How Ike Signed Up Your Team Member

Tuesday, December 30th, 2008 at 6:29 PM

So you’re minding your own business, the big storm comes through…(more like a hurricane cat 2) you evacuate to safety, come back 3 days later to find your house – gone. Devastating. To look at the few 2x4s as all that is left from all you had.

Not by much different for a sales person hoping and praying for that ever next sale to pay the mortgage bill or the bank will come and take it. Scary how similar it is. So you try hard, really cranking up the number of presentations you’re doing, spending more time answering all the detailed questions prospects have, just to make sure all the t’s are crossed and all the i’s are dotted…Running from one side of the town to another, answering more then one phone at the time, emailing and chatting all while doing webinar presentations, just not to miss that one prospect inquiry that would “change everything”….Truly fighting for that sale to come in, and just when the guy tells you “It sounds great, call me tomorrow AM and we’ll get going”, and you think you got one, the guy is nowhere to be found the next morning. Many follow-up calls, emails, nothing…in the sheer desperation you offer to give him the last bit of a discount you can afford to give…no answer. Devastating. Afterwards you spend time banging you head against the wall, and asking yourself where you went wrong. You had it…What happened?

Actually, unlike those really unfortunate people who lost everything they had by Ike, you never had it!

Few things to always remember:

1) you can’t lose something you never had
2) the sales is not a sale until they give you the check/CC info, AND the check/CC charge clears
3) the more you NEED the sale, the more prospect will see you as desperate and will be turned off by it
4) if you don’t get a sale, get a lesson

So 1) and 2) are pretty obvious, but how do you go about not falling into trap of looking too desperate when your livelihood almost completely depends on that prospect and what is there to learn?

Not easy, but just like everything in this business, it all depends on how bad you want it. One of the hardest things to do in sales is not getting emotionally involved. Most of the sales people fail way too early because they cannot differentiate who they are from what they do. One thing is as sure as a day: the prospects can feel it. They are like dogs. You know how a dog can sense if the person is nervous, mad, sad, happy or sick? That’s how prospects can detect if you’re desperate and needy to get that sale. They can tell by your gestures, by the body language, but the tonality you use, the words you use…trust me, it’s all over your face! So you have to do what it takes to cover it up. No matter what your situation is, how bad you need the money from the sale, what catastrophe might occur if you don’t, you have to cover it up. No other way around it. That is the time to “fake it till you make it”. Most of the successful sales people radiate with strong self-confidence, poise, self-assurance…but they were not like that from day 1.

Many scientific studies have been done on the subject but let me just bring up one to your attention. Some years back the study was done with 3 groups of people and basketball game. One group played for two weeks, every day practicing and learning. The second group did not do a thing for 2 weeks, and the third group practiced in their minds: the jumps, the hoops, the whole shebang. Guess what the results were! The second group of course, had no results, but the third group who practiced in their minds, had just as good of results as the group which was actually out there doing it. Do you know WHY? Because it’s been scientifically proven that brain cannot tell the difference between the reality and imagination. Well, then imagine!

So if that is what it takes, play a psychological game with yourself. Condition yourself for feeling the way “top dogs” do. Keep telling yourself: “I am a millionaire. I don’t need the money, I don’t need this sale. I have millionaire mindset and I don’t need your order, I can make it happen without you.”

It’s amazing what powerful affect that can have on your brain. I know it might sound a bit silly at first, but do you think anybody thought highly of Einstein or Wright brothers at first?

Come back and visit my next article on “Getting lessons” in sales.