How important is it to build relationships in business?

9 Steps to Outstanding Success in Your Business: B = Build the relationship

·         Building the relationship is about finding what the customer really wants.

·         It’s about taking the time to learn about them.

·         People would rather deal with a friend then be dealt with.

·         We are in the fortunate situation whereby customers are calling us.

·         By asking the right questions we can quickly determine what the client’s needs are and whether they qualify for our product and which product they need.

• By keeping a human approach to it all we will give our customers the feeling that they are not a nuisance, that they are important and that they are listened to – they are not a punched digit on the end of a computerised system.

Human beings, like plants, grow in the soil of acceptance, not in the atmosphere of rejection.

About the time of my birth, some would say, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus wrote, “I am going to be meeting people today who will talk too much – people who are selfish, egotistical, ungrateful. But I won’t be surprised or disturbed, for I can’t imagine a world without such people.”

Sales is about building relationships. Relationships are about building trust; trust in a business, trust in a product or service, trust in people. The more we work at building the relationship between our clients and ourselves the greater the trust and the greater the long-term reward to our business.

Far too many businesses seem to think that time is the enemy of profits. Most call centres still measure their staff performance on such indicators as Time To Answer, Time To Ready and Average Call Length Time. Call Length Time is an interesting beast. The “service success” of a call centre operator is measured on how quickly they get off the phone from a customer call. The quicker they are the more they are rewarded.

I have even been told by one service centre dealing with a major computer problem – on my brand new computer – that, after an hour dealing with the issue, they would have to phone me back the next day to deal with the problem. Why? Because they couldn’t be on the phone for more than an hour. Forget the fact that I was out of business contact for that time!

And they dared to tell me, while waiting on hold, that my business was important to them! Huh!

I convinced one call centre I consulted to to drop Average Call Length Time as a measure for the operators (we kept it as a measure for team leaders). Instantly service standards rose and yet, ironically, the average call length hardly changed. The difference? The operators felt they could talk to the customer without fear of punishment! They could actually take time to build a relationship.

Not surprisingly, sales also went up along with customer satisfaction ratings.

Our customers want to know that the people they are dealing with actually care about them.

The purpose of building relationships is to build trust in you as a person and in your business. It is to gain understanding of the customer’s needs and to show a positive attitude towards them, their problems, their concerns and their issues. This is achieved by giving them the time they need – asking questions – actively listening – providing warm feedback – and in sharing in their dream!

Taking the time to build the relationship gives the customer time to build a sense that the person they are dealing with not only understands their problems but is also professional enough to be able to provide the right solution specifically for them.

But there are benefits to your business as well, besides having happier customers. In one company I consulted to, we were able to dramatically increase productivity, decrease customer waiting time and increase staff satisfaction ratings (all of which affect the bottom line) by reducing the number of repeat customer contacts simply because the sales and service staff now took the time to find the right solution to a customer need, not just a solution.

Another major benefit which has a direct $ impact in sales volumes – and one we’ll expand on in several weeks – is that customers with whom a relationship of trust is built come back to buy more and will actually advice their friends to use a particular company.

With one team I led we knew we had made it on the day a staff e-notice board posed a question on where they should go to get a home loan. The printout we received of the replies had nearly every single person who responded from across the state saying our bank. Normally you tell people you are a bank manager at a party and even the used car sales people won’t talk to you. Here we had a whole heap of people telling the world how good we were – and it didn’t cost us a cent above providing excellence in service and having a trusting relationship with our customers.

In their book “The One Minute Sales Person”,  Spencer Johnson & Larry Wilson summed it up beautifully, “Behind Every Sale Is A Person”.

Build the relationship and you build your customer loyalty. Build customer loyalty and you build profits.

Ask yourself:

·         What Are The Things I Think Are Important In Building A Relationship With My Customers?

·         How Do We Allow That To Happen In Our Business?

·         What Could We Do Better?

·         What Are The Questions I Could Ask Of My Customers That Would Help Build A Relationship?

·         What Actions Can I Take That Would Help Build A Relationship Of Trust With My Customers?

