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“Start with the problem they already know they have – especially when you’re talking to gatekeepers.”

~ Chandell Labbozzetta

Life Without Gates and Fences

One of the things people complain about these days with so many people working from home, is that it’s harder than ever to get past gatekeepers.

It’s not actually a new problem because over the past few years many sales people and business owners have found that it’s increasingly difficult to talk to the decision-makers and get them in the room for a presentation. In fact, it may not be a problem at all – if you use this behaviour to your advantage.

Think for a moment about life without gates and fences. You would have a constant onslaught of demands, messages, opportunities, and so on and you would never get any of your own work done because you would be at the mercy of OPE (Other People’s Emergencies) – and some of your colleagues may work that way. However, if you’re not in customer service you should have gates and fences around your own time, energy, and availability and I assume that you already do.

Imagine the decision maker who doesn’t have anything stopping the onslaught of messages. Unless you are a business or development coach that probably isn’t someone you want to work with because you already know a few things about them:

  • They are easily distracted;
  • They are inundated with options;
  • They are probably not going to be fun to work with.

AND…

If you are looking for coaching clients then you absolutely need to make certain that the person with no gates or fences in place wants to change that situation and is fully aware of the price they are paying for their ‘open door’ policy.

In my experience, the person with an effective gatekeeper makes a fantastic long-term client once you have the opportunity to talk to them.

Entering the Conversation in Their Heads

One of my team members has the amazing gift of solving problems I didn’t even realise that I had. She makes my life so much easier because she anticipates problems in advance and solves them for me.

That is an awesome gift for a team member, and I hope that each of you has someone just like her, but it’s a terrible sales tactic!

That’s what gatekeepers are there for: to help you solve the problems you already know you have.

Here’s the reality:

  • Prospects are busy.
  • Their receptionists are busy too.
  • Your call is seen as an interruption.
  • Unless…

You are able to enter the conversation they’re already having in their head and demonstrate that you can solve a problem that is top-of-mind – their mind, not yours!

When you do that in your opening sentence, suddenly you find yourself talking to decision makers and prospects almost 100% of the time. You may not always get a sale, but you’re far closer to one than you can possibly get if you never get past the gatekeeper and no-one returns your voicemails.

Open Doors and Invitations to Engage

In a recent Mastermind we were talking about this problem and I shared my own, virtually infallible method of handling this situation.

Another participant laughed and said, “Yes. I remember when you used that to get to me. My very well-trained PA put the call through and said that I had to take your call now… And I’m so glad she did!”

You see, my elevator pitch and sales system was designed to open doors to people who were already wrestling with the problem I solved. I learned this strategy back in the days when I was the star sales representative and then led the highest performing teams in the corporate world. My colleagues were amazed at my call to appointment rates and shocked at my close rate. I knew that if people didn’t respond to my pitch, they were either not going to buy at all, or they were going to be difficult clients.

I even had a voice mail message that got me a high percentage of call backs.

You Do Leave Voicemails Don’t You?

Many gatekeepers and professionals have a habit of blocking unknown numbers if the caller doesn’t leave a voicemail… And a great many people have developed the habit of letting calls go to voicemail if they don’t know who is calling.

An intriguing voicemail message that resonates with your ideal client enough that they call you back when they are able is an extremely effective sales tool. It means that they are calling you, and that they have enough interest in your product to do so.

This is one of the most popular modules in my Confident Conversion online course. Students find the simple technique I teach for crafting a voice mail that will get people to call you back more than pays for the price of the course… AND, it makes calling prospects fun!

Confident Conversion Online

Life Puzzle’s Confident Conversion group study course has proved its effectiveness over and over again. Over the past few sessions we’ve had people from all over the world sign up just so they could listen to the recordings, and we’ve had other people ask if they could start right away.

In response to this interest, we’ve made a self-study version available for you to start when you’re ready, and complete at your own pace. The popular group study versions will run twice a year with strictly limited number to ensure that every participant gets the personal attention they want.

For more details visit: https://bit.ly/CC-90days

“I have never worked a day in my life without selling. If I believe in something, I sell it, and I sell it hard.”

~ Estée Lauder

Do You Believe in What You Are Selling?

One of the biggest consequences of our Melbourne lockdown right now is the fact that I can’t visit my chiropractor because I really can’t justify my situation as a health emergency.

It has made me reflect on the benefits of a smooth selling process.

You see, Ashley doesn’t ask me what I want him to do each time I show up to an appointment and he doesn’t ask me how often I want to visit. He’s not all that interested in my preferences… just my outcomes.

We have the discussion about my goals at the start of each series of appointments, then he tells me what I need to do and how often I need to show up at the clinic for an adjustment. Beyond that, he has his own ways of measuring my progress toward those goals and he tells me how I’m doing on his scale.

When I’m ‘too busy to show up for appointments’ he tells me exactly what he thinks about my attitude to my health and what the consequences will be.

He’s usually right.

Is he thinking about how to increase his sales volume or is he thinking about my health and wellbeing?

To be honest, it doesn’t really matter what he’s thinking because the difference that a proper adjustment makes to my mental and physical health is dramatic. Post-adjustment my ability to handle stress rises, my focus improves, and I’m able to make better decisions and deliver better work.

The same is true for your prospects!

