Secrets of the Top 10%

Secrets of the Top 10%

Secrets of the Top 10% - Part I: Love What You Do

Secrets of the Top 10% - Part II: Compassion in Sales

Secrets of the Top 10% - Part III: Honesty Sells!

Secrets of the Top 10% - Part IV: Stay Focused!

Secrets of the Top 10% - Part V: Get to Work!

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Part I: Love What You Do

By Colleen Francis

I've spent my life studying the attitudes, habits and behaviors of the top 10% of all sales people, to try to figure out what they think, what they do and how they act that makes them so successful. My passion is to use these discoveries to help my clients improve their sales results, and put these tactics, techniques and approaches to work for them.

Of course, being in the top 10% isn't for everyone. I can imagine some of you are thinking that it sounds like it must be a lot of work - perhaps more work than you're willing to spend right now. But let me ask you this: do you want to do any better than you are now, even if it's by as little as 1%?

If the answer is yes, then you need to understand and use the habits of the top 10%.

Olympic athletes never enter the stadium hoping to finish in the bottom 3rd. Tiger Woods has never started a tour wanting to just match his performance from last year. And my clients are not looking to make the same amount of money this year as they did the last.

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to share with you what countless top performers have told me about the secrets to their success, and discuss how you can use that knowledge every day to sell more, in less time, and make more money doing it.

Love what you do or do something else
Love? Work? Have I gone crazy?

Most people don't associate what they love to do, with what they do for a living. Then again, most people aren't in the top 10%, either.

The truth is, people who don't love what they do, or aren't passionate about the business they're in, will never be truly successful. Oh sure, they may get by, they may even do reasonably well. But they're never going to reach the peak of their industry, their potential - or their earning power.

For every 100 people in the top 10% who I've interviewed, 95 have told me that the number one reason why they're successful is because they love what they do. They love the customers they sell to. They love the products or services they're selling. And they love to sell, period.

Passion is critical to sales success. If you don't love what you do, what you sell and who you sell it to, you won't ever make the top 10%, no matter how talented or driven you may be. With that in mind, I'm going to ask you to make a decision, right now: either commit yourself 100% to loving what you do for a living, or get out, and go do something else.

Think about it - do you really want to wake up in ten, twenty or fifty years, and realize that you've spent your life doing something you didn't enjoy? Here's a question you can ask yourself to help you determine what to do:

If I knew then what I know now about the product I sell, the market I serve and the company I work for, would I have taken this job?

If the answer is yes, then you need to find ways to be passionate about your product and company, and communicate that passion to your clients. If the answer is no, then you need to start making plans to remove yourself from the relationship, and move on.

The four signs that you truly love what you do
Still not sure whether you have the passion it takes to be successful in your current position? Whenever I'm coaching sales teams, there are two surefire signs of passion that I look for, to determine whether they have what it takes:

1. Do you walk the talk?
Do you read your own magazine? Stay at your own chain of hotels (and not just because you can get a discount!)? Use your own company's brand of insurance, pet food or toothpaste?

If you don't, won't or can't, then how can you possibly expect others to? In other words, if the product you're selling isn't good enough for you, how could it ever be good enough for your customers?

Now, some of you sell products that you couldn't ever own, like $1 million telecom equipment or SAP consulting services. Fair enough. The question then becomes, does your company implement the programs and products that you sell? For example, as an HP reseller, does your office use HP? As a CRM consultant, does your sales team use the CRM you recommend?

2. Do you talk the walk?
Second, do you do what you tell your customers to do?

If you're a sales/telemarketing outsourcer, do you outsource your own sales or telemarketing? If you're a financial advisor, do you save 10% of your income for your retirement? Do you live and work in the same way that you suggest your customers do? In other words, are you authentic to the sales message that you deliver?

The same rule of thumb applies to your company as well. If as part of your consulting practice you advocate the real time back up of all data to an offsite location, does your office do this as well? Do you use the same products or follow the same advice internally that you sell externally?

Whether it's a Bell sales person who uses Sprint long distance at home, a Cross pen sales person who writes up orders with a Bic, a travel agent who refuses to leave the city or a corporate trainer who never attends a seminar for themselves, there's nothing more shameful than watching an unauthentic sales person in action. So ask yourself: would you use the same services that you recommend? Eat the same meals you plan for your corporate meetings? Print on the same high quality paper you recommend for your clients?

