network [net-wurk] -noun 1. an association of individuals having a common interest, formed to provide mutual assistance, helpful information, or the like; -verb 1. to cultivate people who can be helpful to one professionally, especially in finding new business, employment or moving to a higher position; 2. to distribute widely

It is said that on average everyone knows roughly 250 people. Some of us know more, while others…not so much. But that’s alright, we all average it out. Now, what if my 250 people knew you, what you do and the type of referrals you are looking for? That would be pretty powerful, eh!? And I’m sure you could get at least one sale from those 250 people I know!

But wait a minute. If I know 250 people, then wouldn’t the other 249 people that you know also each know 250 people? Yes! So now the 250 people that you know – that can spread the word about you and your business – has the potential and the power to reach 62,500 people in your “extended network!” And for every new person you put into your personal network, it adds on average another 250 potential prospects.

So let me ask you, where is networking on your priority scale? Whether you own a business, are trying to start a business or are in sales for a business, there are more and more demands on your time than ever before. You probably are wearing more and more hats now than you ever had. This is now the rule and you are not alone.

So let me ask you again. Where is networking on your priority scale? With all of the hats you are wearing and all of the places you go and things that you do, you may figure you meet enough people already and that you don’t have to worry about doing any networking. This may very well be true. And guess what…you may be right! If this is the case for you, and if you absolutely cannot carve out any more time to go out and do some networking, then you at least need to do this…

Adopt a continuous networking mindset. That’s it? Yep! It’s easier said than done though. And many people don’t even know what this is. Many people think that building their network is merely done through meeting more and more people. Wrong. Your network is built when you learn what those new people do and what kinds of referrals they could use. Only then can you share with them likewise about yourself. These new people you “bump into” and meet won’t care about you until they know you care about them.

How do you show them that you care? Ask questions and don’t push. Ask questions about how they got their start, what they enjoy most about what they do, creative ways they’ve promoted their business, and how they would want to be remembered after it is all said and done. But the number one question you can ask that shows that you care is “How will I know if someone I meet is a good referral for you?”

You know what you’ve done with that one question? You’ve become memorable. If I had a nickel for every time someone has asked me that one question, I MIGHT have a quarter. It’s not because I haven’t met a lot of great people along the way; I have and appreciate everyone I know. But if you want to make a great, lasting and memorable impression on those people you bump into every day, take a few minutes to get to know them and then ask them that one great question. One memorable contact = 250 potential referrals. That’s a great return on investment! Now, go get ‘em!!

attraction [uh-trak-shuhn] -noun 1. the power or act of alluring, drawing to, inviting, or engaging; 2. an invisible power in a body by which it draws anything to itself

The past few years there has been a lot of buzz about “attraction.” The principles have been around for ages, but lately they have gained momentum and popularity. There is the Law of Attraction, the Law of Reciprocity and the Golden Rule. Each of these concepts is foundationally appealing and can at their core be good ideals to live by. Personally, I have my own twist on these laws and rules that puts each in a different perspective.

Law of Attraction – This law basically says that what you think about, focus on and meditate on will come to you. Much has been written on this subject and there has even been a movie (The Secret) made about it. Looking a little deeper, some say that it is who you are at your core that attracts things and people to you. Therefore, if you don’t like the things you are attracting, this definition suggests that you need to change who you are.

My take on this law is that you not only need to focus on the things you want and be a good person, but you also need to take action. Keeping the things you want at the forefront of your mind keeps you alert to the opportunities to attract these things. Writing the things down further cements your focus on the desired attraction. But it isn’t enough to just write it down, make a wish, blow out a candle and cross your fingers for a goal without action is merely a thought.

Once you have your goal in mind, and is written down, it is now time to take action. Thoughts don’t attract. Actions attract. It’s very similar to how they say you make your own luck. When “lucky” things happen to people, it is usually a result of the actions they took and the hard work they put into obtaining that “lucky” result.

Law of Reciprocity – This law sounds great on the surface where if you do something for someone that they, or someone else, will do something good for you. Many times people that look to take advantage of this Law set out with the end result in mind where the person they are helping is expected to return the favor. They may even go so far as to outline what the other person can do for them. This is where my view takes a total 180 to the contrary.

