The reality of buying motives is that they are the least understood and most powerful element in the entire selling process. When you discover why people buy you unlock the emotional trigger that culminates in a purchase.
A loyal customer is someone who has purchased from your more than once. They may not be satisfied. Satisfaction doesn’t matter when loyalty is at stake. Satisfaction can lead to loyalty, but it does not guarantee it. A loyal customer is an opportunity to earn a referral and a testimonial. But the biggest opportunity with a loyal customer is to discover why they’re loyal to you — document it, and repeat that process with all your customers.
A value message is one that you convey to your customers, and potential customers, that they perceive as valuable. It’s not a sales message; rather, it’s a message about how their business will benefit from or profit from your product and your services. The most valuable value message is about their business.
The reality of a positive attitude is that most people don’t possess one. This is not just for you, this is how to understand and communicate with others. Most people don’t study attitude, most people don’t understand positive attitude, and most people don’t understand the lifelong value of positive attitude.
HERE’S THE REALITY: Not everyone is positive all the time. Me included. I have a positive attitude, but I don’t always display it at every opportunity. My attitude stays positive by the way I recover from minor incidents and altercations arising from life’s daily crap.
GOAL TYPE
Here are the 3.5 types of goals:
1. Achievement goal. I want to win the prize as the best salesperson on the team. I want to win the President’s Club Award. I want to get a promotion. I want to get a raise.
2. Material goal. I want a new car. I want a new house. I want a new suit. I want to take a vacation to
Hawaii
3. Improvement goal. I want to be better at asking questions. I want to take a course in positive attitude. I want to read one book per month. I want to attend one live seminar each quarter.
3.5 Monetary goal. Monetary goals are tricky. Some are good. Some are bad. The bad ones have to do with the word make. The good ones have to do with the word earn. “I want to make a hundred thousand dollars this years” pales by comparison to “I want to earn a hundred thousand dollars this year.”
NOTE: 2.5 out of the 3.5 types of goals are good. By reading the above, it should be evident which is which. Improvement and achievement will put you on the path to anything you want materially.
Having a material goal will lead you to take shortcuts in order to get the goal without having the improvement or achievement to make it permanent. Many people achieve the goal of having a new house, but their living room has lawn furniture in it because they didn’t quite achieve enough, or they didn’t quite improve enough.
I have found in my life that if you improve. and if you achieve, material things (that you were hoping for) just show up.
Forget houses, cars, and boats. First figure out what you need to earn to maintain your lifestyle. Then figure out what you need to do or sell in order to make that happen. If you earn a 10% commission and you want to earn $100,000 — then you need to make a million dollars worth of sales. But that is not necessarily the goal. A better goal would be how many appointments it will take to make that $100,000, and make that your goal. Before you can earn your money, you have to know your numbers.
If you want to double your income, that would be a monetary goal, but in order to achieve that goal, improvement and achievement will be necessary.
Make those the primary goals — and the money will just show up.
PERSISTENCE
If you’d like information on how to be more persistent, go to www.gitomer.com, register if you’re a first time user, and enter the word PERSISTENCE in the GitBit box.
Everyone wants to be persistent.
Very few people know how.
The secret is equating it to experiences where you persisted and WON! Maybe to a goal. Maybe to a sale. Maybe even to something in your personal life, like a date. Whatever it was, equated to what you want. When you do, you will immediately see how to win.
Here are 14.5 additional elements that will help you in your quest to achieve:
1. Achieve and maintain a positive attitude. You become what you think about.
2. Develop, define and act on clear goals. Goals are the roadmap to success. You may have to change direction, but don’t quit or turn back.
3. Unyielding determination. Having self-drive. Don’t dwell on the problem, concentrate on the solution.
4. You must have energy. This means health on top of attitude.
5. Persistence is selfishness. Wanting to do it for yourself.
6. The ability to take NO for an answer and not quit. It takes 7-10 exposures for the average yes. As a kid in the supermarket you screamed and were willing to get hit to get a yes from your mother.
You will hear the word no 116,000 times in your lifetime.
7. Get support from others. There is nothing like an occasional “way to go”.
8. Ask for help if you need it or don’t know the answers. Getting help is often the difference between achieve and fail to achieve. If you need money, reach for your own wallet – others will (almost) never lend when you really need it. If you need it, don’t show it.
9. Keep a constant sense of humor. Good humor will create winning situations.
10. Believe in yourself. You control the most important tool in selling, your mind.
11. Believe in what you’re doing. If you don’t, no one else will, if you do others will follow. Show pride.
12. Be prepared. Be ready to make the sale or achieve the goal with tools, questions and answers. The will to win is nothing without the will to prepare to win.
13. Create your own luck. Luck creation – develop good habits/execute solid fundamentals. Self-management (priority not pressure). Timely, consistent hard work makes luck. Make every day as productive as the day before you go on vacation.
14. Follow-up, follow-up, follow-up. If it takes between five and ten exposures before a sale is made or a goal is accomplished, be prepared to do whatever it takes to get to the 10th meeting. The essence of persistence is follow-up.
14.5 To get commitments – you must give commitments. Live up to yours to set an example for others to live up to theirs. Whatever you do, do it passionately. Failure is an event, not a person. Every obstacle presents an opportunity… If you’re looking for it. You only fail when you quit.
SUCCESS ATTITUDE
Your mental environment begins when you pop out of bed in the morning. Think about the first thing you do when you get up.
Is it positive or negative?
What are your first words?
Do you watch TV, or read a book?
Are you happy when the kids wake you up, or annoyed?
The actions you take in the first hour of your day will determine your fate for the rest of it. Every one of you has said, “I’m having a bad day.” But not one of you has ever completed the sentence, “I’m having a bad day, and I created it for myself.”
MY ADVICE: Have a good day. Have a great day. And take responsibility for that.
Jeffrey Gitomer, author of The Sales Bible and The Little Red Book of Selling. President of Charlotte-based Buy Gitomer, he gives seminars, runs annual sales meetings, and conducts Internet training programs on selling and customer service at www.trainone.com. He can be reached at 704/333-1112 or e-mail to salesman@gitomer.com.
r 2006 All Rights Reserved. Don’t even think of reproducing this document without written permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer 704/333-1112