·         What Else Can I Do To Build Relationships That Will Help Me Make Sales?

Until next time, all success in your future.

Colin

Do you like this article from Business TODAY! on Mondays: Ideas for achieving outstanding business success? Feel free to share it with your friends also. Or, why not join us for other articles on my TODAY! Seminars’ Facebook pages on Leadership, SME Business, Good Health, Public Speaking, Networking and Living Life.  Alternatively you can see them on LinkedIn, Ecademy, Twitter or my BlogSpot page or at Google+. This article is copyright to TODAY! Seminars (2011) and cannot be reproduced in any form without written approval of TODAY! Seminars.

Only read this if you want to build a major networking business

Post 14 of the “Networking TODAY! on Fridays” series: How Will You Make Your Network Business A Success This Year?

This post is for the serious networking business builders out there.

It’s about you showing your business opportunity to people.

Now, I am not going to tell you how to show your business opportunity – that’s for your leadership team to teach you. I’m just covering off some of the concepts around showing the opportunity.

Talking to people about your business and marketing plan is your opportunity to learn more about the person you are meeting with. It is also a time for them to get to know you if they don’t already.

Remember, to build a business in this industry into a Business you are looking for people who are looking. Most people will reject what you have to offer them, unless they have a reason why they should do it; a dream.

If you don’t find that dream, their reason why, than they will have no reason to build their own business.

The truth is most people do not want to join your company. They will not come running up the street to grab you and demand you sign them up, just because you display your company’s sticker on your car window or wear a button on your lapel. They may however, get into business with YOU if they feel they can trust you; if they feel they have a reason why; if they feel their dream can become a reality.

Most people don’t want to work longer hours – which they will if they are serious about this business. Most people don’t want to step outside of their comfort zone and try something new – which they will if they do this business. Most people will hate the contacting of other people – but will do it.

IF THEY FEEL THAT THEY HAVE A CHANCE TO MAKE THEIR DREAM A REALITY.

That’s the purpose of showing the plan.

It’s not how well you show the plan, how accurate the numbers, or how much you know about the individual products that matter; it’s your excitement, your enthusiasm, your compassion, your respect that grabs people. The numbers, the products are secondary. People would sell snow in Antarctica if they really believed it would make their dreams a reality.

You can make mistakes in the plan; they won’t know.

Keep it simple. Don’t go into too much technical stuff. They can learn all of that later on if they want to. The active ingredient of a product is not as important to know as the active ingredients required to build a highly profitable income.

Also learn to be quiet. I was listening to someone present their business plan to a prospect only a few weeks ago and after about 10 minutes the prospect was giving every conceivable signal that they wanted to start their own business with this person; even being blatant enough to say, “I want to go ahead with this”. But did the person show the plan listen? No! They had more to tell, more to show. Learn to listen to your prospect and to be quiet. Don’t oversell and turn them away with your over-enthusiasm.

The “trouble” is, the more you show the plan the more enthusiasm you will get. The easier it will be. The more natural and confident you will get.

By-the-way, customers don’t think your products are high priced; distributors do.

Consider this:

If you show the plan 100 times in the next 12 months than that is only about 300 hours or 12.5 days of work (1 hour travel, 1 hour for the plan, 1 hour to follow up).

If only 1 in 10 register their business than there are 10 new people you will have personally sponsored in 12 months.

(In the example below – and it is only a simple example and does not reflect any plan of any company – I will assume an average purchase of $250 per month per distributor and a 10% bonus scheme – again, just because my poor addled brain can handle that)

What would those 10 new people do to your bonus cheque? Well with a total volume of $2750 per month (don’t forget to count yourself), that would give you an income of $3300 for the year. Not bad for just over 12 days work. Try getting that buying products at your local supermarket!

Now teach those 10 people to talk to 50 people each about the business so that they each sponsor 5 and you teach them to teach those 5 to each sponsor just 2 in the next 12 months. You end up with a group of 161 people with a business volume of over $40,250 per month.