My view is when you do something good for someone, it has to be with the right spirit. It can’t be with a tit-for-tat mindset. For this law to provide results, you must first give without measure. And continue to give without expectations. Don’t look over your shoulder for your good deeds to be returned. They will. Be joyful and earnest in your generosity and it will come back to you 10-fold.

Golden Rule – We’ve all heard it as “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Another take on the rule is to treat others like you would want to be treated. Of the three, I think the Golden Rule at its core is the closest to my personal definition. But here is my twist.

I say, do unto others or treat others as they would want to be treated. This takes a little more work than the standard definition requires. What may be good, acceptable and desirable for you may not be for someone else. Instead, take a little time to get to know what makes the other person tick or what they appreciate and use that as your basis to “Do unto them.” Maybe with that spin, it could be called the Platinum Rule?

Now let’s put it all together into the Reciprocal Golden Rule of Attraction. The common thread that holds them all together is taking action with the right spirit. Give without measure and without expectations. Look for opportunities to be a blessing to others. Be conscious of those around you and what is important to them. It’s been my experience that doing these things will put you well on your way to having what you want and what you need. And you’ll help and make a lot of people very happy along the way!

e- [eee]  (used in combination) A prefix that stands for “electronic” and refers to information technologies, business and almost anything connected to or transmitted over the internet.

If you were to ask me what one single method I would recommend to reach your customers and prospects on a regular basis, I would say an e-Newsletter hands down! Mind you, I am not saying that an e-Newsletter should replace every other form of marketing and advertising that you do. There are many benefits to the other methods, but dollar-for-dollar e-Newsletters are the way to go. In fact, there are so many benefits to this form of marketing and communication that it warrants a full featured article.

Awareness – Let’s start with the obvious. Just as with any other type of marketing, you want to build awareness of you and your product or service. The old rule of thumb is that it takes seven contacts before someone makes a buying decision. I’ve recently read that seven is actually pretty light now. With e-Newsletters, the number of contacts you make only depends on the frequency you send out your e-Zine (another name for e-newsletter).

Relationships – With a written e-Newsletter, you are able to build a relationship with your customers and prospects. Every issue you send is packed with usable and valuable information that your readers will look forward to receiving. The relationship you build is that of a trusted advisor. The more and more you give through sharing ideas with your readers, the more and more they will view you as the authority that you are.

Immediate – This benefit is two-fold. One, the e-mail, when written and sent, is immediately received by your target audience. You do not have to wait for that direct mail piece to be printed and delivered. You don’t have to wait for the Sunday paper to hit or for your audience to tune in the station you are advertising on. With e-Newsletters, you only have to wait for your readers to check their inbox – which with some people is as frequent and involuntary as breathing.

The other side of Immediate is the type of response you can get. If your e-Newsletters are providing valuable information and ideas and contain an effective call to action, a simple click of the Reply button gets the ball rolling. This has the potential for being much more immediate than picking up the phone and making a call.

Inexpensive – Many e-Newsletter services are very, very inexpensive compared to other forms of marketing and advertising. Although most are fairly user friendly to set up, it may be worth the added expense to have someone create your account, develop your template, build your re-direct pages and get it working exactly the way it should. But once that expense is out of the way, you can reach up to 2500 readers for $30 (depending on the service you use).

Think of that! Thirty bucks a month to reach 2500 people that are looking forward to hearing from you in each and every issue. What’s more is with most services you can send e-mails out as often as you want – once a month, once a week or even once a day! For thirty bucks? Seriously!? That’s a no-brainer!

Track Activity – This is a very powerful tool that is built in to most e-newsletter services. Say you send out your e-Newsletter to 268 readers on Thursday morning. As soon as your readers begin to open it, you can start getting live reports on how many people opened it up and more importantly, who is opening it. If you have links in your e-Newsletter that direct your readers back to your website, you can see those as well. This kind of market research is invaluable information for you.

Gain Insight – Once you’ve sent out your e-Newsletter and read your activity reports, you can discover how effective it was based on your reader’s actions. If you find that you are getting higher open rates on one particular topic, you may want to consider writing about that topic more frequently.

Segmentation – After gaining insight into what topics your readers are more interested in, you can very simply segment your main subscriber list into topical lists and send just those readers more detailed communications or even special offers that they may be interested in. This is the ultimate in tracking your marketing efforts and targeting specific audiences with exactly what they want and need.

