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The Skills You Need To Be a True Leader

June 5, 2012 by Leave a Comment

If you’re a boss, manager, or leader of some kind, listen up. This lesson will help you clarify the real-world skills you need to be a true leader. I’m talking about the leadership qualities needed to succeed: the action items, principles, and skills to employ so leadership works. So it works for you, your people, your customers, your vendors, and your company-in that order.

But there are degrees of leadership effectiveness. Your ability to master these leadership skills are in direct proportion to your ability to lead. If you’re looking for clarity, look no further than these skills:

Get your people to like you and believe in you. Hated leaders are eventually overthrown-or fired. If a hated leader cannot be fired, people will quit.

Make sure your people and their jobs are a “fit.” People need to feel comfortable about the tasks they are performing and the space they’re performing them in.

Let your people share their goals with you, then modify them together. When people set their own goals, they think they can achieve them.

Give your people specific tasks and clear direction. Make sure all employees know what they are responsible for and how to perform or carry out their responsibilities. And make sure they see the big picture and how their part fits into it.

Create an environment in which people love their work and their workplace. Make the workplace fun. Make sure employees can complete tasks with a sense of pride and satisfaction. Provide a GREAT and happy atmosphere to work in. Make the duty, task, or project challenging-without being oppressive or stressful.

Make sure all “money matters” are clear. Don’t mess with employees’ money. And worse, don’t reduce pay or commissions to cut costs. Pay fair, benefit well, and provide security. Otherwise people will leave.

Make sure paychecks are accurate. People count their money and count on it. Nothing dings morale more than messed up wages.

Encourage your people. The most effective leaders are coaches. They stand on the sidelines and cheer for their players. To encourage your people, buy everyone a copy of The Little Engine That Could.

Reward your people. It doesn’t have to be money; however, if you ask them what they want, money will always be their answer. Whatever you give them, don’t be cheap about it. Make them feel valued.

Praise your people. Praise hard work. Praise effort. Praise accomplishment. Often.

By your actions and your achievements-be their hero. If you want them to become dedicated players, your people need to see your dedication. If you are the one driving the train and making big things happen, you will become a hero to those who respect your ethics and accomplishments.

How’s that for a dose of clarity?

Filed Under: Attitude, Leadership, My Books, Overcoming Objections, Sales, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The 12.5 Step Formula to Get From FIRED to ON FIRE

May 4, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Looking to keep your present job?
What would you do if you were fired today?
How would you feel?
How would you react?
Where would you go?
What would you do?

Here is my 12.5 step formula to get you from FIRED to ON FIRE.

1. Let your emotions out for 48 hours – not one minute more. Do all your whining, crying, pitying and door slamming until it’s completely out of your system. (Continued negatives will block, even prevent, positive recovery.)

2. Don’t blame others. It’s unproductive and probably not accurate.

3. Analyze exactly what happened and why. Get several perspectives from your boss, co-workers, customers, competitors (may be a source for a lead to a new opportunity), spouse, friends, etc.

4. Put the negatives out of your mind. Try substituting humor (go to a live comedy show, rent funny videos, laugh as often as possible.) If you can’t — seek professional help.

5. Buy yourself a present. Buy something nice, something you’ve always wanted. Buy something to make you feel good.

6. Find a mentor. Find someone who will give you unprejudiced advice.

7. Get the support of others. Now is the time to ask for help.

8. Make a detailed plan for what you really want to do and put a time frame to it.

9. Go away for two or three days. Take your plan with you and revise it.

10. On the way up and back — listen to positive attitude tapes alternated with your favorite music.Sing along.

11. Stay on a diet of only positive things and positive people for 6 months. No news, no violence, no arguments.

12. Change something in your life. New hair, new friends, new exercise program, new diet, new hobby. Divert your mind to think along new paths in order to get out of the old ruts. (The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.)

12.5 Commit yourself to a sane recovery. Commit yourself to success. Discipline yourself to do whatever it takes to get back on the road to success. Make a daily plan and execute it.

Get back into the market slowly. Don’t jump back in until you figure out what you need to change. Make the next step a better step than the last one.

What other tips do you have? Leave them for me in the comments section below. I look forward to hearing from you.

Filed Under: Attitude, Customer Loyalty, General, My Books, Sales, Success Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Sign Up For My ‘No Fear Networking’ Webinar: Tuesday, May 15th

April 25, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Networking takes time. Quality time invested in networking will build your sales, your business, and your career. Done the right way, networking will lead you to make valuable connections that will earn you more than a contact, but a relationship with lasting profit.

