Advanced Closing Tip

Hi everybody,

I have another good one for you.

This is very simple but very few people in our industry know about it. When I am with an associate and we are working in a close proximity, when I am done writing the sale and the customer is leaving I always turn to the closest associate and just in earshot of the prospect I say something like, “wasn’t he a nice guy”?… Or, aren’t they a cute couple? just loud enough so the customer can’t help but hear my comment.

Remember, you want to be the ultimate closer. Believe it or not the customer IS listening to see if you say something bad about them like “man were they easy” or “I just sold them”. No one likes to think they were sold. They like to think THEY made the decision. So making that nice comment just in earshot is very reassuring to them in believing in your sincerity and them believing they got a great deal. This is very advanced, but very effective and easy for even a beginner to incorporate in their professional arsenal.

“The Specialist”

The Surprise Close

Hi everybody,

It’s me again! I have something very special for you tonight. “The Surprise Close”.

You see, most people are taught to do everything to close the person right on the spot. Never let them leave without closing them. I completely disagree with that philosophy. If you do statistical research on this you will find long term two things happen with this philosophy. First, the rate of cancellations are much much higher. Secondly, the amount of charge backs increase dramatically. I have never used a close in my entire career other than an assumptive close, or automatic close.

I have never had a problem letting the consumer digest everything and letting them think it over. In fact I have found that it is so unusual to approach the consumer that way that it has the same effect as reverse psychology. The customer is just not expecting that and consequently they appreciate you, your product, and your company that much more. I have legions of people that I have trained and they are amazed how it works.

Remember, opposites attract, and when you do the opposite what the consumer is expecting, they are attracted to you and your product much more. That is why I call it the “Surprise Close”. Not only is the consumer surprised, but the salesperson trying it for the 1st time is also surprised! Try it, ease up on the pressure and back off. Watch how fast they come back. Also remember, if the client cancels or doesn’t end up paying for the product, were they really CLOSED?

“The Specialist”

Ethics and Morality in Sales and Management

Hi everybody,

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend.

“So a man thinketh he becometh”. Very important part of sales and management. When I was first growing up in sales the mentors I had were all old timers with horrible habits. When I reflect on how they spoke about their prospects and employees it was easy to understand what destiny had in store for them. It was ugly to witness. Gifted sale persons and managers by the age of 40 totally lost, buried in a great industry they had turned into a living hell!

How did it happen? By the spoken word. Yes. And that quote at the beginning of this post is right on!

I remember when I was brand new asking my manager what a gump was? What was a mullet? What was a gopher? These are terms I heard daily describing prospects or completed sales. I vowed that if I ever got into management I would do everything in my power to erase this horrible description of our industry’s prospects. What these misguided people were implying was that the customer was a sucker! Imagine selling something to someone and laughing at them behind their back. It happens in almost every sales organization in the country. I bamboozled that prospect. Boy did I suck them right in. These are not PROFESSIONAL SALES PERSONS! They are LOSERS!

I find it to be an honor when someone allows me the privilege to earn their trust enough to sell them something. The amount of integrity you display in front of or behind some one’s back is a direct reflection on your longevity in our great industry. It is also a direct reflection on your ability to maintain good staffing in your management team. I have fired people faster than you can blink for being disrespectful in their description of our customers. I hope I have said enough on this very important subject. Please believe me, YOU WILL pay the price for your lack of respect. Unfortunately you will pay for it for the rest of your life!

“The Specialist”

Open Forum Day…Questions and Answers

Hi everybody,

This week as usual has flown by.

Jose had three questions rolled into one sorta like those newspaper reporters who get to ask the President a question, and in one breath not only do they ask a question but they have 12 follow ups. Luckily I’m not the President. Jose wanted to know is there ever too much product knowledge? I don’t know your product, but you did mention the word software, so I have to guess you might have something to do with computers. Regardless of the product….think for a minute….no one can ever know everything about something! Even experts in their field DO NOT know everything. Jose, you are missing an important part of becoming a professional salesperson. Forget the product. It is YOU that they are buying!!! And that my friend is a subject you and you alone know everything about! You will learn more about your current product as you progress. SELL the product you KNOW…YOURSELF!!!