That’s over $48,300 in income to you for the year – all because you initially spent the equivalent of 12.5 days working your business.  Now, what if you doubled or tripled that time! Or does working over 220 days in a year in a job appeal to you more? I don’t know; it’s a choice.

The questions you need to ask yourself are:

·         Is it possible to talk to 100 to 200 people in the next 12 months in order to find 10 to 20 people who have a dream to be free of their current lifestyle?

·        Is it possible that in the next 12 months I could sponsor 10 to 20 people or more?

·         Is it possible to teach those 10 to 20 people how to talk to 50 people in order to find just 5 people each who have a dream also and to teach those 5 people how to do the same?

·         If it is possible, than are you willing to commit to showing 100 people this opportunity in the next 12 months? (Actually showing the plan – not just talking to them).

• If it isn’t possible, than what is?

Make A Difference – TODAY!

Colin

Do you like this article from Networking TODAY! on Fridays: Thoughts and ideas on building an outstanding networking business? Feel free to share it with your friends also. Or, why not join us for other articles on my TODAY! Seminars’ Facebook pages on Leadership, SME Business, Good Health, Public Speaking, Networking and Living Life.  Alternatively you can see them on LinkedIn, Ecademy, Twitter or my BlogSpot page or at Google+. This article is copyright to TODAY! Seminars (2011) and cannot be reproduced in any form without written approval of TODAY! Seminars.

Your Past Does Not Equal Your Future

Post 14 of the “MyLife TODAY! on Thursdays” series: Ideas and tips on achieving the complete and happy life you deserve

The starting point to achieving anything in life is to understand exactly what it is, or more correctly, who it is, that you bring to the party to start with.
Because if what you believe about you is wrong, if you want to change, but your headlines are telling you that you could never do it, than, normally, the headlines will win. Our past, unless we recognise it, could defeat us before we even start. And we’d probably just accept it as “normal”.

Wrongly, people often beat themselves over the head psychologically with their apparent failures. Too often the focus is on what went wrong, rather than what went right.

To achieve anything at all in life means that you must have done something right. All it takes to achieve more or change things in your life is to either repeat or increase the number of things you do right.

It’s time for, what a friend of mine calls “David Math”:-

P ≠ F

Your past does not equal your future.

In life, it doesn’t matter where you come from or what’s happened in your life to this point that counts – it’s where you want to be and where you want to go that’s important. It’s how you use what you’ve learnt so far and how you use that knowledge in the future, that’s important.

For instance, with our young friend, the one I mentioned in the last post who said that all he could do is steal cars, it was a matter of simply asking, “What skills do you need to steal cars? What have you learnt? What have you achieved?”

Am I joking? Skills – to steal cars?

No I’m not joking and yes, there are skills needed. The question people need to ask themselves is, “What skills?”

Because once you can answer that question, you can answer this one, “Where, or how else can I use these skills, the things I’ve learnt or what I’ve achieved so far in order to achieve the life I really want?”

It’s simply a matter of re-focusing on where we want to be and not listening to the headlines of our past. Now, that doesn’t mean ignoring the past and pretending it didn’t happen. Nor is it wallowing in the past and reliving every minute of it. It is about facing up to the past, learning from it and then using that knowledge for better things. To move on from the past.

So, what skills did this young man who stole cars have?

There’s willingness to take a risk, the ability to assess quality, daringness, mechanical skills, driving skills …and so his list went on. He’d achieved many things – he’d learnt how to survive the harsh realities of life and he’d recognised the need to change. Now many people would ignore those skills and focus primarily on how he had used them in the past. But importantly, he went on to use those skills in a positive and law abiding way – creating a whole new career for himself.

Now, I’m not advocating any form of breaking the law. What I’m saying is that no matter what circumstances prevail in your life right now or may have prevailed in the past, it’s your achievements, how you view them and how you use or re-direct them from now on – that’s what counts.

You’ve already achieved a great deal, and you used a lot of those skills today, just to get by.