Commitment – Everything above details the overwhelming benefits of sending out e-Newsletters. However, there is a time commitment that you must be willing to give in order for your efforts to be successful.

At a minimum, you will want to send out your e-Newsletter once a month. My recommendation is once a week. You may think find a few extra hours a week to do this would be impossible, but once you get into a groove it become part of your weekly routine and budget your time accordingly. Make the commitment, stick to it and watch the response you get. It will be like no other!

CAUTION! – Do not send out “ME”-Newsletters!! Your readers will not want to read about you every week. Your e-Newsletter is not a weekly or monthly advertisement – at least not directly. Your e-Zine must contain valuable information for your readers to use regardless if they ever pick up the phone or hit the Reply button. If your content falls short of that, your readers will get in itchy trigger finger to hit the UnSubscribe button and then they are gone!

Recommendation – When I started my e-Newsletter, I researched over a dozen services and tested eight of them. The service that I felt stood head and shoulders above the rest is Constant Contact. To learn more about it, you can visit constantcontact.com or you can call (989.546.7355) or e-mail me (workinghard@helpingusellu.com) with any questions you have.

googlicious [goo-guhl-lish-us]  -adjective 1. describes a website that is appealing to the on-line search engine Google, therefore achieving a higher page rank;  2. describes a website whose Google search listing description is appealing to its users which results in a higher click-through ratio

Last week we looked at how a blog can be beneficial to promoting your business. To re-cap a few of the major benefits, a blog can help you become more personable and more approachable as well as help you be viewed as an authority in your industry or market. A blog can also help you get information to your customers, prospects and followers immediately, build brand and business awareness and help you gain insight to what is in your customer’s head.

This week, we will look at how implementing a blog can be a huge benefit to your business’ website. Adding a blog to your website is like giving it a shot of steroids or WGH – “website growth hormone!”

In general, the biggest difference between a website and a blog is that a website typically is much more static than a blog. In other words, the content of a website remains largely unchanged for longer periods of time, where a blog’s content is quickly and easily changed as frequently as you need or desire. It is the consistent content feeding that helps your website become more Googlicious!

I don’t want to get too much into SEO (search engine optimization) in this article as there are many, many ways to optimize your website to achieve higher and higher page rankings in the search engines. The only optimization I want to look at is as it relates to the benefits of your website having a blog.

Starting off, I mentioned last week that I thought Blogger was a more user friendly blogging tool in that the drag and drop functionality is easy to use, change, update and publish. However, there are two major drawbacks. The first is that a Blogger blog does not share your website’s domain name. The blog address will typically look something like this: yoursitename.blogspot.com. The second drawback is Blogger typically functions outside of your website and your site’s server.

The blogging tool that avoids these drawbacks is WordPress (www.wordpress.com). Although it is a little more rigid, it plugs right into your existing site and shares your site’s domain name where it would look something like this: yoursitename.com/blog. The major benefit to this is how and how often the search engines will now crawl your website.

Alright, let’s bring it back in a little bit. Let’s assume you have a modest website built with maybe 6-10 pages where most of the content on each page is pretty descriptive but doesn’t change too often. The search engine “robots” are continuously out there crawling around the web looking for new, fresh content. Since your website is pretty static, the robots won’t crawl it very often. This lack of activity negatively affects your site’s page ranking – or at least it doesn’t help it any.

Now let’s assume you add your WordPress blog as a plug-in to your website and it shares the same domain name.  Let’s also say you post a couple articles, thoughts, ideas, tutorials etc. per week. Now when that robot is out there crawling around, it is finding your fresh content from your blog, and since your blog and website share the same name, your site’s ability to climb the page ranks in the search engines increases exponentially.

One very important thing to keep in mind pertains to the content you are adding to your blog. The articles, thoughts, ideas and other entries you post should be of high value and be relevant to the content of your website. The same pertains to any links that you provide in your blog entries as well. Don’t ask me how, but those robots are pretty slick at detecting genuine posts.

