Author: Phil Jones

Best-selling author, multiple award winner and one of the most sought after speakers on the circuit, Phil M Jones is highly regarded as the world’s leading sales trainer.

From training more than two million people worldwide to coaching some of the biggest brands in the world, Phil’s mission to teach the world to sell has resulted in his expertise being globally recognized.

By understanding behavior, he’s able to use his infectious thought-provoking style of delivery to make long-lasting change by re-wiring beliefs and instilling what he refers to as his Magic Words.

By teaching audiences how to use particular word patterns and showing them exactly what to say in order to work around difficult situations, Phil is able to help non-sales people to increase their activity and have more of the right conversations to generate more of the right outcomes.

Having won multiple awards, including the prestigious Sales Trainer of the Year in 2013, Phil has written a series of best-selling books and has a number of online training programs that have enrolled tens of thousands of members.

From working with small business owners that are looking to increase sales to leverage their livelihood to globally recognized companies that want to drive more activity from their staff, Phil’s unique skill set allows him to serve a vast mix of people with entirely different goals.

Phil now travels the world, speaking to audiences in all corners of the globe. To date, he’s spoken in 56 different countries across five continents, and with his growing popularity, he’s expected to add many more to his roster.|Best-selling author, multiple award winner and one of the most sought after speakers on the circuit, Phil M Jones is highly regarded as the world’s leading sales trainer.

By understanding behavior, he’s able to use his infectious thought-provoking style of delivery to make long-lasting change by re-wiring beliefs and instilling what he refers to as his Magic Words.

How to Get More Out of People Around You

Post author By Phil Jones
Post date October 2, 2017
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Today’s blog is all about understanding the art of sales management, and understanding how to manage even that proportion of yourself or that proportion of other people that can help you get better sales results for you and your business.

We first need to understand a little bit about the makeup of a sales person. In my experience in all the sales people that I’ve worked with, I found that sales people are hugely competitive people, often highly strung, perhaps even egotistical, and certainly outspoken and just south of arrogant. Sales people are notoriously difficult to manage. If you try and control them too much, they will revolt. Give them too much time, too much freedom, and they’ll exploit you, become lazy and take advantage of your situation. So mastering this art form really is a massive challenge, which is regularly overlooked.

Many businesses go out and recruit experienced sales people, based on their previous track record, and think they have people ready-made for success. Management and leadership of these people is a daily, weekly, sometimes even an hourly task to get the best out of the sales people in your organization. We need to understand what we can do with these people to get them performing and continuing to perform at their best.

Below are 5 key areas to the art of sales management:

1. YOU NEVER GET THE SECOND CHANCE TO MAKE YOUR FIRST IMPRESSION

It may be that you’ve got to set the rules at day one. You could tell people exactly what you expect of them at the very beginning of taking somebody into a sales role. You need to cover everything from company culture to dress code, personal grooming, time keeping and everywhere in between, because if you want to hold them accountable, they need to know the rules. We must also share with them the consequences of underperformance. They still need to know what happens if they don’t achieve what they say they’re going to be able to achieve.

2. SALES PEOPLE ARE CREATURES OF HABIT

You need to show them what success looks like. They’ll need to see it for themselves for them to be able to follow it, replicate it, and maybe surpass it. People do two things in business – what they enjoy doing or what they get checked on. My advice for sales people is make as much of the job fun as you possibly can. Celebrate the successes, whoop and holler at the good times and let them want to enjoy more of that. A regular meeting is important, but consider the timing of the meeting and the location of the meeting–are they congruent with the outcome that you’re looking for?

Also consider they generally don’t take well to change. If your existing routine is not working and you’re going to change something, be very conscious of the fact they’re going to resent it. So, it requires a strong leadership to change it, and if you know the change you’re looking to make is going to make a long-term improvement, they’ll make an instant decision and stick to it. Your sales team is selling all the time. Sometimes to your customers and your potential customers and sometimes selling to you! Maybe it’s the reason they can’t do something or why an idea will or won’t work. So stick to your guns. Be strategic. Know what it is you’re doing and lay down the path for them to follow. They’ll soon come around to your way of thinking, providing it delivers the results.

3. PLAY TO THEIR EGO

Give them a fine reputation to live up to. Great sales people are competitive, and although they’re often employed by your business, the most demanding boss in the world typically manages them –-him/herself.