Don’t believe me? Then think about what you had to do today. More than likely you had to breathe, eat, speak, communicate, work, walk, write, use equipment, drive a car, organise a schedule, play a sport. Hundreds of small achievements that we take for granted.

But have you ever taken the time to ask yourself “How good am I really?” You know, most people never do!

Well, the time has come to change the headlines in your life – to find out how good you really are. The time has come to write your own story, the truth, and stop listening to the 6 o’clock news version that other people have written with their biases and prejudices. The time has come to prepare yourself for the future you can have (well, in a few more post’s time anyway).

I repeat: All it takes to achieve more, or change things in your life, is to continue or increase the number of things that you do right!

Make Your Dreams A Reality

Colin

Do you like this article from MyLife TODAY! on Thursdays: Ideas and tips on achieving the complete and happy life you deserve? Feel free to share it with your friends also. Or, why not join us for other articles on my TODAY! Seminars’ Facebook pages on Leadership, SME Business, Good Health, Public Speaking, Networking and Living Life.  Alternatively you can see them on LinkedIn, Ecademy, Twitter or my BlogSpot page or at Google+. This article is copyright to TODAY! Seminars (2011) and cannot be reproduced in any form without written approval of TODAY! Seminars.

Lessons Learnt On Being An Outstanding Leader.

Post 14 of the “Leading TODAY! on Wednesdays” series: Ten Lessons In Being A Billion Dollar Leader

Being a Billion Dollar Leader: Lesson 5: I work to make it work.

A Word on openness and trust

As a leader you will be dealing with people; and people come with emotions, issues, problems and, hopefully, solutions. The old adage of “There is the door, leave your personal problems outside” is no more valid than putting people in jail simply because they disagree with someone.

Yet that is exactly how some people are expected to operate at work.

A Billion Dollar Leader recognises that what happens on the home front, can and does affect what happens in the workplace. Equally, they acknowledge that what happens at work or in the team can also be reflected on the home front.

A Billion Dollar Leader works at creating an environment where team members feel they can discuss any issue whatsoever, be it work‑related or personal, without fear of reprisal, reproach or derision. The Leader becomes a confidant virtually by default. They become a coach, a mentor or just an ear to bend—but not necessarily a friend.

Their team members must feel secure that whatever is said in this context will remain confidential and that, where action is required, it will be taken in the most appropriate and supportive manner. The team must know that, no matter what happens, their dignity and trust will be maintained. It is a trust that once breached is almost impossible to rebuild. It is something that a Billion Dollar Leader treats with total respect.

This level of trust directly translates directly into the Continuous Improvement Process and continuous improvement ensures the Billion Dollar Leader has the best people doing the best job in ways that achieve the best results. They are always striving to get it right and doing it better for the team.

All Success

Colin
Do you like this article from Leading TODAY! on Wednesdays: Ideas on excellence in leadership and Being A Billion Dollar Leader? Feel free to share it with your friends also. Or, why not join us for other articles on my TODAY! Seminars’ Facebook pages on Leadership, SME Business, Good Health, Public Speaking, Networking and Living Life.  Alternatively you can see them on LinkedIn, Ecademy, Twitter or my BlogSpot page or at Google+. This article is copyright to TODAY! Seminars (2011) and cannot be reproduced in any form without written approval of TODAY! Seminars.

Science Discriminates Against Cadaver

They’re at it again. Discriminating!

Professor Richard Drake, Director of Anatomy and Professor of Surgery at the Lerner College of Medicine in Cleveland USA rejected a donated body of a 6’ 1” (185cm) 350lb (150kg) because it was too obese, according to an MSNBC news article by JoNel Aleccia (11 January 2012).

His rationale? “When you are obese, there’s a lot of tissue everywhere. The students don’t get as good a learning opportunity.

Which I find interesting. After all, in a society such as ours, where obesity to near endemic, wouldn’t you think that students could learn far more about the effects of such weight on a human body than by constantly operating of cadavers that are considered in the realms of normality?

If we are to combat obesity than surely we should start at school. Kinder, primary, secondary, college, university and even, medical.