With that said, let’s call it good right here with this article, otherwise we will get away from the primary focus of why you should really consider adding a blog to your website – to increase traffic, sales and profits! If you have questions relating to this article, feel free to leave a comment or send me an e-mail. And as always, thank you for stopping by!

blog [blawg]  -noun 1. short for weblog – (world wide) web + log;  2. an on-line diary;  3. a chronological log of thoughts or information that is posted on a web page

Have you ever heard a word you’ve never heard before, and then it seems like you hear it all the time? Or what about when you bought your new car? When you got it, it seemed pretty unique because you hadn’t seen any or very few of them on the road. Then you saw a dozen of the exact same car – same kind and color – from the time you drove it off the lot until you pulled it into your driveway for the first time!

Well, it’s been that way lately with blogs. I’ve been working on and updating mine more and more. I’ve been receiving more and more questions about them lately. And I’ve been learning more and more about the benefits of having and maintaining a blog. So this week, we will look at the many benefits of blogging for your business.

Whether or not you have a website, a blog carries many benefits for your business. Next week we will look at the benefits of a blog as a complement to your website. But for this week’s article, we will look at the benefits purely based on the merits of a stand-alone blog:

• Quick and easy – Setting up the blog template can take a little time, both to learn how to set it up as well as the time it takes to actually do the set-up. However, once the blog template is set up and published, it is very quick and very easy to add content to your blog in the form of thoughts, information and communication as well as advertising specials, promotions and new product announcements.

• Very inexpensive – If you do not have the time nor desire to set-up your blog, one can be set-up for you for as little as a couple hundred bucks. From there, the only investment you have is your time as there are no monthly or annual hosting fees you have to pay to keep it active.

• Become a friend – Because you are writing in your own voice and in your own style, your customers and prospects that are reading your blog can connect with you in a unique way and in a unique tone that cannot be felt through a static website or brochure. Even the prospects that don’t know you, will soon feel as if they do.

• Become an authority – When you verbally tell someone something, you are a resource. However, when people read something that you have published, you become an authority.

• Provide immediate information – If you have something that you need to broadcast to your customers and prospects, the quickest way to do it is through a blog entry. Many people that follow your blog will subscribe to it. As a subscriber, they receive notification whenever you post a new entry.

• Accessible and approachable - When people read your blog, they connect with you on a different level than through a website or your company brochure. You have a one-on-one conversation with every person that is reading. If they have a question or a thought about your entry, they can post a comment which further establishes a sense of accessibility and approachability.

• Gain insight - When your customers and prospects read your blog and leave comments, you begin to obtain a better understanding of what they are thinking and in turn what they expect. You can also track the number of hits you get on each post which digs even deeper into the mindset of your customers. This kind of information is priceless and is very difficult to track with most any other medium.

• Build awareness - The rule of thumb is it takes seven contacts with a prospect to make a sale or become top of mind when they think of your product or service. With a blog, you can have dozens if not hundreds of contact opportunities with your customers and prospects in a very short amount of time.

Starting out, I am using the blog to post my weekly newsletter articles for people that do not subscribe to the newsletter. (Shame on them!) As it grows in followers, I will begin to add additional posts with other tips and ideas.

Once you decide to get into the Blog world, here are a few tips and resources for you to use to start your blog and to successfully and effectively use your blog to grow your business.

• Don’t get too carried away with using countless gadgets/widgets. (You’ll learn what these are when you set up your blog.) My advice is to only use those that add value to your blog.

• Speaking of value, and this is VERY important, be sure that your blog entries are thoughts, ideas or information that provide value to your readers. It is ok to plug your products or services, as long as each post isn’t a blatant commercial. You’ll gain a good following by being a resource, not a pitchman.

• Be consistent and be patient. The growth, success and power of your blog will not happen overnight. It might not happen in a month. It may even take half a year or longer for it to build momentum and really take off. But the key is to build it, feed it, promote it and allow it to work for you. Make a commitment to post at least weekly. Eventually, a couple of short posts a week with valuable information will be great. Again, the key is “valuable content.”

Well there you have some good stuff to get you going. Good luck with your blogging adventure and journey. Let me know how it is going and when you got it up and running, send me an e-mail with a link to it.

slump [sluhmp]  -noun 1. a period of decline or deterioration; 2. a period in which a person performs slowly, inefficiently, or ineffectively.

A couple weeks ago we looked at your Confidence Journey from building a foundation, becoming passionate and creative and finally entering an altruistic state of confidence. As a result of much positive feedback and a few reader questions, this week we will look at how to handle one of the biggest challenges you’ll face throughout your Confidence Journey – a slump.

