Top Secrets of Marketing & Sales

Year after year, regardless of the economy, there are five things that seem to scare the daylights out of distributors. Since today is Halloween, perhaps it's a good day to talk about them...

The simple truth is that you need money to run a business. Without access to cash we face an opportunity cost that is seldom discussed - the limit to our ability to take larger orders.

Are you sick of feeling like you have to beg, plead and fight for every order, every scrap of business, every dollar of sales? If so, I'd like to share one of my very favorite "tough love" quotes and see how it applies to you and your business.

Promotional products sales is a margin-driven business. If you provide your clients with the very best in service, listen to this episode and stop shortchanging yourself with insignificant profit margins!

If you don't have a clear answer to the question of whom you plan to sell something to today, it's time to consider the 3 causes of insufficient sales. In a previous episode I asked the question "to whom do you plan to sell something today?" Many people don't have a good answer to that question. In fact, many have absolutely no idea who might buy from them today, and if that's the case -- if you're not sure -- that indicates 3 very specific problems. 1. Inadequate lead flow. Without sufficient leads in your pipeline, it is unlikely that anyone will buy from you today. Or tomorrow. Or the next day. Inadequate lead flow is probably the single biggest cause of failure among salespeople today. It is also likely the biggest cause of stress and anxiety. Many business owners and salespeople waste enormous amounts of time "puttering around" with things like social media, blogs and tweaks to their websites, instead of addressing the biggest problem in their business, which is very likely inadequate lead flow. Where have your best leads come from historically? Where do your best leads come from now? And where can you go, right now, to get more of the quality leads you need to fill your pipeline? Without solid answers to these important questions, you will continue to struggle. 2. Not enough feet on the street. Many businesses know they need to hire more salespeople. But then they distract themselves with minutiae and rationalize their reasons for not taking action. As a result, they continue to operate far below their potential day after day. Those intent on building their business by hiring salespeople, don't spend their days doing product research for $200 orders. They don't spend the majority of their time responding to others and putting out fires. They don't continue to make themselves the center of the business, and then wonder why they don't have time to do anything else. Instead, they spend their days targeting, recruiting and hiring the people they need... and they leave all the excuses about why they can't do it to their inferior competitors. Why? Because they know that talking about what they want to do or need to do or plan to do someday is worthless compared to taking action on what you really need to do today. 3. Poor conversion skills. Let's face it, if you've already addressed the points above, meaning that you DO have adequate lead flow and you DO have enough feet on the street, and if you're still not closing enough sales, then you have a conversion issue. Having the ability to convert leads into sales is not optional in our business. It's not a "nice to have," it's a "must have." If we're being honest, it is one of the single most important responsibilities of any true sales professional. Because ultimately, it's not about networking and it's not about schmoozing. It's not about tweeting or liking or friending. These things may all be helpful to some degree or other, but if you want to get paid in sales, it's ultimately about converting qualified leads into sales. If you have questions or comments on this topic, please enter them below. Management guru Peter Drucker once said, "the purpose of a business is to create a customer." If you take that to heart, you'll recognize that creating customers means having the ability to convert leads into sales. If you need help in that area, I encourage you to take a full-year, risk-free test-drive of Top Secrets of Customer Acquisition. You can get details at topsecrets.com/tsca. Or, if you're a smart, focused independent distributor doing a reasonable volume of sales, join the AIM SmartEQP community and get an unrivaled combination of EQP Buying Power, Quality Connections and Cutting-Edge Training at

