Are you ready to make the right hiring choices? According to a recently released survey of 16,000 businesses nationwide, Manpower reported that hiring will improve in the fourth quarter of 2003. Specifically, the staffing company found that 22% of companies expect to hire more staff in the last quarter of the year. If you plan to hire any salespeople, youll want to avoid some common hiring mistakes.

Hiring salespeople can be particularly challenging. When you think about it, it makes sense. Salespeople are good at selling and sometimes you can be sold a bill of goods. In any hiring decision, its easy to make a mistake. In sales, your odds of hiring the right person are 50/50 at best.

To make sure you dont sabotage your chances of success, try these five tips:

1. Use an assessment instrument. A good assessment, and there are many on the market, will often tell you what your candidate wont. Make sure your assessment instrument matches well to the type of selling you do. For example, you dont want to hire someone who is great at transactional sales if you want your salespeople to build long-term relationships with clients.

To save money, an assessment tool should be reserved for your top choices and is not necessary for every candidate. Use the first interview or a phone interview to narrow your choices before deciding who moves on.

2. Develop a standard set of questions. Ask all of your candidates the same questions. Its easy to get sidetracked by an engaging candidate and not cover everything you wanted to if you are just winging it with your questions. Using a standard set of questions will also provide you with legal protection, should there be discrimination charges brought against you. Come up with a set of questions that all candidates are asked. Ten is a good number of questions to aim for, give or take a few. You want to be able to compare the answers of all the candidates to see who is a good fit for your organization.

If youre having trouble developing the right questions, remember to keep it simple and get help if you need it. An HR consulting firm that specializes in hiring or screening candidates can provide great assistance.

3. Dont divulge too much about your company upfront. A common mistake people make when hiring is to bring in a candidate and tell them all about the company. Then, they proceed to start the interview process. A savvy salesperson will spit back to you everything you want to hear using your own words to do it.

You can tell a great deal about a salesperson by the amount of homework theyve done on the front end. So a good first question might be, Tell me why you are interested in working at our company? A good candidate will have researched your firm and prepared for the interview. Isnt that the kind of salesperson you want working for you?

4. Be tough. By being tough, I am not suggesting that you are mean or rude. Instead, you shouldnt dance around hard questions like Did you always meet or exceed your sales quota in your former job? If so, how can I verify that? If not, why not?

Another good question might be, When I call your former boss, what will he/she tell me about your performance? Whether you plan to call the boss or not, the wording of this question will let the candidate know that you mean business. Consequently, your chances of getting an honest answer will increase.

5. Do a mini-role play. Its easy for salespeople to answer typical interview questions like What are your biggest strengths? and What are your biggest weaknesses? Its much harder to role play and fake it with a canned answer. Ask the candidate how he would handle specific sales scenarios.

For instance, if the salesperson was meeting with a prospect and at the end of the meeting the salesperson asked for the business and the client replied, I need to think about it or We dont have the money in the budget. How would the salesperson respond? Using an objection about timing, price or the competition is a good way to separate the men from the boys, so you can see how the salesperson responds in a real-life situation.

Will Turner is the Founder and President of Dancing Elephants Achievement Group, a sales training and consulting company. Will has over 20 years of sales and sales management training experience and is the author of over 150 sales-related articles and programs as well as the co-author of the book, Six Secrets of Sales Magnets. Will can be reached at Will@dancingelephants.net.

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A keynote speaker was asked to speak at a real estate convention in Pittsburgh, Pa. during the time of the closing down of the steel mill industry in Pittsburgh. The outlook was bleak as almost everyone had lost their job. When this gentleman arrived at the convention he found a completely negative group of agents that were just completely devastated.

When he was getting ready to seat himself, he was worried about sitting around all those negative people. All of a sudden this very cheerful lady invited him to sit next to her. Unlike everyone else she was extremely cheerful. The keynote speaker, taken aback asked the nice lady why she was so happy and cheerful when everyone else was complaining about no sales because no one had jobs. She went on to tell him that in all the years she had been selling real estate she was having her biggest year ever. Wondering out loud the speaker asked how that could possibly be when no one had jobs.

The cheerful lady went on to tell him that in all her years of selling, it was the first time all the husbands WERE HOME! They couldnt use the excuse that they had to work! She had turned a potential negative and turned it into a positive by seeing the entire picture, not the obvious one that everyone else was focused on. Needless to say the keynote speaker changed his planned speech and used her story to elevate the crowd into another dimension. This applies to all of you when you by into excuses for failure. When one door closes there is always another one that opens. You just have to SEE IT.

A lot of those families had lifetime savings tucked away but never had the time to purchase a home. Now because of one lady that had positive thinking, they not only had the time but also had the money, and ended up with their dream home! Analyze this and see how it applies to your business! THEN APPLY IT!

