Advanced Sales Strategies Chp1 The Psychology of Selling The winning edge concept means that a person that

sales or scores greatly is not because he/she is greatly better than all others but just slightly better than anyone else in those key areas The Pareto principle does apply. There are a few things that if done well would be responsible for success. Our task is to find them. The main one, is psychological; attitude. The quality of our thinking determines the quality of our external life. Self-Concept.- A person has a determined self-concept with guides self-talk, self-expectations, selfimaginery and therefore, on last instances, action. We are very congruent and consequent with our selfconcept. Our instinct is to remain in the comfort zone of our self-concept even if this is miserable. Heres how some cases of depression arise; Damned if you do, damned if you dont. To change performance one must first change self-concept. Self-Ideal.- This is what we value and hope we are. What we tend to be. Watch out because in some depressive or confused cases, people could have no idea of what they want. This causes them frustration. Self-Image.- This is the assessment of self against the ideal. If it is distant or if one feels that one cannot achieve through effort the ideal, then it causes depression. Self Esteem.- This is the net emotional results of the assessment of ideal versus image. However, there are some instances in which this can be corrupted. For instance when the ideal is fantastically wrong, or when the self-assessment is myopic. One good feedback for self-esteem is to understand that small steps towards the ideal are empowering and give us hope, and increase our esteem. Fear of Rejection is the greatest barrier to success. Fear of rejection is indeed the greatest enemy of human progress because the real toll it takes into actuality, personally and collectively, is tremendous. All fears other than the most primal (to fall, to starve) are learned. The implication is that they can be unlearned. Fear of rejection originates with the early-on child parental and environmental feedback of love for compliance and emotional punishment for the lack of compliance. Once ingrained, it extends to other areas quietly.

Fear of rejection manifests itself in curtailing our actions, especially newer ones, especially those that have to do with other people. We tell ourselves the wrong story. Rejection by strangers is not personal because they dont know us. The stories we cook up to prevent us from reaching out, for ourselves are baseless. Even if we indeed suffer rejection, this is mostly because the other person is reacting to things in their head that we may or may not know. Fear of rejection can be overcome by progressive de-sensitization. In a proactive and progressive manner, do what one is afraid of, for the fear to go away. The Seven Mindsets of a Sales Person: Seeing oneself as president of one-self.- accepting full responsibility for our situation, our future and responsible for providing leadership. Abandon thoughts of predestination or passivity. Seeing oneself as a consultant rather than a sales man.- A successful salesman sees oneself as a problem-solver for himself but also acting, with compassion, on behalf of the client, to bless them. Being a doctor of sales.- A successful salesman will see and strive to be a knowledgeable professional, using the expertise to Exam, Diagnose, Prescribe. Just so happens that the prescription is the tailoring/couching of my offer in terms of the persons needs. Being Strategic-Thinking.- A successful person will use extra time to think through and determine the sequence of steps and intermediate goals to achieve what is wanted. He/she will break down these into smaller goals. They will plan and allocate specific times and resources. Should something happen he she will remember that failing a battle is not failing at war. Its just a step. Results-Oriented.- The successful person will have a mixture of empathy and ambition. They will want bless themselves and others, therefore they will make the best effort to advance and win. Viewing Oneself Capable of being the best.- Able to see themselves, even if by training first, as being the top performer in their field. Following the Golden Rule.- Sell as you would like to be sold unto you. This does not mean my way, but I would want for someone to respect me, appreciate me, put me at ease first. Then sell to me.

Chapter 2 The Development of Personal Power We are mostly emotional beings. Our thoughts do have a very important role in shaping our lives. Therefore is up to us to process and control and manage our emotions. This, together with considering the impact of our actions in future terms, has been shown scientifically to explain why some people succeed. There are Seven Mental Laws of Selling. These are: The Cause-Effect Law.- For every cause theres an effect. Over the longer term, little is left at the mercy of chance. Therefore, to get what we want we must find that which others are doing effectively to earn their success and apply it in our lives. A consequence of this law is the Sowing-Reaping effect. And the fact that if one does not sow, one will not reap. The Law of Compensation.- You will always be compensated by your smart investment, in the measure that it was invested. The intention should be to invest more than one would normally do, to get those expected benefits later. We have to prevent short-changing the investment just because something doesnt pay off immediately. The Law of Control.- The more one is or feels in control of ones life, the more content one will be. One, of course can be well in control of ones destiny via the Sowing-Reaping law. If one ignores it, one would feel at the mercy of some exogenous factor. The Law of Belief.- You dont necessarily believe what you see but you see what you believe. What one believes helps interpret what one sees. In turn, what one thinks one sees leads action and actively assists in the construction of our reality. Therefore, in time, what one believes actually turns into what one sees. There are such things as self-limiting beliefs. They may even be unnoticeable. They have to be examined and disarmed. The Law of Concentration.- Whatever you dwell upon expands in your life. If you think of failures prior to trying something, it will bring failure. If you switch over to success, you will bring out success. The Law of Attraction.- You attract people and circumstances that are in accordance to your dominant thoughts, good or bad. The Law of Correspondence.- Your outer world corresponds well to how your inner world is. Seven Habits of Mental Fitness Positive Self Talk.- Life itself (news, tv, worries) actually provides us with negative influence. We have to actively fight it; do something proactively to counteract this pervasive negative influence Positive Mental Imaging.- Without fail, all top athletes do it. We have to do it. We have to visualize not only the process but also the outcome.

