Nothing happens until somebody sells something. To make sales happen, IMMS.com Key Sales Consultant Randy Schwantz has created a comprehensive series of 43 Producer Success Lessons. Used singly or in combination, these powerful tools can help your producers build their skills - and grow their sales.
If you're like most people, you'd like your life to be different in many ways. You also want to acquire or achieve many things. Most of those wants will fit into one of three categories:
- Things you want and are confident you'll get
- Things you want that seem to elude you
- Things you dream of that seem unattainable
The first category may consist of simple desires, and you probably have a 100% chance of getting them. These typically are basic needs, such as food or a place to live.
The second category involves things you really want but can't seem to get, although you probably don't know why. Examples are the desire to stop smoking or lose weight.
Then there are items you know you'd love to have, but you honestly don't really believe you'll ever attain them - things like a large, expensive home; a top-of-the-line car; or having to work just one day a week.
The key to success in achieving a desire is having a plan. And perhaps even more important, you need to believe your plan will work. This is the main idea that makes these producer success lessons work! We help you change your beliefs and in doing so, increase your skills and abilities far beyond their current limits. This method allows you to achieve many things you thought were unattainable.
A note of caution: If you go through these lessons because your boss says you have to, you'll get considerably less out of it than if you do it for yourself. Although your company wants to meet specific goals through this training, the real benefits to you come from your own commitment.
Companies are willing to pay for sales training because historically it has increased their sales. That means more money for you and your company. It can be very stimulating when you start to think about how you can use the additional income. Besides acquiring material possessions, having more money increases your ability to do what want - travel more widely, help other people, save for retirement, send your kids to college. Increased income offers intangible benefits as well, such as the opportunity to become really good at what you do, to attain success and the power that comes with it.
Most salespeople have never been formally trained and have varying skill levels. When you finish these lessons, you'll have all the confidence and knowledge of a highly skilled salesperson. You'll have clients who are the presidents and CEOs of some of the most prestigious businesses in your area. You'll have a real sense of accomplishment because of your continually growing sales skills. You have a lot to gain. Use this training as a place to start, and decide to use it as a tool to help you get what you want.
The first step to increasing sales is to decide why you want to. Motivate yourself. We'll teach you some of the most powerful techniques known for setting and attaining goals. Reaching goals is a skill - there are ways to do it that work well, and ways that result in failure. There are many people who are highly successful at setting and reaching goals. Let's examine what you can learn from the way they implement goal reaching.
People who reach goals use a conscious, planned strategy to attain them. Most of your desires come easily, with little or no planning. Arriving at work 15 minutes earlier than usual or buying a suit may require some planning, but not so much that you need to write a plan. However, if you wanted to build a house from scratch, you wouldn't hope for it to just materialize. You wouldn't randomly buy wood and fixtures and hope it all fits together. The first key to attaining complex or elusive goals is this: You have to consciously create a strategy that will work to reach your goal.
Lesson 1 gives you an overview of goal setting. Lesson 2 will guide you through the specific process of setting goals.
KEYS TO SUCCESSFUL GOAL-REACHING
- Develop a clear, concise plan.
- Determine what might stop you from reaching your goal. List the potential problems and the actions you'll need to take to overcome them.
- Consider whether you have mixed feelings about your goal.
- Use a goal-reaching method that works.
Develop a Clear, Concise Plan
'A man without a plan is not a man,' said a gangster in the movie 'Dick Tracy.' Although this isn't literally true, most successful people have planned to succeed. Your mind has often been called a 'biocomputer.' You've probably worked with computers enough to know a computer is only as good as its programmer - bad software, bad results. How can you expect your biocomputer to give you outstanding results if you haven't done an outstanding job of programming it?
That's why you need a clear, concise plan.
Anticipate Problems
Now that you've programmed your biocomputer with clarity and precision, something will probably change. Being a sharp student of biocomputers, you can start asking yourself: What could prevent my plan from working? At this point, you start to solve problems before they arise.
One of the best insurance agents I know has a great strategy for writing large accounts. He's constantly asking himself, 'What if ... ?' What if the insurance company doesn't want to write this account? How can I persuade them to act differently? What if I need additional sensitive information and the client is resistant? How can I ask for it so I win their cooperation?
This 'what if' strategy enables him to be prepared for anything and eliminates surprises.
Mixed Feelings
Do you have mixed feelings about what you want? Here are examples: I want a new car, but I don't want that high monthly payment. I'd like to make more money, but I don't want to take time away from my family. I need to learn to sell better, but I can't find the time to learn how.
If you have mixed feelings about your goals or the action required to achieve them, you need to ask yourself some hard questions:
- What do I really want?
- What am I willing to give up or sacrifice in order to achieve my goals?
As part of the goal-setting process you'll learn from these lessons, you'll uncover what will have to change for you to reach your goal. Once you identify the areas of your life you have to change, you'll have to spend time changing them. However, the first step to success is to communicate effectively to your own subconscious exactly what you want by writing down your goal. Next, set a date by which you will have it accomplished. Finally, list the obstacles that stand in your way.
This method of formal goal setting seems very simple - but it's tremendously powerful. Many people have been shocked at how often they get something they've been wanting simply because they finally put it into words.
Just how powerful is this method? In a 1953 Harvard study conducted among graduating seniors, only 3% had written goals. A follow-up study 20 years later showed that the same 3% had attained greater financial success than the other 97% combined. When Napoleon Hill asked the 500 most successful men in America about how they had achieved so much, they all said they had set goals.
One final thing: It may sound silly, but we often program ourselves to attain exactly what we don't want. We do this by thinking or talking about what we don't want instead of what we do want. For example, you might tell yourself, 'I don't want to run out of money and not be able to pay all the bills.' Your brain will make a picture of this to understand what you just said - an image of you running out of money and unable to pay all the bills. Chances are that is exactly what will happen. If you truly want to be able to pay the bills, you must state your goal in a positive way. A quick check for this is whether your goal includes the word 'no' or 'not.' If it does, restate your goal positively. A more motivating goal would be to have plenty of money to pay all the bills and plenty more to spend and save.
In any ways your brain is like a computer. It'll execute exactly what you tell it to. Be positive, and think in positive terms.
EXERCISES
- Think about your life. Make a list of the things that you didn't want to happen that did.
- Listen to people talk, and notice how often they say negatives: don't, won't, can't. Think of ways to rephrase each negative with positives.
- Get a pad of paper and daydream about what would really motivate you about being successful as a salesperson. Write it down.
- Make a list of things you want to have or do that greatly increased sales will make possible.