The actual closing of the sale is by far the most important step in the selling process. I teach lots of techniques for prospecting, meeting people, qualifying, presenting, demonstrating, and overcoming objections, and they’re all important. But, unless you can close, you’re like a football team that can’t sustain a drive long enough to score. (more…)

Studies have proven that attitude is one of the traits that separate average sales people from their highly-successful colleagues. I have to believe that it’s true in life in general, not just sales. Think about the happiest, most successful people you know. How do you usually find them? Are they depressed, negative, or even apathetic? I doubt it. They’re probably upbeat, smiling, and positive about life. (more…)

Being a good manager is like putting a jigsaw puzzle together.  The first time you try to fit the pieces together it takes awhile to get everything to fit smoothly.  The next time you attempt to make the pieces fit you are a little more familiar with the pattern and each time after that it becomes more and more natural to easily match everything together and have it all turn out right.  The pieces of the puzzle a manager has to put together are comprised of advertising, recruiting, holding productive meetings, motivating a person who is in an emotional or financial slump, handling types of personalities you don’t relate to and recruiting people that are happy on other jobs, but are ready for change if you follow-up with them properly among other things.  All of these techniques combined together make a great manager.  (more…)

Being a firm believer in the importance of choosing the right words in all situations, I often find myself studying the impact of things I hear. I think about how the words make me feel. Then, I try to turn the situation around to where I capture an understanding of the person who said them and what they really meant. Not many people do this. Few invest the time and effort into studying words, even though how you use them dictates nearly everything about life, relationships and business.

When you reach the level of manager, executive or business owner, you really have to watch what you say and how you say it. You now have a group of people whose lifestyles depend on your business. They will always be on the alert for any sign of challenge in the business that could negatively impact them. You must learn to be crystal clear in your communications, yet use words that evoke the emotional impact you desire. (more…)

The most powerful desire of human beings is the desire to be comfortable. I’m sure you’ve heard or read about many of our strong desires or needs such as security, achievement, recognition, money, love, etc., but they all boil down to the fact that we all want comfort more than anything.

Now, each of us may have a different definition of comfort. For some, it may involve having a million dollars in the bank, a beautiful home and time to travel. For others, it may be a more modest home, $10,000 in the bank and time to enjoy our families. The point is that it doesn’t matter where that comfort level is, but that we recognize that we each have one and that more than we consciously understand we will do nearly anything to achieve it. (more…)

During economic downturns, many people look for a Plan B to supplement their incomes. They fear being downsized, laid off or having their company go out of business. It’s an ideal time for professional network marketers to accelerate their recruiting efforts. Nearly everyone you talk with will express some sort of fear about their job or their financial security. “The economy” and its impact on everything from global business to John Smith’s little family seems to be the #1 topic of conversation these days, doesn’t it?

It’s an especially ideal time if you market health-related products. When folks are uncertain if they’ll have health insurance benefits in the near future, they tend to pay more attention to their health now. A local doctor’s office I know of has recently been inundated with calls from patients they rarely treat. Many are asking for physicals to update their medical records—just in case. (more…)

Ron Marks

Most sales managers and their companies have terrible timing when it comes to improving the skills of their sales teams. Unfortunately most companies conduct training only when a sales person is new to the company. After they have a few sales under their belts, training stops.

If you were a military leader and had a critical mission in front of you, you would likely train harder and more intensely than ever before. You would want your team’s training to be current in order to be most effective. Yet sales managers send their sales people out into the field each and every day without the slightest bit of current training and skill development. (more…)

Fear is the greatest enemy you’ll ever encounter as a real estate professional. Hopefully, you’ll learn to recognize and conquer your own inner fears. The toughest job is when you have to help others admit to and overcome their fears so you can earn the opportunity to list and sell their homes for them. Fear is what builds that wall of resistance we so often run into. You must master the skills to either climb over or break through that wall. (more…)

From the moment we are born until the moment we die, everything we say and do is for the purpose of satisfying some want or need. A basic rule of selling is that a person will buy what they want, whether or not they need it.

One of the most common mistakes salespeople make is in assuming that a client will make the purchase because you have convinced them that your property is a great buy. Now, I don’t claim to be a psychologist, but in my selling experience, I have found that there are two basic appeals. We react from logic and emotion, and when there is conflict between the two, emotion will always win. (more…)