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Chapter 1 - Get the Right Mindset!

With any new endeavor, it’s important to approach it with the right mindset. You must be open to taking in new information and trying new things. Even when approached with excitement, new things can be uncomfortable at first. That’s perfectly normal. Your goal is to strive for a new normal that includes the endeavor of prospecting and selling via social media platforms and email.

Because it’s important to understand the whole of the concepts being presented in this book, we recommend that you read it all the way through at least once before beginning to apply the strategies. You’ll want to understand the parts to the system before making a commitment to using the whole.

Please note that there is a huge difference in the amount of success you’ll achieve when you make a commitment to something versus skimming the general thought process or theory. As with any strategy, it won’t be 100% perfect. If there was a system that was 100% perfect, everyone would use it and it would quickly lose its effectiveness. However, we’ve proven the strategies in this book to be successful in our own businesses. They have worked as we are reaching out to new potential clients, generating qualified leads, and growing healthy business relationships.

Depending upon your type of product and type of client, this system could start bringing you results today or it might take a few months. Your success rate will be dependent upon the amount of effort you’re prepared to invest in applying the system. Also, accept the fact that it won’t work with every potential client. In no other field besides sales is it more evident that no two people respond to an offer in exactly the same manner. However, we hope you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the number of folks who may have previously been hard to reach who will now respond to you.

Let’s begin by stating that this is not a get-rich-quick strategy. It’s another proven system to add to your existing arsenal of selling strategies. Just like a baby learning to walk, you may spend a bit of time being frustrated in getting it going, but also like those babes, when you remain persistent and learn from each challenge, you’ll get where you want to go.

As with all sales strategies, you can count on experiencing some rejection. Rejection is part of the equation of the sales process. You cannot experience sales success without it. Period. The only difference with online rejection is that it’s more like a cyber cold shoulder. Some of the people you contact will simply ignore you. Other potential clients might block you from their email contacts and you won’t know it for a while. Or, an email filter may mistake your message as spam and prevent it from ever reaching your intended target. It happens.

Sales is a numbers game. The more ideal candidates you reach, the more likely you’ll achieve success. And, through social media, it’s easier than ever to search out those in your ideal demographic. The point of this book is to turn the numbers in your favor.

Never be afraid to tell anyone about what you offer. When you believe in your product and the benefits it provides, it’s your obligation to share your knowledge of it with every qualified buyer with whom you can connect.

[Dan Sidebar]

Are you selling the right product?

Somewhere between working in my own advertising agency for 20 years and launching my new companies, my wife strongly suggested that it would be a good idea to get a sales job with another business. After much deliberation, I went online and got a job with someone else’s advertising agency. Since I felt I knew how to close sales and had done it all my life, I thought this would be a piece of cake. It wasn’t.

During a period of about three years I worked for three different companies as a sales person. I set appointments with some of the biggest businesses in the world but could not sell anything. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t close my way out of a paper bag. Even worse, I couldn’t figure out why. However, the minute I took the chance and went back into business for myself, I started closing sales. I closed sales literally from the first day I opened the business.

Want to know why I couldn’t sell with those other companies? The primary reason was because I didn’t believe in what I was selling. (And my buyers could tell.) Once I believed in my own product, all the rest fell into place. Business got a whole lot easier—and became way more fun!

Only sell what you are proud of and believe in. If you don’t, it’ll show. Your buyers will sense it and they’ll move on to another product or service and salesperson who does believe in the benefits of what they offer.

[End Dan Sidebar]

Not all the people you feel are qualified buyers will think your product qualifies to meet their needs. That’s why the field of selling exists! Your whole purpose for being, as a sales professional, is to educate buyers so they realize that the value of owning the benefits of your product is greater than the value of keeping their money. It’s really that simple.

Social media platforms are wonderful tools for educating people on the benefits of our products in small bites—just the way most of us have come to want our information—Twitter-sized. Each platform has its strengths and, as we’ll cover in chapter 2, its nuances. It’ll be important for you to understand and use each accordingly.

Fear in Selling

The profession of selling isn’t for the faint-hearted.

There will always be fear in sales: Your fear and the buyer’s fear. You will fear saying the wrong thing and then having to live it down or to live up to it. You fear offending potential clients in some way. You fear losing face with your loved ones about how good you are at selling. You fear not being able to earn the income you need or want.

There’s even a fear of success. That’s right. Some people can’t handle success any better than they can handle failure. They worry about the added work and responsibilities involved in great success. Those fears may not be real, but they seem real. What it boils down to is a fear of the unknown. Sadly, most folks would rather stay in their comfort zones, even if they struggle there, than step outside those zones to achieve potentially great success. We hope you’re not one of those people because serving more clients and earning the higher income those sales generate is very, very rewarding.

To help you serve your buyers better, let’s review their fears. Buyer fears include being lied to, making poor decisions, losing or wasting money, or owing money. These are general fears. Some of your clients will have others. It’s your job to ferret them out and help buyers overcome them. This has to happen before they’ll get comfortable enough with you to make a decision.

