Stop Thinking “If Only”

What’s holding you back from the success of your dreams? Do you ever catch yourself thinking or saying the following?

“If only I could get a better break.”

“If only I had more money.”

“If only I would’ve married the right person.”

“If only I worked for the right company.”

“If only I had the right parents.”

Those statements demonstrate a lack of personal accountability. Do you pull back from taking full personal responsibility? Many of us do. We think that a parent, a teacher, a friend, a boss, a spouse, the company we worked for, or some governmental program should shoulder our burden for turning our lives into what we want them to be. This approach can’t get the job done. (more…)

A few months ago Nicki and I went looking at exercise equipment. I was experiencing sciatica in my left leg (I didn’t know it at the time, but it was caused by a synovial cyst pressing on the nerve between L4 and L5; after an MRI revealed the problem, microsurgery provided the cure), was getting physical therapy treatments at the hospital, and needed to purchase an item for my home exercises. We went to a number of places, including two sports-equipment stores, finally found what I needed at a top-of-the-line exercise-equipment store on Golf Road in Schaumburg.

Author of Selling Fearlessly

There was only one salesperson in the store—a tall, lanky young man in his mid-30s. It took only a few minutes for me to realize I was in the presence of a real pro; I thought he was a terrific salesperson for the following reasons:

1. He was incredibly knowledgeable about every product in the store; the man knew his stuff.  He answered every question like the late Ted Williams talking about the fine points of hitting a baseball; it was impressive.

2. He asked a number of excellent questions directly related to my condition; he wasn’t about to proceed without getting the information he needed to do his job properly.

3. When I asked about a $2,000 piece of equipment (a similar piece of equipment I was using during my sessions at the hospital), he smiled, extolled its virtues, and then told me a $15.00 exercise rope would do the job for me for a heck of a lot less money. He wasn’t interested in selling me something he didn’t think was in my best interest. He was far more interested in establishing a long-term relationship with us than making a specific high-dollar-amount sale. (more…)

For years a question has bothered me. Coming from failure to a degree of financial success and then becoming a trainer, I have seen and personally experienced a wide range of conditions. I have been very low on money, achievement, and self-image, and have changed all that for the self-image and actual substance of success. What constantly impresses me is how little difference there is between successful and unsuccessful people in intelligence and, very often in how hard they work. Being a failure, or getting by only through long hours of labor is not easier than being a roaring success – in fact, it’s whole lot harder.

The question that has troubled me from the beginning of my training career until recently is this: What is the essential difference between the all-around successes and the people who are all-around failures? (more…)

I recently joined a select group of fellow business experts to co-author the book,
In It To Win It: The World’s Leading Experts Reveal Their Top Strategies for Winning in Business and in Life! The book was released by CelebrityPress™ – a leading business book publisher.

In It To Win It: The World’s Leading Experts Reveal Their Top Strategies for Winning in Business and in Life! was released on Thursday, August 2^nd, 2012 and features entrepreneurs and professionals from around the world revealing their top secrets on an array of subjects ranging from health, wealth and marketing, to business success.  Some of the topics covered in the book include meeting client expectations, luxury home marketing, growing your virtual business, keys to highly successful marketing leaders, thinking like an owner, re-engineering your sales force, the psychology of sales and creating loyalty, among others.

On the day of release, In It To Win It reached best-seller status in four Amazon.com categories – reaching #2 in the Direct Marketing category.  The book also reached best-seller status in the Small Business & Entrepreneurship, Marketing, and Entrepreneurship categories.

After such a successful release, I was fortunate to be recognized by The National Academy of Best-Selling Authors™, an organization that honors authors from many of the leading independent best-seller lists.

Order Your Copy of In It to Win It

A  professional is a person who has dedicated him or herself to a career — regardless of the field. It’s the opposite of an amateur. Professionals also make more money; could there be a relationship behind that fact? You bet. In selling situations, and in life, the way you present yourself plays a big role in how people think of you and how much people pay attention to what you say. A dedicated professional commands more respect than a casual amateur. Always.

Step #1. Your Attitude.  Are you a professional? If so, let everyone know it. If not, maybe that’s why you’re not as successful as you would like to be. (more…)

How do negative thought patterns affect your life? They give you the emotional droops. Your drooping emotions bring on a mental sag. Then your sagging mental powers cause a downturn in your job performance. That downturn leads directly to a sharp decline in your income. The decline in your income gives you more negative thought patterns, and they add more spin to your downward spiral.

We all go into declines. We all slide downhill now and then. Here are a few things you should be continuously doing to keep from getting exposed to depression:

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We’re going to talk about the inner game of building your business. I believe that the inner game is simply all-important. “The inner game” is a new term for a classic idea explained many different times, many different ways by virtually every success educator, and even philosophers.

In the book Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill reveals the secret using the words, “thoughts are things.” Dennis Waitley has worked with U.S. astronauts and Olympic athletes on their inner games. Author Tim Galloway explores the ideas of his books, The Inner Game of Golf, The Inner Game of Tennis and The Inner Game of Selling.

Interestingly, there is a never-ending connection between the inner game in sport and the inner game in business, allowing experts like Waitley, Galloway, ex-quarterback Fran Tarkenton and golfer Arnold Palmer, among others, to step back and forth between expounding on success techniques in the athletic and business worlds. (more…)

As I began my long journey from complete failure in selling to millionaire success, I had a lot of self-image building to do. You see, I was the kid in school who was too shy to read out loud in class. I was more interested in playing sports and making mischief in high school than in studying. I dropped out of college after 90 days because it just wasn’t “for me.” When I did that, my dad told me, “Son, your mother and I will always love you…even though you’ll never amount to anything.” You can imagine where my self-image was as I took on the responsibility of a wife and baby with no real plan for my life. Not being a great student, it was a real struggle for me to get my real estate license after deciding construction work had no future for me.

Once I got my license, though, and started hanging around people who were making pretty good money, I wanted to do the same. I wanted it bad enough to do whatever it would take to succeed. I started learning what they knew. Every personal development seminar that was available had Tom Hopkins sitting in the front row absorbing every word the speakers uttered. This was a whole new world for me. (more…)

Here’s the best way I’ve ever found to pull the best performance out of yourself. It’s an extremely simple method. Not easy, simple. First, hang copies of these twelve words where you’ll see them at work, in your car, and at your home:

I MUST DO THE MOST PRODUCTIVE THING POSSIBLE
AT EVERY GIVEN MOMENT.

Now comes the important part: Dedicate yourself to living that declaration.

It doesn’t help to look at those words once in a while and think, “That’s what I’m going to start doing just as soon as I can get myself together.” If you really want to achieve, start living by those dozen words now. (more…)

If you truly desire to succeed in your selling career, dedicate yourself to being a student your entire life. It’s sad but true, that too many salespeople believe and act as if their education is complete once they’re out of the formal school environment. The sign of a true professional is how much they can learn after they “know it all.”

In sales, one of your most powerful learning tools is your power of observation. Many valuable selling skills and nuances can be picked up just from observing various business and personal situations.

• Watch how a child gets his or her way with adults. They’re usually very specific about what they want and persistent.
• Observe waiters and waitresses, retail clerks and family interactions.

Who gets the “sale” of their point or desire? How did they do it? Did they say something verbally or use body language or both to close the sale? Constantly think about how you can apply what you observe in your selling situations.

I’ll keep posting sales training strategies and tactics for closing more sales. To succeed in selling, keep learning!

Most sought-after audio sales training program: How to Master the Art of Selling Anything

This information is copyrighted by Tom Hopkins International, Inc. for reprint permission, contact Judy Slack (judys@tomhopkins.com).