I’d like to personally invite you to join me for my upcoming No Fear Networking webinar on May 15th, 2012! Click here to register for this webinar now!

Here’s what you’ll learn when you attend:

  • How to make valuable and lasting connections
  • Where to network and what to say
  • To replace fear with fun to build rich relationships
  • Going Social – The new network
  • How to capitalize on your friendliness, value, attraction, engagement to ultimately connect for a real meeting

Want to get an idea of how my webinars work? Here’s an excerpt from my “Differentiate or Die” webinar:

Click here to register for this webinar now!

Filed Under: Attitude, Customer Loyalty, General, Jeffrey Webinar, My Books, Sales Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Here Are The Dumbest Questions Salespeople Ask — And Why They’re Dumb

April 19, 2012 by 8 Comments

Sales Truth: Salespeople become known by the questions they ask.

Knowing this truth, you’d think all salespeople would ask smart questions. You’d be thinking wrong. It never ceases to amaze me, that with all the options salespeople have, they choose to alienate, anger or cause doubt in the mind of the prospect by setting the wrong tone with their questions.

Here are the dumbest questions salespeople ask — and why they’re dumb:

  • Who are you currently using…? Pre-call research should tell you that. And maybe the prospect feels that’s none of your business. Good start.
  • Are you satisfied with your present…? Everyone will tell you they’re satisfied. So what? Well, OK, if you’re satisfied, I’ll just leave and quit.
  • How much are you currently paying for…? None of your business #2. Let’s get down to the price as fast as you can.
  • Can I quote you on…? Why send a quote — the next person who quotes 2 cents cheaper gets the business. What about the value?
  • Can I bid on…? Same as a “quote” only worse. This is a 100% price driven sale. Low margin. Low profit. Low commission. Low percentage of success. How long do you want to go?
  • Tell me a little bit about your business? No. It’s a waste of the prospect’s time. Find out a little bit about the prospect’s business so you can go into the sales call with answers and ideas that may get the prospect excited enough to buy.
  • Are you the person who decides about…? Come on. This is THE question that breeds the most lies. The answer is most often “yes”, and the answer is most often false. Why ask a question that breeds misleading information? The correct question to ask is: How will the decision be made?
  • If I could save you some money, would you…? Every salesperson thinks that the customer will jump at the hint of saving money. This tactic actually has a negative effect on the buyer and makes the salesperson work twice as hard to prove himself and usually at a lower price (and a lower commission).

And the worst question of them all:

  • What would it take to get (earn) your business? This question literally is saying to the prospect: “Look, I don’t have much time here. Could you just tell me the quickest way to get this order, and make me do the least amount of work possible to get it.”

The secret of good (smart) questions are those that make the prospect stop and think, and answer in terms of you. If you ask people questions that you could have found out the answer by some means as simple as looking up the information on their website, how intelligent or hard working does that make you look? Not very.

Filed Under: Attitude, Customer Loyalty, Generating Referrals, Leadership, My Books, Presenting, Sales, Social Media, Success Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

4.5 Ways To Earn A Testimonial

April 13, 2012 by 2 Comments

1. Do everything you said you would do on time or sooner. To have any prayer for a testimonial you must be known as a person who does and delivers what you promise.  Without this fundamental element, don’t bother to read the rest.

2.  Be easy to do business with, and be friendly while you are doing it. Customers expect everything and they expect it when they need it.  Not just when you can offer it.  You have to be friendly when you are there and friendly when you are not there.  This means easy telephone access and easy internet access.

3.  Be proactively remarkable. When you stand out from other vendors you will be talked about and earning a testimonial will be simple.  Being remarkable means going the extra mile and making service the forefront of your business not an add on.

4.  Provide consistent help. If you get my weekly email magazine sales caffeine, you know it is all about sales help.  Each week I provide my customers an ability to help them learn and grow and I do it for free.  As a result they are loyal, they think of me often in a positive way, and will proactively send me testimonials on a regular basis.

4.5 Get business for them. While this is not always possible I can assure you it is the single most valuable thing you can do to secure loyal relationships and testimonials that will flow like Niagara Falls.  Figure out a way to help your customer by providing them leads and networking opportunities, so that they have an opportunity to get new business, and I promise you the most incredible testimonials will come your way.

Here is a video testimonial I recently received from an Ace of Sales customer:

Melissa from Hard Target Mixed Martial Arts in Charlotte, NC uses Ace of Sales to build relationships and keep them. They’ve tried email marketing products like iContact and Constant Contact in the past but didn’t find them easy enough to use or a good fit for the day-to-day needs of a small business.

