Jonathan Farrington’s Blog

The JF Guest Author Spot

 Mike Brooks

One day I was having my Volvo serviced and as I waited for it to be brought out, I wandered onto the new car showroom. There on the floor was a Special S60 R - their Rally version and it looked pretty sweet. As I sat in it, someone came up and asked me what I thought and I said, “It’s OK.”

I asked him if he was one of the sales reps, and he said he was new to sales having worked for the Volvo factory for the last 10 years. He then asked me how much I knew about the car. “Not much,” was my answer.

And that’s when he began. Jim seemed to change as he began to tell me what a phenomenal car the R series was. Did I know that the brakes alone were of racing pedigree and the best brakes Volvo ever made? And that they were found only on the Rally model?

Did I know about the torque of the engine and that the Rally had the only hand made engine Volvo ever produced?

On and on he went, covering each part of the car from the racing bucket seats, down to the hand stitched leather. And the price! My God! This was the best value, dollar for dollar, of any car on the market, period, he told me.

And the performance! Would I like to take a test drive? “Heck Yeah!” I heard myself saying.

Well, as I drove the car - and boy was it fun - Jim talked even more about how great this car was. I soon found that I was completely caught up in his enthusiasm, and before I knew it, I was back at the dealership talking prices, payments, and delivery terms!

I ended up getting away with an “I need to think about it,” but I’ve got to tell you, that car, and Jim’s enthusiasm for it, sticks with me today. Had I actually been shopping for a new car, I would have bought it - and been happy I did!

What this reminded me of is how important your belief in your product or service is. Enthusiasm really IS contagious, and many times your customers buy your belief in your product as well as the product itself.

So your assignment this week is to ask yourself, “How can you inject genuine enthusiasm into your presentation?” Ask yourself why you choose to work at your company and what part of your product or service are you particularly proud or excited about?

Once you’ve identified these things, be enthusiastic about them, and let your prospects and customers know why you are there. And why they should be, too.

And before you go into your next presentation, ask yourself, “Would you buy from you today?”
With over 20 years of inside sales closing experience, Mike Brooks has been billed nationwide as Mr. Inside Sales. Once a bottom 80% producer, Mike learned and perfected the skills of Top 20% producers and became the number one sales rep out of 5 Southern California branch offices.

Author of the weekly Ezine, “Inside Sales Secrets of the Top 20%,” Mike’s proven techniques, strategies and skills are used successfully by companies in industries such as securities sales, high-tech sales, pharmaceuticals, equipment leasing and other business to business applications.

Mike combines proven, current tactics and skills with personal experience to provide a motivational and practical presentation.

Look for Mike’s new book The Secrets of the Top 20% to be released later this month. Learn more about Mike here http://www.mrinsidesales.com/

Today’s News: It seems everyone is talking up a recession and having worked through at least three myself and come out the other side stronger, fitter and more successful, I have my own thoughts and ideas - more of that later. In fact selling in a recession is this week’s topic over at Salesopedia and you can catch some excellent articles here

Tomorrow: “The Star Trek Officer Team & The Herrmann Brain Theory“

When a colleague loaned me Stephen Covey’s “The Seven Habits Of Highly Successful People” many years ago, it took me about three months to get round to reading it - I now realise that I wasted those three months! In fact, I read it three times in order to ensure that I had fully digested the wisdom.

Whilst I cannot claim to have experienced an epiphany of “Damascus Highway” proportions, it did cause me to make fundamental changes to the way I conducted business. In reality, I was practising much of what Covey suggests, but I was doing so in a fairly unstructured and ill-disciplined way. However, in what I now term my “Post Covey” period, I do ensure that I audit myself regularly and I would urge you to do the same.

Covey is also responsible for the book “Principle Centred Leadership“, and many of his ideas and approaches relate to the management of people.

Covey’s view focuses on interdependence, on what he calls “mature interaction”. When we are truly interdependent, then we have achieved and are practising all seven habits. The habits are in fact steps, leading us from dependent through independence to interdependence and making use of our innate human characteristics - moving us in effect from what Covey terms “private victories to public victories”.