Remember, however, that although your sales staff may seem thick skinned, they’re often emotional people, so it’s essential that any praise that you give is loud, is lavish, and it’s in public. Any genuine criticism, when you’re looking to be constructive towards how they can improve, is done behind closed doors. You must protect their ego. Their ego is remarkably valuable to you, and a sales person lacking confidence and lacking self-belief will always underperform.

4. MEASURE AND MONITOR THEIR PERFORMANCE

What we’re looking to do is to manage the results and measure their activity. Whether this is you managing others or yourself, set your stall out in terms of the activity levels you’re going to be following, not just the results that you want, then work back from those results. You might be measuring the number of calls you make in order to win appointments or the number of face-to-face appointments and the results that they bring. By chunking it down to the activity, you can find out which part of the machine is broken.

The thing with measuring activity is activity doesn’t lie, yet the results themselves can be influenced from so many different variables. So, record the results of your efforts. Make sure that you’re keeping statistics on the activity levels and patterns that will occur. Ratios will start to appear and you can understand exactly what it takes to get the results that you’re looking for, as well as understand the scenarios where the ratios don’t fit the pattern. This allows you to reward effort, not just results, and allows you to manage complacency where people might be getting great results but only put in minimal levels of effort. Because of the fact they’re above average and better skilled than maybe somebody else in your team, you know that they can achieve a great deal more for you. Identifying those development opportunities allows you to find out which parts need to be improved in your sales team and how you can then provide them the skills to grow in that specific area.

5. HAVE HUGE RESPECT FROM YOUR SALES TEAM

One of the only ways to get respect from people is to earn it. Far too many business owners and business leaders expect respect. In my experience, I found myself in sales roles running large teams of people, all of which were far more experienced in their roles then me. One particular example I remember was at 20 years of age, running a sales team where the youngest person in the team was nearly 15 years older than me. They’d all been doing the job for 5 years or more, so the chances of me being able to have any impact on them initially was slim to none. They’d also already decided there was nothing they can learn from me. In cases such as this, you must be able to adopt a principle that I call, let me show you. This means having the ability to roll your sleeves up and not just tell somebody what to do but be prepared to show them how they’re going to get a result.

This means you go out on appointments with them and demonstrate exactly what success looks like. Pick up the phone and show them how to win appointments for themselves and show them what success looks like. Turn around a customer that previously had said no to you and bring them back into a yes environment, showing them what can be done. And the more that you show people what they’re capable of, the more it will empower them to do the same and the more it will allow you to demand more of sales team.

So I hope this will give you some good ideas of how to get more out of the people that you’re working with right now. You now have some understanding on the art of sales management and what you could be doing to get the maximum amount of effort, the maximum amount of energy and then more importantly, the maximum results out of the people that are selling in your business.

Growth Leadership Skills

The Perfect Pitch

Most people believe that this is the most important part of the sales process; however, in my experience, I believe it to be vitally important however is only a tiny piece of the puzzle. The sales presentation has nothing to do with having a fabulous company brochure, proposal document or a fantastic company website.

By the time you deliver your presentation, your prospect should be 80% of the way towards making a buying decision. They will have typically decided “if” they are going to buy from you, you are simply now presenting “what” they are going to buy from you.

Selling is a transfer of enthusiasm. It is creating a ball of energy and passing that to your prospect, so that your customers are as excited about receiving it as you are delivering it. Being enthusiastic talks straight to the subconscious mind and promotes enthusiasm in return, which itself is a catalyst to a buying decision.

In theory you should be able to present your products or services with no major props. I am not saying that this is the only way you should present. However, if you can do that, you will then only add marketing material that supports your presentation and not hide behind your literature.

Now every successful presentation follows a structure. Be it a quick elevator 60 second pitch, or a detailed sales proposal, the same structure applies.

Every presentation should include a beginning, middle and an end. This sounds simple, but the number of presentations that I see that are all middle is still in abundance.

Beginning

Your beginning is really your chance to set the scene and educate your prospect that your meeting has moved on and they will soon have a decision to make. The two main ingredients for your beginning are always to make a powerful opening statement that sets the scene.

“Its great to talk with you today and demonstrate how we can help create your perfect…”

To then put your audience at ease by letting them know what to expect by sharing your agenda with them.

“I will share with you a little about how we work and what makes us different, explain our range of services and give you 3 different options for your desired holiday. I will then find out what questions you have before you make a decision on the way forward”

By giving them a verbal or written agenda they understand what to expect and it helps you to keep control.