Talking the walk and walking the talk is about more than good business. It's about being honest, authentic and genuine. When you're selling something you honestly believe is so good that you use it yourself, then you have a passion for what you sell and service, and you've made the first step towards joining the top 10%.

3. Being a winner means being a good loser
In baseball, you're a candidate for the Hall of Fame if you regularly bat 500. Top goalies have a goals against average of greater than 1. And except for Lance Armstrong, even the highest paid golfers, racecar drivers and cyclists don't win all the tournaments, games or races they enter. Yet the majority of sales people still get frustrated when they can't close every piece of business that comes their way.

Top performers know different.

Let's face it - even the best sales people have lost far more business over the years than they've won. And that's OK. But while the rest of us whine, complain or blame everyone else we can think of, the top 10% of sales people continue to be inherently optimistic regardless of whether they "win" or "lose." Instead of attempting to pass the buck, they take full responsibility for their losses, never blame others, and always try to learn from their mistakes. Then, they move on to other serious prospects as quickly as they can.

Colonel Sanders faced over 1000 rejections of his secret recipe before a single person agreed to try it. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. Steven Spielberg was kicked out of high school. What's important isn't that these top performers were faced with the prospect of failure. What counts is whether they let rejection stand in their way, or whether they chose to remain passionate about what they do.

Passionate sales people walk into every sales interaction knowing that they simply can't sell to everyone. There's always going to be someone who, for whatever reason, isn't going to buy your product, and that's okay. When this happens, top performers are able to pick up and move on to the next prospect right away. Why? Because they firmly believe that what they are selling is so good, there is always going to be a market for it.

The key to making this work for you is to always be prospecting. If you have tons of prospects to sell to, then you don't have to worry so much about whether one or two people aren't going to buy.

The majority of sales people need to have between 2-3 times their quota in their pipeline at all times in order to be successful. Spend at least a quarter of your time every day looking for new prospects to sell to, and watch as your sales begin to soar.

4. Continuing the dialogue
Finally, top performers always aim to maintain a continuous dialogue with their prospects, even if those prospects say "no."

People often say that "sales is all about relationships." Top performers know that sales are relationships. They remain truly interested in - and passionate about - their prospects because they know that building and maintaining relationships beyond the transaction of a sale is critical to their enduring success.

The next time you're out making a call, instead of picking up the phone or heading into a meeting thinking to yourself, "I wanna sell something to this guy," make it your goal simply to start and keep the conversation going.

Why does this help? Because dialogue is the start of a relationship, a relationship is the beginning of trust, and trust is the key to building long-term, loyal and profitable relationships with your clients.

Join us for the next Engaging Ideas when we'll unveil a few more secrets of the top 10%!

Colleen Francis, Sales Expert, is Founder and President of Engage Selling Solutions (www.EngageSelling.com). Armed with skills developed from years of experience, Colleen helps clients realize immediate results, achieve lasting success and permanently raise their bottom line.

Start improving your results today with Engage's online Newsletter Sales Flash and a FREE 7 day intensive sales eCourse: www.EngagingIdeasOnline.com.

You have permission to use the above article in your newsletter, publication or email system as long as you do not edit the content and you leave the links and resource box intact.

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Part 2: Compassion in Sales

By Colleen Francis

In the last issue of Engaging Ideas, I promised to share with you the secrets to success of countless top performers, and show you how you can use that knowledge every day to sell more, in less time - and make more money doing it.

We started with the first secret, Passion, and I issued you a challenge: Love what you sell, or stop selling it, and do something else. Today, we begin a two-part look at Secret #2: Compassion!

It's been said that the art of sales is simply finding someone in need, and helping them meet that need by buying a product from you that solves their problem. At its most basic level, this is also the definition of compassion in sales: helping other people to solve their problems, and making a living doing it.

In other words, being compassionate in sales is all about being nice to people. So how can we all be more compassionate in our businesses?

It's not about you!
First, remember that success in business is about helping your customers - not helping yourself!

Top performers put their customers first, because they know that they'll never succeed at an elite level if their objective is solely to sell stuff to other people. The top 10% know that they can only be successful if they're focused instead on helping other people to buy.

For most sales people, this represents a fundamental shift in their mindset. How do you begin this transition? By asking your prospect questions to find out what the problem is (or if there even is one), and then listening to their answers with NO interruptions to see if the problem is something you can help solve.