They simply don’t have the knowledge and expertise to make adequate decisions and they have a vested interest in downplaying their needs unless they are fully aware of the gravity of their situation.

If you believe in what you are selling, you will make your life much easier if you only create options that fulfil your customers’ real needs and if, like Ashley does, you are prepared to say, “No. I cannot deliver value on that basis.”

Are You Presenting to People who Need Your Solution?

The most important reason to qualify your prospects is so that neither you nor they are wasting time. Have you ever seen the offer of a free consultation and thought, “I don’t know if it will be worth my time even if I don’t have to pay.” It’s a compelling argument.

I have a string of qualifiers before I let people register in my courses (especially where there is group interaction involved) because I’m not really interested in having people who simply pay me. I want people who are investing in themselves and who will benefit from the solutions I offer.

Does that seem too hard?

It’s actually more a question of calling out the problem you solve loudly and clearly. Your solution may be fantastic, but if the people you offer it too don’t yet feel the pain of that problem, then they are unlikely to purchase.

There’s more to it than that, and I teach the details of helping prospects feel their need in Confident Conversion: 90 days to More Cash, More Clients, More Impact my online course but the essential thing to understand is that your prospects have many problems and so they need to solve them sequentially. If the problem you solve isn’t screaming at them every time they turn around, they’ll focus on solving something else first.

When you crank up the volume on their pain, they are prepared to step onto your sales slide.

Have You Found a Way to Make the Abstract Visible?

One of the people in a recent Confident Conversion: 90 days to More Cash, More Clients, More Impact group session had a problem. The benefits of her service were rather abstract and she was struggling to help prospects feel the pain and see the results so that they would commit.

Many businesses face this challenge – both those which are service and those which are product focused. The craft of selling likes in helping them make connections between things they can see and feel and those that they can’t. Once you’ve done that, price becomes irrelevant.

Last week I was talking to a business owner who has recently started working with clients in the US. He was shocked to receive a tax bill from the IRS for over USD$9,000 and he ended up seeking additional advice from an accounting firm that specializes in both Australian and US taxes. The difference between what his current accountant charges and what this expert charges is stunning, but the fee paled in comparison with the appeal of making the problem go away.

His account of the sales conversation was a study in how to turn an abstract “this is what the IRS thinks I owe because of X,Y, and Z, but I’ve calculated it as $0.00” into a clear picture of two very concrete choices that contrasted misery and joy.

Ashley (my chiropractor) does it, too. His sessions are bookended with an analysis of what I’m experiencing and at each session he reflects back to me how I was feeling on my previous visit. He has even managed to turn the spinal visualisation into a kinaesthetic connection that reinforces the value of regular sessions for my overall health and peak performance.

Every business must do this if they want to sell more easily… including yours. And, in over 20 years of working with sales teams and business owners, I haven’t yet found one for which this couldn’t be done.

How Will You Make Your Value Tangible?

These three elements will completely transform your prospecting and sales presentations and set you head and shoulders above your competition. When you sit down and do the work, at first it seems too hard, but then ideas start to flow, and results start to show.

It is one of those activities in which you do the work up front and quickly see the results show up downstream, but it won’t happen if you don’t put the time and effort into thinking through all the steps and elements you need to include.

Once you do the work, though, the results are similar to wielding the proverbial magic wand… So what’s stopping you?

“Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems.”

~ Rene Descartes

Critical Thinking and the Statement of Your Problem

Sally had just received a warning that for the third week in a row she had missed her sales targets and was required to attend a coaching session. Her boss had hired me as the outsourced sales manager because as she put it, “I can monitor sales results, but I don’t seem to be able to change them. I need someone to train and manage my team for me, without having a full time employee.”

Sally was feeling defensive when we started our session. She had a list of reasons why she hadn’t achieved her targets:

  • Offices were closed and people working from home;
  • Economy was tight and uncertain;
  • Everyone else’s sales were also lower;
  • Struggles of working from home;
  • Personal issues…

It all added up to: “None of this is my fault.”

I could see her point. Actually, that was a large part of the problem. She was bringing her emotional perspective into the problem rather than thinking critically about what her real problem was, and how to solve it.

Andrew had a similar problem except, in his case as the business owner, it wasn’t a question of an external reprimand that kept the problem top-of-mind. The problem was reflected in his bank balance and cash flow issues. He came to me and said, “The clients I get argue over every item on the bill and there just aren’t enough of them to cover my costs and make this worthwhile! What am I going to do?”

Notice that Andrew, as a business owner, was looking for a solution, where Sally (the employee) was mostly complaining about how unfair it was to be held to account for her performance in tough times.

BUT… They were both looking in the wrong place for the solution.

Exploring Solutions Means Analysing the Problem

In another blog IF You Can’t Solve a Problem with the Same Thinking that Created It, THEN… I talked about the reality that you cannot solve a problem with the same level of thinking that created it. In this one, we’ll dive down into specifics.

When I asked Sally some questions about her situation and her sales results I discovered some interesting information.

  • She only knew about her sales rates when she received the weekly sales statistics;
  • She was feeling somewhat isolated and abandoned working from home and missed the face-to-face interaction and daily encounters of office life;
  • She had no clue how any of her colleagues were doing;
  • She had a lot of things going on in her life at home;

However, the key to her problem wasn’t any of those things…

The real issue lay with the actions she was taking (or not taking) on a daily basis which were reflected in her sales results. That gave us a clear plan of action… IF she wanted to change because the problems we needed to address were UPSTREAM from the presenting problem of too few closed sales.

