Move from 'I Hate' to 'I Love' to Sell

It would be great to wake up every day full of enthusiasm about moving your business forward through the sales process. But there are days when we get tired of sales calls to new prospects and feel as if what we used to love has morphed into a feeling of "I hate to sell."

No need to worry; it's normal. And there's not a top sales producer I know who hasn't gotten into a rut once in a while. It's classically called a "slump." You just have to figure out how to get out of it.

Here are some ways to turn your "I hate selling" days around:

1. Show up. Activity that introduces you to new contacts not only can open up more opportunities for business but also give you that boost of energy that accompanies adding qualified prospects to your pipeline. How many times have you been on your way to a sales meeting or networking event thinking to yourself "this is a waste of my time," only to meet a person who brought you significant business several months later?

2. It's not about you. If you think selling has to do with how well you can talk, then you're missing out on a huge part of your business. After you show up, shut up -- doing so might help you love selling. Every time you're with prospects or customers and they start asking questions about you, answer quickly and then turn it around with questions to get them talking about themselves. Since so many people love talking about themselves, you're in no danger of listening yourself out of a sale. Nobody's ever said, "I don't like her; she listens to me too much!"

3. Attitude is king. Maybe you've heard over and over that attitude is everything. Well, there's a reason for that. When you have a negative attitude people pick up on that, and it's contagious. Every day you wake up, your attitude that day has more to do with your sales success than any other factor.

Let this knowledge influence your choices: Read positive materials and surround yourself with people who drive you and inspire you. A study of top executives determined the four attributes that contributed to their success were knowledge, experience, intelligence and attitude. When the executives were asked to rank them by importance, knowledge, experience, and intelligence together only comprised 7 percent, while attitude determined 93 percent of their success.

4. Plant seeds in the right soil. One of the biggest factors that contribute to your attitude about selling is rejection. The more rejection we experience, the more we feel like what we're selling is of little value or worth. Many times rejection has more to do with whom you're calling on to make a sale. When the person isn't qualified to make the decision or doesn't have a real need for your services, you have to learn to walk away and move on to more worthwhile accounts. Imagine planting seeds in the desert -- it can be very frustrating. If you employ the advice from tip No. 2 above, "It's not about you," you'll know the person you're speaking to and can target questions to determine where your product or service could be of value.

5. Hard work. This is one of the best ways to beat the salesman blues. It makes up for our deficiencies. Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard.

When I was a kid, my friends and I used to dress up for Halloween and go around town with a pillowcase to fill with treats. There was something satisfying about having that pillowcase filled and going back home for another one. Not only was the payoff sweet, but with all that walking we started to learn which homes, streets and sections of town gave out the best treats. So the next year we were working smarter. Massive activity has a way of qualifying situations you would not have known about otherwise.

Nobody said selling was easy, but when you love what you do it gets significantly easier.

By: Barry Farber, www.entrepreneur.com

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877-WE BUY 10

Weekend Sales Tips

Resist In-Your-Face Dressing

The dot-com revolution brought with it a new dress code as young millionaires with more money than style decreed suits were dead and ties were an abomination. It was the birth of "in-your-face" dressing that said, "I make so much money I don't have to dress to impress anyone."

Such arrogance foretold of mass bankruptcies in later years. And it also sabotages sales, a vital point for any Realtor.

Nevertheless, money talks, and the fashion victims listened and followed.

Casual Friday became de rigueur, even in the most conservative establishments. Once-formal bankers, investment brokers and lawyers now loosened up on Fridays. In time, it became a bother to dress formally and "business casual" and "corporate casual" were born. This attire soon looked more like "corporate casualty," since it could not quite be defined and was sorely abused.

The recent successor to business casual is the "in-your-face" dressing that announces, "I'm so hip and with-it that I don't have to wear a boring business suit or a tie." These professionals are commonly seen in a black silk Armani t-shirt and expensive sport jacket. For women, the look consists of suggestive attire, chandelier earrings and too much makeup. There are problems other than the in-your-face message that this look sends.

For one thing, it easily creates the impression that you are "slick," and may be headed for Las Vegas instead of the office. Some females have even observed that this look in a man can sometimes give the impression of being a womanizer. In either case, credibility goes down dramatically. And if you have a slim build, something else happens. Normally when a sport jacket is worn with a shirt and a tie, these garments fill out the neck area of the jacket so that it doesn't pull away from the shirt at the neck -- a real no-no if you want to look polished and professional. However, with a thin t-shirt, very often the jacket may not fit snugly at the neck, causing the neck to look frail or weak.

Other in-your-face looks include inappropriate ties that suggest, "I'm so successful that I can wear Mickey Mouse or baby pink ties to a client meeting."

Or, women may refuse to wear makeup or proper business attire to the office.

Beware of this stance. Menswear designer Joseph Abboud recently booted two investment bankers out of his New York office because they were not wearing ties. Abboud said, "They blew it because they offended me by being too casual." Ultimately, casual attire suggests a casual attitude. However, in-your-face attire suggests a smug attitude, which most people resent.

When a person of the stature and power of Donald Trump takes an in-your-face stance and wears a pink tie in New York City, it sends the false signal that such a tie must be a Power Tie. It is not; not even in Palm Beach or other cities in the Deep South where pastel ties are popular and accepted. Pastel ties are for the country club or dining out with friends. In real "power" situations, like sales, they cause a man to look less powerful.