In any situation, our natural human response is to look for similarities to situations we have previously encountered. In doing this, we fail to recognise the situation we are actually in and we fail to recognise opportunities and challenges presented to us. In effect “the way we see the problem is the problem” … which accounts for why we find ourselves repeating patterns of frustration and feeling unable to respond appropriately to situations facing us.

Einstein observed “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” Covey develops this theme into what he calls an “inside-out” approach. This means to start first with self; even more fundamentally, to start with the most inside part of self - with your principles, your values, your motives and your character.

We each have, and can develop further, various assets. Covey’s view encourages wider recognition of these assets and the maintenance of them. Once we take for granted say effective working relationships, then we cease to actively maintain them. The result could well be a reduction in the effectiveness of the relationship and therefore of a very important asset. The key is balance between the use of any asset and maintenance of it.

You can read my full review here

Today’s News:

My good friend Joanne Black, has just announced some new seminar dates - “Turn more than 50 percent of your contacts into clients, work less, and get more quality clients. Find out to get hot sales leads without cold calling by enrolling in our new three-session No More Cold Calling® Webinar. ”

 You can find the schedule here

Tomorrow: On The JF Guest Author Spot my guest is “Mr Inside Sales” Mike Brooks.

The JF Guest Author Spot

Jeb Blount
 
William Penn wrote, “True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.” I passionately believe that we must schedule, on our calendars, at least fifteen to thirty minutes each week just to think. No distractions, no music, no TV, no laptop, no Blackberry, just you and your thoughts, alone. One of my good friends who is a senior level executive in a major corporation is such a believer in this concept that he actually requires his managers to regularly take time out to just think. Thinking is powerful. It slows you down, helps you relax and frequently generates incredible ideas and inspiration. Silence provides you with the capacity to contemplate where you are and where you are going. 
 
The statistics say that something in the neighborhood of 95% of the people walking around in the world today don’t know have a clue they are going. No idea at all. With numbers like this it is likely that you are in this crowd. Frankly it is hard not to be. Think about everything you are faced with each day - your quota, customers, prospects, the boss, sales meetings, travel, family, friends, voice mail, email, text messages, and endless to do lists. The world is moving at such a fast pace that on many days we just pour ourselves into bed at night and when the alarm rings early the next morning it all starts over again.
 
But the problem is while we are running so hard we quit thinking. And even if we try to think our thoughts just can’t break through the noise and stress. We have so many things going on all at once and so much noise in our lives that it has become almost impossible to just think. How can you be creative when you are under pressure? Why should you worry about goals and make plans for your future when you have a quota to make today? The problem is, if you lose your creativity or fail to set goals you will never find the success you seek. You must find a way to rise above the noise.
 
Of course, the only way you will break through the noise is to set aside quiet time on your schedule just to think. The first time you attempt to quietly think will not be easy. In the 21st century, we are not accustomed to silence. We are multitaskers! When there is no noise, and no action we become uncomfortable and begin instinctively reaching for our blackberry, phone, or computer to see if we have any messages. Sitting still is something we have forgotten how to do. It will take time to build a habit of quiet contemplation and may take a few months before it becomes natural for you.
           
Now at this very moment I know that some of you are already think to yourself, “Jeb you are nuts, how in the world will I ever find time for a luxury like thinking? I have obligations and other people are counting on me. I can’t afford to take time out of my day for this.” Well, your concern is understandable. We are taught from an early age to put the needs of others first. However, consider this. If you give and give, without first taking care of yourself, you head down a path towards physical and mental disaster. You have to learn to put your well being first.
 
I’m not implying that in learning to put yourself first that you should become the self-serving center of your own universe. You don’t need to sacrifice your priorities or relationships to invest in yourself. However, you cannot be of service to anyone if you are not taking care of you. You must take time to think. Your happiness, success and well-being depend on it. 
 
Give it a try today. Sit down in a quiet place, breathe slowly and listen closely to your thoughts. This will take practice but if you listen closely your thoughts will tell you when you are on the wrong path or when you are on the right path. Keep listening. Soon you will begin to find creative ways to solve problems, you will think about your future, you will reflect on your blessings, and you may even find yourself writing down your plans and goals. Take time to think and listen. Once you form this habit and make it a weekly ritual you will tap into amazing power which will deliver peace of mind, inspiration, and real success.
 