Top sales people never try to sell a product to a customer without first knowing whether they can help. In fact, top performers will gladly walk away from a prospect if they don't think the product or service they have to offer will be of use. Remember: selling isn't about telling a prospect what you think they want to hear. Selling is about starting a dialogue to uncover a prospect's problem, and then helping them solve that problem in the best way possible.

Let's face it, many sales people - myself included! - are often accused of being fast talkers. Believe me, this isn't a compliment. As my wise father used to tell me: "Colleen, you have two ears and one mouth. Use them in that proportion!"

During any sales conversation, the best sales people only do between 20-30% of the talking. The rest of the time, they bite their tongues, and actively practice their listening skills every day.

One way to improve your listening skills is to simply slow down. The next time you find yourself in a conversation with a prospect, once they stop talking, try counting to 3 in your head before you start speaking (and not as quickly as you can, either; think: "1 one thousand, 2 one thousand, 3….). This will give enough time for the prospect to gather their thoughts and start again if they weren't finished, but won't last long enough to turn into an awkward pause if they were finished and are just waiting for your response.

Just trying this one simple technique can completely change the impression you make on your clients, and have an immediate impact on your sales success. In fact, questioning and listening correctly are so critical to the overall success of the sales cycles that we devoted an entire on-line Webinar to it. For more details on this invaluable class, check out this link http://www.engageselling.com/webinar_7-2005cdcopy.htm now.

Whether 'tis better to give or receive
There are 2 types of people in this world: life givers and life suckers. Top performers are live givers. Which type are you?

We all know who the life suckers are in our own lives. They whine and moan and complain and want desperately to drag you into their own personal purgatories. Nothing is ever right, they're always getting the short end of the stick, and don't even think about trying to out-whine them - they'll just find something even more devastating to complain about.

So what is a life giver? Life givers are those people in our lives who are possessed of a high degree of empathy and optimism. In short, life givers are those who give first.

Without exception, the very best sales people are life givers. They understand and use the power of reciprocity every day, because they understand and believe in the truth behind the statement "what goes around, comes around."

For example, people are always asking me how they can get more referrals from their customers. I say to them: "when was the last time you gave a referral to one of your customers, without expecting to get something in return first?"

If you do nothing for the rest of your life but give referrals first, I can practically guarantee that you will never have to ask for another referral for as long as you live. It doesn't even have to be a business referral. A client could call you up out of the blue to say that they're in town, and were wondering if you can recommend any good restaurants? Or you might be at their house one night when they mention how they never have time to get any landscaping done, and you can share with them the name of that great landscaper you know.

The point is, we all talk about networking and how important it is. What sets top performers apart is that they recognize that their networks are not solely for their own benefit; they exist to support the people in their network. The more they can pass those names around, whether for business or personal referrals, the more it will come back to them in spades - and without ever once having to ask.

Actions speak louder than words
Whether we like it or not, people don't only pay attention to what we're saying when they're making a decision to trust us. They also judge us by how we say things, and especially by what we do.

I know - you're screaming right now, "that's not fair, I was always taught not to judge a book by its cover, and others shouldn't either!" You're right; it's not fair. Unfortunately, it's still the way the vast majority of people react to others around them. Since this fact of life isn't about to go away, why not learn to use it to your advantage?

Top performers know that they have to be compassionate not only in their words, but also in their non-verbal communication, which accounts for more than 90% of the way all communication is interpreted. This means making eye contact, shaking your prospect's hand, taking notes to prove you're interested, watching that your tone is consistent with what you really mean and respecting your customers enough to dress appropriately for a meeting.

Yes, this is all Basic Sales 101. Many of my clients accuse me of being elementary, and with good reason. But as simple as it sounds to implement, the sad truth is that 80% of the sales people I coach do such elementary things as paying attention to non-verbal communication wrong.

I've seen sales people who constantly look over the shoulders of their prospects to see if someone more important is walking by. I've witnessed sales people looking at the floor or their PPT slides rather than at their prospects during a sales presentation. I've watched sales people who answer their cell phones during sales calls, show up late for meetings, don't shake hands or who wear old, scuffed-up shoes.

Taking care of non-verbal communication is something that top performers practice every day, because they know that it directly affects the rapport they build with their prospects. In the long run, it is rapport that leads to trust, and trust which leads to building a customer for life.