The Specialist has over 25 years of hard core door to door sales with no leads and no referrals and for 38 years has never had a guaranteed paycheck! The Specialist has interviewed over 250,000 people in the privacy of their home, has interviewed over 5,000 people for employment opportunities, group interviewed and sold literally tens of thousands of people, spoken at colleges and universities and has literally amassed millions upon millions of dollars in sales!

http://greatsales.wordpress.com

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There are many different sales management styles, but which one works the best? Well most experienced practitioners recommend a tough love approach. What is tough love? Well hopefully it is the same type of management your parents and early teachers or sports coaches provided. They cared for you and helped you get up and dust yourself off and get your butt back into the game. Tough love is a place where excuses and blame game dont cut it. Where folks are judged by performance and not BS.

So where exactly is Tough Love on the scale between the Iron Fist Rule and the overly empathetic bleeding heart emotional understander of academic human psychology. Well, tough love spans all categories and is a cut above it all, it is not part of the scale it is the Scale. Empathy is fine, iron fist is fine, but only when they are appropriate, not abused and fair for all concerned. Can you manage your sales team like that?

Well I bet you can, we did in our company. We cared about performance we thru problem sales people over board when they either could not cut it or crossed our ethical boundaries. We were fair, we listened and we had empathy for the situations our teams encountered in the field. But in sales you adapt or die and since dying was not an option, we adapted along with our sales teams to win. I hope you will consider all this in 2006.

\”Lance Winslow\” - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/. Lance is a guest writer for Our Spokane Magazine in Spokane, Washington

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Do you know anyone who regularly wins bids? Or can boast a balanced relationship between doing the hard work of producing proposals and regularly winning the business?

Im always amazed at how much energy people put into responding to a Request For Proposal (RFP) in relation to the level of success or non-success they realize. And yet they continue to put time and resources into this relatively unproductive activity.

In fact, what is an RFP anyway?

An RFP is the standard format that companies use to figure out what they need to buy and how they need to buy it (not necessarily who they need to buy it from). Actually, its not about vendor choice or price. Its about learning how to make a decision.

In reality, the process is ineffective for everyone: the buyer and the seller. Indeed, RFPs are nothing more than a different form of sales pitch.

I got a delayed call back from a client who was usually timely in his response. I was surprised at the time lag.

Weve just gotten our first RFP from Company X. Theyve always done business with ABC Company before, and this is our first opportunity to get some business with them. Weve got a team of folks working hard on getting this just right so we can get in there.

What is stopping them from using ABC Company this time?

Um, havent a clue. Ill call and ask.

He called back the next day.

Nothing is stopping them. They are using ABC Company. They just needed a second bid.

WHAT DO BUYERS NEED

When salespeople receive an RFP there is the assumption that its open season that if they put together a dynamite proposal, they will win the bid. Its equivalent to the belief that if a seller pitches and presents just the right information in just the right way to just the right people, buyers will be ready and willing and able to buy.

How many millions of great proposals have ended up in the bin? How many millions um, billions of person-hours have gone into proposals that failed? Why? Because the product was bad? Because the proposal was bad? Because the client didnt need the vendor?

Of course not. Then why?

Lets look at this from the buyers side and retrace some of the ideas weve discussed in these newsletters before.

To start with, buyers send out RFPs to those companies they believe can help them. So they have already vetted you by the time you get the RFP. And, quite honestly, they can find out much of what youre including in your proposal on your website. What is it they really need from you then?

Buyers have needs that exist within a complex system of people, initiatives, relationships, and rules. Buyers cant just make a purchase: their internal systems are too complex. They need to cover their bases internally before they bring anything new into their environment. And, when its a decision to do something theyve not done before, or bring in something that will shift existing configurations, they will invariably run up against issues that have far greater consequences than anyone from the outside could imagine.

But people dont make decisions based on information. People make decisions based on meeting their criteria their values, beliefs, ethics, history, fears, hopes, initiatives, relationships, and even unconscious, idiosyncratic reasons that no one from the outside will ever understand.

Sales people have this simplistic belief that if they pitch, present, propose their solution in just the right way that the buyer will know what to do with it. Obviously and millennia of failed proposals, presentations, and pitches will bear me out this doesnt work. (The larger question here, of course, is why they keep doing it.)

WHAT PROBLEM DO RFPS SOLVE

People decide only when criteria get aligned. Once people and groups understand how to get their criteria met, then they need the appropriate information to match the data with the criteria.

But since companies do not know how to line up their criteria, they send out RFPs in the hope that they will get back the type of information that will lead them to discover their criteria.