The role of the sales professional is one of eliminating fears so buyers will open their minds to making buying decisions that are truly good for them. The most important phrase in that last sentence is “good for them.” Every sale is good for you, isn’t it? You sell. You earn income. If you want to earn a great income, focus on helping buyers make decisions that are good for them. If the decision isn’t good for them, what does that do to your relationship with them? What happens to your reputation? Ugly things.

When you assist people in making decisions that are truly good for them, you’ve hit the big time. You’ve achieved pro status and will generate a pro’s income through continued business with those clients, and the friends, relatives and associates they send your way as referred leads. “Good for them.” Keep that phrase in the forefront of your brain with every client contact.

Let’s go into greater depth on some of those common fears you’ll encounter with your potential clients:

1. Being lied to. Let’s face it, the stereotype of the salesperson isn’t a very positive one. On television and in the movies, salespeople are typically portrayed as being pushy, aggressive, and saying whatever it takes to make the sale. Yes, this includes lying to buyers. Sadly, the good guys in sales don’t make compelling characters. Because of that, we enter every sales process having to break down the buyer’s pre-conceived notions about us. We have to prove ourselves every step of the way – not just demonstrate our product’s benefits, but prove ourselves. We have to say what we’re going to do, then do it. Then, we sometimes even have to point out to the buyer that we did it. All this is to break down sales resistance and build trust. People won’t buy from you if they don’t trust you. End of story.

On the other side of that coin is the fear we, as salespeople, have that buyers aren’t telling us the whole truth. Have you ever had someone indicate that he or she was the decision-maker only to learn that they had to have someone else approve a purchase order? Have you ever been tested by someone with unrealistic demands only to learn they were trying to see how far you’d go to get the sale? So, there’s fear on both sides of the selling equation. Our goal is to help you address it head on so you can make headway in the sales process faster than you’re doing it now.

2. Making poor decisions. We don’t know about you, but your authors have made their fair share of poor decisions. There was that corporate jet that Tom decided wasn’t worth the monthly upkeep. There was that employee Dan hired who was less than honest. There was that customer who wasn’t properly qualified when exceptions were made regarding their orders—the ones they later canceled.

Making a poor decision—especially one that’s visible to those around you—causes you to lose face, doesn’t it? You feel bad about that decision. Then, you start doubting other decisions you’ve made. The next thing you know, you’re hyper-sensitive to making any decision at all. Many of your buyers will feel that way. You’ll need to expect their hesitation and ask questions that get them to open up about what’s holding them back. Be sure they know you aren’t trying to dig up the dirt on all their past bad decisions, but to help them make a wise decision in the current situation with regard to your product.

3. Losing or wasting money. When money is considered to be lost or wasted on your type of product, sales resistance will be at an all-time high. You’ll have to break down barriers to show that you’re different from that other company; your product is much-improved over that other product; or, that your new product covers all those anticipated, but not gained, benefits…or that it’s built to last longer…or whatever. Circumstances where buyers feel their money was wasted were the birth of all those clichés such as “throwing good money after bad,” “tossing money out the window,” and “flushing money down the toilet.” Your job is to demonstrate that the value of owning your product is greater than the value of keeping their money.

On the salesperson’s side of this fear is the fear of offering a price reduction just to get the sale, then finding out the client had more room in their budget. Before going down that path, ask your buyer this question: “What needs to happen for you to take the next step today?” Their hesitation might have nothing to do with the financial aspects of the sale. When you have some flexibility in the amount you ask for your product, make a price reduction the absolute last resort.

4. Owing money. This fear goes back to biblical times. In Proverbs 22:8 it says, “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.” No one wants to be enslaved by their debts. Even though debtor’s prisons have been long gone, those with a lot of debt often feel as if they’re only working to pay their debts. Those debts weigh heavily on them mentally and emotionally. If you’re selling a product that is usually financed, you’ll want to be able to demonstrate a return on investment that allows the buyer to not only payoff the debt quickly, but to end up gaining financially because of the purchase.

No sale is complete until the paperwork is finalized, the product is delivered, money changes hands, and the client is delighted. In each of those steps there’s an opportunity for misunderstanding, hesitation, and for old Mr. Fear to raise his ugly head. You could fail anywhere along the way. The buyers could change their minds and cancel or delay the sale. Or worse, they could take the product and discover it wasn’t what they needed at all—then you get to share in their misery and dissatisfaction as they return it or cancel future orders.

The fear of having an unhappy client ruin your chances with other clients is very real. And with social media as an outlet word can get out to a large number of people very quickly about a client’s dissatisfaction with you, your company, your product or your industry as a whole. If you doubt that can happen to you, consider the 2017 incident with United Airlines. We’re pretty sure that morning no one on either side of that debacle anticipated how the day would unfold and the long-term damage that would be done.

So, how do sales pros handle all that potential fear? They face it head on. They anticipate a wide variety of objections or concerns. They preplan, prepare, and practice how they’ll address every type of fear they encounter. They commit to being flexible enough to allow for some creativity in working with clients who have fears they haven’t previously encountered.

And, they ask a lot of questions.