Jeb Blount is author of the bestselling sales motivation book PowerPrinciples, the creator of the popular internet sales community, SalesGravy.com, and the host of the #1 ranked Sales Podcast in the world: SalesGravy: PowerPrinciples
 
Considered one of the leading experts in sales and sales leadership he has over 20 years experience in Fortune 500 sales and marketing, As a business leader he has extensive experience turning around and righting troubled organizations. He has a passion for growing people and the unique ability to see potential in everyone. Over the span of his career he has coached, trained, and developed thousands of Sales Professionals, managers and leaders.

Today’s News: You can’t keep that man Lee Salz out of the news for very long and here he is in conversation with Clayton Shold over at Salesopedia

Tomorrow: We finish the week strongly with “The Right To Do Business Has To Be Earned”

You know, virtually everything I do can be measured in “Pareto” terms: 80% of my business comes from 20% of my clients; 20% of my online promotion produces 80% of my results; 20% of my articles achieve 80% of my total readers - you get the picture. It certainly assists me to focus more dilligently on the areas of my business, and indeed my life, that really matter.

Pareto Analysis is a very simple technique that helps you to choose the most effective changes to make.
 
It uses the Pareto principle - the idea that by doing 20% of work you can generate 80% of the advantage of doing the entire job*. Pareto analysis is a formal technique for finding the changes that will give the biggest benefits. It is useful where many possible courses of action are competing for your attention.
 
How to use the tool:

To start using the tool, write out a list of the changes you could make. If you have a long list, group it into related changes.

Then score the items or groups. The scoring method you use depends on the sort of problem you are trying to solve. For example, if you are trying to improve profitability, you would score options on the basis of the profit each group might generate. If you are trying to improve customer satisfaction, you might score on the basis of the number of complaints eliminated by each change.
 
The first change to tackle is the one that has the highest score. This one will give you the biggest benefit if you solve it.
 
The options with the lowest scores will probably not even be worth bothering with - solving these problems may cost you more than the solutions are worth.
 
Example:

A manager has taken over a failing service center. He commissions research to find out why customers think that service is poor.
 
He gets the following comments back from the customers:

• Phones are only answered after many rings.
• Staff seem distracted and under pressure.
• Engineers do not appear to be well organised. They need second visits to bring extra parts. This means that customers have to take another day off work to be there a second time.
• They do not know what time they will arrive. This means that customers may have to be in all day for an engineer to visit.
• Staff members do not always seem to know what they are doing. Sometimes when staff members arrive, the customer finds that the problem could have been solved over the phone.

The manager groups these problems together. He then scores each group by the number of complaints, and orders the list:

• Lack of staff training: 6: 51 complaints
• Too few staff: 4: 21 complaints
• Poor organization and preparation: 2 complaints

By doing the Pareto analysis above, the manager can better see that the vast majority of problems (69%) can be solved by improving staff skills.

Once this is done, it may be worth looking at increasing the number of staff members.

Alternatively, as staff members become more able to solve problems over the phone, maybe the need for new staff members may decline.

It looks as if comments on poor organisation and preparation may be rare, and could be caused by problems beyond the manager’s control.

By carrying out a Pareto Analysis, the manager is able to focus on training as an issue, rather than spreading effort over training, taking on new staff members, and possibly installing a new computer system.

Key Points:

Pareto Analysis is a simple technique that helps you to identify the most important problem to solve.

In Summary -To use it:

• List the problems you face, or the options you have available
• Group options where they are facets of the same larger problem
• Apply an appropriate score to each group
• Work on the group with the highest score

Pareto analysis not only shows you the most important problem to solve, it also gives you a score showing how severe the problem is.
 
*This is only one application of this important 80/20 principle. It shows the lack of symmetry that almost always appears between work put in and results achieved. This can be seen in area after area of competitive activity. The figures 80 and 20 are illustrative - for example, 13% of work could generate 92% of returns.