As you approach each new selling opportunity, you want to be focused and aware -- that includes keeping on the lookout for the tell-tale signs which indicate your prospect might have one of the three personality types that make selling a nightmare. If you've been reading my newsletter or listening to my podcasts for any length of time, you know that I'm a big fan of building your business proactively. That means deciding who you will do business with and who you will NOT do business with. In this episode, we'll discuss 3 Personality Types that Make Selling a Nightmare. As salespeople and business owners, it's really important to keep a good attitude -- starting the day off positively and expecting good things. And that's a lot easier to do when you have an awesome client base made up of people you actually enjoy interacting with. In fact, one of the things I love most about having my own business is getting to decide which customers to pursue and which to leave to my competitors -- and you can only imagine the type of customers I like to leave to my competitors. As we approach each new selling opportunity, we want to remain focused and aware -- and we want to be on the lookout for the tell-tale signs which indicate your prospect might have one of the three personality types that make selling a nightmare: 1. Indecisives: In the classic success book, Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill identified a primary characteristic that the most successful people have in common. It's the ability to make important decisions quickly and change their minds slowly, if at all. Let's face it, we all just LOVE dealing with people like this. People who say, "Yes, let's run with that promotion you're suggesting. How soon can we get started?" Compare that with the opposite: The indecisives who say, "I'm not sure. I need to think about it. Give me a call back in a few weeks." Everyone in sales deals with indecisives. They come with the territory. Some can actually go on to become good clients if you have the patience to deal with them, but they can also make selling a nightmare. 2. Know-it-alls: These are the people who act as if everything you say is already known to them. "Oh yes, I'm aware of what promotional products can do, just tell me the cost." Know-it-alls are not always open to ideas, but often feel compelled to share their own thoughts and ideas constantly. They're big on monologue vs. dialogue. As a result, they can waste a lot of your time telling you about things. And since they don't listen particularly well, it's often difficult getting them to commit. 3. Slow pays, no pays. For some unfathomable reason, some people think it's perfectly fine to pay late, miss payments, renegotiate terms they already agreed to, ignore payment requests and not give it a second thought. But every time someone does this to you, you have hard costs associated with that. You need to make phone calls, send emails, track payments and follow-up. Some people pull the "check's in the mail" routine, forcing you to wait for the never-sent check to arrive, at which point you have to contact them again and ask them to "reissue the check" which they may or may not do. All of this costs you in terms of administrative time that you either have to pay someone else to do, or you have to do yourself, which is probably even more costly in the long run, because it takes you away from the high value, high dollar work that actually generates revenue for you to begin with. When someone takes a casual approach to getting you paid on time, that's a screaming indication that you might be dealing with the wrong type of client. Obviously, there are lots more than 3 personality types that make selling a nightmare. Which ones have I missed?

This week's message is only for the true professionals in our industry. It is specifically NOT for dabblers, sidlers, hobbyists, quacks, hacks or freebie seekers. If you find the message in today's podcast offensive, please unsubscribe using the link below. If you find it uplifting and inspiring, forward it to an industry professional you like and respect... and leave us a comment below. Over the years, I've made comments about quacks and hacks in the promotional products industry. I've also referenced the dabblers, sidlers, hobbyists and freebie-seekers. My purpose in doing this is not to insult people, but merely to point out that in any industry -- not just ours -- there are people who don't always approach business as a business. There are some who don't take the idea of their business seriously. They don't bother to invest the time, energy or resources to learn how to do things better. When I say "take things seriously," I don't mean you can't have fun with it. This can be a really fun industry. But it's always more fun when you can do things well and earn a significant amount of money in the process. I've been fortunate to conduct live training at the major industry trade shows in the United States, Canada and Australia since 2001. If you attend any of these shows you'll notice that it's a relatively small subset of the attendees who actually attend training. Of all the people who wander the aisles, looking at products and picking up samples, perhaps only one in ten will actually allocate any time to their own training, development and education -- "sharpening the saw" as Stephen Covey says. The fact that you're listening to this podcast (or reading the transcript) indicates that you're probably already ahead of the curve. But since the promotional products industry allows people to get up and running with very little money and essentially no experience, it sometimes attracts those who just want to dabble a bit, sidle around and see how it works out. Unfortunately, when you get a lot of dabblers interacting with potentially good prospects, it significantly damages the industry by creating the impression with those prospects that we're an industry full of amateurs -- which is only partially the case. During one of my live training sessions, I was talking about the importance of differentiation, and how important it is for us to differentiate ourselves from the competition. When it was time for questions, one of the attendees stood up and stated in no uncertain terms that it was "practically impossible" for any promotional products representative to differentiate himself or herself from the competition, since we all sell the same products. As a trainer, I try to be supportive of other people's opinion. But I couldn't disagree with that statement more completely. Yes, our competitors may have access to many (or even all) of the same products that we do, but that means nothing! Think of it this way... In medicine, the quacks may have access to the same education, drugs and surgical tools as the most gifted surgeons. But that doesn't make the quacks any smarter or the gifted surgeons any dumber. In law, the hacks may have access to the same law books as the master litigators. But that doesn't make the hacks worth any more or the master litigators worth any less. Taxi drivers and Uber drivers all have access to cars. Some of those drivers are great and some are terrible. Same tools, different results. And it's the Same in Our Profession. We are Not Defined by Our Products or our tools! We are defined by the way we use our products to directly address the promotional needs, wants, desires and concerns of our clients. We are defined by the way we use our time,