Positive Mental Food.- Just like the body, we need to continually feed ourselves positive things on purpose. Positive People.- We have to cut those people that are negative. People dont change. We have to try to associate with positive people, on purpose, as a strategy. Positive Training and Development.- Doing things to forward our welfare and happiness on purpose, and without delay, actually helps us improve our mood. Positive Health Habits.- Because high performance, even in mental professions, is demanding, the hardware or body has to be cared for just has much as that of the elite athlete. Positive Action.- From time to time, pursuant to strategy do get some quick wins to boost morale and break out stalemates. Cardinal Rules of Selling The Law of Accumulation says that great success is the accumulation of little efforts that are hard to notice at the time but in due time they bring forth great product. A corollary to this effort is that everything counts. If we do a lot of ineffective things, because we are not strong enough to evaluate our weaknesses, we wont accumulate much. If we are tough and do evaluate our strengths and weaknesses, and do those things that work, we will have great product. Developing Personal Power Take full responsibility for yourself and your situation. It is the way it is because of you. If you want it changed then you do it. If you achieved something good, dont dismiss it. Own it. Positive Explanatory Style.- Explain events and circumstances of our attempts to succeed always in good terms, on purpose. Frame them positively. Commitment to Excellence.- Commit to be the best in your field as part of expression yourself and exercising your freedom. One wrong concept is that of deservingness. Better to earn it. We are not subject to obscure, unworkable obstacles and entanglements. Persistence.- Persistence is in essence courage to start when theres nothing there, and to continue when outcome is uncertain. Courage is every virtue at its testing points. Its the most important virtue. Integrity and Gratitude.- I got these down Mental Rehearsing.- This is important because each time we relive a good experience, our physiology acts that way. If we rehearse at tense moments we will get eventually used to be calmed when needing to perform.

Chapter 3. Personal Strategic Planning for the Sales Professional In many respects, especially for diligent people, happiness comes from progressively proceeding and attaining our self-ideals and goals; Therefore the great importance of serious strategic planning to our mental wellbeing. Clarifying values is an extremely important process because it helps us understand consciously the reasons behind our actions and fully get the benefit of applying values by doing so consistently and for a reason. Clarifying vision is extremely important because it helps us navigate in the greater strategic sense. It helps us plan our present very well, when past and future are not at hand. Its the blue print to build. Clarifying our mission is to help distill what needs to happen in actuality to fulfill our goals. Its important to help our mindset. Analysis is the most important discipline in planning. One has to coldly, very realistically, analyze repeating trends in oneself and in the environment. Successful people know that to succeed they need to a bundle of resources. One may have several skills, with each particular one being relevant to a situation. In other cases, one may wisely choose to borrow skill by cooperating with someone else that has that skill. Not all doors have the same key. All doors can be opened. When being doing analysis one should overcome the tendency of being self-protective. A spiritually mature person accepts oneself. It does not feel that he/she has to make apologies to anyone for admitting pros and flaws. Zero-Based Thinking is similar to zero based accounting in that one has to periodically justify what things are in our life (people, assets, habits, and thoughts). If we dont do so, we will end up with clutter or confused (such as my previous wardrobe). Critical Success Factors.- For everything that we want to achieve there are such things as things that enable us to get there. We must be careful to truthfully assess how we are doing in those areas. When possible, elicit feedback but be careful to react negatively by instinct. In its place, always ask for examples and explanations. In doing market analysis one should ask which customers are growing and why, to get more of those. Get those that are growing and get them to refer us to more. Energy, personal energy, is an investment. Therefore returns on investment have to be monitored very carefully. What yields the best pay for our effort? What doesnt yield sufficient payback at all? Selling is very much like agriculture: Cultivating.- network as much as possible. Learn everything you can about customers

