“The Specialist” Sales and Management Training Blog

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Hello everybody,

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving Holiday. Personally, I got a lot of much needed rest!

Today “The Specialist” Spotlight was on the best Master Closers you will ever encounter. Your children! Thats right, your children, they are naturals. Children have the ability to attach the emotional needs of their wants directly to their prospects. Their parents!

I personally know 2 little girls that convinced their father who dislikes cats intensely to buy not one but two cats at the same time! By the way I was the prospect that bought the two cats! This one young lady wanted a new car and explained to her parents that since she was attending an out of state college she was sure her parents wouldn’t want her walking the streets in a strange town. Incredible! Talk about knowing your prospect and attaching emotion to the sale…that is truly a work of art.

Here is an example that I read about that was really a stretch but worked! A young boy convinced his parents that by buying him that new video game he would be a lot safer than hanging out at game rooms where there were bad influences and maybe trouble. What a close. If you do not have any children go baby sit your sisters or brothers children and watch them very closely and marvel at their expertise. Their parents already know! I GUARANTEE it!

Don’t forget to sign up for the FREE newsletter and get 20% off on all “Specialist” gear on the site. I will share another story with you tomorrow.

“The Specialist”

Hi everybody,

I am too excited to contain myself. Monday June the 2nd is the BIG day! All the things I have been hinting about will be announced. Even though it appears that I am teasing you, respectfully I don’t mean to, I just can’t say anything. It’s harder for me than you the gracious readers.

Now to the “Bonus Tip Of The Week”.

I often see young sales persons when giving sales presentations and while describing certain features ALWAYS refer to how much THEY like the feature. WRONG approach!

The advanced way of doing this is to comment on how much EVERYONE else likes that particular feature. Remember it is NOT about YOU! Not only that, anyone that has a fair amount of intelligence realizes that a beginner sales person more than likely doesn’t even own the product. You lost the sincerity aspect of the bonding process. On the other hand, by informing the prospective customer that EVERYONE else loves that particular feature makes the customer feel like they want to agree with everyone else and love that feature also.

Remember new sales persons It is not about YOU! The customer doesn’t care about what you like. They care what everyone else thinks. Also remember sincerity IS one of the 8 Basics of Success!

“The Specialist”

That’s an interesting title.

Hi everybody! Lets talk about the three-legged sale. First you ask, what is it? Well those of you that are in sales have missed many opportunities to close a sale because that extra person or persons that came along with your prospect just has to throw in their two cents worth. The beginner will try to sell all three or four people and end up with none of them simply because their lack of experience has not allowed them to be proficient at controlling groups of people. I hear all of you veterans out there grinning because you think you know how to do it. Conventional wisdom tells you that if you can sell the leader you will sell the rest of them. That works SOMETIMES. What do you do if the leader isn’t interested in your product or already has something similar? Aha! Now comes the real artist.

“The Specialist” does not put himself in the position of hoping the leader wants the deal. Instead, what I do is find out is who the leader is and regardless of his interest level I make sure he becomes my new best friend. Now, either way I win! If he likes the product he will influence his friends to go along as well. That’s the easy situation. Where it gets complex is if the leader does not have an interest in your product regardless of the reason. If he has become my new best friend the effect will be exactly the same! He will influence the crowd on your behalf, just for a different reason.

So as you progress in your sales career start seeing more then just the sale. Again, go back to basics and practice closing everyone all the time. In other words, start making yourself a more likeable person by pointing out the good in others and building other’s self esteem. If you work on this concept you will find that making the sale will become secondary and you will feel much more rewarded in your career because besides having more sales then you can count, you will also feel a lot better about yourself. Isn’t that what a career should be about anyway, personal growth? I will be anxious to hear your responses.

“The Specialist”

Hi everybody,

It’s Saturday and I have a valuable but brief “Sales Tip of the Day”.

When you are wrapping up the sale and you are going for the signature on the sales agreement, always HAND the pen in a writing position to the potential customer. I have seen so many sales persons go over the sales agreement only to lay the pen down in front of the customer. WRONG!