Education on lifestyle choices, proper food choice and preparation, exercise, body behaviour and functioning all would be a good starting point.

When you see an 8 year old little girl who struggles to walk and breath because of her weight being supplied with fast food, soft drink and fries as her main meal of the day – supersize at that – then you know for sure it’s not a health issue it’s a choices issue.

Good choices comes from good education.

I know way back when Adam was playing fullback for Jerusalem, my schooling included “domestics”, the very basics of food education. When you see such people as Jamie Oliver, the English chef, battling a school system that chooses sugar over right food, than you just have to wonder, don’t you?

I think that the choice to reject a body from which we could learn so much does the deceased a dishonour and denies the world of an opportunity to gain knowledge.

Just as the non-teaching of right knowledge does our children a disservice while condemning them to a potentially supersized life. And that is just so wrong!

Is it wrong to teach that sugar and fat and additives and processed foods are detrimental to good living?

Is it wrong to teach that simply prepared foods, without the coverings of creamy sauces and sugar laced condiments is better for good health?

If so, I suppose it’s wrong to advocate fresh over processed, small portions over large or salads, vegetables, fish, normal meats and fruit over chips, burger and shakes!

And it must also be wrong to implement exercise programmes over computer programmes!

Good health and keep safe out there.

Colin

Do you like this article from MyHealth TODAY! on Mondays: Ideas and issues on good health and safety? Feel free to share it with your friends also. Or, why not join us for other articles on my TODAY! Seminars’ Facebook pages on Leadership, SME Business, Good Health, Public Speaking, Networking and Living Life.  Alternatively you can see them on LinkedIn, Ecademy, Twitter or my BlogSpot page or at Google+. This article is copyright to TODAY! Seminars (2011) and cannot be reproduced in any form without written approval of TODAY! Seminars.

A=Attitude of Busness Success

Post 3 of the series from “Business TODAY! on Mondays”: 9 Steps To Achieving Outstanding Success Business.

9 Steps to Outstanding Success in Your Business: A = Attitude

·         This is the starting point for all sales success.

·         Our attitude determines how successful we will be at selling to a client.

·         The client’s attitude will determine how resistant or receptive they are to your approach.

·         A sale can be won or lost before a word is said, simply by the attitude displayed.

·         Ask yourself: ‘Who’s in charge of my attitude?’

“Nothing can stop the person with the right mental attitude from achieving their goal; nothing on earth can help the person with the wrong mental attitude.” The psychologist William Joyce stated that, “The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter their life by altering their attitudes of mind”.

It is commonly believed that attitudes affect the quality of our life, the choices we make and the abilities we display. Attitudes are about choice, while anticipating and acting on adversity. Our attitude affirms our success ….. and what we believe to be our failures. And our attitudes are affected by our actions.

Why attitude is so important and placed at the beginning of the Success formula is that a business with the right attitude has a greater chance of succeeding when compared to a business with the wrong attitude, which has next to none. And, of course, when I talk about business I’m actually talking about the people in that business.

How often have you walked away from a business transaction and felt that they just couldn’t give a you-know-what? Felt good didn’t it? Ironically that very same attitude can be reflected in our attitude to or customers – just as the opposite can be.

How many business owners have, like me, hired staff based more on their attitude than their skills? After, we can teach skills. A staff member’s attitude can kill a sale long before they even speak to a customer. So often I hear people exclaiming that they felt as if they were a disruption to a service person’s work day; not the reason for it.

Now I’m not saying customers are perfect. Far from it! In fact they’re just like us (which can be frightening).

Our role in business is to understand the friendly, the unfriendly, the easy, the difficult, the happy, the angry and the upset customer and to be professional at all times in delivering service to them no matter what.

Learning to understand my customer helps me deal with them the way they need to be dealt with, rather than the way I want to! The difficult thing is that a customer will do things, act certain ways and make decisions because of the individual traits that make up their characteristics and personality – just like we do. And that means that no two customers are exactly the same – and that means they can’t necessarily be treated the same. Similar maybe; but not the same.