Andrew’s problem was very similar, he started out looking for ways to remove clients’ resistance to paying appropriate prices for his services and realised that the problem lay in his process for attracting clients.

Openness to Change

You’ve probably already identified the real challenge that comes when you correctly identify the problem and track it to its source: Resistance to change!

When I talked to Sally and her boss (and the other team members) about ways of highlighting both activity and outcomes so they had ongoing feedback, they weren’t sure about that kind of change.

We plotted the sales process and highlighted the activities that preceded the sale – looking at percentages and numbers: the change felt uncomfortable.

We talked about alternatives for creating interactions while working out of the office, and different possibilities for making sales presentations. There’s already so much change that we can handle any more…

Andrew had a similar response.

He had a steady stream of clients coming from his existing efforts (even if they did all pressure him about prices, complain constantly, and pay late). He was afraid that any change would upset that balance.

Eventually, they both agreed that the price of stasis was higher than the price of change so they took action.

Formulating an Effective Solution

In the process of working through this, both Sally and Andrew learned how to use some important questions and critical thinking tools that they could use in other situations.

The process of digging beneath the superficial presenting problem to find out more about it became a rule that they were able to apply to refine their approach to personal problems and other business problems.

Realising that the problem they were facing might not be the problem at all, but just a symptom of another problem provided a whole new approach.

Confident Conversion: 90 days to More Cash, More Clients, More Impact

Some coaches like to view their client’s problems as discrete issues to be solved one by one. My approach is different. I like to empower my clients by giving them the tools and skills to apply the process from one problem to another.

In high school trigonometry, I was stumped by transformations.

When my teacher helped me work out an equation using cos, sine, and tan and explain how all the equivalencies worked for one problem, I was stumped when the next one looked different. It was years before I realised that my problem wasn’t that I couldn’t do the mathematics, it was that I didn’t have the right questions to step me far enough back to identify the core similarities and apply a process to them.

Sure, some kids could instinctively see the patterns and work out the transformations, but there were plenty like me who couldn’t do that.

One of the goals of my Confident Conversion: 90 days to More Cash, More Clients, More Impact program, is to give you the tools to solve the business and career problems by sharpening your critical thinking skills. You may choose to have a coach as well (I highly recommend that), but you will also find that suddenly, when you solve ONE problem, you can see the way to solve a handful of OTHER problems that you had thought were unrelated.

If you’d like to learn more about our new self-study program, go to https://bit.ly/CC-90days

“One reason that it’s helpful to talk about your problems with someone else is the unique perspective they bring to bear on it. Did you know that you can teach yourself to do this without the help of someone else? You can. It’s one of the most useful skills I teach.”

~ Chandell Labbozzetta

You Need to Discover New Ways of Thinking and Defining Problems

You may have heard the story about the group of people who were blindfolded, then taken over to an elephant and asked what they thought it was. As they crowded around the elephant, each person described it based on the particular part they could feel. Even though they were all accurately describing the element they were close to, they did not have a clear picture of the whole animal.

Problems in any area of life are like that – including business problems. We see the problem from our own perspective, and we feel it’s effects, but we can’t see all round it. In addition, we’re also often caught up in an emotional response to the existence of the problem in itself.

We’re often just like the people with blindfolds on who were confronted by the elephant when it comes to problem-solving. We see one part from one perspective. Often, that perspective is the reason the problem exists in the first place.

For example, Jim struggled to get his employees to arrive at work on time. He called me and invited me to help him solve this problem. As he described the problem, people were always arriving late, shifting deadlines, making excuses, and generally not acting responsibly.

We arranged to meet at a café at 8am to discuss the situation before heading into the office. At 8:10am he called to tell me he was running late and would be there in 5 minutes. At 8:45am he received a message on his phone from Sam, his accountant: “See you in fifteen minutes.” A quick check on his calendar revealed that he was double booked.

I looked at him as I stood up to leave. “I’ve just solved your problem, Jim. Your staff members may have a problem. You most certainly do, and I’m willing to bet they’re just following your example. Until you sort out your disorganisation, I don’t think you can ask much of your staff.”

Jim did not have a clue that he had a problem until I pointed it out to him. Even worse, as long as he was misdiagnosing the problem, he didn’t have a hope of solving it. When we met the following week, he looked at everything from a completely different perspective.

Calling a consultant or coach doesn’t have to be your first step in finding a solution. You can start to identify the problem yourself using the steps that follow.

Chunk Higher...

People naturally approach problems at varying levels of abstraction. You may be a naturally abstract thinker or a naturally detailed thinker. There’s no right or wrong about it, but you want to be aware of your own tendency because it will affect the way you:

  • Perceive Problems
  • Define Problems; and
  • Solve Problems.

Many people focus on a specific problem (like Jim’s frustration with unreliable employees). As long as Jim was focused on the behaviour of his employees, he missed a fundamental part of the problem which was his own elastic approach to time and appointment commitments.

