Do You want to be GOOD or GREAT?
DO YOU WANT TO BE GOOD OR GREAT? Do you want to be at the top or in the middle?
Every morning prior to beginning work and every night prior to going to bed I listen to or read something motivational and educational. This morning I listened to a CD containing an interview by Dan Kennedy of Tom Hopkins. I do this because I do not want to be good at what I do, rather I WANT TO BE GREAT, THE BEST!!
This was a rare opportunity for me to learn some amazing things from one of the centuries giants in sales. Tom Hopkins is recognized as Americas #1 Sales Trainer and broke a century long Real Estate sales record of 365 sales in one year and a total of 1,553 in 6 years. “He set records that remained unbroken until this century.” He has published around 13 books on various topics of sales and has published a few Best Sellers.
“Tom Hopkins, bestselling author of How to Master the Art of Selling, is a world-renowned sales trainer. Over 100,000 people attend his seminars every year, and 1 million more use his training videos.”
Here are a few very valuable areas that I learned from my listening and reading this morning.
1. You must internalize your skills and have them ready on reflex
Ever had a time when you tried to remember a technique, and when the time came to use it, it completely slipped your mind or you didn’t know what to do? Not only does this fail in business but almost any other faucet of life. Take for example a time when you first learned to swim, your instructor may have told everything, but the first time you actually tried swimming you probably nearly drowned, a few times, right? Your body wasn’t going to do the necessary things to keep you above water until you made it a reflex. Now days you probably find it hard NOT to stay above water because you’re so used to it.
And like I said, this holds true in all areas of life where achieving some form of mastery is required to perform. Mr. Hopkins said it best, “Everything you do must be done on reflex, if you try to remember it all you’ll drive yourself crazy.” That was my downfall. I read tons of books and then tried to remember all the material in the real world, it was nearly impossible and confused the heck out of me. Of course you need to be alert but if the reflex isn’t there it’s easy to forget. And sometimes the reflex will take over when you weren’t even thinking of it.
Another good example of this is your daily commute to work. Chances are you take the same rout to work every day. But when you have a day off and you decide to meet your friends at a pub, a few blocks from where you work, you might find yourself taking the rout to work if you’re not paying full attention on where you want to go. It’s because it became habit and you almost had to make a conscious effort to do otherwise(meet your friends at the pub instead of go to work). You create your own robot, and it does whatever you do most often.
As much as we like to think we’re in control of ourselves, 90% of our daily behaviors are habits, ones that we’ve programmed into our brain either with or without knowing it. Think of the way you talk, sit down, converse with people, eat, drive, react to people, become mad, or happy. You might have the habit of drinking too much after saying “just going to have two beers”. Whatever your habits are they’re shaping you. Whether you’re a champion at what you do tomorrow or a complete looser, is often determined by your practice, the reflexes you create and your overall commitment to boring but powerful routine.
“People don’t really choose their future, they choose their disciplines and their disciplines determine their future.” – Tom Hopkins
2. Use non-fear producing words
Tom Hopkins said that when you’re working with a potential client, you need to use the right words to bring them to the final decision. Every potential client has a meter on the front of his nose, one side indicates “yes”, the other side “no” and in the middle is a “maybe”. You might hit it up with the prospect really well(the meter pointing to the “yes”) but, for instance, when you say the word “payment”(fear associated word, who likes payments?), his meter might all of a sudden slip to “maybe” or possibly “no”. What if instead of “payment” you used “amount”? How many “amounts” does the prospect have at the end of the month? Probably none! How many “payments”? Probably more than s/he wants to think about. Is the message the same? Are you still offering the same product, with the same benefits and features? Why let one word ruin it for the prospect? If you really believe in what you’re offering why use fear producing words? Why not use the most effective choice of words possible so that the prospect will see the true value of what you’re offering? Hey, if your product/service is fantastic don’t use mediocre of negative words to make it out less than it is.
Cost/ price/Payment-USE– investment / amount
Buy-USE– OWN
Contract-USE– paperwork/ agreement/ form
Sell/ Sold- USE-get them involved/ helped them acquire
Sign- USE– approve/ authorize/ endorse/ OK
3. Ask the right questions
Tony Robbins, author of bestsellers Awaken the Giant Within and Unlimited Power, said that questions are one of the most power mind-tools human beings possess. You can instantly change your state just by asking yourself questions. If you want to make your life miserable ask dis-empowering questions like “why me?” or “why am I so dumb?” or “what’s this mean?” or “why was I ever born?”. These are both very depressing and stupid questions, what kind of answers do you expect to get from “why I am so dumb?”, for example, “it’s your upbringing”, or “your mom probably dropped/threw you as a baby.” If your goal in life is to be depressed ask lots and lots of questions like THAT. But if you instead ask yourself questions like, “what makes life great?” or “what could I learn from this?” or if you cant learn something ask, “what’s could I learn from this if there was something to learn from it?” or “is this really a big deal? Do I really care?” or “are there worse things happening to better people?” or “how can I enjoy life today?” or “How can I make a million dollars?” or “How can I do ___, learn from it and enjoy the process” If you don’t get an answer at first, keep asking yourself. Your brain is extremely resourceful, you hold more answers than you think you do. When you ask questions you instantly put yourself in a resourceful state.
