Business Leadership Skills 02 (Feb 13 - Apr 15)

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Word-of-Mouth Advertizing by Brian Tracy

Did you know that 84 percent of sales in America take place as the result of word-of-mouth advertising?

Some of the most important sales promotion sales activities are those that take place between customers and prospects, between friends and colleagues, in the form of advice and recommendations on what to buy, or not buy, and who to buy from. What does this mean for you?

It means that the only way that you can be among the top ten percent of salespeople in your industry is by having your existing customers selling for you on every occasion. Because of the importance of mega-credibility in selling, your customers must be happy to open doors to new customers for you wherever they go.


Never Prospect Again

All top salespeople eventually reach the point where they seldom have to prospect because their customers do much of their selling for them. When you live your life consistent with your personal and business mission statements, both fitting together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, your sales career will soar, as will your sales results and your earnings.


Be Clear About Who You Are

One important point with regard to vision, values and mission statements: be gentle with yourself. It has taken you your whole life to become the person you are today. If you are like everyone else, you are not perfect. You have lots of room to grow and improve.

There are many changes that you can make in your character and personality in the course of becoming the excellent human being that you aspire to. But change in your personality will not come easily, and it won't come overnight. You must be patient.


Persist Until Your Succeed

The reason that people grow and become better and better over the course of time, is because they persist gently in the direction of their goals and dreams. They don't expect overnight transformations. When they don't see results immediately, they don't get discouraged. They just keep on keeping on. And you must do the same.


"How to Build Rock Solid Self-Confidence and Achieve All of Your Goals"

You probably already know that the most successful people have incredible levels of self-confidence. They've accomplished great levels of success and happiness in their lives and seem to be uns toppable in everything that they do.

The fact is, that when you develop unshakable self-confidence your whole world will change for the better.

You'll have the confidence to take whatever steps necessary to make more money and enjoy a higher standard of living. You'll be more powerful and persuasive with other people. And you'll be more popular and likable.


Put Your Ideas Into Action

Once you have a clear idea of the person you want to be and the kind of life and career you want to create, just take the first step. Read your mission statements every day as you go about your activities, think of the different ways that you could practice the virtues and qualities that you are in the process of incorporating into your own personality.

Remember, it is only your actions with regard to other people that really demonstrate the kind of person you have become. And if you persist long enough, you will eventually shape yourself into the exact person that you have imagined.


Action Exercises

First, treat every customer as if he is going to be a great source of word-of-mouth advertising for you. Remember that every person knows about 300 other people.

Second, resolve to become better and better in your dealings with others but be gentle with yourself. Behave every day in every way the best you can be and you will be sure to get results.


Source: Brian Tracy International

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"Not being in tune with your customers is like living in an alternate reality; the way you think your customers feel about your product is not always the same as what your customers really think about your product."
-- Bo Bennett

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Developing a Super Attitude by Brian Tracy

Unexpected circumstances can be thrown at you, but what is the thing that counts most in these situations? What counts most is how you react to what happens to you, especially when you have unexpected problems of any kind.

Here are four things you can do to assure that your attitude is the very best it can be, under all circumstances.


Focus On the Future

First, whatever challenges you face, focus on the future rather than on the past. Instead of worrying about who did what and who is to blame, focus on where you want to be and what you want to do.

Get a clear mental image of your ideal successful future, and then take whatever action you can to begin moving in that direction. Get your mind, your thoughts, and your mental images on the future.


Think About the Solution

Second, whenever you're faced with a difficulty, focus on the solution rather than on the problem. Think and talk about the ideal solution to the obstacle or setback, rather than wasting time rehashing and reflecting on the problem.

Solutions are inherently positive, whereas problems are inherently negative. The instant that you begin thinking in terms of solutions, you become a positive and constructive human being.


Look For the Good

Third, assume that something good is hidden within each difficulty or challenge. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, a major proponent of positive thinking, once said, "Whenever God wants to give us a gift, he wraps it up in a problem."

The bigger the gift you have coming, the bigger the problem you will receive. But the wonderful thing is that if you look for the gift, you will always find it.


Seek the Valuable Lesson

Fourth, assume that whatever situation you are facing at the moment is exactly the right situation you need to ultimately be successful. This situation has been sent to you to help you learn something, to help you become better, to help you expand and grow.


Decide to Be Positive

A Positive Mental Attitude is indispensable to your success. You can be as positive as you want to be if you will simply think about the future, focus on the solution and look for the good. If you do what other successful people do, if you use your mind to exert mental control over the situation, you will be positive and cheerful most of the time. And you will reap the benefits enjoyed by all successful people.