Asking instead of telling is the most critical concept to grasp in selling. The person who is asking the questions controls the direction of the conversation. And, when their questions get answered, they gain new knowledge that will help them figure out how to meet the needs of their buyers. This is consistent in both online and offline selling.

When you’re “telling,” you’re only covering information you already know. When you ask questions to get your potential clients to communicate their thoughts, needs, and concerns, you’re gaining new knowledge. That new knowledge will help you determine what direction to go next in your communications.

When buyers ask questions, that’s a buying sign. No one will waste their time asking questions about something in which they have no interest.

Activity Goals

As part of your mindset development, it’s important to make commitments with yourself and to hold yourself accountable. That includes how much time and effort you’ll be putting into selling. What are you willing to do to achieve the success of your dreams? What must you do? Activity leads to productivity as long as it’s the right activity.

[Tom sidebar]

Early in my sales career, I would leave my home early in the morning, and return late in the evenings. I was busy all the time, trying to find people who wanted to sell their homes, and others interested in buying property. It wasn’t until I started analyzing the results I was getting that I understood how much time I was wasting being busy at tasks that didn’t lead to listings or sales.

I decided that I needed to focus, and created what I called my “Daily Activity Graph.” It was a list of activities that led to actions being taken by potential clients or further communications with them. I assigned points for each activity I completed. These included such things as contacting a “For Sale by Owner,” knocking doors, setting or going on listing appointments, getting new leads from open houses, sending thank you notes, or other information specific to listing or selling a property. I was motivated to accumulate a certain number of points each day because I knew they were for activities that led to business.

Any time I felt myself starting to slump, I would look back at my activity. It never failed that when I let myself get away from doing those productive activities on a regular basis, my production slowed. That super-simple chart made all the difference in the results I was getting.

You’re welcome to take a look at it or download on the Resources page of my website: www.tomhopkins.com. Use it as is, or as a template to create your own.

[end sidebar]

In our online system for generating sales, it’s important to set goals for the amount of time you’ll invest in researching potential client companies and decision-makers. Set goals for the number of new contacts you’ll make monthly, weekly, daily. How many emails will you send monthly, weekly, daily to new potential clients? How much time will you commit to following up on leads generated by your efforts? Another goal would be for time invested in developing the right information for your initial contacts. Give it some serious thought now, and then revisit your plans after you finish reading this book and testing the system. Some aspects may take you longer to wrap your head around or to customize to your specific audience.

Goals that excite you—ones you’ll work hard to strive for—are best. Set goals that make you stretch. Anything less is just a “to do” list. Some sales pros find it helpful to choose a magic number for themselves and make that number part of an internal mantra that keeps them moving forward when those inevitable rejections that we mentioned earlier arise. Many sales pros set goals for each day, and what they’ll do after a rejection.

These might include:

 10X – They’ll make 10 more calls after each rejection. “10X” is the foundation of success taught by Grant Cardone.

 The Great 8 – Generate eight leads per day. Email eight new contacts.

 The Magnificent 7 – Seven leads, seven new emails, seven follow ups daily.

 Triple Threat – Three more contacts after every rejection.

You can mix the activities up as well: 8 leads, 7 follow ups, 3 contacts after a rejection. Choose activity goals that feel challenging but not overwhelming and make a commitment to them.

Once you develop your goals, put them in a place where you can see them all the time. Make them part of the background of your computer or phone screen. Place them on the mirror in your bathroom. Add a sticky note to your bank card so you’ll see your goals every time you pull it out. Tape your goals to the dashboard of your car (but don’t read them while driving). The more impacts those goals make on your brain, the more power your subconscious will give them. With that added power, you’ll find more opportunities for success and you’ll have greater will toward the achievement of your goals versus allowing yourself to backslide into old, less productive habits.

Preplan Everything!

Most salespeople have upbeat, enthusiastic attitudes. They’re excited about what they get to do every day. They love meeting new people. They love their products. They love selling! Unfortunately, enthusiasm won’t get you far without knowledge and preparation. This is where preplanning comes in.

Strong businesses adhere to specific strategies for success. One such strategy is to set agendas for meetings. Agendas help focus energy and thought. They are used to gain knowledge, make wise decisions, and direct efforts. Agendas are built on goals. They’re used to help you plan the how of achieving your goals. Get in the habit of thinking through what your goal is with each contact—even if it’s a simple email reply. Don’t just answer questions, plan what needs to happen next to move the sale forward!

Career professionals in sales think and act as if they’re in business for themselves. They hold themselves to high standards in order to build and keep their reputations strong both within their industry, and with their clients. They place a high value on the preparation stage of selling. When they invest time in preplanning—literally thinking through every client contact—they achieve greater rewards than those who fly by the seats of their pants.

Develop a brief agenda for every client contact. To do so, you would set a goal for each contact. Is the goal to simply introduce yourself? Is it to qualify the buyer? Is it to present your offering? Follow up? Close the sale? Or, just check in on client satisfaction? Each of those aspects of selling could require different actions or words, couldn’t they? Never wing it! Always prepare!

Now, it’s time to prepare and preplan the actual activities you’ll be involved in to build your online selling strategy.