Today’s News: Today is a very special day for Heathrow Airport in London: Finally, Terminal 5, or T5 as it will become known, opens it’s doors. My friend Carlos, whose nickname is “T5 Insider” kindly arranged for me to have a tour a couple of weeks back, but at the last minute, I had to cancel due to business pressures. However, he has kept me fully updated and I will share some stunning images with you on Wednesday.

Over at Top 10 Sales Articles there is a particularly good selection of nominees this week, do be sure to check them out.

Tomorrow: On the JF Guest Author Spot I welcome back good friend and best selling author, Anne Miller - you will not want to miss her words of wisdom.  

“Experience informs us that the first offence of weak minds is to recriminate” Samuel Taylor Coleridge
  
Negative people typically suffer from what I call the three “C’s” and are usually found to be: Criticising, condemning or complaining.
 
Here are some tips to help you overcome negativity and to recognise it in others.
 
Develop and build your own understanding of what is really negative. Do remember that constructive criticism is not negative.
 
Check your conversation with others, are you being negative? - Check your thoughts and thinking process - remember that if you are thinking negatively the only person you will harm is yourself. Remove those thoughts as you would a faulty slide from a projector, discard them, you have the capacity to do that and your mind will respond if you are strong enough and willing enough to discard a negative thought.
 
Build a bullet proof screen around you, so that negative comments or behaviour from other people cannot penetrate. You can do this by instantly recognising negative criticism or conversation.

From time to time, check the company you are keeping. If you have been mixing in the wrong environment, talk to people who are positive. Go out and mix with people you know have positive, constructive ideas. Mix with people who are doing better than you.
 
If another person’s negativity does get through to you, say to yourself “Why did he or she say that”? You must remember that no positive person becomes so unfeeling that they can’t see life from another person’s point of view. It could happen that someone very close to you says something that can be construed as negative; it may be because they are worried, they are concerned or they have fear. By asking yourself “Why did he or she say that?” You will more than likely be able to understand and by reassurance, conversation and looking at the worry from a different point of view, turn the negative into a positive process.
 
Have your own negative repellent whenever anyone says anything really negative to you just say “fantastic” - no truly negative person enjoys hearing that word; they really run for cover!
 
 In Summary:
 
• Remember, the negative is always stronger than the positive.
 
• Never allow anyone to pollute your thinking
 
• As a professional you must take care of your attitude

 “The most evil, dangerous and cancerous complaint that humanity inflicts upon itself is to be negative” Anon

Today’s News: I often talk about networking sites and whilst some of them can be irritating, providing a constant stream of requests from people you have never heard of wishing to link with you, others have some real benefits: As an example yesterday, we decided we needed to recruit some additional programming resource with PHP/MySQL experience, so I logged into LinkedIn and sent a question to seventy of my contacts, asking if anyone had advice. Within four hours, more than fifty of them came back to either say they couldn’t help or providing details of people they would personally recommend - fantastic :-) 

Over on Salesopedia this week, the hot topic is interpersonal skills, and there are some excellent articles providing advice - you can check it out here

Tomorrow: On the JF Guest Author Spot my guest is my good friend, best selling author and internationally acclaimed sales psychologist Dr.Greg Stebbins.

The JF Guest Author Spot 

At some point, I hear from practically every person I’ve ever worked with about the competition in their market. Companies spend so much time trying to outsell, outwit and out price their competition without realizing who their greatest competitor truly is. As such, they focus all of their energy on trying to beat out the wrong competitor.

Consider this. You have no external competition. No, I haven’t fully lost my mind as of yet, so just try this on for a moment. I’m certainly not disputing the fact that there are other companies selling similar products that you are.

What I am suggesting is that the only competition you truly have is you; in other words, your current beliefs or outlook, your mindset and your current way of doing things.

While some of you may already embrace this notion, let’s explore it on a deeper level.
There are several words synonymous with competition. They are, “Struggle, resistance, disagreement” and “conflict.” “Competition” implies one side working against the other.
The two competing sides that I’m referring to as it relates to each of us are as follows. That which you are comfortable doing and that which you haven’t done or tried consistently as of yet.