Middle

The middle of a presentation is where the main responsibility is to give your audience enough information to make a buying decision. I would always look to consider three main areas.

Your history and credibility – Let your listeners understand all about you and your company. Share the type of companies that you work with and instil confidence in your audience that you are more than capable of delivering for them. This is not a huge section but is vitally important. Drop in names of existing customers and words that others have used to describe you.
Product or service overview – Always provide a shopping list of all your products and services in every sales presentation. You never know what they may also be interested in buying from you.
The one product/service for them – Finally give them your recommendations for the solution that they make a decision on today. Remember to keep this as simple as possible.

You will need a powerful opening and close to your middle to keep attention. Keep questions to a minimum throughout your sales presentation and if necessary they must be simple, closed and bring positive engaging answers so as not to lose control.

End

Providing your presentation was interesting enough, at some point you will have lost the full attention of those listening. This is because something you said had interested them and they started to think about applying your solutions and may have missed something.

Because it is paramount that they feel they have all the information before they make a decision, it is essential that you summarize before closing. Your summary is simply telling them what you have told them. Once you have summarized, you must then close by asking for a decision.

I would encourage you to prepare a default presentation for each of your products and then tailor it each time you need to use it. That way you are always perfectly prepared.

Management Marketing Skills

Process Focus: Finding Your Needleshop, Not a Haystack

Post author By Phil Jones
Post date September 28, 2017
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Process focus is all about giving you a system, strategy or scenario that can lead you through understanding a key area of your business, helping you get more of what it is that you want.

I’m pretty sure one thing you really want is more new business. If you want new business, start at the beginning. I’m sure many of you spend a lot of time, effort and energy on marketing your business.

However, there’s a key difference between sales and marketing. Marketing is all about getting bees around the honey pot. Your business is the honey.

The difference with sales is that we get to choose our customers. Provided we go looking. The art of great salesmanship is like fishing. It’s knowing what fish you’re looking for, where to find them and what bait to use. That way, when you go fishing in the right place at the right time with the right bait, you catch the right fish. That’s what Process Focus is all about this month. It’s about getting what you focus on.

We communicate it to you in so many ways. The brain is processing so many pieces of information. If you’re looking for anybody and everybody at the same time, you’ll find nobody. If you get specific on what it is you’re looking for, you’re far more likely to spot opportunity. A simple test on this, might be anytime in your life where you’ve looked at buying a new car. When you’ve looked at buying a new car, what’s often happened, is you’ve decided what it is that you’re buying. And in the period of time between you deciding and collecting the said vehicle, you can’t help but see tons of those vehicles everywhere you look on the road. I promise you that it wasn’t the strategic marketing campaign from the company you were looking to buy from. They were there already. It’s just that you’ve set a part of your brain to be able to identify, spot and look for them. This is exactly what we need to do to find more of the right kind of customers. So please take time to consider exactly who your target customer is. How many of them are you looking for?

Consider how many new customers you’d like to acquire in the next 12 months. Maybe break that down to how many new customers you’d like to have per month. And then define exactly what they look like because then you can go looking for them. Some of the things that you might want to consider are:

Where are they located?

If you have an account management or a servicing responsibility, look for those customers in a simple geographic region. That way getting face-to-face to them adds value to them, then being able to access you easily adds value to them. Could you have enough of the right kind of customers purely located around the simple geographic region that you can service correctly?

How big are they?

Are you targeting single person micro businesses? Are you targeting Fortune 500 companies? You might even be appointing your business where you’re looking to make a step change, to change the type of customer that you’re looking for.

What industry are they in?

Getting industry focused can really help you find what you are looking for.

Who exactly is the decision maker within that type of business? It might be one person. It might be more than one person. But really define who that is because actually, what you’re not looking for is an organization or a type of organization. You’re looking for an organization in a certain location of a certain size, and a certain person within that organization, because without that person you’ll never get the decision.

The more focused you get and the more you define your target market then you might realize that you have more than one target market. But the more you define it, the easier it is to find it. Coupled with the fact that once you know exactly who it is that you’re looking for, you can share it with others more easily, and they can help you find more of the right kind of people.

Entrepreneurship Personal Development

7 Ways of Making it Happen

Post author By Phil Jones
Post date September 27, 2017
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We have all had great ideas and I often hear stories from people talking about things that they could have done, but for one reason or another never got around to making happen. In this short article, I want to share with you 7 simple pointers to help you step up to the plate and start making your ideas a reality.