There are a number of good questions that you can ask to direct the prospect to a final decision. One of my favorite ones is when a prospect makes a wild/off-balance statement and doesn’t give a good reason for what they said, you could say, “Obviously you have a good reason for saying that, would you mind sharing it with me?” Often times people don’t know the reasons behind their beliefs. For example, if someone says “McDonalds sucks!”, you could ask “Obviously you have a reason for saying that, would you mind sharing it with me?”
Here’s another good one. If you can’t close and the prospect keeps saying “no”, ask:
“Doug, I’m truly sorry that I wasn’t able to do my job [today/tonight]. You see, if I would have done my job I would have been able to convince you of the value of [your service] and the [services/projects] we offer. Just so I don’t make the same mistake again, would you mind telling me what I did wrong?”
At this point you have one last chance to close.
Learn the right questions to ask. And use them often. But remember, no one likes being interrogated. Make questions apart of your conversation and make them flow so they’re natural.
4. A top performer practices and masters his/her scripts
I have to tell you that I’ve always had a kind of phobia of the phone. I love meeting people in person, but there’s just something about the phone that puts a jolt of fear down my spine. For friends, family and the like, it’s no big deal–I can talk to them any day. The problem is when I’m calling someone I don’t know I feel like I’m going to say the wrong thing. With the help of a bunch of different mental techniques(including the self-questioning talked about above) and the like I’ve been able to improve gradually. Probably the the largest factor in building confidence to talk to business people is learning scripts. And learning it well! This is something that you CAN’T pass up if you are truly serious about being effective in marketing and selling for your business. There are times when I’ve been totally unprepared to tell people what I do. I know exactly what I do, but explaining it to people is often hard because I was just unable to phrase it in a way that made sense to people. A quick blurp like “I do MORTGAGES OR BANKING CONCEPTS” isn’t very actuate and doesn’t give people the chance to say, “Oh!! Give me your card, My neighbor needs someone to help with her retirement planning.”
Something more along the lines of “I’m a Financial consultant who can ASSIST her in CREATING a DEPENDABLE retirement income.” and then you go from there.
5. Make best friends with rejection, only successful people do.
Tell me, who are the most successful people? The ones who ask for what they want often enough or the ones who are afraid to open their mouths for fear of someone saying “no.” In truth, the most super successful, multi-million dollar earners are the ones who have been rejected more than anyone else. Tony Robbins said that every thing you want is on the other side of rejection, he should know, his gross personal income is over 30 million a year. What’s both funny and sad is, the poorest people live within their safe little comfort zones. These people get taxed more and have to work more. Working smarter means expanding their comfort zones and undergoing some mental and emotional pain to increase their earning and achieving capacity. Comfort-zone-expansion is worth millions, hell billions of dollars. If you don’t think so you should look up the story of Colonial Sanders and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Did Colonial Sanders just up and decide one day to start a restaurant selling chicken? No, Colonial Sanders had to get turned down 1000 times before he found someone who would actually sell his fried chicken recipe. How much is Kentucky Fried Chicken worth now days? Or what about Rocky?
How hard did he have to fight before he actually accomplished the dream he was after all his life? His girlfriend left him, he sold his dog and lost everything he ever had, but in the end got it all back and more.
Every “no” you get gets you closer to a yes. Fact is, you’re going to get more “no’s” than “yes’s”. In order to take the leap learn how to handle rejection. Tom Hopkins said “Do what you fear most and you’ll win every time.” People have a tendency to avoid pain, anything that seems painful they tend to move away from. It’s human instinct. And the truth is, there’s no such thing as wealth or freedom or success without rejection. They’re co-dependent. If there was no such thing as rejection or frustration everyone would be able to push a button and become successful instantly. SUCCESS DEMANDS SACRIFICE, SACRIFICE OF YOURSELF. There are two things you must do to get over fear of rejection:
1)Change your perception of what rejection is. Rejection means you’re getting closer to a yes. Rejection also means you’re being tested, a test few people ever pass and is the reason they kill themselves to stay afloat for the rest of their lives. Associate rejection with something you have a strong attraction for.
2) Don’t sweat the small stuff! Get over it. Don’t let small minded people make you let go of your dreams. Don’t care about what they might say behind your back. And don’t worry about being “that guy/woman”. Just think about how flattened those naysayers will be five years from now when you drive up in your dream car, have 7 figures in the bank and doing things you never dreamed possible. Will that dude with the fancy management position still think the same way about you? This may seem a little pretentious but it’s a powerful motivator and energizes you when nothing else will.
Remember, the people who make you give up your dreams aren’t going to be the losers in the end, you’ll be. And if you don’t give up your dreams, and accomplish them, you’ll make losers out of your naysayers. Never let your ego get the best of you though, you don’t need to prove anything to anyone until you have living proof. I say the proof is in the putting, when you accomplish your dreams the proof will speak for itself. Naysayers have good eyesight, you wont need to tell them, they’ll see it.
“At one point in our lives we were all motived because we had something to prove to someone.” – Tom Hopkins
Rod Says 