By asking the questions:

  • For what purpose? And
  • What is this an example of?

you can discover more about what is really going on and where the cause of the problem lies. If you are naturally an abstract thinker, then there is a high probability that you will only discover what you already know, so you need to…

Chunk Lower

Some people instinctively frame problems in universal abstractions (like ‘world peace’, and ‘climate change’, ‘racism’, ‘gender stereotypes, etc). When you do this it’s very had to find solutions at a day-by-day level.

The other side of Jim’s problem was that he was looking at a soup pot of all his employees, every day, in every way. As we dug into his problem later on, it was clear that there was a subset of his employees who meticulously fulfilled their obligations, and a growing number of employees who did not. In order to solve the problem, we needed to delve into the details and ask questions like:

  • What or whom specifically are we talking about? And
  • What are specific examples of this?

These answers will help you identify the extent of the problem more accurately. If you already think in a detailed fashion then you may become overwhelmed and need to chunk higher to uncover the insights you need, or even…

Chunk Sideways

You’ve probably heard of lateral thinking and its modern founding father, Edward do Bono. Looking at problems from the side, or chunking sideways, is one of the most challenging approaches for most people.

As we looked at Jim’s problem with organising his own time and honouring his commitments, he realised that it showed up differently in many areas of his life as well. It wasn’t just a question of switching calendar apps or time management tools or activating louder and more persistent alarms. Nor was it a question of changing just one kind of unreliable behaviour. It was showing up in multiple areas of his life.

Jim had an unusually powerful desire to please people, so his first response was always “yes.” In addition, he was incredibly optimistic about how quickly he could accomplish tasks and how much he could fit into his life.

It wasn’t until we asked the questions:

  • What are other examples of this? And
  • Where else does this show up?

that we realised how widespread the problem was and what it would take to solve the problem.

The really exciting part is that once Jim grasped this approach, he was able to use it to solve several other problems that had been bothering him for years. In fact, a few months later, he was able to help his daughter apply the same approach to her schoolwork and transition from a struggling C-student, to a stellar A+ student at the top of her class.

Confident Conversion: 90 days to More Cash, More Clients, More Impact

This cornerstone program isn’t your standard business growth course that focuses purely on tactical and strategic elements. In addition to those essential elements, our goal is to provide you with the mindset and thinking tools that give you new ways of analysing and solving problems.

You can discover more about it at https://bit.ly/CC-90days

“Let’s go.”

“We can’t.”

“Why not?”

“We’re waiting for Godot.”

~ Samuel Beckett

Paralysis by Analysis and Other Related Problems

I remember my frustration in high school when we had to study this play.

I mean, the chap doesn’t do anything.

He just waits… And waits… And waits… Who acts like that?

Oops! It happens all the time in business and sales and it is incredibly destructive.

Don’t get me wrong…

  • Analysis is important… Especially after you have results to analyse;
  • Quality affects your reputation… But it’s not only measured in one way;
  • Timing is everything… Not yet is deadly.

There’s a popular business quotation: “You cannot manage what you do not measure.”

It’s true. Even more true is this variant: “You cannot manage if there is nothing to measure.”

Let’s use your introduction as an example of how this works because it’s just as true when you are face-to-face with someone at in-person or virtual networking events, connecting with someone on LinkedIn, or calling someone on the phone. Without a consistent introduction (which may vary depending on your context and audience) you will never really know why people don’t pay attention to you.

It’s not until you have a framework that you use consistently that you can evaluate:

  • What interests people about you and your offer;
  • Whether the appropriate people are interested;
  • How you can increase their interest;
  • What the outcome of that interest is likely to be;

This is especially important to growing businesses who want to take control of their growth.

The Bait Trap

There are a couple of key problems you could face with your introduction and this is just as true whether your introduction is verbal, written, or some kind of lead magnet or attraction tool:

  1. Fishing Trawler Syndrome: Casting a great big net and collecting everything in your path is expensive and demotivating. Just like a trawler, you fish until the net is full, then you come back to shore full of excitement, but when you sift through the catch there are only four or five fish that are worth keeping. If your introduction is designed to appeal to ‘everyone’ you’re simply making your work harder.
  2. Wrong Bait: Investing in an exciting new conversation-opener, lead magnet, tool, or opportunity only to discover that the people you talk to aren’t interested at all can be demoralising. It’s even worse when put all your faith in that one thing and don’t stop to check if it’s working by measuring your results.
  3. Wrong Audience: Talking to people who can’t afford or don’t need your solution is frustrating for anyone. If you don’t have a consistent way of introducing yourself, or set aside time to analyse the outcomes you cannot tell whether you are talking to the right people or not.

Once you have a framework, a plan, and some data, you’ll be in a position to analyse the results. Until then, focus on taking action.

I was working with an in-house sales team last year and once we’d covered this 5 of the 8 team members suddenly realised that they could predict the outcome of any conversation within a few minutes. This was especially powerful at conferences and networking events and suddenly their sales commissions sky-rocketed.

Two of the others were struggling to refine their introductions and wouldn’t commit to consistently testing so they could discover what worked. They were frustrated by the success of their colleagues, but couldn’t find the discipline to stick to the process. The last member of the team was fixated on creating the ‘perfect introduction’. At least, that was what she said. For whatever reason, what did was virtually nothing… And her results reflected her inaction.

