

Changing a belief is a hard thing to do. After all you didn’t decide to have the belief you have, you came to it gradually through training, education, parental programming, societal norms, etc. I have written many times about the dramatic effects that changing a self-limiting belief can have on your sales career. Here is some practical advice on how to actually go about changing a belief that is getting in your way. All you have to do is pretend you have the empowering belief instead of the self-limiting one. For example, if you believe that you can’t get to the CEO on a sales call and you have to go through purchasing to get an order, then all you have to do to begin the process of changing that belief is to pretend to have the opposite belief. That belief might be that “my product solves a problem only the president can appreciate”. Or maybe the empowering belief is “people like me should be talking to the president”. Once you adopt the mindset (even if only temporarily) that you should be talking to the president, then say to yourself “if I had this belief what would I do” or “what would I say” or, “How would I act”. Then go and do that while trying to maintain the proper belief or mindset. I Grant that you will be outside your comfort zone, but doing the same things over and over will not get you a different result. And if you do bypass purchasing and get in front of the president, you will have a new experience, you will learn something new (probably that it wasn’t as scary as you thought), and you will have something to build on. At first you will most likely fail. But didn’t you fail the first time you made a sales call? Didn’t it get better as time went on and you got more experience? Didn’t the same thing happen when you were learning to walk? You probably fell at least 100 times before you could successfully walk across the room without help. That didn’t stop you from learning to walk. So why are you afraid to fail now? Pretend to have the empowering belief, then ask yourself “what would I do if I had that belief”, then go do that.

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What got you here won’t get you there

You work hard. You don’t waste time. You have good sales skills you hit your number this year after 3 years of falling short. But, you need to get to the next level to hit your financial goals. So what can you do? Your sales need to increase by 40%. Can you find another 20 hours in the work week? The answer is probably not! Can you increase your closing percentage by 40 percent? Again the answer is probably not. So it is obvious that what got you here may not get you where you want to go. So what can you do?

The answer is that you need to do something different. Call on bigger accounts. Spend more time working on getting introductions to senior executives. Change your belief in what you can accomplish? In short, you must make some major change because just doing more of the same is not an option. The very first step is to raise your expectation and belief about what is possible. As Napoleon Hill said a generation or 2 ago “whatever the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve”. As you prepare to do business in the time after the pandemic this sales tip is even more applicable. You may have to change your mindset to be successful.

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Online Sales Training

ONLINE SALES TRAINING

The Essentials

This section covers the fundamental parts of the program and forms a basis for the remainder of the program. This module consists of 3 parts:
The Process For Growth (2 lessons):
The Attributes of the Optimal Salesperson – If you ever wondered what it takes to be a top producer, this module will answer that question.
The Process for Growth – This lesson describes the process you must go through to have true and lasting growth to the next level.
Sales Process Essentials (3 lessons):
ME-Centered vs. Prospect-Centered selling – This module explains the importance of focusing on your prospect rather than on yourself and your product or service.
Baseline Selling Model – This module explains the process of moving the prospect from being introduced to closing.
Getting A Commitment – This module gives the basic process that we will use to get commitments throughout the program.
Essential Sales Techniques – These are the 2 most important sales techniques:
The Push Away – This is the most powerful and effective sales technique in the program.
The Struggle – This is another powerful and counter-intuitive technique.

Prospecting

Prospecting is the life blood of the Optimal Salesperson. This part of the program is crucial if you are to meet your financial goals. This module consists of 4 lessons:
The Life Cycle of a Project – This explains the importance of getting in early to eliminate the competition.
Creating Pain Hooks – This is essential to making effective prospecting calls and planning your sales conversations.
Getting to 1st Base by Cold Call – Nobody likes cold calling but at least this approach will make you much more effective.
Getting to 1st Base by Introductions – This is a process I call Prospecting Magic. Master this, and prospecting is easy.

