Kevin Boyle

I have to say this year has been a very eventful and exciting year for me. I do hope that you enjoy the information I provide through my blog and through my newsletters. It is my deepest desire to be of service to my fellow man and to help others whenever possible.

Today I wanted to do something a little bit different.

I want to take a moment to reflect on some of the “things” and people present in my life that I am personally thankful for.

This is more of a personal exercise (as you probably don’t know any of these people – but I wanted to put this out to the universe).

So I do have to warn you – you might this post rather self serving on my part – but I really do feel I need to express my gratitude for all of the people that have made a difference in my life.

So I do hope you pardon me (just this one time!)

This list has no meaningful order…

I would like to thank all of my clients, it really is extremely gratifying for me on a spiritual and personal level when I hear how I can have such a positive impact on others – it makes all of this so worthwhile.

I would like to thank everyone who has wrote in to me to tell me how much they have enjoyed my book. For this I am deeply grateful.

I would like to thank Cristina for the awesome interview, and all of the authors who participated in my book campaign – you are all wonderfully authentic, and my appreciation towards you knows no bounds!

My brother Blair, who is my best friend. Always there for me, so lucky to have you in my life.

Yves, you have been a great friend – so supportive, insightful – just an all around wonderful person. Thank you for believing in me and buying 50 books. My first book went to you.

Dawn, for being there for me – listening. Your compassion is deeply appreciated.

Ryan, you’ve done an amazing job for me on the web site, my book campaign and my blog.

I have absolute and total gratitude for the loving generous quality of my friends that I have in my life right now. I feel so blessed in this regard, never at any time in my life have I ever had such an abundance of wonderful friends.

Tamara, thank you for being in my life. Lori, thank you for being in my life. Rhonda, thank you for being in my life. Dawn and Marc thank you for being in my life, Don and Karen thank you for being in my life, Deja thank you for being in my life. Benita thank you for being in my life, Shannon thank you for being in my life, Mike thank you for being in my life, Leanne thank you for being in my life, Joan thank you for being in my life, Tracey and Don thank you for being in my life, Arthur thank you for being in my life, Dave and Lorna thank you for being in my life.

I am absolutely grateful for my book, “The Secrets to Sales Mastery” which has helped so many people overcome their own self imposed limiting beliefs and helped them reach their own true potential in business and in sales.

Writing the book has also helped me gain deeper clarity on what I need to do in order for me to experience the kind of success I desire in my business. In this way - I too am both the teacher and the student.

I am absolutely grateful for having a roof over my head to keep me warm. I am absolutely grateful for clean drinking water to drink and a plentiful supply of water to take a nice soothing hot shower each and every morning.

I am absolutely grateful for my excellent health – in this way I feel so blessed.

I am so deeply grateful to my publisher, who has supported me 150% in my journey as an author.

Lastly, I am so grateful to my mom and my dad. Thank you for always being there for me.

I love you all.

Kevin

Today is the official “launch” day of my new book, “The Secrets to Sales Mastery”.

If you have ever been curious about what all the fuss is about, now is a great time to take advantage of a lot of people’s generosity!

To help me out, 38 of the world’s top sales and marketing experts and self development success coaches have come together to help me in promoting my book, by providing some great gifts if you purchase my book and taking part in the promotion!

What are people saying?

“The Secrets to Sales Mastery is a very powerful and impressive piece of work…”
Peggy McColl, New York Times Best-Selling Author of Your Destiny Switch

“The Secrets of Sales Mastery is a nonstop idea packed book filled with valuable
tactics and techniques… I found Kevin’s book almost impossible to put down!”
Rhonda L. Sher, Author, Keynote Speaker and Consultant

“The Secrets to Sales Mastery packs a lot of high-quality insights and wisdom on selling
and includes some hints and insights that I hadn’t ever seen before…”
Alan Tutt, Author “Choose to Believe” (voted the #1 best book on the Power of Beliefs
and the Law of Attraction.)

You can read all about the promotion and the free gifts here…

A BIG THANK YOU to EVERYONE who has supported me through this campaign!

Kevin

Your words have power.

Never underestimate the influence your words can have on others.

Every single marketing piece you have, your flyers, your emails have the power to either compell someone to respond to you or not.

Use your words to paint pictures for your prospects and your customers. Create a picture in their mind that speaks directly to them. That satisifies their immediate needs, their wants and their desires but also words that help alleviate their fears about making a poor purchase decision. 

Use your words to invite conversation, to empower people in their choices.

Your words cannot only influence the minds of people, but they can completely change their perception about a particular thing. Words have the persuasion power to entice and motivate. They are used by sales people, and business owners alike to pass on a message, the message? Why I should do business with you. These words are known as power words and they can do wonders when used properly in your marketing campaigns.

Words can create a sense of curiosity. Your customers and prospects will get the impression that your product or service is something that’s different from others by the words you choose to use. Laundry products have always been advertised as new and improved, from years gone by. The power of both these words and the product itself reinforces each other’s strength.

Take for instance the line ‘100% money back guarantee’, these powerful words help gain the trust of your customer for them to take a risk and buy. It is absolutely a must to print these words at the closing line of your advertisements or sales pages. After your guarantee, the methods of payment and how money will be returned if the customer is not satisfied should be also stated.

Invite curiousity and communicate with people in an authentic new way. Instead of asking someone if they would like to explore something, or if they are open to something or if they would be interested in something, (this is ALL salesmen language). Try new language! After asking a series of open ended questions, try this as a response instead…

“If you are looking to ______________ then have you considered ___________” 

See where it takes you, I guarentee you will be pleasantly surprized at the results!