In truth, you are really competing against what you did yesterday. You’re competing against status quo; you’re competing against feeling comfortable and doing what’s predictable with feeling uncomfortable and doing what hasn’t been proven yet.

To illustrate this point, let me share a story about Dave. Dave was the owner of a mid sized company. He had a hard time managing and motivating his team. Like many owners, he was also responsible for selling. He didn’t really have a specific management or sales process laid out. He wasn’t organized and didn’t adhere to any type of daily routine. “Sales were tough,” as he said. Dave felt his product was a commodity. As such, his typical approach was to try to sell on price, making it even more challenging to produce the results he wanted, especially since he wasn’t the least expensive option.

Dave and I spent the first few weeks working together crafting a selling strategy and approach he was comfortable with. We developed his MVP (Most Valuable Proposition). He upgraded his mindset and removed some mental barriers that were preventing him from engaging in the activities that yield the greatest return. We crafted questions that enabled him to uncover new selling opportunities. Dave put together a routine that outlined the measurable activities he needed to engage in on a daily basis. He made one to one time with each member of his team non negotiable and put a process in place to track productivity and their goals. He even interviewed his team, investing the time in asking them how he can improve and how he can best manage each of his salespeople.
The result? Dave doubled his personal sales volume by the third month of our work together. By the 5th month, his salespeople increased their volume by 40%.

So the question is, did his external competition change during this period of time or disappear from his market? Did the economy dramatically turn around? Did his product’s demand suddenly skyrocket or become more effective and unique? It did not.
Dave accelerated to a higher level of productivity because of the work he did and the things that he can control, which is the path he chose to take as it relates to his development and daily activities.

Dave embraced his biggest competitor which was himself! He turned this adversary into his greatest ally. For example, if you are responsible for bringing in new business, instead of thinking that every prospect you meet with is a potential sale for you to win, consider that every sale is already yours for the taking. Therefore, each sale is yours for you to lose; not to your competition but to yourself based on how well you develop and manage your selling process.

The next time you run up against some resistance when managing or selling, remember Dave. Remember who your competition really is and embrace this as an opportunity to refine how you approach managing, selling and your prospects. Compare your progress today against what you did yesterday, not against what others are doing. This is the only accurate measurement of your growth and evolution. After all, once you get yourself out of your own way, that’s when extraordinary things happen.

Keith Rosen is the preferred, authentic coach that top executives and sales professionals in many of the world’s leading companies call first. As a prominent, engaging speaker, Master Coach and well-known author of many books and articles, Keith is one of the foremost authorities on assisting people in achieving positive, measurable change in their attitude, in their behavior and in their results. Keith’s articles can be found in Selling Power Magazine and has appeared in feature stories in The New York Times, The Washington Times, Inc. Magazine, Sales and Marketing Management’s Ultimate Motivation Guide with Stephen Covey and The Wall Street Journal. For his work as a pioneer in the coaching profession, Inc. magazine and Fast Company named Keith one of the five most respected and influential executive coaches in the country.

To speak with Keith about personalized, one to one or team coaching or training or to receive his free ezine, call 1-888- 262-2450, e-mail info(at)ProfitBuilders.com or visit www.ProfitBuilders.com.

Today’s News: Over at Salesopedia this week, the hot topic is “Marketing In Sales” and there are some excellent articles being showcased - you can check them out here

Tomorrow: Some very sound advice for sales leaders or anyone contemplating taking the step up.

The JF Guest Author Spot 

When something goes wrong (anywhere - in your office, at headquarters, in the national news, even around the dinner table reviewing your family’s day) have you ever heard (or said), “Well, what did you expect?” Usually that question is followed by a knowing glance, a wistful shaking of the head or an ironic laugh.

Yet when something goes right, people don’t ask the same question. Instead those successes typically are chalked up to hard work, or even to luck.

Is it possible that expectations (i.e. “what did you expect?”) play a role in only those things that go bad or less than desired?

I don’t think so.

At some level, we believe expectations matter, or we wouldn’t ask the question when things go badly.