Commit or Quit

If you have fishing trawler syndrome, then it’s time to QUIT that practice. You can’t afford the financial or energy-sapping drain on your business this causes. What you lose by focusing on a single market (type of fish), you gain in profitability, simplicity, and results. You can add markets later, once you have a system running in the first one.

If you have a bait problem it’s easy to take it personally, but that’s a dangerous road to go down. Make sure the people you are offering it to really are your ideal clients. If they’re not interested determine whether it is the thing itself, the way it is presented, or the hood you’re using that is the problem. Based on the information, you decide to tweak or QUIT your bait.

It’s easy to misdiagnose an audience problem as a bait problem. At one time I thought that mothers who were returning to the workforce would be a great target audience for my Confident Closing course. They certainly had a problem that the course solved, many of them had an interest as well. But they weren’t interested in investing in a solution. When I QUIT trying to talk to the wrong people about the course, I realised that I had had an audience problem. However, I’ve talked to others who completely rejigged their product in response to an audience problem and then discovered that it didn’t help.

When you COMMIT to the research and reinvention it takes to slice and dice your market, find irresistible bait, and focus on the audience who is looking for your solution you transform your results. In today’s world, it’s more important than ever to manage and measure your lead flow and sales outcomes so you’re not dependent on government regulations or other forces outside your control.

What Can You Control

How you introduce yourself and attract attention is particularly important right now. You can’t control the entire sales process, but you can control how you introduce yourself so that you make yourself especially attractive to your ideal prospects and are either ‘interesting’ or ‘repellant’ to everyone else…

Do it right and your ideal prospects will put up their hand and respond to you so that you don’t have to do the chasing…

That changes everything. It means that you no longer have to wait for Godot – or anyone else. You are in control and you can adjust the flow through your sales pipeline however you wish!

What if…

You used existing data to determine your actions so you could quit guessing and commit to a course of action that got results.

When was the last time you looked closely at the way you introduce yourself in a business context and actually used data to test your opinions?

If you’re like many people, it has been quite some time.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

  • If you’re honest with yourself, does your elevator pitch create curiosity and interest… Or just a polite response?
  • Do you actually have a pitch prepared…Or do you just create a response on the fly
  • Can you tell me, with accurate certainty, how many of your introductions lead to appointments, and what the ratio between appointments and sales is?

A powerful elevator pitch is just one of the critical elemental that can transform your ability to attract your ideal clients easily and effortlessly and dramatically accelerate your profitability and business satisfaction.

Stop waiting for the right people to find you…

Set the right bait…

In front of the right people…

And watch the magic unfold.

“Because to take away a man’s freedom of choice, even his freedom to make the wrong choice, is to manipulate him as though he were a puppet and not a person.”

~ Madeline L’Engle

#MeToo isn’t Good for Your Business

Any time you take a look around at ‘what everyone else is doing’ and set your compass by those standards, you are choosing a course that will set you on the fast-track to discount pricing because… you are willfully choosing to look just like everyone else. To be average.

Of course, there’s a place for conformity, too, but in business… it’s dangerous.

I don’t know if you’ve read the Divergent books (or seen the movies), but there are a lot of great business lessons in them. You see, Tris always had that sense that she didn’t quite belong and she had to deliberately choose to fit in for her own survival. Whereas others around her acted instinctively according to the accepted standards, she did so deliberately, always knowing that she had the power to make a different choice.

As a business, you may be tempted to follow that path in the mistaken belief that that is the way to success and survival. My message for you today is that if you want to thrive in a turbulent economy being a copycat is the wrong path to follow.

Unlike Tris, trying to fit in will jeopardise your chance of survival, not contribute to it.

Why You Need to Aim Higher and Ask More… Especially from Yourself

Just to straighten things out before you accuse me of trying to turn everyone into unbalanced workaholics, that is not what I’m advocating.

You see, people are not made to work under constant pressure. Just like a machine, if you constantly subject your mind and body to unreasonable stress and don’t do the required maintenance it will break down. Aiming higher and asking more of yourself includes providing breaks and adventures to open your eyes to new avenues of creativity and growth.

Actually, one of the things you need to ask of yourself is “time out” to regenerate mentally, physically, and emotionally however you most enjoy… And to fill your idea bank with alternative solutions for current problems.

Another powerful tool (especially for the overworked) is meditation and breathing. I was talking about this with someone the other day and he said, “When I feel too busy and hurried to stop, shut my eyes, and breathe deeply for at least 5 minutes, I can just about guarantee I’m going to do something I’ll regret later.”

Just like elite athletes, musicians, and other high performers, if you want to achieve outstanding results, you need an extraordinary commitment to creating the environment and energy you need to do so.

That includes choosing what NOT to do.

Unusual… Eccentric… or Unhinged?

Today, we’re surrounded by unusual personalities who have done great things in many fields. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the outstanding performers in just about every arena have been told they’re nuts… so criticism is probably a good sign!

It’s not just a modern phenomena, either… although it’s probably easier to get away with being exceptionally anything today than it was in the past. Archimedes, one of the greatest mathematicians of the ancient world, was apparently so excited when he finally solved one problem that he jumped out of the bathtub and ran around town stark naked, shouting “Eureka!” Hardly conventional behaviour!

But what about you?

How often do you just look around at what your peers are doing and ignore your own ideas because they’re ‘different’? Zig Ziglar famously said, “If I were going into a new market about which I had no knowledge, I’d look around at what everyone else was doing and do the exact opposite.” He had a point.