The following is one letter in particular that pretty much summarized and echoed the questions from the others.

Hey Scott,

I’m very confident and comfortable in the product I sell because I know it works and I know we’ve got a quality team.  My question is this – do you have any tips for keeping that confidence UP in a slower market?  I went through a really slow month (May) and it got me in the dumps and made me begin to question my abilities, but now all of a sudden, I’m on fire again!  All through May I was driving myself crazy trying to figure out what I needed to tweak, what I was missing, what I needed to do better to get my numbers up and I couldn’t see what I was doing wrong, so then the self doubts and the questions started.  But now the confidence is way back up.  So at any rate, any tips for keeping confidence high through the lows?

Thanks,

Angela

This question and the others are excellent, excellent questions. However, let’s focus on Angela’s as the basis for how to keep your confidence while working through a slump. Starting out, she appears to be on the right track with reviewing the things she was doing in order to get better and break through her slump. This can be an effective course of action when dealing with many situations as it can help you identify where you may be slipping and get you back on track.

However, this can also have you spinning your wheels wondering what is going wrong. The downfall here is when you are looking for what is going wrong with what you are doing, it starts chipping away at your confidence. And when you don’t find anything to tweak or change, your confidence really starts taking a hit! My good friend Lisa would refer to this as looking at your situation from a “deficit” perspective.

Conversely, a shift in perspective may help not only break through a slump, but keep and strengthen your confidence along the way. This paradigm shift moves away from a deficit perspective to focus positively on your situation from an “asset” perspective.

(Keep in mind for the purpose of this article, we are focusing purely on “how” you can keep and build your confidence during a slump. The “what’s” that you can do is for a different article.)

Digging a little deeper into the asset perspective as it relates to making your “tweaks,” rather than look at what you may have been doing wrong or what you were missing (mentally processed as a weaknesses), look at what you have done or are doing great that led to your successes (mentally processed as strengths) and make your tweaks and reinforcements off of them. This will strengthen and build your actions and activities to push through a slump. This will also keep you focused on positive actions and feed your confidence.

One last thing on confidence… Remember that confidence and attitude is a state of mind. It is something that we can consciously control despite what we are going through. It may be tougher at times, but we can choose to persevere and take actions that build our confidence. With time, effort and attention, sustained confidence and positive attitude will eventually become second nature. If you have not yet seen the movie “Pursuit of Happyness,” it is an excellent example of pushing through your slump and maintaining your focus that in turn keeps and builds your confidence – even among the bleakest of times.

Wrapping up, your circumstances may make it more challenging sometimes, but remembering to look at those circumstances from an asset perspective keeps you focused, energized and confident. It is then – with focus and confidence – that you will be able to see the opportunities and the doors that are opening up to you, rather than the road blocks that are being thrown at you.

conversation [kon-ver-sey-shuhn]  -noun 1. informal interchange of thoughts, information; 2. The spoken exchange of thoughts, opinions and feelings; 3. An informal discussion of a matter.

I once read an old-school definition of selling that went a little something like this: Selling is convincing your customer to buy something they do not want and then making them feel good that they did. This style may have worked years ago, but try it today and you might just get slapped! Well, you might not get slapped, but I bet your prospect would seriously think about doing it!

The opposite definition is to thoroughly uncover your customer’s needs and dilemmas in order to provide them with a profitable solution. You can do this through conversational selling and it is far more effective for you and for your customer .This week we will break down this definition, examine how and why it is effective and how using conversational selling can achieve the result you both want.

First, we need to consider that today’s consumer is being bombarded with hundreds, if not thousands, of selling messages from the time they wake up until the time they finally fall asleep. The last thing they want is for some sales stiff to walk through their door and bully their way in to their pocketbook. Considering the first, old-school sales method, there are a few reasons why this it is no longer effective.

The first reason is today’s consumer is becoming more and more self-educated on the products and services that they need and that are available to them. Customers from 5 to 105 are researching their options on-line and learning the benefits of your product or service before you even show up. They also have the benefit of reading on-line the reviews and testimonials from others that may have used your product or service.