When you do this it is very easy for the customer to pick up the sales agreement and go through a lengthy review of everything that you have already discussed. Sometimes they NEVER pick up the pen and consummate the deal. When you hand them the pen in a writing position it is only natural for them to write with it. Of course since the sales agreement, as earlier explained in a past post, is only a formality then you should make it as easy as possible for the prospect to complete the FORMALITY!

Very shortly I have a very special announcement to make so stay tuned. It will be the biggest event that has occurred on this blog since it’s inception. SORRY, NO CLUES!

“The Specialist”

Hi everybody,

I am really jacked up today. I gave a great training class today. I will share that with you in another post.

Today I want to share with you one of the 8 Basics of Success…Neat Appearance!

You probably all have heard your mom or someone tell you that you can’t judge a book by it’s cover. Well that’s true, but they left out a key part. That is that most people won’t pick up the book if it doesn’t have an attractive cover. You need to present a neat appearance where ever you go regardless of what you are doing. There is always someone watching you. For the sake of this post I have sat in many malls and watched the crowds go by and always the people that stand out are the ones with the neatest appearance.

You see if you stand out people will notice you…If people are noticing you among the thousands in the crowd you never know when an opportunity will come your way that will enhance your life. How many times have you left your house just to run up to 7/11 or something and you’re hoping no one sees you? Well, we all know what happens. Of course, the one person you never wanted to see you in that condition pops up out of nowhere!

I always try and present a neat appearance. But neat appearance plays a much deeper role in sales and management. You would be amazed the young and seasoned alleged “sales professionals” I run into that are at work and their fingernails are dirty. Their clothes aren’t pressed, or worst yet they have some kind of body odor. The funny thing is that in your social life you wouldn’t think of meeting the opposite sex without taking care of all these things, yet in our professional life someone actually has to educate you about the very same things. It has gotten to the point that even people interviewing for jobs look like they just got out of bed! The law requires that you let them fill out an application…you do not have to grant an interview or even begin to hire them.

This next sentence will not win me a lot of friends, but those of you that have been my loyal readers know I show no bias. If you are completely out of shape to the point of obesity and it is not induced by medical reasons all you are demonstrating to your employer or employees is that you can’t take care of yourself. If you cannot take care of yourself how are they supposed to believe you can take care of them or their customers?

Remember what I said in my earlier post, the difference between a successful person and one that is not, is the successful person is prepared when opportunity knocks. Try this one day. Go to your neighborhood mall and stand on the second level and just watch all the people go by…remember, this is one mall out of thousands in the country, not to mention thousands of other places where large crowds gather. Think about it …no one would even know you were there and nothing would stop if you were gone. You must do everything to gain the edge so you can be noticed and get more opportunities in life.

Neat Appearance will make you stand out in a crowd. I cannot tell you how many people I have seen miss opportunity after opportunity simply because thy did not possess the easiest of the 8 Basics of Success “NEAT APPEARANCE”

“The Specialist”

Hello everybody,

Today’s post is about something very commonplace in our great industry. The “I’ve arrived syndrome”.

It is incredible that when new sales persons enter our industry it is almost without fail that when they accumulate some product knowledge and start to make sales they all of a sudden hit that brick wall and they don’t understand why, but all of a sudden they can’t make a sale. Relax, it’s normal. What happens is that when they start making the sales they forget what helped them get the sales to begin with and think they HAVE IT! They also stop doing all the RIGHT things they WERE doing.

Selling is a never ending education and combination of never ending good work habits. So the new salesperson thinks they have all the knowledge necessary and at the same time stops working as hard as they once did because THEY’RE GOOD! Stop it. Unless you can sell everyone that approaches you, there are many mountains still to climb.

The art of a true Professional Salesperson is the ability to keep his axe sharp by constantly learning regardless of how good he or she perceives themselves. Most importantly, constantly developing good work habits so you can capitalize on your increased skill level. I have seen many people fall into self induced slumps because after a sale they relax and get careless in their presentation and decide after the sale they deserve some time off. Gosh, they can make a sale anytime they want to. They don’t need to work that hard. When you finish a sale that is the time to apply yourself even more and eventually regardless of your results you will learn to always work consistently hard and you will always be striving to learn something new that will enhance your chances with the next prospect. You will be learning one of the hardest lessons in sales, WORK HABITS!