Compassion may seem like a small thing, and in many ways, it is. Ask questions, listen to the answers, give first and pay attention to non-verbal communication, and you'll be nine-tenths of the way there. But in sales as in life, success is all about the little things. Do hundreds of little things right, and you'll be amazed at the huge difference in can make on your results, your commissions - and your success.

Commit yourself to improving just one of these little things before the next issue of Engaging Ideas in two weeks' time, and see if you don't find yourself on the way to being that much better, and that much richer.

Join us next month when we finish our discussion on Compassion, and how it can help take your career to a whole new level!

Colleen Francis, Sales Expert, is Founder and President of Engage Selling Solutions (www.EngageSelling.com). Armed with skills developed from years of experience, Colleen helps clients realize immediate results, achieve lasting success and permanently raise their bottom line.

Start improving your results today with Engage's online Newsletter Sales Flash and a FREE 7 day intensive sales eCourse: www.EngagingIdeasOnline.com.

You have permission to use the above article in your newsletter, publication or email system as long as you do not edit the content and you leave the links and resource box intact.

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Part III: Honesty Sells!

By Colleen Francis

In last month's Engaging Ideas, you'll remember that we began discussing the second key secret of the Top 10% of sales performers: Compassion. We explored the power of reciprocity, the importance of non-verbal communication and the need to practice listening first, and talking second.

Today, we're going to wrap up our look at Compassion by devoting this entire article to another key component to being compassionate, and achieving Top 10% results: Honesty.

Honesty in sales - isn't that an oxymoron?
No!

Those who are in the Top 10% of the sales profession not only understand the importance of being completely honest at all times; they have mastered the art of open, honest communication with their clients.

As we all know, it's far easier - and far more profitable - to keep repeat business than it is to land a whole new account. By focusing their efforts on creating a positive customer experience based on openness and trust, top performers almost always enjoy an extraordinary level of repeat sales. Nine times out of ten, their customers would simply never even think of looking elsewhere when they need to reorder.

So what's the "secret" to establishing and maintaining credibility in the eyes of your clients - and maximizing your repeat business?

Don't lie. Ever. End of story.

Lies not only damage your ability to communicate with your clients. In many cases, they can lead to a complete breakdown in communication that can be difficult - or even impossible - to repair.

In addition to the lost sales and revenues that these breakdowns represent, there are also numerous hidden costs to consider. Losing customers to a misunderstanding or a lack of trust can dramatically reduce your satisfaction in your work, as well as the satisfaction that your clients have in you and your company's services or products.

Worse yet, it can ruin your reputation, seriously damage your credibility - and jeopardize your ability to earn future business.

2 steps to an honest selling environment
Successful salespeople may use a range of different styles and techniques, but they all have one key thing in common: they know that honest communication is the single most important secret to increasing sales, and commissions.

The following simple two-step process is the surest way I know to maintain an honest selling environment, and develop the kind of open, honest relationships with your clients that can help create loyal customers for life:

1. Never over promise and under deliver.
Nothing ruins a relationship faster then telling a customer you'll have something ready for them by a certain date, and then calling to tell them that it's going to be late.

Whether it's a product or a proposal, missing a promised delivery date by as little as a week, a day or even an hour may seem trivial. But customers tell me all the time that one of the things that concerns them the most is when they can't rely on a sales person to keep their word when it comes to the small stuff.

Unfortunately, most sales people are still afraid to say "no" when asked to do something extraordinary, out of fear that they will lose the sale. In fact, no fear could be more unfounded. In sales, it is imperative that you learn how to say "no" in a way that lets your customer know that he or she will benefit from your truthful answers.

For example, you might try saying something like:
"I'd like to say yes, but I'm afraid that if I do, I won't be able to deliver this on time."
"I can't make it Tuesday at 2:00PM… are you able to meet at 10:00AM instead?"
"I would love to say I can get you the proposal by Friday, but I'm concerned that, if I promise you that, I won't be able to receive the proper input from our product specialists that you requested."
"I'd love to tell you that the product will be delivered by Friday, but there's a good chance that it won't. Could we agree on a Tuesday deadline?"

These statements offer benefits to the customer as well as to you. That doesn't mean they guarantee that the customer will be happy. Nothing can do that. But any of these options is far better than the alternatives - failing to meet the customer's expectations, over-promising and under-delivering, or submitting shoddy work before it's ready.