More than anything else, inadequate performance in sales is exhausting.  In today's podcast, business expert David Blaise talks about overcoming this all too common hurdle, to make your life and business better. If you're located in the United States I hope you enjoyed the long Labor Day weekend. Labor Day. Sounds like work, doesn't it? But it's actually a day set aside to celebrate labor... well, really to celebrate those who labor -- those who work. So if you labor all year, hey, you got a day off! I hope you enjoyed it. Before we get to our discussion today, I'd like to send our well-wishes to all our industry friends, particularly our Inner Circle and AIM SmartEQP members who have been affected by Hurricane Harvey. In the past, when we've been hit by natural disasters like 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy, I've always stressed the importance of our industry in leading the way back. People need to recover. Businesses need to recover and sometimes that recovery can be really slow. When that happens, leadership matters. For that reason, I think it's important for all of us to do whatever we can to help encourage people, and help lead that recovery effort, helping our prospects and especially our clients in whatever way we can. I've often said, it's hard to help someone else out of a pit, if you're stuck down there in the pit with them. So job one is to get yourself out of the pit, back on your feet, both mentally and physically, then reach out to your people to find out what they need. In today's podcast, I want to talk to you about performance. In particular, inadequate performance. It's My Contention That More Than Anything Else, Inadequate Performance is Exhausting. Have you ever felt that you need to get more business... but you're already exhausted keeping up with the business you have? Have you ever felt like you're spinning your wheels with a poor quality prospect, while better quality prospects are slipping through your fingers? If so, you're not alone! This "catch-22" affects more people than you might think! If you're like most of the businesses that come to me for help, it's very likely that you can handle quite a bit more business than you currently have. That's exactly what we help them to do. But in order to handle a significantly higher volume of business, it's likely you're going to have to making some changes in the way you currently do things. Because after all, your business is currently set up perfectly and configured exactly to deliver the results it's delivering. Quite a few years ago, I provided one-on-one consulting for the three finalists in ASI's Distributors' Extreme Makeover contest. At the beginning of the contest, each of the finalists told me how overwhelmed they were, just handling the volume of business they already had. After their consultations, their sales increased significantly. In fact, the winner more than doubled sales, but the others each walked away with at least a 30% increase in sales. Perhaps more importantly, after the changes were made, they were far more relaxed, confident and better equipped to handle even more business. When We Don't Know Exactly What We're Doing, or When We're Making Even Small, Easy to Fix Mistakes, We Exhaust Ourselves! So why was is harder for those businesses to generate less sales and profit, and easier to generate more sales and profit the following year? Why is it harder for some people in general to generate LESS business than it is for other people to generate a whole lot more business? Simple. Because inadequate performance is exhausting! When you don't know where you're going,

At times in our businesses we have to address difficult questions to come to the conclusions we require.  In this podcast, business growth expert David Blaise asks two tough questions and provides a scary insight. Today I have a couple of uncomfortable questions and a scary insight for you. The questions might make you cringe, but I hope the insight will cause you to stop and really think about the way you do business. But perhaps most importantly, I hope it will cause you to take action today. First, take a moment and really focus in on the answer to the questions I'm about to ask you. Imagine we're sitting face to face and consider the real, true, honest answers to these questions. Not the answers that you'd like to be able to give. Ready? Here's the first question: To Whom Will You Sell Something Today? This is a really important question, and please notice that I'm not asking you about the people you intend to approach. I'm not asking about the people you plan to put into your pipeline. I'm not asking about your prospecting list. I'm asking about the people to whom you actually plan to sell something today. Do you have a crystal clear idea of everyone who is likely to buy from you today? Are there such people? Are there enough of them? And what is your level of certainty that one or more of them will actually close today? Take a moment and answer that question for yourself right now. Do I know who's likely to buy something -- from me -- today? Have the answer? OK, then let's move on to the second question, which directly impacts the first. The second question is: Do You Currently Have a Profit Model in Place that Generates Leads and Converts Prospects into Clients Consistently in Your Business? In that question, the key words are "in place" and "consistently." Because if you don't have it in place, it won't do you any good and if it doesn't work consistently, then the system you have in place is flawed and in need of repair or replacement. Answer that question for yourself now. OK, how did you do? If the answer to that question is yes, then you probably DO have a very good idea of who is likely to buy from you today and the questions I asked won't make you feel uncomfortable at all. But if the answer is no, then you might not have a clue who's likely to buy something from you today and your lack of an answer is bound to make you feel at least a bit uncomfortable -- particularly if getting to consistent sales is the goal. Now the scary insight: Most Distributors Do Not Have a Fully Functional Profit Model I've been operating in this industry since 1988 and I've been conducting training at all the major industry tradeshows since 2001. I've met a lot of people and I've worked with a lot of people, so I don't make that statement lightly. In fact, many distributors don't even have a PARTIALLY functional profit model in place. This is true of many salespeople in our industry, but it's also true of many distributor businesses, both large and small. In some respects promotional products sales is like a "Bizarro World" in which people start selling (or even create an entire business) without bothering to first put a functional profit model in place. They just start talking to people, having conversations and trying to sell stuff. And while that can sometimes work (or at least lead to something good,) it is not the foundation for a solid business or sales career. It's essentially a series of random conversations, punctuated by the occasional sale when all the stars happen to align. It's Feast and Famine, Often Offering Too Little Feast and Way Too Much Famine Some distributors attempt to grow by simply adding more salespeop...