Qualifying

The process of qualifying a prospect is the most misunderstood part of selling. The purpose of qualifying is to make sure that the prospect is worth spending your personal time and the company’s resources on chasing it. This module consists of 4 parts:
A Compelling Reason to Buy (2 lessons): If there is no compelling reason to buy, then there will be no sale.
The 3 Essential Elements of the Compelling Reason to Buy – This lesson discusses the building blocks of the compelling reason so that you have a standard to compare your selling situation to.
The Process of Finding Pain – This lesson gives you a process for finding whether the prospect has enough pain to move forward.
The 17 Questions That Only Top Sales People Have The Guts to Ask – Watch live role plays of how to ask them.
Discussing Money (2 lessons): Discussing money is one of the more common problems faced by salespeople.
Hidden Obstacles to Discussing Money – Learn what makes discussing money so difficult for the majority of salespeople
Uncovering the Price Point – If you learn how to do this you will never create sticker shock in your prospect

Focus on Us (1 lesson):
Commanding the Prospect’s Attention – This counterintuitive process will take the focus off of your competition and keep the prospect thinking about you.
The Decision Process (4 lessons):
Determining the Decision Process – This will describe how you can always know where you are in the buyer’s process.
The Journey From Qualified To Closable – This lesson explains how to take a qualified prospect to the point where you can close.
Selling To Multiple Decision Makers – Learn how to handle long cycle complex sales without getting frustrated.
General Guidelines for Writing Proposals –This lesson will explain when and how you should write them and some general guidelines as to how to write them.

Closing With Confidence
Closing is where the salesperson gets paid. This lesson describes four essential elements to closing the deal.

Interpersonal Skills

Interpersonal skills are like tools to help you move the prospect through the sales process. The more tools you have, the more effective you can be. This module consists of 7 lessons:
Fast Forward – This saves you time and effort, uncovers the future, and helps you establish commitments.
Connecting to the Prospect – This lesson describes the process you go through as you develop a relationship with a prospect.
Developing Bonding and Rapport – Bonding with the prospect is an integral part of finding pain in the prospect. This module explains how the process works.
Conversation Extenders – This module gives you some verbal devices to keep the prospect talking.
Tonality and Body Language –This module explains how we communicate and how to make sure the prospect is “hearing” what we mean to say.
Building Credibility – This module explains the basic building blocks of credibility and how to develop and maintain credibility throughout the sales process.
Dealing with Voice Mail – This module explains when and how to leave a message and when not to.

Hidden Weaknesses

Success in sales has more to do with your beliefs and other hidden weaknesses than it does with anything else. The weaknesses won’t go away overnight but when it happens, you will see immediate results. This module consists of 9 lessons:
Goal Setting – This module reminds you of why it is important, and the role they play in your success.
Desire – Desire is the most crucial attribute of the optimal salesperson. Without it, there will be no growth.
Commitment – Learn the difference between conditional and unconditional commitment.
Responsibility – This module discusses excuse making, how debilitating it is, how to avoid seeing yourself as the victim of what goes on in the world.
General Process for Overcoming Self-limiting Beliefs and Hidden Weaknesses – This module gives a step-by-step method to identify and overcome self-limiting beliefs and hidden weaknesses.
Overcoming Need for Approval – This module explains the step-by-step process for achieving a state of not caring what people think of you.
Overcoming Money Weakness – This module will explain the proper mindset about money and the step-by-step method to eliminate it.
Overcoming a Non-Supportive Buy Cycle – This module takes you through the step-by-step process to eliminate a weak buy cycle.
Staying In The Moment – This module takes you through the step by step method to control your emotions during sales call.

Sales Tips 21-30

Avoid Sticker Shock
When the prospect gets Sticker shock, the sales process stops dead in its tracks and the prospect usually heads off in another direction. They want to check to see if it’s a good price, or see what other vendors have. The best outcome when sticker shock occurs is that it just delays the sale. The worst case is that you lose the sale (and possibly a client) to a competitor and your credibility takes a hit. Once Sticker shock occurs it is difficult to recover the momentum you had built up during this pursuit. This is easily avoided if you discuss money in advance of providing a price. It is even better if you can discuss it very early in the sales process. But that is a whole other subject. Learn the worst time to talk money with a prospect.

Pain Varies Over Time
The world is a dynamic place and things change from day to day. Just think about your own company and your own life today compared to last quarter or last year. If your life and your perspective changes so much why would you think that the prospects life and perspective would be any different? When things change in the prospects life, their view of your product and the urgency to make a purchase will also change. When their situation changes, that change will have a major impact on whether you can close the sale and how and when you should close the sale. The fact that the situation can change mandates that you stay abreast of the latest developments. When you go in to make a presentation or have a follow up meeting, make sure that you verify that things haven’t changed dramatically since your last meeting before you proceed.