1. Make it work on paper – The first action should always be to sit down and make your plan a reality on paper. Run the numbers and check that your great idea makes commercial sense. Understand what the numbers look like and be confident you can achieve the number of customers you require.

2. Tell the world – Once you are set on your idea then you should start telling as many people as possible. Telling people not only promotes your new idea, but also makes you accountable. The more people you tell, the more likely you are to make it happen.

3. Sell it first – Instead of spending an age designing and perfecting your plans, the first step should always be to acquire some customers. Only once you have a customer are you really in business.

4. Perfection is overrated – Just getting started is the hardest part, so instead of perfecting your idea before taking it to market, get it to a point where it is fit for purpose and then continue to develop it in real time.

5. Plan and review – Plan in regular check points to monitor progress and design your next actions.

6. Accept failure – On the road to every great success are countless failures. Accept that to succeed, you will make many mistakes. What is important is that you continue to learn from them.

7. Keep moving forward – Momentum is an essential quality in growing any business. Set your goal at the beginning, make it clear and then keep striving towards it.

That’s my simple summary of taking your idea and making it a reality. Please remember that nothing happens unless you make it happen.

Entrepreneurship Marketing Personal Development

Sales is a Philosophy

Every business that fails to acquire new customers at some point will fail in business. The acquisition of new customers is essential to be the lifeblood or the pulse of any business growth, and there will always be natural wastage. So bringing new customers on board is incredibly important. In this article, I want to talk to you about a mindset focus, rather than a process focus, as normal. A simple shift in the way you currently see things or believe things may well have a dramatic increase or an impact upon you and your business. Lets look at sales–the acquisition of new customers, the winning of new business and understand whose job it is to do so. Who’s really responsible for the acquisition of new customers?

In every business that I’ve been involved in, before I got involved, there was a huge divide between the sales side of the business and the operational side of the business. Sales is the sales team’s job, and the operational team is there to deliver the activities and the actions that result in the product or service being created. For me, sales is a philosophy, not a department. Everybody sells. I want you to look at it quite simply–that there are two departments. One department is selling and the other department is selling support. Those are the two critical roles. People will fall into one of those two camps. So, the responsibility of everybody outside of the sales team is to support the sales team, be it delivering on the promises that are made, ensuring that the products and services are delivered in a way that is fitting with the explanation, and ensuring that the administrative processes that follow allow sales people to sell more effectively. Where you can get the two working coherently, you get massive uplifts in results. This has been crucial in the success of every turnaround project that I’ve been involved in. Turning around retail operations in major department stores, furniture retailers, or football retailers, have all come from creating this coherent response where everybody understands that they all contribute towards the sales process. If you’re building a business that looks to connect with its customers, where it has long-term relationships with these customers, everybody who is involved in any customer-facing role needs to be aware of how they impact upon the sales process.

Let’s look at this in a number of ways and see where people make an impact, so you can really understand and illustrate the point that I’m making to you. Number one is identifying new prospects. You have sales people on a regular basis looking to identify the next person they can speak to. In simplistic form, if you have a dream customer, a most wanted list or a prospect list, sharing that list with everybody within your organisation may well create an opening or an opportunity that doesn’t yet exist. You don’t know who knows who, but when you share stuff, stuff happens. The more people that know what it is that you’re looking for, the more chances you’ve got in finding it.

Let’s look again at another area that is usually impacted upon by other people in your business. The first impression on a customer or potential customer is incredibly important. When the phone rings, the way in which that phone is answered will set the tone and the expectation for how your customer believes your business to be run and what results they can expect from it. There’s a sales responsibility there for the people that answer your telephones.

The uplifts that I’ve enjoyed purely by looking at all of the areas where sales and sales support teams cross over are huge. Where we’ve made it work, we’ve seen an increase in revenue, in profits. We’ve seen no late payments from our customers because we’ve impacted sales skills upon our cash collection teams. We have no bad debts. We get preferential treatment from our suppliers because we stand out. We understand the impact and importance of managing great relationships with our suppliers. When favours need to be called upon that allow us to win new business, fulfill challenges and stand out from the crowd, our suppliers look upon us favorably because of the way they’ve been treated up until that point in time. We can increase operational efficiency, because our selling support teams are fully aware of the part that they have to play in supporting the sales team. So paperwork moves quickly, jobs get fulfilled quickly, stuff gets ordered quickly. Those are things that we’ve seen with clients in the past. We’ve seen improved staff product productivity when everybody is chasing the same rabbit. You can’t chase more than one rabbit. It’s remarkably difficult if you’re trying to chase too many different outcomes. Everybody pulling in the same direction will lead to far better results. You gain more free time when everybody pulls in the same direction and understands that they have a role towards the sales team.