It's likely that some of the leads in your pipeline have trouble making a decision. But is pushing clients to make a decision ever acceptable? I say yes. In this podcast, Business growth expert David Blaise talks about methods of overcoming this hurdle and getting clients to commit.   In our last episode, we talked about the problems associated with not having enough leads in the pipeline and no discernible process for getting them there. If you missed that episode, you can check it out now at topsecrets.com/134 But if you DO have a bunch of leads in your pipeline, and if you do a reasonable amount of prospecting, then it's likely you have at least a prospect or two who just can't seem to make up their minds. They just can't seem to make a decision. They'll say they're interested, but they'll keep putting it off. They'll keep asking questions, but they won't commit. They'll have delay after delay, reason after reason, and excuse after excuse for failing to take action. For whatever reason, they just can't seem to get off the fence. Some of these prospects will tell you the truth, while others, well, you know the drill. Naturally, we don't want to appear pushy. So we might allow prospects like these to keep putting us off -- sometimes for days, weeks, even months or even years. But when we do that, we're really not doing our prospects or ourselves any favors. As Professionals, We Need to Encourage Our Clients to Take the Actions that Will Benefit Their Businesses If the promotion we're recommending to a client is a good one -- if it addresses their needs, targets the appropriate audience, communicates the right message and has a good likelihood of success -- we do our clients a tremendous disservice if we fail to encourage and yes, sometimes push them to take action. On the other hand, if the promotion we're recommending does NOT make sense for the client, does NOT address their needs or fails to communicate the right message, then we shouldn't recommend it to them in the first place, let alone encourage it or push for it. To some extent, it's about motives. What are our motives for the conversation? What are we trying to do? Are we trying to help the client to get a result they need and want or are we just trying make a sale for ourselves? Either way, whether it's a good or bad promotion, there is rarely any benefit at all to putting off a decision. If it's a good promotion, they should do it. If it's not, they shouldn't. No one should waste time considering a bad promotion or putting off implementation of a good one. Being Passive is Often Deadly in Business So every now and then, I believe it's a good idea to push a little harder and do what's necessary to help nudge indecisive clients off the fence. Find out what's holding them back. If it's valid, come up with other options, if it's not probe deeper. A yes decision is great. A no is good too, because it allows you to move ahead. Ultimately, it's the "maybes" that will kill you. So what can you do today to help drive an indecisive client to a yes or no decision? I tend to favor a direct approach, with questions like: What's currently holding you back? Is there something about this promotion you're uncomfortable with? Do you have something different in mind? What's your timeline on this? I don't recommend asking these questions in an antagonistic way, or even asking them back to back as I just did. Just ask them in a way that lets the client know that you genuinely want to help. In order to do that, we have to fully understand their needs, and occasionally do what is necessary to help get them off the fence.