If you are a regular reader of this blog you are one of the few that take your profession seriously. You are definitely headed in the right direction. Keep it up and the future will be yours!

“The Specialist”

I was with a gentlemen the other day and I have known this person for 4 or 5 months. He is one of the most talented sales persons I have ever met. It pains me to say this gentleman lives in a hotel room and lives hand to mouth. To complicate things he also has a drinking problem. Forget the drinking problem and lets focus on mental conditioning. This gentleman is 53 years old and won’t let you forget how great he thinks he is. That’s fair, because it’s true! If he works he is GREAT!

On the highway of life I have literally met thousands of people some in sales, some not who have allowed lack of mental conditioning control their life. It’s funny, we nourish our body two, three and sometimes four or more times a day, yet we nourish our minds almost never! Mental toughness is extremely important in sales and in life. While I was listening to this gentleman describe his failure for the thousandth time, he proceeded to tell me how he kept statistics and he had missed x number of sales in the past six weeks. It was incredible to hear him spout off the exact number of sales he had missed week after week. Not once in our conversation did he tell me how many prospects he SOLD!

There are literally tens of thousands of people who only focus on the negative things in their life. Take it from “The Specialist”, it won’t work. If I thought it was out of your control I wouldn’t be doing this post. I also find it quite amusing that in our social life regarding the opposite sex we manage to keep an amazingly positive outlook. If that was not the case very few people would be married or have girlfriends. Look how much rejection we take before we find the right mate. If it will work in our social life it will work in our business life.

I asked the gentleman, since he had not only kept all these incredible statistics and by writing them down had really reinforced them, what good were they? I challenged him to show me one positive thing that he could derive from that information he had gathered. He had no answer. If he had focused on the 2 sales he DID make each week he have a reference to build from. Not only that he could set goals and maybe over a short period of time move out of that hotel room. I informed him that the bad results had already happened and I couldn’t change them. He might learn something from it, but That’s IT! Move on and focus on the positive.

The longer you focus on your failures the longer your down curve will be. The faster you move on and start focusing on the positive not only will your down curve be shorter but your up curve will last a lot longer. EVERYBODY has ups and downs in life. It’s just how we handle them. Major league baseball players get paid literally millions of dollars if they can get a hit just ONCE in three times at bat. That means they fail 67% of the time. What do you think they focus on? My guest started to tell me that 2 days last week he was positive and nothing happened. SURPRISE! Positive thinking is not a sometimes thing. It is an ALL THE TIME THING! It is not your aptitude but your attitude that determines your altitude in life! Right now that gentleman is just a wandering generality. A person with permanent potential.

“The Specialist” works very consistently, but when things are not going well, as happens to everyone, I work even harder. Consistency and Positive Thinking are a sales professional’s BEST FRIEND!

“The Specialist”

Boy has this week flown by.

Hi everybody. Remember, Saturday is open forum day and I answer any and all questions that I didn’t address during the week. Also the best question receives a special gift from “The Specialist”

Lets get started on tonight’s topic, “goal setting”. It is almost impossible to put in order all of the things that are vital to mastering becoming a professional salesperson. What happens is, in my travels or conversations each day, someone’s predicament or comments trigger my daily posting.

Goal setting is one of the most important things, not just in sales but in life! Imagine playing darts at your favorite neighborhood bar but you have to play BLINDFOLDED! How could you possibly hit your goal? The sales profession is exactly the same. You have to have something you can shoot for. It is imperative that you write your goals down so you can see them daily. I kept impeccable records during my 39 year sales career. I have ledgers of every person I sold since 1972. It is very difficult to plan where you want to go if you don’t know where you have been. So you say, I set goals and after a few weeks of not hitting them I throw the paper away or conveniently misplace it so I don’t have to see it. I understand. You HAVE to set goals that are obtainable. For example, lets say you wanted to lose 100 lbs. in 3 months. What is easier…lose 100 lbs. in 3 months or lose only 33 lbs. a month? Or better yet loose 8 lbs. a week? Or better yet, how about only 1 lb. a day? Anybody can do that! The secret of successful goal setting is taking your big goal and breaking it down into a bunch of little obtainable goals.