To help explain this, Id like to go back for a moment to the original example I gave of Company X above. Once we realized that responding to the RFP would do nothing but waste their time, my client and I put together a list of criteria-based Facilitative Questions that we knew (because of my clients expertise as a solution provider) needed to be answered and obviously werent being addressed.

My client sent them a brief letter, telling Company X that theyd love their business, but thought they could help them best by offering the enclosed questions. A sampling of these questions (we actually sent two pages of Facilitative Questions) included:

- How will the product or service fit in with existing systems?

- How will the users know to buy-in to the new solution? How will you know when they are having difficulty?

- What type of service will maintain the new offering and can it be handled internally or need an external resource to manage it?

- What are the different ways that a new product will support the desired results? Create a need for additional systems? Create confusion within the different departments? And how will that be managed?

- How will the buyers know that one solution is better than another?

- How will they know that one vendor will give better service than another vendor before they choose one?

A few weeks later, a representative of Company X called my client and thanked him, saying that he recognized the importance of the questions although he couldnt answer many of them. He said he hoped my client didnt mind, but he was giving the list to ABC Company to incorporate in their solution and that my client would be strongly considered for their next project.

Six weeks later, after the project had already begun, Company X fired ABC Company after an eight-year relationship, and called my client, asking them to pick up the project. The reason? ABC Company was not incorporating responses to our questions within their project plans.

My client got a two-year, multi-million dollar project because of a list of questions or, more accurately, because the questions exhibited to Company X that my client understood their criteria and were aware of the true underlying, systemic issues that needed to be managed. They never responded to the RFP.

HOW CRITERIA CREATES DECISIONS

In general, people in companies do not know how to manage, understand, develop, or uncover their criteria on their own. They are too close to the situation.

Think about yourself for a moment. What is it that you have been promising yourself youre going to do? Go to the gym? Lose weight? Catch up on all your reading? You know you need to do those things. But you dont. Why? Is it because its a bad gym? Or because you like tight-fitting pants? No its because you havent figured out yet how to line up your behavior with your criteria, and until you do, you wont change your behavior [hint: its about changing your beliefs. If you believe you are a healthy person, youll go to the gym whether you like to or not, for example. Your behavior will track your beliefs in order to keep you congruent.].

Once someone from outside can lead you through your personal, unique decisioning process, you are able to recognize the criteria that you need to meet before you can change. After all, systems seek stasis, and whatever product or service you are selling in your proposal no matter how wonderful or how badly needed or how value-packed - it will bring some form of chaos to the status quo. And before the system will seek chaos, it will need to know how to reorganize itself rapidly after the intrusion that the new solution brings with it.

Once buyers know what a solution will have to include, they will know exactly what they need from a vendor and be able to use their criteria to choose efficiently possibly even without an RFP.

As a potential vendor, instead of offering buyers an RFP filled with product and service information, use the RFP as a platform to exhibit your skills. Show them that you recognize your job is one of a true trusted advisor, and you will be helping them decide how to align their criteria and manage their discovery/change in addition to having a great product.

THE SELLERS NEW JOB

Here is the strategy: When you receive an RFP, call the client and ask him/her if you can work through some Facilitative Questions with them.

Then, use the decisioning sequence in Buying Facilitation and go down the Funnel with the questions, starting with helping them discover where they are, whats missing, and how they got there. [Note: for the specifics of the questions and sequencing, go to www.newsalesparadigm.com and buy my new ebook Buying Facilitation: the new way to sell that expands and influences decisions.]

Once the nature of the questions becomes obvious they help the buyer discover their own answers - the person you are speaking with will either get others on the phone, or ask you to come in, or do something equally extraordinary (If indeed they are seeking a new vendor. Close to 70% of RFPs are sent just for a second bid and to better understand their criteria for success. Most companies have chosen their vendor before the RFP is ever sent out.). You may not get all the decision makers, and possibly your contact will be the only person you speak with, but take what you can get.

Whatever happens next will move you out of the competition. You will have exhibited your value-add, and either be chosen this time, or receive some future consideration.

This will work in any situation except for government agencies that, by law, need to issue RFPs. But even for government agencies, you can mitigate the standard problems inherent in responding to RFPs by calling your contact and using Buying Facilitation to position your proposal.

Remember that companies need the answers to the Facilitative Questions the answers are for the buyer to learn from, not for the seller to sell with. They will discover the answers eventually with you, or without you.

By using the facilitative questions, you will be:

1. helping the buyer line up all of those mysterious variables that they will need to address prior to making a decision;

2. showing the buyer how to discover and handle hidden problems that they would encounter when bringing in a solution (and that are actually causing them to need an RFP to begin with).