In Jose’s 1st follow up Jose wants to know is the customer always right? No! A thousand times NO! However, when it is all said and done, you want the customer to always feel right. That takes a little bit of practice and some very good communication skills, so you can actually show the customer the error in their ways and still make them believe that they were the ones that realized it. Again the customer appears right.

Jose, your 2nd follow up is a little more complicated. I actually had to stop typing and think exactly how I would answer this question because I do not want to offend any of my female readers. Ladies, don’t be hating on me, it is just my observation of almost 40 years. Here we go….If we have two sales persons of equal talent, starting the same job on the same day and one was a woman and the other was a man….Jose, the woman would most assuredly take a commanding lead. One reason is woman are natural when it comes to reverse psychology. That is the art of getting people to do things by pretending you don’t want them to do it. They do it every day with guys. Men on the other hand are horrible at that because they are used to being the aggressor. That works against you at the beginning. Now, it really starts to get interesting. Men that decide that a profession in sales is what they want to do, begin to take it a lot more seriously because they have been conditioned to being the bread winner and realize that is their CAREER! That raises the stakes dramatically. On the other hand, a lot of women are temporary visitors in our industry and get sidetracked with things like husbands and children, consequently stunting their long term growth.

I must say that the women that have been bitten by our industry and stayed long term are a formidable force to deal with. They are some of the best of the very best! My advice to you Jose in this section is stop your crying and be a man and kick some butt. Quit comparing your results with a bunch of women. Don’t follow a path, make one of your own! I competed with women my whole life in sales and the way I beat them was to make myself more personable and friendlier and by out working them. By the way Jose, that formula works for beating mostly everybody. Remember you are most of all SELLING YOURSELF! That’s all for tonight, Oh, by the way Jose, send me your e-mail and you will have a nice gift coming. Your’s was the question of the week!

“The Specialist”

Self Confidence

Hi everybody,

It’s Friday and tomorrow is “Open Forum”, so get your questions in before tomorrow night.

Today’s post is on how to acquire Self Confidence. Of course it is one of the 8 basics of success. Let me start by saying this, if you don’t believe in yourself NOONE will believe in you! That is a fact! Think of this, have you ever noticed when a dog that can’t even speak can tell when you are afraid of it? Well, if a dog can can tell that, what do you think a person can tell? When I was single I wouldn’t even date a girl that didn’t believe in herself. If she didn’t believe in herself, how would she ever believe in me? How would she believe in our children?

There is a big difference between confidence and cockiness. A lot of young men mistake the two. You see, everyone would like to have self confidence, but unless they acquire it by chance, most have never been told the formula. SELF CONFIDENCE is acquired with a two step formula.

First, is PRODUCT KNOWLEDGE. Think back to your very first date. The reason you were nervous was you had no PRODUCT KNOWLEDGE. You didn’t know what you should do, shouldn’t do, or better not do! Relate this to your job. The more you learn about your job the more confidence you get.

The second part of the formula is HARD WORK. If you had never had another date after the first one you would be just as nervous on the next one because you didn’t work hard at it. In our social lives working hard at it doesn’t seem to be a problem. It shouldn’t be in our profession either. When I was a young man I was always told everything I could not do, or what I would never achieve. Fortunately for me I was given this formula as a young salesperson and having this secret changed my life forever. No matter what task I undertook, I simply applied the formula.

PRODUCT KNOWLEDGE and HARD WORK. It has never failed me, quite the contrary, knowing this information has enriched my life. If you believe in yourself, you will be amazed how others will believe in YOU, and how easy it will transform into sales. I hope this information will enrich your lives as well.

“The Specialist”

You Need To Know…

I was honored to be riding with someone the other day. She is an up and coming terrific professional salesperson. It was the second time in about 4 weeks that I had gotten this chance. As we were riding around this nice young lady asked me how come my small talk was so relaxed? It seemed that whoever I met I was very comfortable around. This inspired tonight’s post. I warn you, you’re gonna hate It.