With Ace of Sales, they love how simple and how great looking their emails and customer communications are. For Hard Target, it’s not about sales – it’s about developing their business community and representing themselves like the pros they are.

Click here to sign up for Ace of Sales today!

Filed Under: Attitude, Customer Loyalty, Generating Referrals, My Books, Sales, Success Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Social Media Has Changed YOUR World

April 9, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Social media has changed the world.

Let me clarify that statement. Social media has changed YOUR world. Whatever you’re doing online, whether it’s tweeting, LinkedIning, Facebooking, or YouTubing, Social Media has changed your way of communicating one-on-one, one-on-customer base, and one-to-the-world.

Facebook is the easiest phenomenon to understand. It has changed the way you communicate with your friends and your family, and has opened the freedom door to anyone that you come in contact with either business or personal. You have found old friends, schoolmates, and co-workers – and they have found you. And in the same way, you can find customers and prospective customers – and they can find you.

Because of Social Media and the Internet, big companies no longer have a big advantage. Anyone can create a news blog that can immediately compete with the New York Times. The music industry has been leveled by groups performing their own videos and selling them on iTunes. Groups are creating free videos on YouTube, and they have done it far more efficiently, at far less cost, than records or CDs since they have been invented.

LinkedIn has created a new way to cold call and a much more sophisticated way for businesses to connect. You can go on LinkedIn and search by job title and find prospective customers at no cost. It’s also the employment agency of the future.

Twitter allows you to gain a following of people interested in your thoughts, your information, or the information of others that they perceive as valuable.

YouTube is the new movie theater and you have about one billion choices. Millions of new movies are added every day. If you have heard that expression “to the cloud,” YouTube currently occupies half of heaven.

Someone interviewing for a job completely exposes themselves through Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube the same way a company is exposed in the same social media.

NOTE: Job hunting and job placement are the second largest activity on LinkedIn.

And yet there are people who discount social media, avoid it, and even bad mouth it. Those people are fools and you know some of them.

REALITY: Social media and business social media have created new sales, new marketing, new exposure, new branding, new communication, new networking, and new business opportunities, the likes of which have never been seen or known before. And the revolution is just starting.

Want help with your business social media strategies? Follow my posts on this blog.

Filed Under: Attitude, General, My Books, Presenting, Sales Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Make More Sales By Avoiding These Common Blunders

March 7, 2012 by Leave a Comment

I’m about to share common mistakes that salespeople make. You make them, too. I am listing as many as possible so you can pick out the ones that apply to you specifically. But I promise you will overlook some. REASON: You think I’m incorrect to list them. HINT: Those are your biggest mistakes to include, improve, and study.

1. Using closing techniques. Why would you use time-worn, awkward phrases that manipulate the customer and make everyone uncomfortable?

2. Asking the same questions everyone asks. Why are you asking questions you could have found the answers to online? Why aren’t you seizing the opportunity to engage more intellectually and emotionally?

3. Asking questions (the answers of which are none of your business) about money to try to “qualify” the buyer. You have accomplished nothing, and failed to understand that the buyer is also qualifying you.

4. Comparing yourself to, rather than differentiating yourself from, the competition. No memorability anywhere.

5. Downing the competition. Makes you look bad, and suspect.

6. Trying to “find the pain” rather than building rapport and finding the pleasure. Pleasurable things build rapport and help establish a relationship.

7. Meeting with a non-decision-maker. Why?

8. Trying to go over someone’s head to the “real” decision-maker. Too late, you should have started higher in the first place.

9. Talking about your personal life or prejudices. Not good, ever.

10. Blaming the prospect for your issues. Issues like: wouldn’t make an appointment, didn’t respond to an email, didn’t return my call, blah, blah.

11. Not knowing the difference between you’re and your. Misspelled words and poor grammar make you look stupid and lazy.

12. Delivering your sales message, not their buying message. Why are you making a “sales presentation” without understanding why the prospect may want to buy?

13. Making excuses for what went wrong. Not taking responsibility for what you could have done to change it.

14. Failure to talk about outcome and ownership. You sell for a few hours, they buy and use for months, maybe years. Talk about that. Sometimes outcome is misunderstood because you’re focusing on negative issues.

15. Having boring slides. Where’s the engagement in your presentation? What’s different on the slide than I could have found online?

16. Trying to “type” the prospect. Don’t “type” anyone, just like them and find a few things in common.

17. Trying to “mirror” the prospect. Welcome to the 1950s.

18. Offering no perceived value. When value is missing, all that’s left is price.

19. Believing price is the issue. Price is in your mind way more than it is their mind. Price is only the issue 30% of the time or less. Where’s the value?