3. demonstrating your ability to be a true consultant and advisor so if nothing else, after you end up responding to the RFP like everyone else, they will know the quality of your service;

4. moving you out of the pack of look-alike competitors.

I cant guarantee that by doing this you will not need to respond to the RFP (although, anecdotally, dozens of people Ive trained have told me they got the business just from the phone call or subsequent visit). But at least you will then know how to create a competitive proposal that includes more than just product information.

After all, at the end of the day, the company sending out the RFP only seeks to get their needs met, cover their bases, learn what they need to learn, and solve their problem with the least amount of disruption.

Responding to an RFP will not give them what they seek. But using Buying Facilitation on them will teach them how to seek precisely what they need to know and give you a more supportive role in the meantime.

Sharon Drew Morgen is the author of NYTimes Best seller Selling with Integrity. She speaks, teaches and consults globally around her new sales model, Buying Facilitation.

http://www.newsalesparadigm.com
http://www.sharondrewmorgen.com
512-457-0246
Morgen Facilitations, Inc.
Austin, TX

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Is lack of sales results, more sales training costs, months of\r unearned salary and damage to your companys image or\r reputation your companys method of NOT finding good\r salespeople? For most companies it is!

The trial and error method of hiring salespeople is very\r costly to a business. Without a viable way to hire quality\r sales people everyone in the same organization is negatively\r affected. Without revenues there often are not adequate human\r and financial resources to best service customers or grow the\r business.

Sales Pays the Bills

If youre a seasoned business owner or a manager of a business,\r you learn that sales fixes most business problems in other\r words, when sales revenues are strong, you can more afford to\r make business mistakes or throw more money at any number of\r business problems. However, when sales are down you cannot\r afford any level of unnecessary incremental cost.

Zig Ziglar, the famous sales trainer, once said, Sales people\r are really the only people in business who pay the bills! For\r vital, revenue generating positions like sales, businesses\r cannot afford a trial and error method of finding quality\r sales personnel.

Show Me the Way!

Hiring quality employees has always been a major challenge for\r any business owner or manager. Hiring mistakes are common no\r matter the business function and most are directly attributed\r to six fundamental hiring mistakes:

1) Assuming the hiring manager knows how to qualify people

Being able to effectively interview and qualify people, like\r any other skill is not an innate talent. Some people are\r better than others at assessing hire candidates potential. As\r a hiring manager you must seek others perspectives of\r candidates and establish an interview team for each open\r position, than collectively discuss each candidate for optimum\r results.

2) Not defining EXACTLY what you are looking for in a new hire

The adage: If you dont know what you want youll never get\r it applies in hiring salespeople. When you establish an\r interview team, document a comprehensive job description with\r duties and responsibilities clearly defined for each interview\r team member. Be sure to list desirable talents, skills and\r areas of knowledge. If you want multiple perspectives on\r candidate traits or experiences, have each person focus on a\r limited number of desired skill sets.

3) Assuming specific business functions know how to hire like

talent

Do sales people best know how to hire other sales people? Not\r necessarily! Just because someone is capable in a specific job\r function does not mean they know how to hire people with the\r same level of talent.

4) Over emphasizing a hire candidates personality or looks

This one is obvious, but, one of the most common hiring\r mistakes.

5) Not effectively checking previous employment references

If you consistently miss critical insights into a salespersons\r capabilities, motivations or character prior to hire, it is\r generally because you chose not to or did not effectively\r investigate a candidates previous employment history. Given\r the potential cost of a poor hiring mistake, it makes\r financial sense to spend a nominal amount of money and have a\r professional check out a candidates references.

6) Hiring in your own likeness

Everyone likes to hire people who either have their same;\r background, education, philosophies, interests, motivations or\r friends, but, more often than not, this is a major mistake.\r Sales team diversity is critical to long term sales success.

If your organization can establish an effective program to\r evaluate potential new sales personnel on a probationary basis\r you can also significantly reduce your hire risks. Establish a\r legal document whereby the candidate and your company mutually\r agree to a 4 to 6 month mutual evaluation period. Define\r upfront all position performance metrics for the candidate and\r a clear financial remuneration to be paid if they do not meet\r the performance thresholds. Be sure this agreement is written\r by a qualified attorney. If the honeymoon is wonderful,\r there is a good chance the marriage is going to be a success!

Organizations have a shared responsibility to hire the best\r selling talent possible. Whether you seek experienced sales\r people or rookies with just energy and attitude, a\r disciplined approach to PRE-qualifying tomorrows sales\r superstar is paramount. If you cannot find quality sales\r people, dont compromise!