One of the secrets in being a true Sales Professional is to be able to relate to ALL people! I have interacted with thousands of salespeople in my career and very few have the ability to go up and down the ladder of different kinds of people and feel comfortable. For example I have sold the lowest ranking military person to commanders and captains. I have sold truck drivers and bank presidents. Presidents of major corporations to the people just starting out. Almost every kind of profession I have sold.

Now the question is, what allowed me to do this? This is the part you are going to hate. I am just a high school graduate but I have literally read hundreds of books. I have sold in almost every state. I listen to 24 hour news constantly. What I realized at an early age in my sales career was that unless I educated myself about this great country, and kept myself informed about what was going on around me and the world I would only be a PART professional Salesperson.

In other words, with some people, I had to take my game down a few notches in the ladder and wallow in the mud with those people and understand their life’s problems, and take my game up quite a few notches and understand how other people lived their lives. By doing this I became a person for all seasons. No matter what environment you asked me to perform in I could succeed. I became a true professional salesperson because I now had a chance to sell anyone at anytime, anyplace. By the way I am not just limited to news…sports, music, science, religion, just about anything someone would like to talk about, I can converse on their level.

So what I am trying to encourage you to do is READ, READ, and READ some more! I don’t know who once said this but you can travel the world in a good book. Listen to the news and try to understand what is going on around you. You will never know when your knowledge will give off an air of confidence that will make someone BELIEVE in YOU! It might be a difference maker.

“The Specialist”

Follow Up

Hey everybody,

I hope you had a very challenging day. As you travel with me (while I am sharing 39 years of tremendous excitement in our great profession) you will notice, if you follow closely, that I will talk about something in one post and maybe 3 posts later come back at it again from a different angle.

Here’s the answer to last night’s question, which for you 1st timers was “How do you know why your people are working for you or your company without asking them?” Well, I have given you this answer in a previous post, just framed around a different set of circumstances. In politics I am sure you have heard the shock when something is leaked to a newspaper or someone. Well the truth is the leaks are intentional. They are called trial balloons. They, being the party in charge of making the laws, will deliberately let something leak or float a trial balloon to gauge public outcry or opinion. If it is bad they are in shock that someone could leak something as absurd as that. If the response is great everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon to claim the idea was theirs.

In our business I am constantly floating trial balloons around my staff, while carefully monitoring theirs eyes and response. For example, I once had a group of young people and I put up a cash contest. When I was announcing the contest I noticed that only a couple of them got really excited. To take this a step further, out of the few that got excited only two were talking about the money. The other two were talking about being the best and winning. Right then I knew which ones in that group were motivated by money and which ones were motivated by recognition. But wait, my job is not complete. There were still a couple of people that were indifferent. When I had floated my next trial balloon I mentioned a shopping spree and took the group to a chic clothing store and told them what next weeks goals were and what the prizes would be. The group that was indifferent before changed. Two of them were all over the clothes.

The point I am making is I throw enough trial balloons out there until I know for sure everyone’s motivation. Now it is not always in the form of a contest or promotion. That is the beginner’s way. I can throw out 20 trial balloons in seconds and because I study everyone’s eyes so naturally I can see instantly when their eyes show excitement or indifference. This is a learned skill that takes constant practice of one of the 8 basics of success, “Eye Contact”. Remember, The eyes are the window to the soul, but only after you master it.

You know, I hope this journey is exciting to you because me reliving this information is incredibly exciting to me. If one of you readers becomes great in your profession by mastering this information my mission will be complete.

“The Specialist”

Advanced Management Technique

Hi everybody,

It’s me again. I have a great one for you tonight. You can use this in sales, in fact, for the professional salesperson it is a must! However, for tonight we are going to focus on the management side of the equation.

This is all about getting the peak performance from your staff. To test yourself, you should try this little quiz. If you dare, without asking anyone or even speaking to anyone on your staff, see if you can write down on paper each employee’s name and beside it put down why you think they are working for you or the company. Already got you thinking don’t I?

You see, good managers know exactly why each person is working for them. What will amaze you is that very few people are there just for money. Now lets think, if you do not know why they are there then how can you possibly motivate them? Here is a very simple example. The teenage girl works at the local pet store cleaning poop from the kennels. By the way this is a true story. When the young girl is done cleaning the kennels the manager immediately moves her to the front and puts her on the register for the rest of the night. The manager could not figure out why he had so much turnover at the position. He asked “The Specialist” for some advice.