Overall, what you really get is improved communication. In every area, people understand what their purpose is. Everybody is accountable for better sales results–not just one person. Look at everybody in your business and look at every process within your business. Does it support your sales process or does it hinder it right down to the delivery? One of the best examples I’ve got of the final touch with a customer is in furniture retail. We took time to train the delivery drivers on basic sales skills, how that delivery driver would act, what they would install, what packaging they would take away, and what lengths they would go to ensure that the customer was delighted. They knew what was expected of them so they could over deliver. We then helped them understand that they were the final part of the customer experience, so we said, “Let’s make it a good one.”

Let’s make sure they thank the customer for their business, are courteous and shake hands”. We even went one step further. We trained delivery drivers to ask for referrals and some of them got them.

You can get everybody pulling in the same direction. You can get everybody sales-focused, everybody focused on the task at hand of acquiring more new business. Your sales results will go up because everybody is pulling in the same direction and everybody is selling.

Entrepreneurship Management Personal Development

Getting In Front of More of the Right Kind of People

Post author By Phil Jones
Post date September 25, 2017
No Comments on Getting In Front of More of the Right Kind of People

Time and time again I stand in front of audiences full of Sales Professionals and business owners and ask for a show of hands to the question “Who would like more customers?” and see a room full of raised hands. When further questioned to how much more? the room responds with words like “Lots” or “As much as I can get.”

What continues to surprise me is that regardless of the size of the business, the number 1 challenge to sales people is that they just wished they could get in front of more of the right kind of people. I have literally stacks of proven ideas to get you in front of more of the right kind of people however it is the constant oversight of the basics that I see continually preventing us reaching the success we are all capable of.

We all want more business and we know that activity drives out results, however it is having a winning strategy that allows high levels of activity to deliver high quality results. Lets just take a step back and consider how being brilliant at the basics can give us the winning edge, stand out from our competitors and get in front of more of the right people.

1. Stop looking for a needle in a hay stack

Striving for more and having huge ambition are qualities that have fueled the sales profession since the start of time. This enthusiasm is also a huge barrier to us creating the opportunities that are available to us. Too many sales people are simply out striving for more, without having complete clarity for what more looks like. This results in any success being created purely from their massive activity levels.

Surely before you rush out into the market it makes huge sense to step back and decide exactly what your ideal customer looks like. As sales people we have the privilege of being able to choose our customers, the big mistake is that most do not execute that choice. I see every future customer as no more than a missing person. Instead of looking for anybody and everybody, get laser focused on exactly what your ideal customer looks like; to the point that you could describe them to a stranger like you would a missing person. Once you have that focused description in your mind you will see opportunity more often, get more of the right kind of customers and be more targeted in all of your activity.

The additional benefit you gain once you can explain each of your target markets is that you can utilise the support of others to help find them. Just like a missing person , you can describe them to everyone you meet and let them introduce you to people or opt in to be a potential customer themselves.

What I am not saying is that you will only deal with people that fit your perfect description but simply being more targeted on your activity means you get lucky more often. I view it as just like playing darts. Every time that you throw a dart you are aiming for something specific. You don’t always hit it yet each time you miss you still contribute to your score.

2. Asking for the one thing that everyone loves to give

What I have learnt about decision makers is that they are typically busy people, massively value their time and often have a significant ego. Given the fact that they are also often very well protected by gatekeepers; crafting the perfect message to catch their attention at the right time can be a huge challenge and mean that you never get your opportunity.

There is one thing that every important person loves to give and can allow you to be sat in front of the most guarded of people with relative ease. This simple technique has resulted in me winning appointments with countless CEO’s, Sales Directors, Celebrities, Sports Personalities and multi millionaire business owners. The technique in question is simply asking these people to share their opinion on something.

Very often we are simply looking for the smallest of opening to get in front of these important people and that gives us the chance to start a relationship and carve out an opportunity. Everybody loves to be asked for their opinion as it shows that you respect them. Keeping the remainder of your request vague triggers the emotion of intrigue and means that they have to see you just to find out what its all about. I am sure you all have something that you could seek the opinion of your most wanted prospect.