About the Author:

Mark Smock is President of http://www.business-buyer-directory.com,\r the FIRST International business buyer directory of its kind.\r Business Buyer Directory provides a non-traditional means for\r proactive business buyers to locate businesses for sale\r worldwide that meet their exact registered purchase criteria.

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Lets talk about how to recruit top sales & marketing talent. There are lots of people who get into sales and marketing for the wrong reasons. So there are a lot of people out there who actually dont have what it takes in order to be successful at sales and marketing.

Some of the most important things when it comes to finding good sales and marketing talent are, first of all, having a good system and process for recruiting. Second of all, knowing what to look for in good sales and marketing talent. Third, knowing how to get the word out to broadcast and promote your company to people who have the talent that you need. And fourth, how to actually make them a part of your team.

So were going to talk a little bit about the recruiting process first. Recruiting sales and marketing talent is both a combination of art and science. It requires a lot of commitment to process in order to get the right people. There are a lot of companies that hire the first person that comes through the door thinking that theyre going to be a good sales person for their company when in fact the only thing theyre good at is selling their way through the interview process. Now a person who comes in and sells you through an interview process doesnt necessarily have what it takes to be able to sell for your company so part of your challenge is weeding out the right people through the interviewing process to make sure that the person has more than an ability to convince you that they are the right candidate but actually can use their persuasion skills in order to be a good sales person for you company. So what youre really looking for is somebody who has the ability and the willingness to sell. And that doesnt come easy.

Being a good sales person is a lot more than just the power of persuasion. There are a number of key skills and traits that are required in order to be a good sales person. When I speak of skills, were talking about learned abilities, something that can be trained or taught. When we talk about traits, were talking about innate characteristics of the persons personality or behavior. It is possible through a rigorous process to uncover a persons traits and skills through the interviewing process and by going through a rigorous set of homework assignments, aptitude testing, sales performance history recording and also behavioral interviewing.

If youre going to hire good sales and marketing people you have to have a rigorous process and that means defining all of the steps that are necessary in order to understand whether or not a persons skills and talents are actually a fit with what your company is trying to accomplish and whether or not that person can actually become part of your team, integrate themselves and be successful.

So there are a number of different steps that are required in order to recruit good sales and marketing talent. That includes starting by doing a good job of defining the job description, developing an attractive job posting to promote the position. Actually getting the word out by using career databases, the internet, as well as sending job postings out to your friends and network colleagues so that you can get referrals. Most of the best sales people come through referrals and not through mass advertising.

Additional process steps that are extremely important are having a multistage interviewing process that uncover a persons skills and talents through a series of interviews, using a team-based process to be able to have different perspectives from different members of your team and uncover those talents by using those different perspectives and also uncovering the weaknesses of an individual candidates.

In addition to the actual multi-team process, its really important to develop a good behavioral interviewing questionnaire that allows you to get to the heart of whether or not a person has actually demonstrated their skills. Behavioral interviewing is based upon the concept of having a person telling you stories about their past successes, their past challenges and helping you to uncover the keys to whether or not a person has been able to perform in previous jobs. Past experience and past achievement history is an extremely important indicator of whether or not a person actually is going to be able to perform for your company.

Another aspect of a solid process is establishing strong hiring criteria up front and that means defining exactly through your job description what it is that youre looking for in a candidate and setting out that criteria so that you can build in an interviewing process to uncover how well individual candidates meet with that criteria. We typically dont hire a good sales person without going through at least four interviews and that requires time, energy and a commitment to the process.\r Many companies that we do work for try to short cut this because they really want to believe that a strong sales person, when they come in to sell, is actually going to be able to sell for their company and so they tend to cut corners and in sales almost 53% of all hires are mishires for this reason.

Another reason why people make mistakes in hiring sales people is, particularly if they dont have the same skills set themselves, they can misjudge what a persons true aptitudes and abilities are in this area. So, one of the things to do is to be careful if youre a finance operations or engineering executive and youre put in the position of hiring sales people, is to know your limitations with respect to your ability to judge, make those judgments and make the right hires. Hiring good sales people is a difficult and challenging process but if its done right, it can be very successful for your company.

Cube Management helps companies accelerate their sales, by providing the Sales & Marketing talent they need to grow their business. Cube is a leading recruiting and consulting partner to mid-market and emerging growth companies in the technology, manufacturing, healthcare and business service sectors. We work across the spectrum of Sales, Marketing and Business Development, providing holistic solutions that drive revenue and profit success. Cube Management combines Strategy, Process and People, to produce great results. Download the Cube Management Recruiting Guide and the Cube Management Inside Sales Guide.

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In the excitement to recruit, many network marketers wonder why their commission checks seldom cover their expenses.

The answer is simple.