Be certain that you are clear about what they can expect from you as well as what they can't. For example, tell them what you can deliver instead of what they are asking for. And make sure to let them know that if you are ever unable to fulfil a request, you will always tell them upfront or as soon as you realize it. Shared expectations produce harmony and more sales, so be as thorough as possible when establishing expectations, and be prepared to adjust as necessary.

Anything other than the truth erodes trust, and makes your word seem worthless.

2. Never under promise and over deliver.
Remember the old adage, "under promise and over deliver?"

The idea is that, if you exceed what you've promised to deliver, you'll become a superstar in the eyes of your clients, and they'll never, ever want to let you go. The only problem is, this old adage is a complete falsehood. Not only that, it creates a set of expectations that you might not be able to live up to in the future.

Consider this fact: according to USA Today, service levels in the United States have never been higher. Consumers have never gotten more for their money, and have never been served as rapidly and as thoroughly as they are now. Yet at the same time, consumer satisfaction remains at an all-time low.

Why? Because in industry after industry, businesses across the country have simply set the bar too high. As a result of these artificially raised expectations, consumers now expect more and more each time they shop.

Let me give you an example. Say you're able to get a customer a special price discount on a product, provided they agree to buy it before the end of the month. But what happens next quarter or next month when they need to reorder? They'll expect that same discount again, and if you don't or can't give it to them, they'll simply wait until the end of the month when you'll once more be feeling the pressure to sell, and will be more likely to cave on the price.

When you under promise and over deliver, you're setting an unrealistic expectation that you may not be able to maintain. It's nice that you can deliver early this time - but will you always be able to? Sure, you can afford a small discount on this one sale - but will your company be able to support that discount every time the customer places an order?

The answer is probably no. Will the customer expect it anyway? Yes.

Every time you under promise and over deliver, you set the bar at a new level of expectation, and your "extra-ordinary service" becomes the new norm. Remember that trust is built with consistent behavior over time - if you aren't sure that you will always be able to deliver at that level, then you're much better off not creating the expectation.

Now, I'm not suggesting that you be dishonest with the customer when you could offer them a better deal. I'm just saying be consistent, say what you're going to do, and then do it when you said you would.

After all, when it comes to sales success, it's not the size of the ring that counts - it's the consistency of the cash flow!

One last thought
If you've had a track record of not keeping your promises with a customer, come clean. Admit to them that you haven't always kept your promises. Really.

If your customers have been on the receiving end of your unfinished, late or incomplete work in the past, honestly admitting you have a problem will be the first (and best) step toward rebuilding a relationship with them. You can't have a trusting relationship with a customer who doesn't trust you. So after you've come clean about not keeping your promises in the past, you must also commit to keeping your word in the future. If for some reason you are unable to keep a promise, let them know as soon as you do.

For more ideas on how to be honest throughout the sales cycle, you may want to check out Honesty Sells: Or, you can check out http://www.engageselling.com/webinar_6-2005cdcopy.htm some of our other articles on the importance of honesty to the selling process, available free of charge on our Web site at www.engageselling.com/articles.

Then join us in two weeks' time for the next installment of our ongoing series: Success Secrets of the Top 10%!

Commit yourself to improving just one of these little things before the next issue of Engaging Ideas in two weeks' time, and see if you don't find yourself on the way to being that much better, and that much richer.

Join us next month when we finish our discussion on Compassion, and how it can help take your career to a whole new level!

Colleen Francis, Sales Expert, is Founder and President of Engage Selling Solutions (www.EngageSelling.com). Armed with skills developed from years of experience, Colleen helps clients realize immediate results, achieve lasting success and permanently raise their bottom line.

Start improving your results today with Engage's online Newsletter Sales Flash and a FREE 7 day intensive sales eCourse: www.EngagingIdeasOnline.com.

You have permission to use the above article in your newsletter, publication or email system as long as you do not edit the content and you leave the links and resource box intact.

http://www.engageselling.com/articles/051012article_secrets3.html

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Part IV: Stay Focused!

By Colleen Francis

Over the past three issues of Engaging Ideas, we've been discussing the habits of highly successful sales people - the top 10% of performers. You may have noticed that, over those nearly 5,000 words, I haven't yet so much as mentioned the surefire "six-step process" that these top performers use with each and every prospect, over and over again, to ensure their success.

I haven't mentioned it, because no such process exists. Top performers don't master processes; they master behaviors. It's those "success behaviors" that we are examining in this series, and which we'll continue to explore today when we uncover the importance of Staying Focused!