Another reason the old-school methodology is obsolete is our customers have a very short leash with their time and their expenses. Whether you have an appointment, or just stop in on a cold call, try yapping about something your customer doesn’t want, doesn’t need or doesn’t understand and you’ll quickly see the other side of the door you just came in through.

Now imagine that same appointment or sales call where you sincerely engage your prospect in a conversation. The conversation will build a relationship with your prospects and strengthen your relationships with your customers. When you use conversation you will do more listening, ask more questions and discover what your customer really needs. When you discover their problem, you can then provide your solution rather than sell your product or service.

Taken a step further, if you’ve really been a good listener, asked some excellent questions and engaged in great conversation, you can also quantify your solution so your prospect can really see the value in it as well as how your solution can actually be profitable for him.

Our customers today want listeners, not talkers. And they don’t want to be convinced, they want to be understood. Listen to your customer, understand what they need and provide them with a solution. If you can do these things through good conversation, you’ll never have to worry about “making a sale!”

confidence [kon-fi-duhns]  -noun  1. belief in oneself and one’s powers or abilities. 2. The state of mind characterized by one’s reliance on himself, or his circumstances; a feeling of self-sufficiency; such assurance as leads to a feeling of security; self-reliance

Successful sales people share many of the various sales traits; however there is one that you will find in every successful sales person – Confidence. This week we will look at this key characteristic in its various forms and stages and how confidence, if developed effectively, will help you to continually grow and become more and more successful. This article may be more applicable for someone getting started, but may also have an A-ha or two for anyone.

Confidence comes in many forms; confidence in product, confidence in service, confidence in delivery, confidence in performance, confidence in warranty. But the confidence that propels someone from just being in sales to succeeding in sales is confidence in self.

It’s been my experience that the confidence cycle grows through four stages: foundational, passionate, creative and altruistic. Let’s take a closer look at each of these stages.

Whether you just got started as a commissioned sales rep, are a small business owner that also wears a sales hat, or an entrepreneur that is an expert in your field, no one gets paid until a sale is made. Getting started requires a lot of time studying your product, your service, your market and several other items that will build the confidence foundation you will need for your ability to make a sale.

While you are building your confidence foundation, you will encounter some challenges and road blocks that will try to crush your confidence. The biggest is rejection. Realize that as you are growing in your confidence, you will be rejected. However, that rejection is vital in building a strong, solid confidence. Going through the rejection gives you a basis to look back on and see that in spite of it, you were able to grow. Don’t welcome rejection, but embrace it as something that is typical at this stage and is helping you get to the next level.

This foundational type of confidence is needed to talk intelligently about your product or service. Without it, your prospects will not develop confidence in you, let alone your product or service. Once you have this foundational confidence, you begin landing a few sales here and there. As a result, you build momentum, your confidence grows and you land more and more sales.

Now that the foundation of your confidence is built and is strong, you no longer speak intelligently about your product or service. Instead, you begin to speak passionately about your product or service.

Your prospect senses your passion and the manner in which you speak about your product or service and the absolute belief that what you have is the best solution available. Your passion is transferred to your prospect and his desire to work with you and buy your product is significantly increased. As a result, you now begin to close more sales more frequently.

Now comes the fun part. Wait a minute! You’re making sales hand over fist and that isn’t the fun part!? Nope. Now you’re brimming with confidence and ready to go to the next level. This is where your creativity kicks in. Not creative? Baloney! You know your product or service inside and out, you’ve spent the last several months or years building and strengthening not only your confidence but the relationships you’ve made along the way, and you’ve worked through countless scenarios that have built the experience capital that you can draw upon.

With your creative confidence in place, you now begin creating more sales rather than making new sales. Your experiences and relationships present opportunities that you were never aware of before. You use those experiences and relationships to manufacture creative ways and opportunities to sell more and more.

The final stage of your sales confidence is altruistic, where your concern is no longer how or when you will make your next sale, but whom and how many people you can truly help by providing the best product or service. The rush you get is no longer from blowing away your monthly sales goal by the end of the second week. In this stage, the rush you get is from knowing your customer is truly better off because of what you provided.

In this final confidence stage, you also not only look for opportunities to provide to your customers, but also look for opportunities to help others in your field. The experiences and opportunities you’ve had over the years is something that you look to share with others that are growing through their own confidence cycle. The joy you get here is in seeing others coming up behind you grow, succeed and eventually join you in your confidence.

