Business and Finance

Reza Hossein Borr

You are what you say

You are not what you say although what you say represents some of your views, feelings and information. Most of the people talk about the information they have of different things. The information does not really reflect their inner self. The information is what they have learnt, not what they believe in or what they feel. What you say represents your state at a particular moment. You may not mean at all what you say or you mean what you do not say. You may not believe in what you say or you may believe in them. What you say maybe instinctively or it may be thought out carefully. The result is that what you say does show how you are, not what you are.

What you say gives impressions to other people and project an image of you in other people. That image maybe genuine or false. What you say is less important than how you say it. All of communication skills experts believe that the way you say something is more important than what you say. What you say does not represent you but how you say it represents you. How you say something involves your body posture, your feelings, your skills, the tone of your speech and the tune that you employ to express yourself. What you say is affected by your mental states and your body state. Therefore what you say can make a great difference and how you say it can make even bigger difference, a greater difference in the effectiveness of your expression.

Continue reading ‘Communication Skills: Make Maximum Impact on Maximum People’ »

The fact is, that to do anything in the world worth doing, we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as we can.
~Robert Cushing

Let us strive to improve ourselves, for we cannot remain stationary; one either progresses or retrogrades.
~Mme. Du Deffand

One of the first things I usually say at the start of a motivational talk is “winners and losers are predetermined but only the winner knows it”! I say this because I believe it with all my heart. A winner jumps into a situation and proceeds to deal with it by any means necessary. While a loser sits back and makes excuses as to why something can’t be done. A winner thinks on his feet and moves forward. While a loser says they need more time to look at the situation. A winner starts with a good plan and makes it better as the situation calls for it. While a loser will always be planning to do something and never start doing anything. A winner makes good “breaks” in business. While a loser hopes for a “break” in business. A winner will congratulate another winner when he is bested by them. While a loser will make excuses and cast blame. Get the picture. I thought you might. Always remember that the easiest thing to do when something goes amiss is to blame or make an excuse. Don’t do it! As my grandmother would say “put on your big girl panties and deal with it”. Have a reputation as a “can do” kind of business professional not a whiner. For years I have been known affectionately as the “trash man” and I love it. I earned this reputation in another career and it carried over into my current businesses. You see I believe that I can sell any property. So properties other Realtors would pass on because of condition or some other oddity, I get sold. You’ve got a house with a tree in the middle of it after a hurricane, call me, I can sell it. I have earned the reputation as the “trash man” and I relish it.

Continue reading ‘Be a Winner!’ »

SOS, also known as Morse code, is a universal distress signal. For salespeople, a “Save Our Ship,” becomes a “Save Our Sales” distress call. While everyone selling likely has their own SOS, here are five common sales calls for help.

1. Cancelled appointments

Are you confirming any appointments you set with prospects? Either the day before or the morning of, telephone or email prospects. I usually telephone. If something has come up for the prospect, I reschedule with them right then; they’re already on the telephone. If they just don’t show, that’s an entirely different problem and solution. NOTE: never assume that a no show means not interested.

2. Prospects buying from competition

Are you going through all that you know how to do and losing sales to the competition? What about losing to the competition of procrastination? Examine your qualifying process. You have a qualifying process, right? At a minimum, early on you want to be certain of four things: you are working with someone with a budget for your product or service; you are talking with all decision makers; the prospect has indicated a need by conveying a problem they want to eliminate or a solution they need, and their timeline fits with your sales process timeline.

Continue reading ‘Sales Training – Salesperson’s Universal Distress Signals’ »

Filled with music
mostly from the 1950’s and 1960’s some Jukebox songs weave a tale of the life of someone who sells. Let’s put a quarter in for some Jukebox music to make you smarter, take the pain of rejection away, improve your creativity and reduce your stress. As a salesperson or small business owner with sales responsibility, your thoughts, attitudes and actions are vital to your sales success. Here are the top picks:

1. We Belong Together, Ritchie Valens. “You’re mine and we belong together.” Is that what you are thinking about your prospects? And just how are you showing them? Do you take your time to build rapport? Are you getting to know them? Then are you letting them get to know you, your product and your service?

2. What’s Your Name, Don and Juan. “What’s your name? May I walk you to your door? It’s so hard to find a personality, With charms like yours for me.” Learn about primary personality styles with a model like the Personal Profile SystemÒ or some other. An easy and exacting model of a prospects buying style will help you help them easier. If you open the next sales step sooner or later, depending on the buying style, you will find a perfect match of selling for your customer.

Continue reading ‘Sales Training – Salespeople Get Uplifted With Jukebox Music!’ »

Unlike real barbed wire being cheaper, easier and quicker to use to get results to better control livestock and land, sales reluctance is costly, stubborn and slows down a salesperson’s success. If a salesperson’s product or service is that valuable, a salesperson will want to have various ways to cut through and strengthen their self-promotion.

Go under. Barbed wire is a wall without being a wall, just like reluctance is a sales barrier which may not be recognized. Reluctance commonly shows up as fear of rejection, failure or being perceived as an impostor and pervades all parts of the selling process. Research by Behavioral Sciences Research Press has found that for sales call reluctance, there is usually a specific limited reason. Find out what causes your particular reluctance, then find a way to get it under control.

Cover it with a blanket and climb over it. Rather than become entangled in the barbed wire of sales reluctance, identify your issues and set an action plan to get over it. Do you have an underlying belief that salespeople are scammers? When I lead sales training workshops I often ask, “What words would you use to describe salespeople?” A long list of negative words like, dishonest, pushy, doesn’t listen, start to be spoken. When you are reluctant about follow-up, do you procrastinate to avoid seeming pushy? Consider changing that the belief to how what you have to offer brings great value to people and you owe it to them to help them.

Continue reading ‘Sales Training – Salespeople Tips on Crossing the Barbed Wire Fence of Sales Reluctance’ »