However, it takes confidence in yourself, your skills, and your ability to solve problems, to cut a fresh path. The easier way is to follow the ‘blueprint’ someone else has provided unquestioningly without seriously separating principles from tactics. I see a lot of people doing that and it’s one of the business aspects I address in my business development courses.

It’s even more important to develop the analytical and communication skills that enable you to stand up for your ideas, communicate them effectively to your supporters, and execute them rigorously (if not always flawlessly) and confidently.

What Does it Take to Stand Out?

Confidence.

There’s a reason why my sales training and business courses all include “Confident” in the title. It’s the missing ingredient in many sales presentations – whether the speaker is actually selling a product, or is selling an idea, vision, or course of action. The confidence of genuine conviction (and action) is extremely powerful and persuasive… And manufactured confidence doesn’t carry the same power.

Here’s the really exciting part, though!

“You can’t fake confidence, but you can cultivate it.”

Many business owners have a vision of what they want their solution to deliver, but they can’t communicate that vision to others. You cultivate confidence as you learn to communicate the benefits persuasively in terms that others understand… And as you practice doing so. You can also jump start confidence by harnessing the power of your mind using Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) techniques.

Are You Interested in Discovering More?

NLP Mastery Academy meets fortnightly (with a few exceptions over the holidays) to learn, review, and apply NLP techniques in your life. It’s a 12-month online group certification program that explores how these techniques can be used in relationships, personal growth, career and work settings, parenting, and much, much more. Go HERE to learn more. 

Confident Closing and Confident Conversion are our flagship programs for designing and communicating a unique business that stands out from your competitors. These fast-paced, yet thorough programs target the roots of any uncertainty you may have about your business solutions, address them, and help you design a confident and profitable business. Go HERE to learn more. 

“The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.”

~ Malcolm X

The Uncertainty Test

A lot of business coaches are promoting the litmus test of your business’s functional systems as the ability to take a 30-day vacation without checking in, and discover that sales and delivery have increased in your absence. It’s a vital concept… even if you know that your business won’t pass the test it gives you certainty and a goal.

There’s a similar test that I developed for the sales teams I coach to assess their preparedness for changes in the market that I call “The Uncertainty Test”. You may not like the information the test gives you, but it provides a baseline against which you can measure your progress toward sales resiliency that I predict will be crucial in the next few months.

What Would Happen to Your Sales if...

This has been a challenging year for most businesses and it has highlighted those which have robust and resilient sales systems and those which don’t.

Here are some of the important questions for you that will reveal the strength of your sales system:

  • What proportion of your sales come from long-term nurture vs. cold contacts
  • Do you have systematic nurture processes?
  • Do you have systematic outreach systems?
  • If a key member of your sales team left, would it dramatically reduce sales?
  • Do you have a system for developing your team members?

There are several more revealing questions that I use when I’m working with a business or sales team to build or strengthen their sales resilience, but by the time I’ve asked these 5 questions the person I’m talking to is often seriously concerned… And rightly so!

In a booming economy, which we’ve all been enjoying for the past eight or nine years resilient sales systems didn’t matter much. Over the coming months (or possibly years), that will change. There will still be abundant opportunity, but it will flow towards those who are prepared to do the work and learn the skills that others reject.

Three Parts of a Successful Sales System

Building a successful sales system is relatively simple, but it does take hard work and an investment of time and energy. Often, when I’m consulting with clients they’ll say, “I’m so glad that you are managing this strategic process, Chandell. I don’t think we would have stuck with it if you hadn’t been in charge but it’s transforming our results.”

There are three important parts that you need to build:

  1. Expectations: what actions and attitudes do you expect from your team (and that includes any one who is outward-facing). These will included calls, research, nurture, surprise follow-up etc.
  2. Processes and Systems: you should have processes and systems for every aspect of your sales and service including client follow-up because it’s all part of the next sale. You will probably find ways to strengthen them over time, but these documented systems should be a baseline that is rigidly followed.
  3. Training and Evaluation: even your sales stars need to keep their mindset and practices sharp. If they really are expert, ask them to help with your training program design and delivery so they learn new skills.

Systems are the Key to Resilience

Over the past few months I’ve noticed that sales superstars who don’t have strong supporting systems are struggling! Offices are closed, phones are unattended, and gatekeepers have more resources at their fingertips to keep unexpected callers out than ever before.

On the other hand, teams who have robust systems in place have a long list of existing customers to follow up, new prospects to connect with, and they are closing sales steadily. I’m not certain that the market will be this strong in another six months, but I am confident that these sales people will continue to attract a steady flow of deals.

One of the key distinctive is their organised system for following up enquiries. I was talking to someone yesterday whose Business Insurance had lapsed because the Insurer had ‘FORGOTTEN’ to send through the renewal notice and process the auto-payment! I thought that was extraordinary, but one of the other participants in the conversation pointed out that their accountant, lawyer, and stationery supplier had similarly dropped the ball (and were being replaced).

My point: a lot of people are using Covid-19 as an excuse for ‘business flakiness’. If you refuse to go down that path and stick to your systems and quality standards you will stand out like the Eiffel Tower as a landmark of innovation and quality.