In reality, we have known for a long time that expectations matter - consider this:

“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of being.”

That was written by the German writer and scientist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - a long time ago (he died in 1842). Why would we treat people in a certain way if we didn’t expect they could live up to it?

So let me ask you a question.

What do you expect . . .

. . . of your co-workers?
. . . of your team?
. . . of your customers?
. . . of your boss?
. . . of your relationships?
. . . of your family?
. . . of yourself?

Interestingly we always have expectations. Perhaps yours are generally positive, perhaps they are positive in some situations or with some people, or perhaps you keep your expectations low because “you don’t want to be disappointed” (if that the latter is the case, I’m guessing at some level you still are disappointed). Or, maybe your expectations are completely subconscious - you never give them a thought, one way or the other.

Once we believe, or are reminded, that expectations can play a powerful role in modifying the outcomes of events (even if that role is invisible), we can determine what we are going to do about it. So, it makes sense to be more conscious about our expectations so we can examine and modify them as desired.

I believe there are two steps in this process: choose your expectations and create a habit.

Make a Choice

Once your expectations are conscious, you have a choice to make. And that choice really comes down to answering the question “What do I really want?” and then creating an expectation mirroring that desire. Create the expectation and then think about it regularly. If you are noticing a small (or large) voice of doubt in your mind, you haven’t set the expectation clearly or firmly yet.

Remember you can expect great success, and still be happy or satisfied when the outcome isn’t perfect. Expectations alone (with our effort, action, etc.) aren’t a golden ticket or a guarantee, but everything else being equal, positive expectations will positively impact your outcome. So why not choose positive expectations?

Create a Habit

Perhaps your conscious (or subconscious) expectations have been low for a long time, or maybe you have never considered this as a choice before. Either way, when you make the choice to have positive conscious expectations once, you can then make that a new habit. Regularly consider a future event, small or large (how the meeting will go, whether the project will be a success, if your kids will get in before curfew), and set your expectations of that situation positively.

Create the habit of a positive expectancy and you will be surprised how quickly your results will change for the better.

This invisible, almost magical, process is real. Your expectations are already impacting your results. My challenge to you is to raise your level of expectations as a way to improve your results, satisfaction and happiness.

The choice is yours.

Kevin Eikenberry is a leadership expert and the Chief Potential Officer of The Kevin Eikenberry Group, a learning consulting company that helps Clients reach their potential through a variety of training, consulting and speaking services. You can learn more about him and a special offer on his newest book, Remarkable Leadership: Unleashing Your Leadership Potential One Skill here

 Kevin is also a member of the Top Sales Experts team of course, and you can read more about him here

Today’s News: The key objective for The JF Consultancy was to provide me with a platform to launch a brand new range of unique and innovative solutions and services. In the longer term, we will be creating a world-wide partner network, but in the short term I am enjoying being very “hands-on” If you haven’t yet taken the opportunity to have a look round, please do so here 

Over at The Sales Community, Greg Stewart and his team have launched iQ Radio, and his guest this week is my buddy Colleen Francis, who shares her wisdom about 21st Century selling. You can listen in here

Tomorrow: I am going to be discussing the four management styles.

The JF Guest Author Spot

The first 30 minutes of the workday will set the tone for the entire day. For most people, the first half hour of the day consists of settling into the office routine by grabbing a cup of coffee, checking the internet, and, of course, chatting with others. Now, I will never be one to say we have to avoid coffee and/or socializing, but I will be the first to say it is advantageous to put these activities aside until later.

One of the ways that top-performing salespeople separate themselves from others is by effectively using the first 30 minutes of the day. It is highly beneficial to your productivity to know exactly what you are going to accomplish during this period. Therefore, you must determine the day before what you intend to do when you first arrive in the morning. For anyone in sales, this means one thing:  start the day by making a minimum of three sales calls before you do anything else.

To begin using this strategy, your objective today (and everyday in the future) should be to identify three people you want to call first thing tomorrow morning. There is no better way to start the day than by calling customers. If you are the type of person who arrives in the office early, your phone calls will wind up going straight to voicemail. Great!  In fact, using voicemail is an effective way to demonstrate to others that you are a hard working individual and you take your relationships seriously. For those of you who have a large number of clients, this is also a perfect way to personally reach out to them, while not having to wind up in a long, drawn-out telephone conversation.