A customer will act according to their habits, their beliefs and ideas, their ability to lead or follow and their experiences with our business or our oppositions business. For example, Telco’s. Mention mobile phone companies and you’ll hear what people think of the industry. That thinking affects their attitude. Chances are they’ll expect a bad experience and be surprised by an outstanding one.

But we can’t necessarily blame our staff if the experience they give our customers is not up to scratch. After all, we employed them!

In their book, “Passion For Excellence”, Tom Peters and Nancy Austin state that “The role of the leader is to enhance, transform, coach, care, trust and cheerlead. The activities of the leader are to educate, sponsor, coach and counsel using appropriate timing, tone, consequences and skills.”

The way staff treat a customer is merely a reflection of a leader’s own attitude!

So how do we affect the customer’s attitude?

• Take time to understand the customer’s needs;
• Believe that the customer does want to buy – after all, why else would they be coming to your business?
• Smile before you talk to the customer;
• Use positive, re-affirming language;
• Listen to what they say as well as what they aren’t saying;
• Be positive & confident in your approach;
• Take time out after a tough customer;
• Put yourself in the client’s shoes:
• What do they want?
• What do they expect?
• What are they looking for?
• Use affirmations;
• Be like a duck! It’s not personal;
• Remember that you can be annoyed, you can be angry or hurt – but how and when and for how long is up to you!
• Remember – Excellence is not an option – it’s the minimum

One important way to affect attitude is to reward yourself! And to reward your team when a job is done well, when targets are exceeded and when milestones are achieved. When my team passed the billion dollar mark we celebrated with a special dinner for them and their partners – with everyone receiving a pair of engraved champagne glasses. A simple reward for a major milestone.

Some business owners are so stingy they won’t even buy decent toilet paper for their staff – and they wonder why attitudes suck!

Think about these questions:

·         What Can You Do As A Business Owner To Help Maintain A Good Team Attitude?

·         What Are The Attitudes We Can Display In Our Business In Order To Make Successful Selling An Every Day Event? and

·         What Are The Things I Will Do To Support My Staff/ Team In Developing And Maintaining The Attitudes We Will Display In Order To Make Successful Selling An Every Day Event?

 Until next time, all success in your future.

Colin

Do you like this article from Business TODAY! on Mondays: Ideas for achieving outstanding business success? Feel free to share it with your friends also. Or, why not join us for other articles on my TODAY! Seminars’ Facebook pages on Leadership, SME Business, Good Health, Public Speaking, Networking and Living Life.  Alternatively you can see them on LinkedIn, Ecademy, Twitter or my BlogSpot page or at Google+. This article is copyright to TODAY! Seminars (2011) and cannot be reproduced in any form without written approval of TODAY! Seminars.

Mine is better than yours!

Post 13 of the “Networking TODAY! on Fridays” series: How Will You Make Your Network Business A Success This Year?

Mine is better than yours!

Well, maybe! But mine is even better than yours is better than mine. And at least we can both agree that either of ours is better than theirs.

What am I talking about? Not cars. Not jobs. Not even footy teams. No, I’m talking about how everyone gets so (rightly) passionate about the opportunity they have to offer. But I am also talking about how people can go beyond that passion and start putting down other people’s opportunities.

Every network marketing company I’ve ever seen or worked with has had something to offer that was or is of value. The reason I say was, is many a networking opportunity has come and many have closed their doors.

And yes, there are some opportunities out there that I wouldn’t go near. There are some payment methods that I believe are better than others, equal to others or worse than others. There are some whose products are equal or better or worse than others. There are depth of product choice and narrowness of product choice. Yes, each business is different. And in each there are people who, by choice, use those products and promote their opportunity.

But I am not getting into who or what I think is better or equal or worse than another. That is not the point of this post.

This post is about the effect such bickering has on this industry and, more importantly, on the subliminal message we may be having on people when we put down what they are doing in their life.

Do you know there is a way of telling people that, “gee, that was such a mistake you getting involved with that company” and still have them feel good? I’ll get to that.