20. Making dumb – even worse – insincere, follow-ups. Trying to disguise the fact you’re just asking for the money.

21. Thinking you’re smarter than the customer. Don’t flatter yourself.

22. Failure to Google yourself. Your customer is.

23. Failure to provide proof that you are what you say you are. Testimonials are the only proof you’ve got. Why aren’t you using them to make sales?

23.5 The opposite of blame is responsibility. The more you blame price, circumstances, and other people for your inability to make a sale, the more your income will suffer. The first step to mastering salesmanship is to accept responsibility for what happens, learn from it, and make sure it doesn’t happen again.

How many of these mistakes are you making?

Filed Under: Attitude, Customer Loyalty, General, Overcoming Objections, Presenting, Sales, Sales Management Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

2012: The Year of The Webinar

January 31, 2012 by Leave a Comment

2012 is the Year of the Webinar. I’m offering 12 Webinars every 3 weeks with Live Q&A sessions after each event. Maintain your momentum throughout the new year with timely insight at a steal of a value!


Here’s the lineup for the year:

  • Feb. 8 – Closing the Sale
  • Feb. 29 – YES! Attitude
  • Mar. 21 – Overcoming and Preventing Objections
  • TBD – Getting an Appointment
  • TBD – Face to Face Networking
  • TBD – Listening with an Intent to Understand
  • TBD – How to Give a Compelling Presentation
  • TBD – Satisfied vs. Loyal: To Serve is to Rule
  • TBD – Testimonials
  • TBD – Price vs. Value
  • TBD – Referrals
  • TBD – Trusted Advisor
All registrants will receive access to recordings of all 12 webinars.

SIGN UP NOW! Spaces are limited.

Filed Under: Attitude, Customer Loyalty, General, Jeffrey Webinar, Leadership, My Books, Sales, Sales Management, Success Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Get Your Cup of Sales Every Tuesday Morning

January 12, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Sales Caffeine is 10 years old. Sales Caffeine is recognized and has won awards for design and distribution. And Sales Caffeine is for you…at no charge. Yup, it’s free! Learn more:

Subscribe To Sales Caffeine Here: http://bit.ly/GetSC

Filed Under: Attitude, Customer Loyalty, General, Leadership, Sales, Success Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Every Great Salesperson Was Once a Beginner

January 6, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Every great salesperson was once a beginner.

“That’s easy for you to say! You’re already a great salesman and a successful author and speaker,” someone yelled from the audience as I was answering a question about how to brand yourself and position yourself to create the law of attraction.

Now the audience was waiting for my answer. It wasn’t a time for humor. Every person was looking for the bridge between where I am and where they are. And not just an answer – a path to get there.

I began by telling them of a book I had just purchased called, Every Great Chess Player Was Once A Beginner. The title rocked my entire thought process. Although it was obvious that everyone starts someplace, it’s hard to imagine A-Rod playing little league, or Bret Favre playing Pop Warner football. Hard to imagine Bill Gates in his dorm room cooking mac and cheese on a hotplate as he struggles with his 128k computer to create the future of software. But they all did.

Then I gave them a glimpse of my beginning and my renaissance.

REALITY: No, it’s not easy for me to say anything, or do anything. Yes, I’m somewhat successful now, BUT I didn’t start with nine best-selling books. I started by writing one 750-word column. Actually I started studying sales in 1972. And made sales for 35 years. I had no idea I would write. I just loved sales and wanted to be the best salesman in the world. When the opportunity to write about sales appeared, I jumped on it. Now I write about my personal experiences, observations, and thoughts.

When I moved to Charlotte in 1988 I was starting over. Beginning again. I knew no one, and had limited capital (definition: broke). I joined the Charlotte Chamber. I subscribed to the local business journal. I networked my butt off. And I tried to get business for others. I connected and made connections. I became known as a person of value. I took a leadership position at the Chamber.

Here are the insights that drove me:
As a beginner you have to trust your instincts, and you have to “BE.”
• Be willing to risk.
• Be a constant student.
• Be a consistent performer, even in a losing cause.
• Be a value provider.
• Be friendly and likeable.
• Be passionate about your product or service.
• Be willing to dedicate the time it takes to become great.

And you must BELIEVE you can do it. Your mental strength is more important than your [READ MORE...]

Filed Under: Attitude, Customer Loyalty, General, My Books, Presenting, Sales, Success Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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