In addition to beginning the workday more productively, you will also find yourself warmed up to make additional phone calls throughout the day. This will help you overcome a very common problem among anyone in sales:  the initial reluctance to make the first call of the day. Many studies have shown that people waste on average 15 minutes each day just getting ready to make that first call. It is ironic to think that you will have made three phone calls in the time it takes the average salesperson to even start making theirs.

An additional benefit of this plan will come when you begin applying this same principle to the first 15 minutes after returning from lunch. Use that time to make three prospecting calls. Again, you will find yourself becoming productive faster and you will be less likely to find yourself at the end of the day looking back to realize that you did not make the phone calls you needed to.

By establishing these habits, you will increase the number of phone calls you make every day from utilizing time that, in the past, was unproductive. Make it part of your routine at the end of each day to identify both the three people you intend to contact the next morning and the three you’ll contact after lunch. Do not fall into the trap of thinking you’ll come up with the names the next day because the chances of you actually contacting those people will fall dramatically.

   Mark Hunter, “The Sales Hunter”, is a motivational sales speaker and industry expert who addresses thousands each year on how to increase their sales profitability.  For more information on his sales training or to receive a free weekly sales tip via email, contact “The Sales Hunter” at www.TheSalesHunter.com.

Mark is also a recent addition to the Top Sales Experts team and you can read more about him here

Today’s News: I enjoy developing new process tools and I also enjoy discovering other people’s creations, particularly if they are useful and accurate. So yesterday, I was pleased to receive a message from my very good friend from “down under” Kevin Dwyer of Change Factory advising that he has just launched a brand new initiative The Sales Pipeline with a very sophisticated sales pipeline calculator. If you sign up for his newsletter, you can claim the Excel - based tool for free, just go here

Tomorrow: In a recent survey I read called “How Customers Regard Salespeople” an amazing 49% said that sales professionals they deal with don’t call often enough!

So why is call reluctance so prevalent? What causes it and how can it be overcome? For the answers to these questions and to read the rest of the survey, join me tomorrow.

The increasingly intense competitive challenges of the world economy challenge everyone, everywhere, to adapt in order to prosper under new rules. In the old economy, hierarchies pitted labour against management, with workers paid wages depending on their skills, but that is eroding as the rate of change accelerates.

Hierarchies are being replaced by networks; labour and management are uniting into teams; wages are coming in new mixtures of options, incentives and ownership; fixed jobs melt into fluid careers.

As business changes, so do the traits needed to survive, let alone excel. All these transitions put increased value on emotional intelligence. Competitive pressures put a new value on people who are self-motivated, show initiative, have the inner drive for outdoing themselves, and are optimistic enough to take reversals and setbacks in their stride. The ever-pressing need to serve customers and clients well and to work smoothly and creatively with an ever more diverse range of people makes the ability to empathise all the more essential.

At the same time, the meltdown of old hierarchies increases the importance of traditional people skills such as building bonds, influence and collaboration. And that is as true for employers as it is for employees. The task of the leader draws on a wide range of personal skills.

Research has shown that emotional competence makes the crucial difference between mediocre leaders and the best. Indeed, emotional competence makes up about two thirds of the ingredients of star performance in general, but for outstanding leaders emotional competencies - as opposed to technical or cognitive cues - make up 80 to 100% of those listed by companies as crucial for success.

Star performers show significantly greater strengths in a range of emotional competencies, such as the skills of persuasion, team leadership, political awareness, self-confidence, and achievement drive. Empathy, one of the key elements of emotional intelligence, is central to good management; it is difficult to have a positive impact on others without first sensing how they feel and understanding their position. People who are poor at reading emotional cues and inept at social interactions are very poor at influencing others in the workplace.

Today’s News: Dr Randy Pausch, a professor who is dying of cancer, gives his last lecture. This uplifting and inspirational video, which has been viewed more than a million times, is a must see. You can view it here, it is very, very moving and I am grateful to my good friend Jeb Blount of Sales Gravy, for bringing it to my attention.