Companies dont pay you to recruit. They pay you to sell their product or service. And although it is certainly admirable to have a battalion of distributors in your downline, the truth is, until there is a sale, there is no commission. Therefore, in conjunction with your recruiting goals, you must incorporate sales volume goals.

Follow the steps below to build organizational sales volume:

a. Use the product

It seems hard to believe, but some people do not like or use the product they market. If this is the case for you, find a different company. In the network marketing business, people buy from you because they are responding to your heart felt enthusiasm for the product. People will trust you, but they are also perceptive. If you are unfamiliar with the product, or do not use it regularly, they will notice.

Before asking a potential customer to get excited about a product and open their wallet to spill out hard earned dollars, you must first have the conviction to honestly say: This is a good product. You will get your moneys worth. I guarantee it. How can you do this if you dont even use the product yourself? If you want to be a charlatan and operate on the edge of incredulity, find another line. Dont soil the industry for the rest of us.

b. Encourage your downline to use the product

Using the product applies to your downline also. Encourage them to buy and use the product, and have samples of the product available for all opportunity meetings. Ill discuss this in more detail below.

c. Never miss an opportunity to sell

One of the best times to secure a sell, and possibly find a repeat customer, is immediately after a prospect turns the opportunity down. During the course of your presentation of the plan they have been exposed to the product, and although resistant to the idea of getting into business, may be interested in using the product. Never leave a prospect without at least asking for an order.

Throughout the day, whether you realize it or not, you pass up several opportunities to market your product and possibly share the dream. Wherever you meet people by chance, overhear conversations, or conduct business with an individual, you have an opening to mention your product. If people ask what you do for a living, hand them your business card and say, I market a unique home cleaning product, give me a call if you want to learn more about it. Dont flood them with information at this point. Wait for them to ask something like, Oh, what kind of cleaning products do you carry? At this point, you better be reaching for your samples and order pad.

d. Ask for the order

Amazingly, many salespersons will demonstrate a product, convince the customer it is the right product for their needs, then fail to ask for the order. Youre not being paid by the hour, so whats the use of standing around like a teenager working in a hamburger stand? Ask for the order. When you complete your demonstration, ask the customer, Would you like the traditional or heavy duty cleanser. Or, Which do you prefer, the automatic re-order plan, or the single purchase option?

When they make a choice, fill out the order form. Although you have to guard against being openly arrogant, it is important as a salesperson that you go into the demonstration assuming the sale is a done deal. All you need to do is educate the customer about the product and fill in the order form.

e. Qualify the prospect

Asking for the order, as described above, may make the process sound too simple. But, if you adhere to this important principle of sales, it will be.

Dont waste your time attempting to sell the product or opportunity to people who have neither the funds, nor the inclination to get involved.

What a colossal waste.

The efficient and effective use of your time demands that you pre-qualify your prospects, to the point that it does not cause you to prejudge a persons ability to succeed in the business as a distributor. If youre selling a health product a simple question like are you concerned about your health? will tell you if you have a responsive prospect or a dead beat. If you sell soap, you may want to ask, would you be interested in learning about a revolutionary cleanser that will simplify your housework? Again, their answer will tell you whether to proceed with the presentation, or walk away.

f. Find regular customers before recruiting

In some organizations, new distributors are encouraged to market the product and develop a regular clientele of repeat customers before even attempting to recruit. Often times, consumers of your product come to you, asking how they can get involved as distributors. This may be the best way to build a network marketing business–sell the product, then recruit your customers.

Like any successful business endeavor, you need to play a numbers game to get ahead. Mail order entrepreneurs know that response rates for direct marketing pieces (what you may call junk mail) averages around 2-3%. That translates into about 20 to 30 sales out of every 1,000 pieces mailed. It doesnt sound like much, but an entire industry has been built on these numbers.

Industry standards for MLM sales and recruiting success rates are not as well known or as predictable as the mail order response rate. On average, I can expect to make a sale if I share the benefits of my product with 18 people. Thats a little over a 5% response rate. In practical terms, 5 out of every 100 people I meet in a business context will become my customers. Not a lot, but enough to build a business.

This is why successful companies and successful network marketers value their customers and work hard to keep them. In network marketing your advantage over the department store or Internet website, is personal service, tailored to the specific needs of your customer. Dont shortchange your customers. Serve them and keep them. Regular customers are your bread and butter.

To increase sales you must prospect for new customers. Knowing that 95% of the people you approach will turn you down helps keep it all in perspective. You have to be willing to sort through 100 people to find the 5 that want to be your customer. How many new customers do you want by the end of this month?

1 new customer: talk to 18 people.

5 new customers: talk to 100 people.

10 new customers: talk to 200 people.

