If you have a nervous or stilted manner when trying to establish rapport with clients, instead of relaxing them, you’ll put them on edge. If you’re nervous, they’ll get nervous and start raising their walls of sales resistance. They’ll question your reasons for wanting to talk with them. They’ll become suspect of your every move.

In selling situations, many of your clients will respond to your demeanor in kind. What that means is that if you come across friendly and non-threatening, they’ll feel friendly and not threatened by you. In other words, you get what you give. That’s why it’s so important to be well-prepared before meeting with your clients. (more…)

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…)

In the rapport setting stage of selling, your #1 goal, as stated in other blog posts on this site, is to help people to like you, trust you and want to listen to you. If you think about selling situations you’ve been in yourself, you’ll have to admit you have the same preference. The sale just seems to flow more smoothly when you learn that you have something in common with the salesperson. So, part of your job in this stage of the sale is to learn something about your buyers that you have in common and talk about it briefly to demonstrate that commonality.

Here are some areas to consider in consumer sales (B-to-C):

• Are they married?
• Do they have kids? If so, how many? What ages? Are the kids involved in sports, music or other activities?
• Are these people sports fans? What sports? What teams? (Take note if they’re wearing a local team’s jacket, shirt or baseball cap.)
• What part of town do they live in?
• Have they always lived in this city? If not, what area of the country did they move from? If you moved to the area from elsewhere you can briefly talk about first impressions of the area or what they enjoy most about living there. (more…)

I’m proud to announce that my latest book, Selling in Tough Times, has won the 2011 National Trophy for Business Books in the category of Tools & Methods in France.

Here’s a brief except of the book that I hope you find useful:

Steeling Yourself for Survival by Tom
Hopkins from Selling in Tough Times

In order to survive any challenge that negatively impacts your selling career, you need to follow the Boy Scout motto of “being prepared.” So, how do you prepare yourself for some unknown event that may pop up on the horizon?

You begin with a commitment to personal growth. Personal growth is a process of increasing your knowledge and effectiveness so you can serve more, earn more and contribute more to the betterment of yourself, your family and all of humankind. It demands an investment of time, effort and money. Keep in mind that if you’re not moving ahead, you’re falling behind.

(more…)

Your primary goal when working with a new potential client is to get them to like you, trust you and want to listen to you. That’s the absolute most basic foundation of all of my training. The reason you take the actions and use the words I teach is that they’ve all been designed and proven to make you likeable, demonstrate trustworthiness, and say something worth listening to.

This is one of the most miniscule strategies I teach, yet it can make or break your career. Don’t dismiss this or take this information lightly because it’s one of the first things people see in an intial contact and it sets the stage for how the rest of your contact goes. (more…)

I’m not trying to get you happily involved in a new supplement here. The vitamins I am referring to are for getting and keeping enthusiasm for your sales career rather than getting physically fit. Take a daily dose of these vitamins and you’ll start closing more sales:

Vitamin D – DISCIPLINE
Discipline is having the ability to do what you don’t want to do when the motivation to do it is gone. Discipline helps you to control your mind and protect your body from the daily pain of rejection a selling career can bring.

Discipline will help you make one more call after a rejection because your daily goal is to end on a positive note.

It will get you out of bed in the morning to face each new selling day with a positive outlook.

It will help you serve your clients better by returning calls and handling challenges as quickly and effectively as possible.

Think about how disciplined you are in your career. Be honest and note any flaws you have. Then discipline yourself to start working on improvements in those areas.

Vitamin E – ENTHUSIASM
People will make buying decisions based more on your enthusiasm for your product or service than on your product knowledge. Don’t believe it? Pay attention the next time you feel motivated to make a purchase. It’ll be fairly likely that the salesperson uses the product themselves or would if they could afford it. They are excited about its features and the benefits owners experience.

Vitamin B – BELIEVABILITY
This vitamin works in connection with Vitamin E above. If you don’t truly believe your product or service is exceptional and can relate the details of its benefits honestly, people will know. They’ll recognize insincerity in your voice, body language or even in your eyes…and they won’t buy.

Vitamin C – COMPREHENSION
Not only must you comprehend the value of your product or service, you must understand the emotional states of your potential clients.

If you are in retail, there’s bound to be a reason your customer is considering the purchase of that expensive pair of jeans, beautiful dress or finely tailored suit. You want to find out and build on those emotions until you have their credit card or check in your cash drawer.

In business sales, purchasing agents or committees want to make wise decisions because they then become the heroes for the company. There’s a certain emotional satisfaction and perhaps some recognition or reward in finding a good solution to a company challenge.

Vitamin A – APPLICATION
When you learn new strategies and techniques for selling, it’s essential that you apply them as soon as possible to a real-life selling situation in order to start benefiting from them. If you don’t, you’re old reflexes will quickly have you reverting back to your previous sales methods that just weren’t cutting it. Application is what helps you develop new habits and achieve new, higher levels of production.

LEARN MORE>>

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

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…)

No single job hunting skill outranks knowing how to interview successfully. When pilots fly, they step through a rigorous preparation checklist before each take off. Apply the same procedure in landing a job. The choice between a job interview being a picture-perfect three-point touch-down and a gruesome crash-and-burn is totally up to you.

My new book, Use Your Head to Get Your Foot in the Door, does interviewing head to toe, but this seven-point checklist will go a long way toward scoring your precious at-bat into a base hit. (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).