3. What I learnt from a fudge shop

A short while ago I was shopping in Stratford upon Avon when one of my little girls needed to use the bathroom. As the girls went off to use the ladies I was left doing the one thing that I hate the most; waiting. This resulted in me scanning the cobbled streets on a Saturday morning looking for something to occupy my mind when I was then surprised to see a small boutique fudge shop absolutely teeming with customers.

It was remarkably busy and was certainly the busiest shop on the street and I was trying to work it out. I was certain that all those people had not woken up that morning and made a special trip just for the purchase of fudge. I continued to watch and moments later the shop emptied and then out came an attractive girl with a tray of samples, stopping passers by and enticing them back into the shop. Minutes later the shop was full again and I had joined the crowd to see inside. A few minutes later I left the store £6.80 lighter with 3 bags of fudge.

This taught me a number of things. It reminded me of the ability to sell things to people that they had not already decided to buy, the power of creating a crowd but above all else it demonstrates that if you show people what you do as opposed to tell people what you do you attract far more potential customers. You see if the shop had a sign saying that it produced “The finest fudge in town” it would have attracted far less. It was the fact that it stepped out and demonstrated the quality of its produce that attracted the crowds.

4. Bin the brochure

Sticking with the theme of showing your potential customers rather than telling them what we do, it continues to surprise me why so many company brochures and websites do no more than tell the potential customer what is done. Lets be honest and ask ourselves how often the leaving of a brochure has resulted in a customer ringing us up at a later date being ready to take the next step?

If we want a tool to help us get through doors then it must be of value to the recipient; something that they can use, will be around a while and ideally demonstrates your expertise. In my business this is easy as I use my books and cd’s for this purpose but what could it be in your business?

Think about the challenges your target customers have and look to provide them with a tool that will help them overcome this challenge, show that you know your stuff and also demonstrate that they may need some help to overcome this. I have seen marketing companies use SEO guides, Engineering companies provide technical explanation guides, Catering companies provide useful tips on arranging your event and countless others. By demonstrating your expertise and providing something of value then when they realise they need your service you are the only company in question.

5. How a TV detective taught me something magical.

You may or may not be familiar with the television detective of the past called Columbo. He was famous for one set of words that he would produce as leaving a conversation, when the suspects guard was down and would allow him the chance to gain the key piece of information he needed to solve the crime. As he was leaving he would simply say “Just one more thing…” and it was this that allowed him to have the full attention of his suspect in a vulnerable position and ask the killer question.

We often find ourselves in conversation with either key prospects or people who could lead us to our key prospects yet find it difficult to get the conversation we would like. Just imagine how you could create “Columbo moments” in these conversations and then either introduce your key opportunity or ask for an introduction into the key person within the organisation you are prospecting.

6. If you don’t ask….

We all know how that sentence finishes yet quite often the reason that we are not getting the opportunities that we would like is that we are not asking for them. It is highly unlikely that we will gain more appointments with key decision makers than the appointments that we ask for. With many people looking to avoid confrontation and hide behind email and direct mail to gain the attention of their prospects you can achieve a lot by just picking up the phone. In doing so we must be precious of the fact that their time is precious.

We are looking to sell the appointment and not our product or service. Keep the conversation short, give as little away as possible and be certain that it is just a short meeting. The goal is to make it very easy for them to say yes. Ask for their opinion, say that the meeting will just be 10 to 15 minutes and then confirm that with the time you are asking for the meeting. By asking for a meeting at ten to the hour, quarter to the hour, ten past the hour or quarter past the hour you will have far better conversion rates than asking for appointments on the hour.

By offering just 2 dates that you are available followed by the words “when suits you best?’ typically brings an agreement to one of those dates or the suggestion of an alternative. Every way round you still get your appointment.

7. The missing ingredient

I am sure in the ideas that I have shared there are a number that you can take away and action to help you improve your results in winning meetings with decision makers. There is one simple quality that can quite often be the difference between success and failure. Once you have decided on your ideal target for a business opportunity, how hard to you try and keep getting knocked back before you give up? I have had the privilege of studying and interviewing a huge number of very successful people and learned a lot about what it takes to reach high levels of success. What I have learnt from countless “overnight success” stories is that none of them happen overnight.

The prizes worth winning never come easily and persistency, resilience and hard work are all qualities that are essential when knocking down challenging doors. People love doing business with those that want to work with them. Sometimes people will continually put you off just to test how much it means to you. That’s why its worth picking your prospects carefully and ensuring that you are prepared to see it out till the end and do whatever it takes.

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