In traditional selling I have always believed that you should never put down the products and services your opposition sell – especially if the person you are talking to uses those products. There are some sales people who are so good at this, denigrating their opposition, that they may as well just say to the customer straight, “You idiot! How could you be so blind, so stupid, so ignorant and so incompetent as to ever want to buy or use those products from that company in the first place. I don’t know why I’m even wasting my time talking with you. You don’t deserve my great products!”

How would you feel if that happened to you? Not happy Jan!

Of course we’re not that blatant. We just say things like, “well, unlike Company XX, in this company you get rewarded properly for what you do” or “I can never understand how anyone would build a business with such limited (or so many) product ranges”.  They say the same, sub consciously, to the person you are talking to as the blatant person above.

I was wrapped when I was invited to attend a monthly seminar meeting of a major networking company and hearing them acknowledge that another company was responsible for where this industry is today. What? One company positively acknowledging another? Yes! What they then talked about was what their company was doing. No put down. No “I’m better than you”. Just “here is our business; you make the choice”.

I had an important lesson in this when I first started my speaking career. I had joined the National Speakers Association, the peak industry body for professional speakers. Being new, I was given a 5 minute opportunity to present myself and what I was all about. Pretty daunting speaking to your heroes I can tell you.

Afterwards I was approached by someone who was, and is, one of the top professionals with a piece of advice I have carried with me – and try to apply all the time – in my business. He told me that I was good (always nice to hear). He also told me that it was never about being the best or better than anyone else. It was simply about being the best that I could be. That the industry was far too big for all of us anyway. That two speakers could give exactly the same message, but one client will like one speaker, because of how they feel about how they deliver the message, as to the other speaker. And yet, another client will reverse that order.

That was 21 years ago and I still remember it. Thank you Winston. You are a great – and wise – man!

Sun Su, an ancient Chinese warrior, scribed a text called “The Art of War”. In there he talks about “Know thy enemy”. In other words, know who your opposition is, how they operate, what they do well, what they do better, where they are the same. The same applies in this (or any sales-related) business.

I also hold firm to the position that you never insult a customer or their ability to make choices by denigrating their current suppliers.

So how do you bring someone to your team in this business?

1)      Know your opposition, what products, services, payment schemes and, if possible, support structures thy have in play;

2)      Know what your company can do and how you are different;

3)      Never put down their choice. Treat then with respect, especially if you want them as part of your team;

4)      Stick to the facts about what your company can do, the benefits it gives you and the people you know. Don’t emotionalise with statements like, you will find this so much better. When you make such statements, you are assuming a lot of things- now when you assume …..;

5)      Talk in positive terms about them and their choice to get involved in their company – but be subtle here not so blatant as they get to feal you are blowing smoke you-know-where;

6)      Build your case around the positive differences – the positive differences in your favour of course;

7)      Ask heaps of questions about why. Why do they do what they did? Why did they chose the company, what do they like about their products? What is one thing they wish could be different?; and finally

8)      Be prepared to for some difficult questions about you, your products, your leadership team, your rewards and bonus scheme, you as a leader etc etc etc.

When you take a subtle, positive approach, you allow the listener the right to feel good about their previous choices, while building a case within themselves that says they would like to join you in your business opportunity.

And if it’s you being approached by someone else? Remember, the grass may look greener on the other side of the paddock – but the grass still needs cutting, weeding and fertilising to keep it that way. Also remember, some ground floor opportunities are just that – they never get off the ground floor. Do your due diligence – your research before potentially losing a successful business.

Make A Difference – TODAY!

Colin

Do you like this article from Networking TODAY! on Fridays: Thoughts and ideas on building an outstanding networking business? Feel free to share it with your friends also. Or, why not join us for other articles on my TODAY! Seminars’ Facebook pages on Leadership, SME Business, Good Health, Public Speaking, Networkingand Living Life. Alternatively you can see them on LinkedIn, Ecademy, Twitter or my BlogSpot page or at Google+. This article is copyright to TODAY! Seminars (2011) and cannot be reproduced in any form without written approval of TODAY! Seminars.