Tomorrow: Ahead of the launch, we are putting the finishing touches to The JF Consultancy site - it’s looking good, but I will let you decide for yourselves next Tuesday Wherever you are, as ever, have a great w/e - JF

The JF Guest Author Spot

If you go to the dictionary, you will find a long list of definitions for mindset, mind, and set. Interestingly they all come before success!

Mind•set (noun) beliefs that affect somebody’s attitude - a set of beliefs or a way of thinking that determine somebody’s behavior and outlook

Mind (noun) seat of thought and memory - the center of consciousness that generates thoughts, feelings, ideas, and perceptions and stores knowledge and memories

Set (verb) focus on something - transitive verb to focus on a goal or task • had set his mind on it

This is not a grammar lesson, and maybe it doesn’t matter how you spell mindset. What does matter is you need to better understand what it is if you wish to be successful. There I spelled it with one word. I’ll continue to spell it with one word; you can use two if you wish.

The spelling is less important than the understanding of just how critical your mindset is to you, especially if you are in a highly competitive environment like sales, sports or business.

Go back and read the definition of mindset again. “A way of thinking that determines somebody’s behavior and outlook.” Every day we have choices to make. Life is all about choices. We choose between right and wrong, good and evil. Being positive or negative.

Think about the impact of mindset. Say you awake and tell yourself, “Am I ever tired this morning, this is going to be one very long day.” Where do you think your energy level is going to be? Let’s say you awake and say to yourself, “This is going to be a great day. I can’t wait to get to at it.” How many dragons do you think you could slay? How we think subconsciously impacts our conscious behaviors. The psychologists call the study of this phenomenon, cognitive behavioral science. It truly is fascinating.

It has been proven repeatedly that our internal self-talk determines our attitude, disposition and actions. Think about the person who has said for years, “I’m great with faces but terrible with names.” Repeating this over and over do you wonder if the mind has taken it as fact and only concentrated on facial recognition, totally ignoring the name, as you have convinced the mind the name isn’t important.

The good news is we can change how we think. We can re-train the mind. Like so much in life, it won’t happen over night; however, it is much easier than you might think. The key is to consciously catch your negative thoughts. In our example with names, if the person caught himself or herself saying they were not good with names and began having their inner voice say, “I’m getting better at remembering names, I just have to concentrate.” Then use what ever trick works for you, name association, using the person’s name in conversation right away to focus on it, what ever.

How often have you heard the world-class athlete comment how they visualize winning their race or event? Their “mental coach” has become as important as their “performance coach” in their training and conditioning.

If you work in the sales arena, you probably know some top sales professionals who appear to always be “up”. They are optimistic, have an organized mind and success just seems to come to them. They have learned, usually from experience, or a mentor, that a person who is an effective thinker is more successful. By effective thinker, I mean someone who controls and leverages his or her inner voice. This person understands the power of visualizing success, of believing in themselves, and believing in their clients. Their positive self-talk enables them, it doesn’t distract them.

I would encourage you, regardless of occupation, to learn more about the power of effective thinking. Do a Google search on Dr. Clayton Lafferty, Dr. David McClelland and Dr. Henry Murray who have all been key contributors to better understating the impact of mindset.

Become and effective thinker, manage your mindset!

Clayton Shold is co-founder and President of Salesopedia “The World of Sales from A to Z”. Visit his site at http://www.salesopedia.com

He is a recent addition to the Top Sales Experts team and you can read more about him here.

Over at Salesopedia Media this week, the focus is on negotiation. There is a great interview with Kelley Robertson, plus some highlighted articles by experts on the subject and me - check it out here

Today’s News: On Tuesday, you will remember that Colleen Francis was my guest and I should have alerted you to her excellent “Sales Secrets Of Top Performers” FREE e-Course, yes, I did say FREE - you can enrol here

Did you check out this week’s nominated articles on Top 10 Sales Articles yet?

Tomorrow: “Decision Making Made Easy….” and I mean really easy!