If you only talked to one person per day, you could expect to grow your business by 1-2 new customers per month. By the end of your first year in the business, you could have 12-24 regular customers, and customers mean regular commission checks.

Many network marketers choose to stop recruiting customers when they achieve the personal sales volume necessary to achieve a certain commission rate or distributor rank. In my opinion, this is silly. Satisfied customers are your best source of potential recruits. Continue to add to your customer base. You will always need new people for your sales team.

You are encouraged to share this article with friends and associates, provided you cite the source of this article.

Phillip Collinsworth is the author of several books available on Amazon. He hosts a website offering free information on wealth building, and finding income opportunties through Internet marketing. Visit:

http://www.wealthsearch.org

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Know your customers. Every business owner knows how important it is to keep your customers happy and coming back for more.

In Become the Squeaky Wheel, Michelle Dunn explains how a credit policy is relevant to their customers. If they dont know their customers and dont make their policy and forms easy, fast and simple to understand, they could lose the customer, taking the sale with them and any word of mouth advertising, explains Dunn.

So what can business owners do to make their credit policy effective? First, business owners should implement a credit procedure for any new or existing customers. They should learn exactly what customers are looking for when they apply for credit with their company.

Business owners should place new customer packets or credit applications on their reception desk in a highly visible place, with clipboards and pens. Says Dunn. When a potential customer walks in they can fill this out quickly and easily and be on their way to having a new account.

Catering to a potential new customer is good business anyway, so the easier you make it for them to spend more money with you, the more money and more sales will benefit you and your business.

Michelle Dunn has over 17 years experience in credit and debt collection. She is the founder of Never Dunn Publishing, LLC, is a writer, consultant and the Editorial Advisor for Eli Financial Debt Collection Compliance Alert Newsletter. Michelle started M.A.D. Collection Agency and ran is successfully for 7 years. She also owns and runs http://www.Credit-and-Collections.com an online community for credit and business professionals.

She has written 5 books in her Collecting Money Series. Visit http://www.michelledunn.com for more information on any of Michelles books or services.

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Everyday, people dismiss the role that emotions play in the cold hard reality of todays business as well as in our personal lives. Peoples excuses for acting irrationally come from focusing too much on feelings. Lets be honest the coldest, hardest truth is that, like it or not, emotions play a major role in every area of our lives and wishing it wasnt so accomplishes nothing.

Emotional Effectiveness is what keeps you in balance for achieving, manifesting and reaching higher levels of performance in all areas of life.

Often you hear people refer to highly successful people as having emotional intelligence. A term used by many leading researchers to describe a form of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor feelings and emotions of yourself and others and to use this information to guide your thinking and actions. Extensive research validates that those who exhibit a high degree of emotional intelligence tend to be more fulfilled and productive.

So not to confuse emotional intelligence with cognitive intelligence (IQ); emotional intelligence is essentially non-cognitive enabling a person to create positive outcomes in relationships with others; whereas cognitive intelligence has traditionally been known as a key indicator and predictor of success. However, it is not, by itself, a good predictor there are many examples of individuals who are exceptionally gifted, yet are remarkably ineffective and unproductive.

Many people would be the wiser to assess their emotional effectiveness before moving forward with the time and investment of opening a business. For example: Ones keen mechanical knowledge of computers isnt enough to guarantee a successful business if in fact that businessperson has low ego drive and low empathy. Far too many businesses fail and the blame more often is associated with the times, lack of working capital, low product demand, wrong location, etc. etc. However, after studying many businesses we can find the failure of a business in the emotional effectiveness of the business owner. The same holds true for people in sales and management.

Emotional Effectiveness referring to specific behaviors, habits and attitudes is something you can develop for enhancing and significantly improving your capacity for success.

Steps for you to develop higher levels of personal and business success are divided into two categories with six sub-categories each.

Categories are Personal Competencies and Social Competencies.

Under Personal Competencies the six sub-categories are:

1. Self-Awareness: Individuals who exhibit a high degree of emotional effectiveness have a clear, conscious understanding of what is most important to them in life. This awareness continually guides them, especially in difficult of trying circumstances.

2. Confidence & Self-Esteem: Confidence and self-esteem give us the self-assurance when we need to forge ahead to step up as leader, to take the emotional risk necessary for significant achievement.

3. Self-Control: Individuals with a high degree of emotional self-control effectively manage their impulsive feelings and distressing emotions. They stay composed, positive, and think clearly even under difficult or challenging circumstances.

4. Authenticity: You can build trust through your own conscientiousness, owning up to your mistakes and confronting unethical actions in others. Take trough, principled stands when necessary, even if those stands are unpopular.