Here is the exciting part – the confidence journey is there for anyone willing to take that first step. It’s not as easy as just taking a first step, you need to commit to the journey and work your tail off along the way. But the end is definitely worth the means. The journey does not discriminate and there is plenty of room for as many people that want to go. So what do you say? Want to take a trip with me? If so, shoot me an e-mail and let me know – the more the merrier!

can-dor [kan-der] -noun 1. The state or quality of being frank, open and sincere in speech or expression; candidness: The candor of the speech impressed the audience.  2. freedom from bias; fairness; impartiality: To consider an issue with candor.  synonyms: openness, frankness, honesty, truthfulness.

transparent [trans-pair-uhnt] -adjective  1. easily seen through, recognized, or detected. 2. open, frank, candid: The man’s transparent earnestness.

Candor in sales unfortunately seems to have all but disappeared. Transparency has been eschewed out along with it. (Maybe not by you, but just in general.) Bring them back and watch your prospects become loyal customers and a huge source of repeat sales and referrals!

Do a Google search on “sales techniques” and it will return about 23,300,000 website results. Now start clicking on each site to absorb as much as you can on the various sales tips, tricks and techniques “that work.” Go ahead. I’ll wait. What? You don’t have time to click through them all? Yeah, me neither. Heck, I didn’t even click on the first one.

Now, I’m not saying that there isn’t merit to learning various techniques to assist you with your sales efforts. I study sales through books, blogs and websites like many others. However, I don’t rely on strategies or techniques as a crutch to sell for me. I would say most people know when they are being “sold.” You can see the slick salester coming from a mile away that relies on, if not depends on slick tricks and techniques.

Instead, my sales approach is a little more old fashion, if you will. It is a combination of candor and transparency. It’s from back in the day when your word was your contract and a handshake was your purchase order. Back before pushing the up-sell and filling quotas ruled the roost. You have a prospect with a need or dilemma. Provide them with a solution and give some options to consider, but focus on the true need at hand. We’ll look at how doing so will naturally up-sell for you later in this article.

Unless your prospect is totally clueless about what they need – and most never are – too much up-selling will insult their intelligence and drive their right away. With the internet, our customers are very savvy and many times know most of what they need to know to make a buying decision. All they need from you now is a few ideas as to the various options and a price.

(I’m tempted to go off on a tangent here and discuss the importance of adding value to the service and information you provide your customer. But I’ve done that in previous articles -visit the Archived Newsletter page at my website – and will do so again in the future. Just know that for the purpose of this article, we are focusing purely on sales approach.)

Start out asking great questions so you are clear on what their need or dilemma is. Confirm with your prospect that you do in fact have full understanding of what they need. Then, with full candor, provide your solution. Be descriptive with the benefits and paint the picture for them of how the features of your product or service will produce their desired outcome. At the same time, be forthright with potential drawbacks, if there are any. It is very rare that there isn’t at least one Con to go along with all of the Pro’s. We all know this and your prospect will appreciate the heads up.

Sharing the potential drawbacks of a product or service, not matter how insignificant, is selling with transparency and is another thing your customers will appreciate. Transparency tears down the walls of skepticism and builds a foundation of trust. With that foundation in place, you now can build a long-term sales relationship.

Let me share with you a story of a meeting I had very recently. I was meeting with a potential client when a competitor showed up early – a day early – for his consultation. Before he showed up, I had already assessed my prospect’s dilemma, concerns, budget restrictions and what kind of bells and whistles would be acceptable as well as which would be frivolous to him. I had gone over a few options and candidly explained the benefits of each. I had also explained a few of the drawbacks or reasons why someone may not consider that feature to be important.

When the other guy showed up, I introduced myself to him and gave him an opportunity ask his great questions to uncover the prospect’s need. Instead, he skipped right to his “pitch” and began bombarding the client with feature after feature. Upon seeing his approach and the confused looked on the client’s face, I sat back and just let this guy finish. He then left as quickly as he came, and I continued to work with the client towards the solution that best fit his need.

I never once mentioned some of the bells and whistles the other guy was trying to up-sell because I knew they didn’t fit with what the client was looking for, nor did they make sense with the budget he was working with. He did ask me about them, so I candidly explained why I didn’t bring them up. I shared with him the benefits they could provide, but also why the benefit was offset by the additional cost, lack of return on his investment or the potential drawbacks.