Action Exercises

Here are three steps you can take immediately to put these ideas into action:

First, become solution-oriented with every difficulty you face. Make a habit of looking for the answers to your questions, the solutions to your problems.

Second, seek for the valuable lesson in every adversity. Make a list of every idea or insight you can gain from every setback or difficulty.

Third, think on paper. Take some time to write out every detail of the problem, and then take the most logical next step to solve it.


Source: Brian Tracy International

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"As a coach, your high standards of performance, attention to detail and-above all-how hard you work set the stage for how your players perform."

- Don Shula, Football Coach

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"The fact is, everyone is in sales. Whatever area you work in, you do have clients and you do need to sell."

- Jay Abraham, Marketing Expert

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"Make it your business to draw out the best in others by being an exemplar yourself."

- Epictetus

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Selling in a Complex Market by Brian Tracy

It’s no secret that the entire process of selling is much more complex today than it has ever been before.

It used to be that we would make a single call on a single buyer, who would make a single decision on our product or offering.

In this simple form of selling, we used the attention/interest/ desire/action (AIDA) model of sales presentation and focused intensely on numerous different ways of closing the sale. Then, once we had made the sale, in many cases we never saw the customer again.

Today, however, everything is different and everything has changed. Today we must make multiple calls, an average of five or six, in order to make the sale. We deal with multiple decision makers in an organization, each of whom can influence the purchase.

Much of the sale takes place when we are not present. Sometimes we never even meet the final decision maker who signs the check. And it is not unusual for a sale to be derailed at the last minute by something completely unexpected.

If that weren’t enough, there is more fierce competition than ever before and it is more determined and resolute than it has ever been in the past.

Not only must we compete on the basis of price, quality, services, capabilities, financing and warranties with many other vendors of our product or service, but we must also compete with every other vendor of every other product or service who is striving to get the same customer dollar that we are after.

Our competitors are extremely determined, driven the same as we are by tight markets and careful customers. They are committed to starting earlier, working harder, and staying up later thinking of ways to take our customers away from us.


"Why your competition sells more than you!"

It's simple. They know more about selling than you do. Wouldn't you like to know what they know?

Our prospective customers are beset on all sides by every conceivable sales offering. They are drowning in details, options and choices, and it’s because of this overwhelm that they are in no hurry to make up their minds. With markets changing and contracting, the amount of discretionary funds they have available has shrunken and they are more careful today than they have ever had to be in the past.

The purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer; this is the key to profitability. If a business does this in sufficient quantity and with proper cost controls, it will make a profit. The profit is the result of creating and keeping customers efficiently.

As the president of your own professional sales corporation, your job is to create and keep customers as well. And just as a company must continually restructure and redesign its product and service offerings to satisfy the changing tastes of a demanding and competitive customer marketplace, you as a salesperson must constantly upgrade the quality and sophistication of your sales procedures and approaches if you are going to create customers in sufficient quantity.


Action Exercises

Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, be prepared to make multiple calls on a customer to close a large or complex sale. Plan your sales work systematically so you always have a new reason for calling back.

Second, think continually about how you have to change and improve your selling and your offering if you want to succeed in a tough market. Work on yourself every day and never stop getting better.


Source: Brian Tracy International

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"Decisiveness is a characteristic of high-performing men and women.

Almost any decision is better than no decision at all."

- Brian Tracy

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Improve the quality of your thinking by Brian Tracy

In a research study, one series of I.Q. tests were given to children ages 2 - 4 years. How many children do you think were found to be highly creative with curious, questioning minds and an ability for abstract thinking?

Guess what the results were: 95%. Now imagine what happened when the same children were tested again at age 7. Only 5% still demonstrated high levels of creativity. In the ensuing years, they had learned to conform; "If you want to get along, you had better go along," is what they had discovered.


The Dangers of Conformity

They had learned to color between the lines, to sit in neat little rows, to do and say what the other kids did and said, and to do as they were told. Over time, they lost the wonderful fearless spontaneity of youth and learned to suppress ideas and insights that were unusual or different.


Aggressively Seek New Ideas

Most of us have had similar experiences. The "Not invented-here" syndrome in many large companies is simply the adult version of "not rocking the boat." But fortunately, since creativity is your birthright, a fundamental part of your nature, you can tap into it at any time, no matter how long it has been since you really used it.


Action Exercises

Here are two things you can do to start thinking outside of your mental box.

First, imagine that there was a vastly better, cheaper, faster way to do your job - and somebody else had already discovered it and was going to put you out of business.

Second, imagine doing exactly the opposite of what you are doing today. Allow your mind to float freely and consider how current trends will change your business.


Source: Brian Tracy International

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"People don't buy for logical reasons. They buy for emotional reasons."

- Zig Ziglar