Of course, powerful men often live by the credo, "Do as I say, not as I do."

In other words, for them, power trumps decorum. Unfortunately, copycats of this in-your-face dressing who do not live in the Deep South risk having their credibility decreased.

True professionals know instinctively that in order to be taken seriously, a serious appearance is required. They dress to impress, even though this attitude may be more subliminal than conscious. Most people make an effort when calling on an important client because they know it affects the outcome. Their attitude is positive, and their appearance should also be positive.

We had a brief foray into madness with the dot-com revolution, and during that time monsters were created in the working environment. Outraged employees protest today that they don't want to return to formal business attire. They love corporate casual and simply do not want to be bothered with dressing up again. It is still arrogant and in-your-face to think that your comfort is more important than your client's attitude toward you.

"Gen Y" female employees wonder why they are not permitted to wear their suggestive club attire to the office. Satin and lacy stretch camisoles fall into an entirely different category than in-your-face attire. Pop stars spawned this look, and what young business professionals forget is that they are not pop stars. They are business professionals who must represent their company and their profession in a businesslike manner.

A recent university study concluded that females who wear suggestive attire to the office lose all credibility when they are in management positions.

Only females in lower positions with little hope of promotion were not judged negatively in suggestive attire. If women are informed of the negativity of suggestive attire and refuse to change, it would be as in-your-face as a baby pink Mickey Mouse tie.

By: Sandy Dumont, www.remonline.com

WE BUY HOUSES

1-877-WE BUY 10

Six Steps to Generating Free Real Estate Leads on Craigslist

After years of trial and error using Craigslist I finally created a system for consistently generating quality real estate leads for my business, and I've decided to share the steps in this article.

Step 1: Create An Account.

This is the easiest step by far, but is critical to getting the best results and to track those results as well. All you need to do is go to Craigslist.com and click on the login button, then on the next page -- if you don't already have an account -- you'll click on the area that says "Don't already have an account." Just fill in your information, name and email, and you'll be sent an email to confirm. Once you receive the email, click on the link in there and, voila, you have an account you can start to use.

Step 2: Pick Your Campaign.

Here is what I mean by picking a campaign. If you are going to generate leads on Craigslist you need to do it with a purpose. You need to choose the kinds of leads that you are looking to work with. Here are some ideas: foreclosure buyers, lease option buyers, apartment building buyers, luxury home buyers, first time home buyers, or buyers in a particular school district; you get the idea.

Step 3: Create Your Campaign

This step can be a little time consuming (really only 30-60 minutes), but the good thing is that once you are done, it's done for good. You may want to go back from time to time and tweak, but most of the work is complete. Here is how to create a campaign for Craigslist lead generation.

Once you have picked your campaign you need to create several different ads to post and generate traffic. Craigslist doesn't allow you to post the same ad over and over, so you'll need several different posting titles and posting descriptions (you'll also want variations for the location and price boxes as well). By creating different titles and posts it allows you post frequently; that enables you to consistently drive traffic to your landing page or squeeze page (never send the traffic to your main web page) or to email or call you.

Step 4: Implementation -- Posting Your Ads

Here is where the rubber meets the road. Now that you have your campaigns created you need to start posting. I recommend to post twice daily during the week and at least once a day on the weekends. You will want to be posting when there is a lot of traffic to Craigslist; the way their site works is that the longer your ad is up the farther down the page it goes. So you probably don't want to post at 5 in the morning as it's not likely that many home buyers are surfing Craigslist at that time.

It is critical to be consistent posting your ads. This literally takes just a couple minutes a day, but it will become one of those things that after some time becomes a bore to do. If you really can't stay diligent with it, have your assistant -- if you have one -- do them for you; or you could even hire one of your kids to do it. I know I am stating the obvious here, but if you don't post you won't get leads, so make sure you stay consistent!

Step 5: Follow Up

Here is where it starts to get exciting. Depending on the information you collect from the leads, you may be able to follow up in several ways. If you are just collecting name and email, obviously that means your only form of follow up will be through email. If you are collecting phone numbers, which I would recommend, then you can make phone calls. If you are able to collect full contact info including address, I would highly recommend sending a sales piece, ideally a sales letter enticing them to work with you as a client.

Your follow up must also be consistent and scripted. If you are offering a free list of homes, whether they be fixer uppers or foreclosures etc, make sure you are regularly sending out the list. For example, in my business I send free lists to my leads every Thursday morning. This does several things: keeps me on a schedule and creates an expectation from the buyers that they'll be getting their new list each Thursday. In order to get maximum response from your list you need to make different offers to them. Here are some ideas for offers you can be making to get them to raise their hand to work with you: teleseminars, homes tours, group open houses, live seminars, etc.

Step 6: Track & Improve

The last step is the least glamorous, but might be the most important of all. You need to be tracking your ads and results from the start. If you don't track you'll have no idea what's working and what isn't. Here are some of the things you need to track: which ads are getting the most response, how well your landing page is converting, how many leads you are getting daily, how many leads turn to clients, how many leads open your emails, and much more. Now this part of the business isn't much fun, but you can only improve what you track; if you aren't tracking this information you have no way of improving your results.

By: Josh Schoenly, www.realtown.com

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http://www.mbnyproperties.com