1. Focus on your most important investment - your time
Almost all successful sales people focus on three key things: their time; their objectives when dealing with clients; and what not to do to succeed.

The first and perhaps most important of these is time. No matter how wealthy, talented or successful we become, time is the one thing we can never get enough of. The top 10% of performers are acutely aware of the value of their time. As a result, they spend the most time doing those activities that make them the most money, and little time doing those tasks that earn them little or nothing.

When it comes to sales, this boils down to focusing your time on the three Holy Grails: Prospecting, Presenting and Closing. Notice that all three of these activities involve being face-to-face with prospects or customers. That's because you sell more when you spend more time in front of your customers, whether prospecting for new business, presenting solutions to problems or closing business.

Mediocre performers, on the other hand, routinely spend too much of their day on admin tasks, or tasks that don't directly increase their value. In many cases, this is simply because they don't know - or haven't taken the time to calculate - exactly how much this wasted time is costing them.

I can practically guarantee you that the vast majority of six- and seven-figure earners can tell you to the penny precisely how much their time is worth. If you don't know what your average hourly rate is, then I suggest you figure it out using the following simple formula:

1. Add up your total earnings for the year. This includes salary plus commissions and bonuses, as well as any benefits you receive, such as health insurance or retirement savings plan contributions. For most people, benefits are generally equal to about 1/3 of their annual base salary. For example, total earnings for someone with a $60,000 base salary plus $40,000 in commissions and bonuses would be about $120,000 ($60,000 salary + 1/3 + $40,000 in commissions and bonuses).

2. Divide this amount by the number of working hours in the year. For most of us, this would translate into 210 days x 8 hours a day = 1,680 working hours. This includes 2 weeks' vacation, or 10 days. For your own calculation, use the number of vacation days you would normally take.

3. Divide your total annual earnings by the number of working hours in the year. In the example above, this would result in an average hourly wage of $71.43.

Now that you know your hourly wage, your goal is to increase it, every month. There are two ways to do this: increase the amount of sales you make to increase your total commissions, or reduce the number of days you work. The choice is yours.

Whichever choice you make, you will need to become more careful of how you spend your most important resource - your time. Both strategies require increasing the percentage of time you spend in front of your customers, prospecting, presenting and closing.

To get you started, begin by taking note of how you're spending your days today. For help doing this, download a free copy of our Time Allocation Worksheet.

After two weeks of tracking your time, determine what percentage of your week is spent exclusively on prospecting, presenting and closing. Then, set a goal to increase that percentage by a specific amount over a specified period of time, and write that goal down in the present tense to show the world (and yourself!) you mean business. For example:

"By December 31st, I will be spending 60% of my time on prospecting, presenting and closing."

Next, spend 30 minutes writing down everything you could be doing to increase your selling time, and reach that goal, such as:
Hire a bookkeeper at $15.00 per hour to complete and submit your expense reimbursements.
Make 5 more cold calls per day.
Ask for 1 more referral every day.
Attend 2 networking events per week rather than 1.
Get your manager involved on deals that are over $XX to help close them faster.
Tell your manager your goal to enlist his or her support.
Outsource support calls to the support department rather than taking them yourself.

Try to get at least 20 activities down on paper, and then spend time every day implementing at least one of them. Before you know it, you'll find yourself focusing your time on your paying customers, rather than on those tasks that bring in no additional revenue.

2. Focus on where you want to be - not where you are
Top performers also focus on where they want to go, not where they are today.

This is applicable to many areas of the sales process. The two most important are Setting Goals, and Handling Objections. For a more detailed discussion of goal setting, I would encourage you to read some of our other articles on Goal Setting and Planning Motivation, available at no charge on our Web site.

When it comes to handling objections, top performers continuously focus their activities on where they want the prospect to go (the outcome), not on where they are now (at an objection). They do this by focusing on the positive, and remembering that anyone, yourself included, who is about to make a large investment thinks twice about that decision before they commit.

When a prospect is seriously considering your product, it's natural for them to be nervous, and to reevaluate all the criteria to make sure they're making the right decision. Prospects do this because a large investment is at stake, and saying "yes" is always riskier than saying "no." Your role is to help them focus, and discover that engaging with you is the right decision.

