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What You Can Learn About Achievement From The Stacey Dash Interview?

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Recently, Stacey Dash (unknown to me until I saw this and researched her) was on Meredith Vieria. Personally, I don’t watch Vieria mainly because of the tact she took in this “interview.” The video is below.  Watch it, then come back and read on.

I love this girl! Unafraid to speak on a hot, controversial issue, and speak her truth.

I hear this all the time: “My territory isn’t large enough.” “My compensation plan isn’t fair enough.” “People don’t answer the phone like they used to.” “Prospects lie.” “I can’t get referrals anymore.” My company doesn’t invest in me.” “My company has no vision.”

All of these statements (and Meredith’s unbelievably arrogant questions) are perfect examples of our buy-in to a victim mentality. And it wears us out. Actually, it renders us unable to adopt a stance of personal empowerment.
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The Problem With Idea Generation – And a Solution

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More ideas are not better. I know there is a saying, “If you want to come up with a great idea, come up with lots of ideas.”

Ideas

But I see Presidents and Salespeople generate idea after idea – and yet have little to show for them. So what happens. Here’s my take.

My sense is that the person that has the idea (the creator) is seldom the person who will implement the idea and bring it to profit. I didn’t say “never,” I said seldom.

So the idea-creator needs to have either a) someone around him/her who can flesh out the idea before investing too much time dreaming about it. Or, b) a system that walks them through the ‘fleshing out’ process. Read more

Biggest Challenges Facing Customers

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OK, here’s yet another list we want you to make. The reason for this list is prod you into paying attention to the pains that your customers have.

The shift here is that you should be constantly focused on their issues – not yours. And you can’t do that if you don’t know what to listen for. So make the list, then take the top 3-5 most common issues and insert that into your story.

How To Avoid Sales Mediocrity – If You’re New In the Profession

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We get a lot of emails and requests from our Advanced Selling Podcast listeners about how to break into the profession of selling.

There is no shortage of tips and techniques out there, but here are five things that we believe you really need to “get” for you to be successful out of the gate.  As a new salesperson in 2012, you have platforms and technology available to you that older people like us would kill for when we were starting.  So one of the biggest mistakes you can make is to not take advantage of what’s been handed to you.

1.    Get clear.  This could pertain to many things like your personal goals, your income goals, the number of new clients you want in a 12-month period etc. But I think the biggest thing you can get clear about is “the problems you solve.”  Clarity in that area will help you communicate your value and your intentions to your customer in a much more savvy way.

2.    Get a method.  90% of sales people don’t have or don’t use any kind of a selling system or method to help prospects walk through the process.  My contention is that most methods are just manipulative enough that sales people don’t like to use them.  A great method should be less about convincing someone to buy from you and more about a process of sorting those who are tire-kickers and curious only, to those who are serious buyers.  Sorting is the thing.  Amateur sales people close 15% of their proposals; professionals close 80.

3.    Get a coach.  I know what you’re saying, “How can I afford a coach when I just started in sales?”  My reaction to that is “It doesn’t matter. You must have a coach.” You must have someone there that you can confide in, whose shoulder you can cry on and who you can party with when things go well. But don’t make the coach your sales manager.  They have too much skin invested in your success.  Find someone, pay them if you like, who is unconditional about your success and doesn’t benefit in any way from it other than just the sharing of feeling of success, other than the feeling of knowing the coach contributed to your success in some small way. Read more

Setting Your Goal

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Set the goal and work backwards. Ask the question:

  • What will have to happen for me to accomplish that?
  • Or, you can do what others do… “what are the roadblocks?”

That list of roadblocks evolves into your ‘strategy’.

Fatal Mistakes in B2B Sales and How to Avoid Them Series – We Listen With Our Motor Running

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*This is a part of The Whale Hunters’ guest blog series for three weeks on “Fatal Mistakes in B2B Sales and How to Avoid Them.” To read some of the blogs for the series, you can visit: http://blog.thewhalehunters.com/

In this video, Bill Caskey discusses one fatal mistake he notices salespeople do. With his experience as an Indianapolis sales trainer, Bill addresses a few ways for salespeople to avoid this one mistake.

-Mentioned in this video…-
The Advanced Selling Podcast: Every week, Bill Caskey and Bryan Neale, upload a new podcast for sales people all over the planet. Eventually, we’ll be bringing over all the episodes but it’s not quite at the top of our priority list yet.

So, until then, go to www.AdvancedSellingPodcast.com and you can download–or listen to them all.

Interview An Expert

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Interview an expert.

That’s right, purchase a $100 piece of equipment that you can record on the phone (or do it by SKYPE…it’s free)

  • And ask them questions about the industry you’re in.
  • Ask them about their vision for the future.
  • Ask them what they see as trends in your business.

Then, put it on your channel.

By interviewing experts, you re-classify yourself as an expert.

-B. Caskey

Skills For Your Future

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What are the skills that you will need to excel? Not just survive but excel? You should be doing this exercise once a year because skills change. It used to be that sales people did not need to know how to write, so copywriting skills were optional. Not anymore.

What other skills are required for your future business that you’re a little weak on? Now, go to youtube and search on those skills with the key word “tutorial” after. Then, spend 5 hours on each of the skills you identify. Watch what happens.

-B. Caskey

Take Note of The Things That Speak To You

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Read and make note of those things you read that really speak to you.We might read a 300-page book…and see only 3 things that spoke to us. That’s fine.Take those three things and try your hand at writing about them.

You learn more when you write about something.

  • Why did they speak to you?
  • What will you miss by not adhering to those lessons?
  • How have those lessons shifted “how you think?”

-B. Caskey