Preparing.- prepare referrals, calls, letters. Get them ready for when contacting the client Planting.- Have peer of that client make a referral to the prospective client Seeding.- Making the sales presentation Watering.- Addressing fears of purchase by more references Fertilizing.- Refer to large organizations that already use our product Weeding.- Protecting market from competitors proactively Growing and Developing.- The market has a natural attrition rate. To overcome, one must continuously grow Continuous Harvesting.- In order to harvest more than once from the same plant, one has to continue being good to it, careful with it, even after plucking fruit. This means providing good customer. The GOSPA Method Decompose things into Goal-Objectives-Strategy-Plan-Action. When planning one must remember to couch plans in the SMART way, allocating time to actions. One must also list and take into account obstacles and price (investments, difficult choices) to pay in order to fulfill with the decomposed plan. I would add one has to add a dimension of risk management. One has to consider those things that may arise that would preclude the plan, and actively manage against them. Milestone Method Its very useful to break up a long plan into milestones to have quicker wins and track success. When doing so one must remember a couple of things. Some things may take several trials before working out due to their nature. However the Experience Curve Theory states that the more one tries not only the better one gets but also the more efficient.

Chapter 4.- The Heart of the Sale The two greatest enemies of mankind are fear and ignorance. Salesmen have fear of rejection while customers have fear of failure because of past experiences. People make tacit arrangements in their life so as to live in their comfort zone. The Critical factor is Risk. People are afraid and are trying to manage risk. The major drivers of risk are: The larger the investment the greater the risk The larger the people affected by the customers purchase, the greater the risk The longer the life of the product the greater the risk The more unfamiliar one is to the customer the greater the risk. The success in sales comes from positioning oneself as a low risk alternative. The New Sales Model: Building Trust 40% Identifying Needs 30% Presenting Solutions 20% Confirming and Closing 10% Listening is the absolute key to selling. It builds trust. It builds self-esteem It builds character and self-discipline because its a discipline that one has to develop consciously We never are in the sales business, we always are in the relationship business. People buy from friends and people they like, very often Third Party testimonials backing our credibility count for a great deal. Every little detail counts. Accumulation counts a lot too. When doing presentations, they have to be customer-focused and problem-centered. Have to match product to the clients specific needs It has to focus on the relationship first And once the sale is done one must explicitly take responsibility for sales.

Chapter 5 The Profession of Selling Selling is one of the most important professions because it supports all the other functions in a commercial organization. All other jobs are affected by the impact of the sales organization. The Seven Vital Selling Functions Positive Mental Attitude.- all outward things are a reflection of inner realities. Good Health and Appearance.- All people, including myself, snap judge and rank on the basis of appearance. Whether this is good or bad it doesnt matter because it is the way it is. Complete Product Knowledge.- If one doesnt know ones product and has confident in it (which comes from knowing the product) neither will the client. Presentation Skills.- The ability to present the product in a way that matches the customers perception and addresses his/her problems. Handling Objections and Obtaining Commitment.- The ability to answer clearly and confidently is key. Personal Management Skills.- This is the ability to plan and organize activities in support of the goals. Resales and Referals.- This is for continued business growth. These are the vital and critical functions in selling. All of them count. In order to execute successfully one must be good at all of them. The level of performance and limit to our achievement is capped by the lowest performance in any of these areas. Therefore one must carefully assess benchmark and improve separately in every one of these areas and drive improvements accordingly. The Nine Areas for Sales Benchmarking Are: Prospecting.- How to get leads into the sales pipeline. My ability to develop leads in sufficient fashion and quality, will make sure I meet or exceed sales goals Getting Appointments.- The ability to contact leads and turn them into appointments. Qualifying.- The ability to efficiently assess whether the person has the authority or interest in my presentation and product to eventually turn into a sale. Problem Identification and Clarification.- I ask questions and determine the EXACT problem or need that my prospect has that my product can deliver. Presentation Skills.- I present my product so tremendously skillfully, like a well-fitting glove, that my prospect is overwhelmingly convinced that I will solve his/her problem or need.

Objections Handling.- I anticipate and answer each question or concern that a prospect may have, so well, that is stored and never brought up again. Closing.- I am competent and confident to ask for the order at the appropriate time. Continuous Improvement The Law of Accumulation says that success is brought by many many tiny insignificant efforts that add up to a bunch. We need to continuously analyze and improve our performance so that we gradually go from good to great. However, since we cannot effectively focus on more than one thing at a time, it is advisable to focus and master one improvement at a time. The author says that it takes at least 10 trials to verify if a new method is effective.