Your value prop is an important part of your business identity. It's probably pretty likely that your very best clients know what you do. But how do you communicate that crucial information to the people who DON'T know you? It's probably pretty likely that your very best clients know what you do. They know what you're good at. They know what your strengths are and perhaps most importantly, they know they can trust you. But how do you communicate all that to the people who DON'T know you? The people you've never met. The prospects who have never heard of you. In a lot of my training materials, I talk about the idea of turning total strangers into paying clients, and how, as a salesperson, that's not just a good idea. That's the job! It's not something we have to be able to do occasionally, it's something we have to be able to do all the time. Because before we can ever sell to someone, we first have to create awareness. That's the Marketing Part of the Job In the early days of my promotional products business, things weren't going very well. I'd get together with my accountant every 90 days or so and we'd do a post-mortem on the numbers. If you're not familiar with that term, post-mortem is latin for "after death." It's another term for an autopsy. It's an examination of a dead body to determine the cause of death. That's what our 90 day meetings often felt like. It took a long time for me to realize that I needed to be looking at my numbers far more often than every 90 days, but that's another story for another day. In any event, after one particularly grueling look at the numbers, as my accountant was walking out the door, I said to him, "so what do I need to do to turn this around?" He just looked at me, smiled and said, "market, market, market!" That was quite a statement, because it made me realize that at that point I knew little to nothing about marketing. Like many business owners, I knew how to do the technical work of the business -- sourcing and selling promotional products. What I didn't know how to do was to find the prospects to sell to in the first place, or how to run a business that sold promotional products. And that was a significant problem. If you've been in this industry for any length of time, chances are you're good at finding promotional items for your clients, recommending promotional solutions and selling products. But if you're not yet closing the level of sales you're hoping for, it is very likely a marketing problem. Not enough leads in the pipeline and no discernable process for getting them there. Which Brings Us Back to This Idea of Letting People Know What We're Capable Of. Before we can ever truly demonstrate our value to a client, by selling to them, we first have to let them know what we're capable of. Because without that knowledge, they can never buy from us. Yes, we need access to products. We have to be able to get clients what they need, when they want it. We must be helpful, accessible, available and knowledgeable. But all of these skills are essentially worthless if no one knows we possess them. So how do you communicate your ability to the market? Do you spend a lot of time creating Facebook posts that no one reads or responds to? Do you attend Chamber events or other networking functions where everyone is there to sell and no one is there to buy? Do you pick up the phone and do a lot of cold calling to strangers? And if so, how does that sort of communication position you with the prospect? As a valuable resource? As a solutions provider? Or just as a nuisance? The basic skills of the job -- being able to get clients the products they need when they need them -- are expected. Everyone in this industry needs to possess them. So for that reason,

When clients have positive feedback for you - or better yet, when they write it down; you have a potentially powerful marketing tool in the form of testimonials.  In this podcast, business growth expert David Blaise explains how to leverage client comments to your best advantage. If you've been selling for any length of time, it's likely that at least a client or two has said something nice about you, something positive. At least I hope they have! Maybe they complimented you on your creativity or let you know how much they appreciated the way you handled a time-sensitive order. Maybe they told you about someone in your organization who went above and beyond for them. In any event, when clients say nice things about you -- or better yet, when they write them down-- be sure to say "thank you," of course. But don't stop there. Ask if it's okay with them if you quote them. Over the years, I've received many notes, letters, emails and texts from happy clients. When this happens, I will often write back and say, "thank you so much for your feedback. I appreciate it. Do you mind if I quote you in my marketing materials?" If they say yes, you're good to go. And in my experience, at least nine times out of ten people will say yes. In fact, I've found that even the one holdout will very likely allow you to use their quote if you agree not to use their name. And while client testimonials are far more effective when attached to a real, credible, verifiable human being, even the occasional anonymous quote can be helpful when it's surrounded by lots of other verified testimonials. On my websites, I use a combination of video, audio and print testimonials to make the case for my products and services. Video testimonials can be extremely powerful, because you get to see and hear people tell their own stories in their own words. Audio testimonials are good because you can actually hear the person, but in those cases, I also like to show a picture of the client who provided the testimonial so people can put a face with the name and the voice. Print testimonials can also be very persuasive, whether physically printed or reproduced digitally on a website. These are particularly effective when accompanied by a strong headline and a photo of the person providing the testimonial. The More Specific the Better I've seen people use testimonials without providing names. Just a bunch of unattributed quotes. That always looks a little shady to me. Some people use just first names and cities for their testimonials. For example, "Bill from Chicago." That's a little too broad for my taste -- too easy to make something like that up. First name and last initial isn't much better. "Bill R from Chicago." Could be a lot of those. So generally speaking, the more information you can include the better. If you can use first name, last name, company name, city, state and a picture of the person, that's far more credible. Specificity also helps a lot in the comments themselves. If I see something that says "You guys are great! Bill R from Chicago," it doesn't tell me much. But if I see something that says "The promotion you recommended generated 12 new accounts in the first month," that seems a lot more specific and therefore a lot more credible. Particularly if it's followed by Bill's full name, company name and city. These Days It's Easy to Use Video and Voicemail to Gather Customer Comments When I meet a client at a tradeshow who says something nice about a result we were able to get for them, I'll very often say, "Hey, can you say that again? I want to shoot it on my phone and put it up on our 'wall of fame?'" Our wall of fame is a testimonial page on our website where we showcase client comments. If they say yes,