Sell Yourself First
If you don’t believe in your solution, the prospect won’t either. That is why you have to “sell” yourself first. Make sure you 100% believe in your solution to their problem and in your right to ask certain questions. If you have doubts about your own solution, your tonality and body language will convey those doubts to the prospect. If you believe you are asking an inappropriate question, you will convey “don’t answer what I’m asking” by our voice, facial expressions, and body language. Your prospect will listen not to your words but to our visual cues. How can you have the right tonality and body language? Sell yourself. Before approaching any real prospects, convince yourself of the value of your solution. Your body language and voice tonality will be 100% with your words and you will communicate that – “I believe my solution will make a big difference for you!”

Rejection is like Scotch Whiskey
Rejection, like your first taste of Scotch is distasteful (At least is was for me). My friends who drink scotch assure me that you have to develop a taste for it. The same is true for rejection. You don’t have to like rejection. And if you realize that they are not rejecting you but only the opportunity to buy and use your product or service then it goes down much smoother.

Don’t tell prospects what to love!
Raising a prospect’s expectations too high can lead to disappointment and create a hole you have to dig yourself out of. This 1 minute video explains how many salespeople set themselves up to fail with one small statement and create problems that put them on the defensive. Eliminating this one phrase can make your presentations be accepted more readily.

Respond Don’t React
Reacting to tough questions gets you into trouble. Responding leads you out of trouble. Associate the word “defensiveness” with “reacting” and “professionalism” with “responding”. Let’s say a client questions your price. If you “react”, you will offer excuses, trying to explain to the prospect why you set the prices as you did. You are fumbling to regain your footing, having been knocked down by their question. If you “respond”, you see the question about price as an opportunity to learn more from the prospect and generate sales. You can ask them questions about their pricing expectations, their budget, the features and benefits they are looking for, and the pain they are experiencing. The optimal salesperson learns to leave their emotion and defensiveness outside the door and enter a meeting with a prospect understanding that each and every objection is actually an opportunity in disguise to close sales and increase business.

Deal with objections upfront
Objections are ticking time bombs. Failure to deal with them leaves you vulnerable and puts your entire sale and even you credibility in jeopardy. This video illustrates a method to defuse the bomb you know is coming. Don’t fear the objection … meet it head on early in the sales call. If it is an insurmountable objection, then you will know that right away and not waste any time with this prospect. The biggest fear that salespeople have in this regard is that they will cause the objection to occur by bringing up the subject. They would prefer to hope that it doesn’t occur and deal with from a position of weakness when it does. They do this from a mis-guided belief that somehow this prospect won’t think of it even though it has come up on the previous 98 sales calls they have been on. They prefer to ignore the proverbial “elephant in the room” hoping no one notices it.

Know When to Close
It’s not about when you need it to close. It’s not about when you want it to close. Watch this 1 minute 4 second video and discover how know exactly when to close. The proper time to close is when the prospect is ready and you have completed the qualification steps in your sales process. If you try to close too soon you look pushy. If you wait too long you look disinterested and risk losing the account after you have spent time and resources nurturing it.

Mindset of a Winner
How you feel will determine how you act and most importantly what you say and how you say it. You need to adopt this mindset and be totally present with the prospect at the sales call. If you watch this video you will discover what your mindset has to be. The real trick is to maintain this mindset no matter what else I going on in your life outside of the sales call. If you can’t pay the electric bill, put it out of your mind, if your kid is sick, forget about it for an hour or so. If your company is in turmoil don’t think about it. If you are not confident in any way, imagine what it would feel like if you were confident. If you adopt the proper mindset, you will usually do and say the best that you are capable of and you will win more often than not. In the ART OF WAR the author states “The battle is won before the fighting has ever begun”. This is what he was talking about many centuries ago. It still applies today in your sales career.

Live On Introductions
When you are introduced to the right person at the right time and in the right way your chances of closing the deal rise dramatically. So how do make sure all of that happen? The real key is making sure that the people you count on to refer you have a good understanding of the problems that you fix. That is totally different than what you actually do to address the problem. It is not important for your introduction sources to understand how good you are at laying bricks or the unique manner in which you lay them. It is important for them to understand that you are looking for clients who need a wall built, or a builder who is unhappy with his current bricklayer.

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