Confident Conversion: 90 days to More Cash, More Clients, More Impact

The open sessions of Confident Conversion run 3-4 times per year and are suitable for small business owners or sales managers who want the process of choreographing every aspect of their sales and marketing to be facilitated and who also want an outside eye to help them build the business systems they need for stability and growth.

I also provide various levels of in-house sales training for teams which can take the burden of designing your sales systems and overseeing your sales team off your shoulders and sets you free to focus on the core aspects of your business.

“Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.”

~ Donald Berwick

Why You Have the Sales Results You Do

Read that quotation again… slowly.

You may not like the message, but the truth is that the results you are getting are directly related to the sales system you are implementing.

In my NLP Master Practitioner Certification courses, I teach a powerful tool known as strategy elicitation. I introduce this by talking about the strategies / habits / systems people implement in daily life without recognising them. Almost everyone has a particular way of doing things ranging from the way you dry yourself after bathing, or get into bed, to the way you design complex electrical systems or plan a trip into space.

Whether you recognise it or not, you have a sales system. The question you need to ask is: “Does my sales system deliver the results I want?”

What to Do If You Don’t Like Those Results

Some of my clients, especially corporate sales managers who delegate their team development to me, respond to the question with, “You’ve got to be kidding! Of course not!” or words to that effect.

Other clients are more nuanced, “Not always” or “There are some gaps.” Or even: “I’m getting good results – better than my competitors – but I know I can do more!”

That’s why they’re talking to me… Their existing sales system isn’t delivering what they really want.

When we dig deeper it’s obvious that either their system is ‘random sales acts’ or they have some aspects of their system that are either sub-optimal or destructive.

Once you are aware that your system is letting you down to some degree, you will see things you can change. Try this exercise:

1. Document your existing processes for:

  • Identifying prospects
  • Piquing their interest
  • Making contact
  • Nurturing the sale
  • Closing the sale
  • On-boarding clients
  • Seeking referrals and recommendations
  • Following up lost opportunities
  • Seeking the next sale

2. Analyse these processes and find the gaps;
3. Fill the gaps.

You’ll be surprised at how effectively following this process to the letter transforms your results and shifts them closer to the results you want. You may also be shocked by what you learn about yourself and your team.

This is not a process for the faint-hearted or those who do not like facing unpleasant realities. It is a process for those who want to accelerate both the value and the volume of their sales.

Is Your Sales System Future-Proof?

If there’s one thing this pandemic has taught sales teams, it’s that you need to build systems for both nurturing existing prospects and finding new ones. It has also exposed massive holes in many businesses’ sales systems.

When the economy was riding high, sales and leads flowed almost effortlessly – as tensions have risen, the atmosphere has changed… And so have the stakes.

If your sales pipeline is overly dependent either on existing business or new leads and you don’t have an effective system that balances the two extremes (and many individual sales people do not) then you are at the mercy of the economy and other outside factors.

Confident Conversion: 90 days to More Cash, More Clients, More Impact

This is my flagship program that helps you build the sales systems you need to close sales and fill your pipeline both now and in the future.

There are two facets of this: a small group program for individual business owners or small teams to attend where we work to master the principles and gather the tools required to create effective systems for each area of your sales process. The end result is a sales system that works for you and delivers the outcomes you are looking for.

Alternatively, I offer an in-house version for sales teams where the focus is specifically on analysing and refining your existing sales systems and building cohesive sales teams that deliver extraordinary results.

“As sure as the spring will follow the winter, prosperity and economic growth will follow recession.”

~ Bo Bennett

When Money Flows Up Hill...

Since recovering from the GFC, world economies were on a steady upward curve. By early 2020, unemployment had hit record lows in most of the western world and it was pretty much a job seeker’s dream.

Venture Capital along with both personal or business credit were readily available and small businesses of many kinds were able to establish themselves and build respectable incomes with little or no marketing and very little risk.

That all changed with the global pandemic.

First it was hospitality and travel, then retail, workplaces, schools and almost everything else was either closed or forced online. Suddenly, many businesses were forced to reconsider their economic viability and re-evaluate their strategy, pricing, product offerings and (especially) their marketing and sales strategies.

Just like most other areas of life, a challenging economy is uncomfortable because it asks us to change with no certainty of success. That’s why it’s important to remember that these things go in cycles… and beyond the short term stress are exciting opportunities even if you can’t yet see them.

Responding to Challenge and Change

Our response to economic contraction is very similar to any other form of change – except that we often have very little choice about whether to face it or not. Understanding what is happening and how to respond can speed the (usually) painful process of loss, acceptance, and renewal.

If you look at the following diagram you will see that once we fall into the chasm, we often have to make several attempts before we can climb out on the other side breathless, bruised, strengthened, and with a sense of justified pride.

Some of your peers are still standing fearfully on the edge of the cliff, miserable yet unwilling to jump and trust themselves to overcome the challenge, others were pushed off the cliff and now dangle helplessly with no idea what to do next.

You, however, had the courage and initiative to make your way out on the other side and your horizons are wider than ever before. While you look around and start to make your way forward you call back encouragement and advice to the others and give them a vision to strive for and even pointing them to the handholds on the wall of the chasm.