The last thing he said to me as we wrapped up the visit is how much he appreciated my candor and how up front I was with everything we talked about. As I was about to leave, he chased down a bicycle ice cream vendor that was going by and bought me the best watermelon popsicle I’ve ever had. Yeah, I think he appreciated the candor!

Most every service profession has a set of tools they use to do their job. Building contractors have hammers, saws and other power tools. Mechanics have their wrenches and diagnostic devices. Painters have their brushes, rollers and sprayers. You get the picture. We all have a set of tools we use to do our job or to do our job better. This is especially true for people in sales.

Sales people have a different kind of tool set they use. Some of these tools include marketing materials like brochures and samples, a Blackberry and their Customer Relationship Management software. However, perhaps the most powerful tool a salesperson can use is a testimonial. And not just one testimonial, but several.

If you are not using testimonials, you are probably walking away from sales that may otherwise have been in your pocket! If you do not have any written testimonials, go get them. Identify ten of your best customers and maybe a couple others that you had a unique sale or situation with that would provide a great testimonial. Call them or stop by and ask them for a written testimonial. Your customers know the value in having testimonials themselves, so they should be more than happy to help you out with one from them.

Now there may be as many reasons to use testimonials as you have testimonials to use, but let’s take a look at five of the more powerful reasons to use them: Believability, Credibility, Examples, Outcomes and Reduced Anxiety.

Believability - Pictures may be worth 1000 words, but a testimonial is 1000% more believable than your word. This isn’t a personal knock on you, your character or integrity. But let’s face it, when dealing with a new prospect, it seems salespeople already have two strikes against them when they walk in the door. This is probably due to many prospects having been burned at one time or another by someone in sales.

However, if your prospect hears what you have to say, and then you back it up with a stack of testimonials from several other customers that are saying the same thing, your prospect will be much more apt to believe what you are saying. With testimonials, you aren’t “selling,” you are providing.

Credibility – Many people see their experience with a salesperson as a “me-vs.-them” relationship where they are on one side of a line and you are on the other. When you provide your prospect with a stack of testimonials, they can then see themselves standing with your other customers over on your side of the line and will feel comfortable crossing over to work with you, rather than against you.

An even more powerful way to add credibility is by providing testimonials to your prospect from customers you have in the same or a similar industry. If your prospect is a contractor and you provide a few testimonials from other contractors, he will feel even more confidence in you since you’ve already worked with one of his peers.

Examples – A powerful aspect of using testimonials is they typically provide examples of not only your product or service, but also of your previous customer’s experience in working with you. This factor alone can be huge! Many new prospects may have the same questions about the details involved regarding everything from the product/service itself to the ordering and delivery process. Having a picture painted through testimonials can provide just the type details they may be looking for.

Outcomes – This is similar to “examples” in its benefit through testimonials. Where examples will set them up, outcomes will knock ‘em down! Providing your prospect with a handful of testimonials that illustrate how your product or service benefited your other customers allows your prospect to visualize that same outcome helping their company.

This benefit of using testimonials may just be the most powerful of them all. A fundamental practice of sales is to not focus on the features of your product/service, but to show your prospect what the outcome will be because of the features of the product/service that you provide. In this light, not only will you now have believability and credibility, but you will also have a heightened level of trust from your prospect.

Reduced Anxiety – The final powerful benefit of using testimonials we will look at is a little more personal. Many times a big reason why some people do not buy is anxiety that they are not making a good decision. You may have done an excellent job of explaining your product/service and painted a vibrant picture of how it will benefit your prospect (outcome). However, since all they have to go on is your word – which may be no different than the word of one or many salespeople that they may have been burned by in the past – a stack of testimonials is just what they may need to eliminate their anxiety and sign on the line that is dotted.

Want to blow your prospect away with your testimonials? Rather than give them a stack of written testimonials, give them a CD with half a dozen video testimonials! These don’t have to be anything that is commercially produced with fancy graphics. Just grab your cam-corder, maybe a tri-pod to keep it steady, and get some 30- to 60-second testimonials. Burn each file to disc and voila! Better yet, find any 13-year old and have them put those files together like a pro!