Sick of working too many hours for too few results? In this podcast, business growth expert David Blaise discusses three specific ways you can make your working hours produce more. Today I am conducting 4 live training sessions at the ASI Show in Chicago, so if you are at the show, be sure to stop by and say hello. Attend one or more of my live training sessions and then be sure to stop by our booth (number 1641 on the show floor) tomorrow, July 12th or Thursday July 13th. Mention this podcast and get a free copy of my audio program "How to Beat Websites, Local Competitors and Price-Cutters." Again, that's booth #1641 in Chicago. A quick shout-out to long time Top Secrets clients Kirby Hasseman and Sam Kabert. Sam was interviewed recently on Kirby's "Delivering Marketing Joy" podcast, and Sam has put out a podcast of his own, it's called "What Up Silicon Valley." I would encourage you to check out both of these podcasts -- Delivering Marketing Joy and What Up Silicon Valley -- as they are both excellent examples of one of the things we'll be touching on today and that is positioning. Coming up with ways you can reach out to your market, talk to prospects and position yourself as the expert rather than just making phone calls. So with that said, I'd like to talk with you briefly today about three specific ways you can make your working hours produce more. You know, some promotional products distributors spend eight hours a day to generate $20,000 in commissions for the year. Others spend eight hours a day to generate $200,000.00 in commissions. Same Eight Hours, Same Products, Same Industry, Ten Times the Result. So What’s the Difference? Obviously, it’s not about the time, it’s about how the time is being used. If you fail to optimize your time -- every minute of every working day -- don’t be surprised to find life and many business opportunities passing you by. As a professional in our industry, it's absolutely vital to make every moment, every action, every day and every sales and marketing effort, count. So Don’t Fall into the "Busy" Trap! Have you ever had days where you are "busy, busy, busy" but don’t seem to produce anything or accomplish much at all? Days like that can turn into weeks, weeks into months, months into years and years into lifetimes. Here are three suggestions for improving your results: 1. Develop alternatives to cold-calling. Yes, cold-calling is a viable way to generate new clients. But it’s NOT the only way and often it's far from the best way. In my training materials, I have NEVER advocated cold-calling. Some distributors are able to do it well and make good money with it, and if that's you, I won't tell you NOT to do it, but in my mind, cold-calling is just terrible from a positioning standpoint and sets up all sorts of warnings and red flags in the mind of the prosepct that then need to be overcome somewhere else, later in the sales process. And it’s often one of the least efficient ways to prospect from the standpoint of both time and money. How many alternatives to cold-calling do you have? What would position you as an expert better than calling total strangers on the phone? Think it through and develop as many alternatives as you can to cold-calling. 2. Streamline your presentations. Don’t blow valuable sales opportunities with the typical "data dump" presentation where you talk to prospects all about you and your company and your products and your service and your capabilities. Many salespeople do it, but it’s the last thing a prospect wants to hear. Naturally, your prospects will need to get to know you before they'll be comfortable enough to place an order with you. But the typical data-dump approach is not the way to accomplish it.