Universal Model Of Change 1030x796

The Universal Model of change

What Does it Take to Set Yourself up for Success in Any Economy

There are three essential areas that you need to consider (and revisit regularly) if you want to look at your life with any lasting sense of satisfaction:

  1. The kind of person you are and want to become;
  2. The things you want to have; and
  3. The achievements you want to attain and the legacy you want to leave behind.

Your specific answers to these will differ depending on your personal goals and values, but there are a few universal success markers including:

  • Specific goals and dreams in all three areas of your life;
  • Willingness to do the work it will take to achieve these goals;
  • Openness to change and growth in order to learn new skills and do new things;
  • Awareness of your fixed principles and boundaries and a willingness to enforce them even if they seem to stand in the way of your goals;
  • Accurate thinking about each situation and the barriers and opportunities it presents;
  • Consistent readiness to find people and organisations who need your skills, services, and products and to promote yourself to them;
  • Systems for every aspect of your business;
  • Confidence in your ability to figure things out.

If you consistently act in accordance with these markers, then you will be set up to succeed no matter what is going on around you.

The Magic of Selling Without Resistance in Any Economy

When the economy is expanding it is relatively easy to sell. When confidence is shaky and the economy is contracting it is essential to have systems for every aspect of your business sales and customer service areas so that you can attract and nurture a steady stream of qualified prospects.

Building and strengthening these systems is the focus of the Confident Conversion: 90 days to More Cash, More Clients, More Impact which is both a public and an in-house training course. The course takes place online and is a combination of personal exercises, recorded prestudy sessions, and weekly live interactive discussions which wrestle with both the theory and application taught.

If you are struggling to fill your pipeline or realise that qualified prospects are escaping through the cracks in your business then this program may be just what you need either for yourself, or for your sales team.

Visit https://bit.ly/CC-90days to learn more.

“Don’t find customers for your products, find products for your customers.”

~ Seth Godin

The Key to Sales is Not Building a Better Mousetrap, but Presenting a Bigger Mouse

Lest us start by summarising the baseline assumptions on which effective long term sales careers are based:

  • Your goal is not ‘a sale today at any cost’ but to enter into a potential long term relationship that serves both the business and the customer;
  • You believe that the product or service you are selling has value to the right customer;
  • It is not your responsibility to decide whether the prospect can afford to buy, but to present the argument for doing so;

That said, in a booming economy making sales is relatively easy whereas a tight economy demands more imagination, vision, and skill… but also present more opportunity as well as other businesses recognise their own need to work smarter.

When a business owner or buyer is staring disaster in the face they are willing to spend almost any amount of money on an effective solution. You may assume that the person you are talking to is acutely aware of the problems they are facing and don’t need to be reminded, but hurrying through the process of painting the picture of the problem they are facing and its implications will slow down (or derail) the sale.

Determining Need

A master salesperson knows better than to try and sell ice to Eskimos. Selling a prospective customer a solution that won’t really address their urgent problems but will absorb resources that ought to be invested elsewhere is bad practice.

Amateurs (and the truly desperate) show up at a business with a product and do their best to sell that item even when they realise that it’s not meeting a pressing need. Of course, it’s the buyers decision in the end, but if you can see that your solution is not the most effective answer, then you’ll win trust and respect by pointing that out.

How do you determine your prospect’s need?

By asking appropriate questions that probe their motivations and also address associated problems that your prospect may not realise are linked to their most visible need.

Motivating Hunger

My book Confident Closing: Sales secrets that grew a business by 400% in six months and how they can work for you! was originally titled “Feeding Salt to Horses”. The premise behind that title was that while you can lead a horse to water, but not make it drink, if you feed him salt he will drink willingly.

As a sales person you face a similar problem: you can’t make a prospect buy, but if you mix emotional triggers in with your reasons and keep the vision of their ‘giant mouse’ front and centre they will buy willingly. Not only will they buy willingly, they’ll also feel a sense of relief as they sign the contract.

Creating Urgency

Have you ever talked to a prospect and truly known that they have a pressing need for your product or service – but then seen them dither about actually saying “Yes”.

I used to see this before I refined my tools for setting up the sale properly. It’s one of the most depressing feelings that has nothing to do with wanting to close the sale and everything to do with wanting my prospects to get the results they desire and need. If you see that your prospect has a genuine need for your product, then it’s your responsibility to create that level of urgency by identifying the negative consequences of not taking immediate action.

Disarming Resistance

It is so much easier to make decisions when you are:

  • Acutely aware of your current pain – and the potential danger you face if you don’t address the problem;
  • Emotionally attracted to an alternative future where the problem is solved and the pain has vanished;
  • Logically satisfied that this is an excellent solution provided by a trustworthy partner;
  • Impressed by the dangers of doing nothing and letting the problem slide; and
  • Faced with an urgent deadline.

At this point you have three choices:

  1. Live with the problem;
  2. Find an alternative solution and evaluate it;
  3. Take the solution you’ve been offered.

However, IF you have built your sales presentation and customer experience carefully, THEN you will already have created trust and respect in your prospect to such an extent that they really only have a single option: to place their trust in your solution and take action.

Discover The Magic of Selling Without Resistance in Any Economy

My live webinar The Magic of Selling Without Resistance in Any Economy demonstrates the principles of setting up this kind of sale. It’s especially important to understand this process when you are facing an uncertain economy.

Visit: https://bit.ly/sales-magic to learn more and register for the next session.

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