5. Optimism & Resilience: Optimism isnt inherently better or worse than pessimism, but the actions that spring form optimism tend to produce greater results.

6. Self-Actualization: Self-actualized individuals become involved in pursuits that lead to meaningful, rich and full lives. They make enthusiastic commitments to their long-term goals in an ongoing, dynamic process of striving toward the maximum development of their abilities and talents. Self-actualization is often referred to as the state of being that one can achieve after other basic needs in life have been met.

Under Social Competencies the six sub-categories are:

1. Empathy: Developing genuine empathy with others is a hallmark of emotionally effective individuals. This rather, you should seek to understand their feelings.

2. Spirit of Service: A spirit of service is what causes people to go above and beyond the call of duty and give something of himself or herself beyond just doing a job or fulfilling an obligation. People who possess a spirit of service consciously decide to choose service over self-interest.

3. Social Awareness: Having a high level of social/political awareness means having the ability to read a groups emotional currents and power relationship, to de-code the informal communication and interpersonal relationships that may not be obvious unless you are paying attention.

4. Interpersonal Influence: Having a high level of influence with other people is a key skill that significantly enhances your emotional effectiveness. Firs, because this ability helps you help others. Secondly it gives you a greater sense of control over your own environment and destiny.

5. Communication: The ability to communicate effectively in writing, one-on-one conversations and group presentations, strongly distinguishes star performers from average or below average ones. A lack of communication skills not only has negative effect on the individual, but also tends to have a destructive effective on those who work most closely with him or her.

6. Cooperation: One of the keys to achieving greater productivity is through collaboration and cooperation to cultivate and maintain extensive informal networks. Proactively seek out professional and personal relationships that are mutually beneficial. Go out of your way to build rapport with others, keep them \”in the loop, and show genuine interest in helping them achieve their objectives.

Assuming you do want to change and willing to do the hard work necessary, the good news is that improving your level of emotional effectiveness is very doable. These are not traits that are hard wired into your nervous system. With consistent effort, you CAN become much more emotionally effective.

Don L. Price: Author, Sales/Marketing & Positive Change Solution Provider, International Speaker & Mental Fitness Coach http://www.donlprice.com

Invite Don to speak at your next Convention, Meeting or Retreat. Optimize your Power to Succeed with Strategic Performance Marketing/Sales and Success Coaching, for Reaching Higher Performance in Your Personal and Business Life.

– Seminars, Keynotes, Retreats, Consulting — \r http://www.donlprice.com

Subscribe FREE to Price on Success e-Newsletter\r http://tinyurl.com/5bz7w\r 101 W. Alameda Ave., Burbank, CA 91502

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Hire the Right Sales ManagerAlthough every organization is different, hiring a sales manager is not as simple as it looks. In fact, the wrong sales manag...

Sales Management Styles; Iron Fist or Emotional Empathy EffortsThere are many different sales management styles, but which one works the best? Well most experienced practitioners recommend...

Send Me in Coach!At one time there was a long-standing belief in many sales organizations that coaching of sales representatives was a fundame...

Opening A Dollar Store - How to Recover Sales When They DropOne of the challenges that face the entrepreneur who is opening a dollar store is dealing with recovery of sales. It might be...

Sales Managers: When Should You Fire Your Best Salesperson?There are just some topics that you shouldnt bring up in polite company.I could name them, but Id be out of line.Yet I cant r...

The Need Of Sales Force AutomationWe do business in an age of high competition, where most of our competitors have adopted to up-to-date technology and tools. ...

A Top Sales Speaker Tip for Sales EffectivenessImagine for a moment that it is your first day in a new sales organization and your sales manager tells you to forget about Q...

Sales Performance PlanningDoes your company have a good sales performance planning process? Are your people on your sales team fully benchmarked again...

The Science of Telephone Sales ManagementIm in the middle of building a new sales management seminar and Im breaking out a separate unit on the differences between ge...

Easy Spanish Sentences Are The Key To Learning The Spanish LanguageLearning the Spanish language can open up a whole new world. From the shores of Puerto Rico, to the streets of L.A. to the lu...

Superior Sales Management Coaching The Successful Blending of Process and ContentExecutive OverviewLong before coaching became a recognized niche of and by itself, there was a long-standing belief in many s...

Opening A Dollar Store - Watch Out For Sales Changes!Being an entrepreneur includes many challenges. Opening a dollar store is no exception. One of the challenges is in being so ...

Sales Managers:There Is No Cure For Affluence!Perhaps there are two dozen quotes that stand out for me that Ive encountered in business and in academia.One of them comes f...

Sales & Marketing Plan StrategiesDesign and Implementation of a new Sales & Marketing campaign must be carefully thought through from the beginning. What mess...

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