First I asked him what he thought? He rationalized the turnover by saying for $6.75 per hour people could find better things to do with their time then clean poop. Well, of course, I did not agree with his analysis. I suggested to him that if he let the young girls play with the animals a little bit they would stay for a long time. He replied, well that would be costing me money. My reply was very simple. The few minutes that he let the young lady play with the animals saved him the much larger cost of turnover, not to mention the inconvenience of sometimes him getting stuck with the chore, due to their untimely departure.

You see, the reason the girls took that particular job was their LOVE FOR ANIMALS. NOT the $6.75 per hour. He never understood why the young girl worked there. Now when you take this self evaluation quiz your first question to me is how do you find out this information without asking each employee? That’s tomorrows post. I hope I have opened your minds and I expect to hear from some of you tomorrow to tell me some of your results.

“The Specialist”

Advanced Closing Technique

Hi everybody,

It seems like with all of your responses I’m kinda getting to feel like I know you. Now you have to promise that you keep me posted on your progress or lack of. Fair enough? Great!

Lets talk about a very simple advanced closing technique that really brings out the sincerity in you and transfers it into your prospect. Keep in mind that sincerity is one of the eight basics of success. The advanced closing technique is “Touch”.

I learned this incredible technique many years ago and boy did I see immediate results! When you are at a very sincere point in your presentation that is when you gently place your hand on the prospects shoulder while you deliver the key sentence. Try to remember the dramatic effect you felt when your coach, parent, minister or whomever put their hand on your shoulder and told you what a great job you had done. Remember that feeling? Well that is the same feeling except much greater when you include that technique with your prospect. WARNING, DO NOT do this if there is a married couple as your prospect. It takes years of practice to pull that off successfully. Also this is not a “touchy-feely” type thing.

AGAIN, you are gently putting your hand on the prospects shoulder only. You are not rubbing their shoulder. I started this posting clearly stating this was an advanced closing technique for sales and management. I hope you enjoy these postings as much as I do and it sure means a great deal for me to hear from you. Hope to hear from you soon.

“The Specialist”

Morals and Ethics in Sales and Management

Wow! What a day. Somebody was having a bad hair day. The banter was great with some of my loyal viewers and Mr. anonymous. It was wild. I didn’t need to respond to the posting because Clyde and Mary handled it too nicely.

Saturday I was entertaining a CEO and Vice-President of an up and coming already National Company. As the evening progressed the subject of the blog came up and I was explaining that Sunday I dedicate to ethics and morals. The Vice President of this Company asked me if I thought there was a place for that in sales? I didn’t know whether he was being serious or not, so I just answered him without hesitation and a resounding YES. I breathed a lot easier when he stated that he was in full agreement. I didn’t want to think I had misjudged this very fine executive. Turns out I didn’t, so all was well.

The very next morning I was having a discussion with an elite sales person that went on to explain to me that all sales was manipulation of words and people. I was shocked. I will never convince that person, but I will share my belief with all of you. The sales profession is what you make of it. It is where your heart is. If you think you are manipulating words and people, who am I to tell you that you aren’t.

“The Specialist” long ago, in the early years of his career, came to terms with the decision to manipulate words and people or to motivate them. See, the difference is that a manipulator is doing it for personal gain only. Someone that motivates a buyer is not only looking out for himself but DEFINITELY for the folks! Maybe that is why most of my life I have been a teacher of sales because I feel the need to tell the young salespeople of this next generation that they have a choice of how they want to be perceived and how they want more importantly to perceive themselves. It is all in your heart. I can spot a manipulator a mile away. Everything they do has an agenda. Someone like myself certainly has the ability to manipulate people but I have spent literally hundreds of thousands of hours training people both for sales and management mixed with life lessons knowing full well that If only one thing I say to them may change the course of their life.

To all you sales/professionals who consider yourselves master manipulators, I say in closing GIVE BACK TO THE INDUSTRY and you will feel completely different.

“The Specialist”