If you're ready to declare independence from business as usual, listen to this special Independence Day podcast from David Blaise. It is Independence Day in the United States and I just love me some Independence Day! A few years ago I recorded a special Independence Day message for my clients. It touched on the oppression that comes from insufficient sales and inadequate profit margins. It pointed out the need to change our actions if we want to change our results. It mentioned some very specific things we can change to make that happen. And it concluded with a promotional products themed variation of the declaration of independence, encouraging you to declare independence from business as usual. Is it industry specific? Yes. Is it helpful? Yes. Is it motivational? Maybe. Is it corny? Oh yeah, I'm afraid it's a bit corny. But if you pay attention, you should be able to get some good ideas from it. So I hope you have a fantastic Independence Day and enjoy. Happy Independence Day. I'm David Blaise. Are you sick and tired of feeling oppressed by insufficient sales and inadequate profit margins? Have you had it with working days, nights, and weekends just to stay even without really getting ahead? Are you ready to declare your independence from business as usual? If so, I encourage you to make this 4th of July your turning point. Your time to stop, look around, and say, "There is a better way to do this, and today I'm going to turn things around for good." Too often we approach our business like a new diet plan. We're all gung ho for a few days, but then the excitement wears off and we're back to doing things same as usual. Not surprisingly, our results are not what we want, but it's a simple fact that small changes in our approach can yield enormous differences in our results. If we change the types of businesses we approach on a daily basis, we can immediately change the nature and profitability of our client base. If we change the things we say to our prospects and clients and the way we say those things, we can immediately increase our closing ratios and take more money out of the same number of appointments. If we change our follow-up procedures and our frequency of client contacts, we can make more sales on the back end, create exceptional loyalty with our clients and build a tremendously successful business. Independence from business as usual means we have to make some changes. So I encourage you to declare today your independence from business as usual. When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one human being to dissolve the preconceived notions, unprofitable behaviors, and common typical approaches which have connected them with average performance, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and exceptional station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them. A decent respect to the laws of success requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to take action. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all human beings are created equal, but that none of us, not one of us, has to remain so. We can choose to excel. We can consistently outperform. We can create exceptional success and generate fortunes not available to those who fail to take action, refuse to take action, or aren't sure of which actions to take. We are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among those are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. However, success, wealth, and the fulfillment that often results, these have to be earned. Whenever any form of our own behavior becomes destructive of our goals, it is our right and our obligation, the obligation of all responsible people, to alter or to abolish our inconsistent behaviors and to institute new behaviors,

It's time to start sharpening our focus in terms of our client's own biggest, most serious desires, and giving clients what they want. Here are a few of the takeaway points from this episode: * To get to the money, focus on wants, not just needs * Find the client's objective, goal or mission * Create promotions to accomplish the objectives * Sensory acuity is key * Sell confidence, not just caps. Sell results, not just writing instruments Transcript Transcript + As a professional in the promotional products industry, very often our focus is on getting our clients what they need. But if you really want to get to the money, then it's likely the focus should really be on getting them what they really want... Not just in terms of our products, but in terms of their own biggest, most serious desires. Here's what I mean. Every prospect you meet has an objective, a goal, a mission, an agenda. Some want to get noticed. Some want to get clients. Some want to get rich! Some want create a specific marketing result in their business. Some are in search of advancement. Some want to look good to their boss. Some want to put their kids through college. And some just want to do the bare bones minimum amount of work to get through the day until it's time for them to go home. Everyone's different. So here's the takeaway... Deliver on Their Objectives and The Sky's the Limit! If your prospect wants to bring new clients through the door now, create promotions to do that, because if you're talking to them about exposure and branding, you've lost them. If your client wants to reward the performance of her people, create a promotion to make that happen, because if you're talking to her about mugs and t-shirts, she'll think you're just not paying attention. If your prospect is interested primarily in his own career advancement, making more money or paying to put his kids through college and your recommendations won't in some way facilitate that goal and help make it happen, he'll probably want to find someone else. Naturally, all our sales presentations eventually have to turn to product since that's what we sell, but that pivot should never take place until AFTER our clients are absolutely convinced that the recommendations we make to them are going to help them accomplish their REAL objectives, their real goals, their real desires. With every client contact, we should determine what motivates this person to take action? What gets a response? What appears to interest this person? What makes them sit up and pay attention? And what makes them tune out? Decades ago, I heard Tony Robbins use the term "sensory acuity," and I just love that term. Sensory Acuity. Being intricately tuned in to our surroundings. Being exceptionally aware of everything important that's going on around us. Think about it. What skill could be more important than that in sales? Being focused like a laser on our prospects and clients -- their needs, their desires, their interests, their moods, their beliefs, their feelings -- this level of awareness is an underutilized skill, it's an asset, that the world's best salespeople have and the world's worst sales people lack. So How Tuned In Are You? Once you've gotten a solid read on exactly what it is that motivates your prospect -- what makes them respond well and what makes them respond badly -- then it's simply a matter of focusing every aspect of your selling process ...