To keep your focus positive when handling objections, try the following 3-step process:
Improve your hesitation-handling attitude.
Pre-empt the prospect's objection. Bring it up first, and deal with it together early on.
Remember that hesitation is a natural part of the buying process. It's a sign that your prospect is seriously interested in buying, not a signal that they are trying to end the deal.
Examine your behavior.
Keep your sales funnel full of prospects, so that losing one will not be a big deal.
Record common hesitations and questions, and look for trends and patterns.
Use your new responses and track the results you're getting.
Appreciate your prospect's hesitation, and try some new techniques.
Ask questions to truly understand your prospect's reality. Don't make statements, especially defensive ones.
Acknowledge when a prospect's position is correct. For example: "Bob, you're right, we're not the lowest priced product on the market."
Tell them that you understand their position, even if you don't necessarily agree with it: "Bob, I can understand that you're not happy with the price; have you seen something lower in the market?"
Question, question and question again until you're sure you understand.
Ask your prospect for suggestions on how the business could move forward.
Be creative. Ask your prospect up front: "If I can't find a solution to this objection, does that mean that it's over between us?"

Focus on what not to do to succeed
As we mentioned in the first point, top performers focus their daily To Do list on those activities that bring them face-to-face with their customers. For most highly successful people, this list is razor sharp, containing only those things they need to do to maximize their prospecting, presenting and closing. In many cases, these lists may be no more than 6 items long, and might include such activities as:
Make 10 cold calls today.
Attend 1 networking event and pick up 5 business cards.
Call 5 customers for referrals.
Schedule 4 meetings.
Call 10 existing customers with up-sell/service ideas.

The important thing is to make sure your To Do list is dynamic. It might also change from week to week or month to month, based on your actual goals. For example, to hit a sales target one week you might need to make 10 cold calls, while the next week, you might need to target 8 or 15 calls.

In addition to their To Do lists, however, top performers also invariably have a Not To Do list. Let's face it, if you are a goal-oriented person who is focused on succeeding, you already know that you have to give certain things up in order to achieve the level of success you want.

So what are you willing to give up to get ahead? An outdated cold calling script? That prospect you keep calling who's never going to buy? Television so you have time to get to the gym after work? The morning news to help you start your day in a positive mood?

Whatever goals you've set for yourself, there are things that you're going to have to stop doing to make them a reality. Rather than just thinking about those things, go one step further and write them down. Remember: Top performers know that when they write down a Not To Do list, it frees them to be more focused on doing those things that have to get done in order to hit their goals

By focusing your effort and attention on these three key areas, you'll find yourself well on your way to joining the Top 10%, and succeeding beyond your wildest dreams.

Colleen Francis, Sales Expert, is Founder and President of Engage Selling Solutions (www.EngageSelling.com). Armed with skills developed from years of experience, Colleen helps clients realize immediate results, achieve lasting success and permanently raise their bottom line.

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Part V: Get to Work!

By Colleen Francis

Over the past two months, we've been taking an in-depth look at what I call the Secrets of highly successful sales people - those who consistently perform in the Top 10% of their profession. Today, we're going to wrap up this special Five-Part Series on the Engage Selling Innovation Model by showing you how you can put everything you've learned into action, and Get to Work!

It never ceases to amaze me how many sales people identify the activities they know they need to do to make a sale, grow their business or increase their revenues - but then lack the basic discipline needed to carry out those activities on a daily basis!

Yes, preparation is important. But top performers don't spend their valuable calling time doing hours of Web surfing or reading annual reports. The Top 10% understand that the key to avoiding "paralysis by analysis" is to strike a balance between having enough knowledge to engage the customer in an intelligent and informed manner, but not so much that they come off sounding like a know-it-all.

Last year, one of my clients decided to encourage her staff to shut off the Internet and Get to Work between 9:00-11:00 and 1:30-3:30 every day. After taking just this one simple action, her business grew by more than 60%, or almost $25 million.

The 80 / 20 rule
How can you apply this principle to your business?

Start using the "80 / 20 rule" for sales success. For most sales people, the last 20% of the preparation they do eats up the most time, and costs them the most business. So when you feel you're 80% ready, don't wait any longer - go, and get to work!

The Top 10% are constantly taking action towards hitting their goals. This can mean taking some calculated risks. But the potential rewards that come with those risks can far outweigh those few times when they don't pay off.

Was it the right time to get married? (Maybe not the first time.)

Was it the right time to buy a house? (It sure was if you did it in the last 4 or 5 years!)

Was it the right time to have children?