I once knew a man that religiously saved 10% of every dollar that ever came into his hands, even birthday money he received from his relatives. By age 45 he had amassed over $500,000 in cash! His big goal was to have over $100,000 in his savings account by a certain age. Instead of being overwhelmed by the enormity of his goal he just did 10% at a time and not only did he achieve his goal but after reaching his goal he took the next step and reevaluated his goals and set new ones.

With sales I did the exact same thing. I didn’t get overwhelmed by the enormity of what it would take to win my 1st “man of the year” award. Instead, I took it month by month and was the best salesperson in the company, one month at a time. That year I only won 11 of the 12 months but no one else was even close. Result…I reached my goal and became “man of the year”. Whether it be sales, finances, management goals or something else, there are a few basics that will ensure that you reach your goals. One is, write your goals down and post them somewhere where you will see them everyday. Second, break the ultimate goal into a bunch of little goals that are in your reach. Finally, set a deadline for your goal. If you say you want to lose 100 lbs. but don’t put a deadline on it, you have given yourself a way out. NO GOOD! You must have a deadline. I know this will be of help to you and in further postings I will elaborate more and will be glad to help anyone with setting up your goals with you. Have a great night…

“The Specialist”

Well, how is everybody today?

Today’s subject is about “small talk”. I could go on forever about this subject. This blog is going to be for the beginner as well as the advanced.

For beginners, small talk is for two main purposes. One to relax yourself and the second is to relax the prospect. In theory it sounds pretty simple but like anything else it is a learned skill. Regardless where the prospective sale is to take place, a business, some one’s home, a car lot, a bank it really is academic, the key is to find some common bond or something you know something about so you can relate to them and they can begin relating to you.

I happened to be observing this salesperson the other day and the salesperson just went into the business and just tried to talk about the purpose of why they were there. No small talk, no nothing! Needless to say the results were not exactly what they were looking for. It could be something as simple as an article of clothing, jewelery, shoes etc.. I have also found it extremely helpful to add a sense of humor to the mix. It seems ironic that in a recent poll women were asked what characteristic attracted them to a man? Answer…If they make me laugh, sense of humor, if their funny. Sense of humor is not only one of the Eight Basics of Success, but I found it to be a salesperson’s best friend! Imagine, if you were in someone’s business or home. If you are studious you would never run out of things to talk about. Never forget, people never get tired of talking about themselves or THEIR interests. Now lets go a little deeper.

A trained professional salesperson uses small talk to try and qualify the prospect and make sure they are indeed a prospect. Real estate agents are notorious for it. They slide in things during the small talk like “Oh, where do you work?”, or “What do you do for a living?”, or “How long have you been doing this?”, that it sounds exciting?

The problem with most sales persons is that they do all the small talking and forget “The Specialist’s” golden rule of sales, you must be a good listener! To the really advanced salesperson the relaxing and qualifying takes but a few seconds even for the most standoffish prospect. What my small talk is about is closing the sale. I am listening and searching for clues on how to close this prospect. What will it take? If I am a good listener the prospect will tell me exactly how to sell them. I have proven that thousands of times in front of trainees and experienced sales persons alike. I also use the small talk to give the prospect time to like me. When I am done with my small talk the sale generally is already closed! The presentation is just a formality.

I have seen countless times the salesperson talk the client out of the sale. Over and over again. I once saw a very nice young couple come onto a car lot and the young wife kept telling the salesperson how her dream since she was little was to have a cute red car. The salesperson showed her everything on the lot BUT a red car. He was too busy “selling” her, his idea of what she wanted instead of picking up on the GIGANTIC KEY she gave him in the small talk! Cute RED CAR! I heard it, her husband heard it…Why didn’t the salesperson hear it? Needless to say he didn’t get the sale.

This next statement is for another post. Then he blamed it on THEM that he didn’t sell the car! Imagine that! As you get more advanced you will also use small talk to overcome objections that haven’t come up yet, but because you are really good only you can anticipate. You can even use small talk to plant seeds that later on during the presentation you want to harvest. Now that’s really advanced! As you can see small talk is a very intricate part of the closing process. It surprises some people, here we are talking about the initial contact with the prospect and we are already closing them. It just reinforces an earlier blog where I mentioned that the close is not at the end of the presentation but a process that starts the minute you meet the person, and never ends.

“The Specialist”