There's never any surefire way of knowing whether or not it's the right time to do any of these things. Yet, when it comes to our personal lives, most of us are willing to take the chance that we'll fall flat on our face, in order to have a real shot at getting what we want.

In our professional lives, however, most sales people - like most people, period - almost never take any risks, or try anything new. Most of us are too comfortable, too balanced and too unwilling to stretch ourselves or get into our "un-comfort zones," to take the risks we know we need to in order to get ahead.

Think about the cream of the crop of Olympic athletes - the top 3 in the world. Did they get to the medal podium because they were comfortable with last year's performance levels? NO. In order to get better at what they did, they refused to get comfortable or satisfied with their results, and instead pushed themselves each and every day, year after year, to keep doing better than they ever had before.

Often times, the difference between standing on the podium and watching the ceremony from the locker room is simply the refusal to allow yourself to reach a comfortable plateau, and say "that's good enough." Just ask Tiger Woods. Despite being (arguably) the best golfer ever to play the sport, the first thing he does the day after he wins a major tournament is go back to his coach, and work to see how he can do better the next time.

The benefits of taking risks
Let's say you were the coach of the Olympic track and field team, and your goal was to get your best runner to improve her time for the 100 meters from last year. Would you set the same training plan you used for the past 12 months? Of course not, because doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result is the very definition of insanity.

What you would do is create a different training plan - one that was harder, more challenging and more disciplined. One that would, I suspect, hurt, though not so much as to risk a potentially career-ending injury.

Like high performance athletes, high performance sales people are constantly challenging themselves to do better. They are also constantly taking smart risks that can lead to maximum profits from their pipeline.

Let me be clear about this: 100% of risk is positive. After all, the only real risk is to not take a risk at all - a course of action that is almost guaranteed to lead to stagnation, loss of business or loss of a job.

Every time you take a risk, on the other hand, you win. Either you win the business, or you win the knowledge of what not to do the next time. Either way, you come out ahead.

One of the most profitable "risks" you can take is learning when to walk away from business you know or suspect will not be profitable.

When I was a sales manager for a high tech company, I had a sales rep named "Lori" who was always in the Top 10%. One time, Lori had a difficult prospect, "Mark," whose favorite habit was seeing just how many hoops he could make us jump through to get his business. Finally, he pushed Lori too far, and presented a hoop that we simply weren't willing to jump through.

Lori made the decision to walk away, and I joined her on the call. With just enough paraphrasing to protect the not-so-innocent, the conversation went something like this:

Lori: "Mark, thanks for the opportunity to present our solution. We feel honored that we are being considered. At this point, however, we don't think that there is a good enough fit for what you want and what we can do, so we're pulling our proposal."

Mark: "But Lori, I don't understand. How will we get our information to choose the winner?"

Lori: "No, Mark, you don't understand. I'm breaking up with you!"

Gutsy? Yes. Risky? Yes.

Profitable? YES!

The truth is, Mark's company was going to waste more time than we could afford to spend, eat up more resources than we could ever hope to recoup from the sale, and likely never make a firm decision anyways. Even if they did finally make the call, given how demanding they'd been before they were customers, I didn't even want to imagine what they'd be like to deal with after they'd actually given us money…

In short, bad prospects are not like fine wine. They do not grow old gracefully.

Stay focused - again!
In order to know what level of risk is appropriate to take in sales, we have to go back to last month's article, Secrets of the Top 10% - Part IV: Stay Focused!, and remember the 2nd principle of the Engage Selling Innovation Model: Stay focused!

Simply put, if you aren't focusing enough time on prospecting, then you can't afford to take enough risks to move your career to the next level. Take Lori's case as an example. If Mark was Lori's only prospect for a commission check that month, and if I as her manager was breathing down her neck for results, would she have had the guts to pull the plug on this losing proposition and move on?

It was only because Lori knew that she had 4 more prospects teetering on the edge of becoming customers that she was able to walk decisively away from a time waster, and get to work on sales with real potential.

Whether you want to make more money, take more time off next year, or simply increase your business - if you want different results, then you have to do things differently. Tomorrow. Next week. And for the rest of your career.

The next time you're faced with a choice where your gut is telling you one thing, and your head another, try taking the risk. Then see if you don't reap the rewards.

Colleen Francis, Sales Expert, is Founder and President of Engage Selling Solutions (www.EngageSelling.com). Armed with skills developed from years of experience, Colleen helps clients realize immediate results, achieve lasting success and permanently raise their bottom line.

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