Curiousity can be used in other ways. Employing the word “secret” in a headline is extremely effective.  People are knowledge thirsty, they want to know what others don’t know.   

Using the word Free in the headline simply does wonders. Your readers will more readily easily absorb your message, I mean who doesn’t like, free?  Usually the word FREE is spelled as FR~E or some other variation on websites or in emails as ISP filters blocks messages having the actual word, considering it to be spam.

“You” is a very important word to be used in an advertisement.

Do not write from “your” perspective, write from your customers perspective.

Directly point out the advantages to that particular customer in his or her own mind. I cannot state this strongly enough, the prospect must feel like you are speaking directly to them about his or her own particular concerns! This is perhaps the hardest part, step into the shoes of your customer and read it from their viewpoint.

The word ‘Immediately’ denotes that your reader should take action now. It can be interpreted as ‘Don’t wait, or I’m going to miss out!’ This motivates the customer to take necessary and quick action.

The basis of any successful advertisement is in understanding your consumer’s “core” needs and then designing the advertisement accordingly. Just stating the advantages of using the product or service of the company isn’t enough. Your sentences should be designed so that your customer sees the advantages in having your product or service right now. For example, when advertising for a digital camera, just stating that the in-built memory of the camera is of 1 GB, won’t do the trick.

Instead, your sentence should be changed to ‘enough memory to store up to 350 pictures or 50 videos’. The solution to the problem of your customer is reflected in ultimately what your customer really desires, a camera which can take a lot of high quality photo’s. 

Kevin Boyle
Author / Public Speaker / Sales Trainer and Coach
“The Secrets to Sales Mastery”

ps – Did you enjoy this post? Do you have any tricks or tips on how to use your words more powerfully?Please feel free to add your comments!

Other Blog Articles on Sales and Marketing Techniques;

The top 10 mistakes business owners make (big or small)!

How to handle the objection, no thanks I’m just looking…

Marketing Blunders, not having all of your systems in place.

If you enjoyed reading this article please let other people know about it by Digging It, Adding it to Delicious, Sharing on Facebook, Stumbling it or Tagging it on Technorati!

Thank you!

This is something that I highly reccomend both salespeople and business owners to do alike. The fact is within almost any given industry there is a “niche”, you just need to look for it, and understand what motivates your customers to buy.

For instance, I am a sales coach and trainer. I help sales people and business owners improve their sales results. But what is their real problem?

It’s getting more customers!

Right?

Well almost… you see if you dig a little bit deeper it really is more about cold calling reluctance. Every single sales person or business owner that I have ever worked with who has trouble in making their sales targets or meeting their budgets, has a problem with cold calling.

The majority of succesful sales people or business owners will tell you that generally the more successful a person is in business or in sales the more confortable they are and the better they are at with cold calling.

So I’ve discovered my “niche” but have I uncovered my customers “core” problem? Not quite yet… I know, I know I already said we were almost there… we need to dig “just” a little bit deeper. You see people who have difficulty in cold calling and prospecting, generally have some challenges in and around their own internal belief system about cold calling.

Why is that?

Well despite the naysayers, cold calling works and it builds businesses, profits and companies. You show me a struggling company or sales person and I will show you a sales person or sales force who has poor cold calling skills. Successful people exude confidence, and they don’t don’t have any problems picking up the phone and calling a prospect.

How can you apply this sales technique to your industry? No matter what you are selling I implore you to go deeper and discover what your true “niche” is and the real “core” problems of your customers. In this way you can really help your client get the break throughs that they are looking for.

Do you have an online business or are you thinking of taking your business online? Do you have the right product and/or service that targets a specific need?  What do you want to sell?  What is your passion?  What subject or topic do you have a lot of knowledge about?  Let me start by telling you that selling an informational products online is easier than selling a service.  But, selling a service online makes more money with monthly memberships. 

Before you spend all your time working on a website and writing up eBooks, you want to be sure that your customers are going to be interested in what you are selling.  Do your market research.  Start by seeing how many competitors you have.  Read through newsgroups, discussion boards, and chat rooms and learn about your target market customer base.  If you already have an email list, send them a survey to see what they are most interested in.

When researching your niche, use www.Amazon.com and find the current top sellers.  Find out what people are reading about.  You will want to research keywords with keyword tools such as www.wordtracker.com.  You need to discover which keywords are being searched for frequently. 

Doing a little poking around your competitors web sites and subscribing to their newsletters isn’t a bad idea.  This is one way to come up with ideas on what would make your company different or better.  Take a look at their traffic rankings (http://www.alexa.com/) and their related links.  By analyzing this information, you can see how many visitors they have each day and how profitable their company is.

When you discover your true “niche” and the “core” problems you address, “the real reasons why your customers buy from you”. You will notice your sales and marketing efforts dramatically improve. Why? Because you will be speaking in your customers language, and isn’t that the only language that really matters?

Would you like to learn practical sales skills and strategies on how to get your foot in the door, book more sales appointments and dramatically improve your sales results?

Then go here…

Kevin Boyle
Author / Public Speaker / Sales Trainer and Coach
“The Secrets to Sales Mastery”

ps – Did you enjoy this post? Please feel free to add your comments!

Other Blog Articles on Sales and Marketing Techniques;

The Choice Close

Feature Advantage Benefit Selling

Have you ever pondered the meaning of life?

If you enjoyed reading this article please let other people know about it by Digging It, Adding it to Delicious, Sharing on Facebook, Stumbling it or Tagging it on Technorati!

Thank you!

A very good friend of mine once asked me, “Kevin, in your opinion what is it that we are really selling”?

A tough question to answer…. So many ”experts” say so many different things.

If you visit a lot of different sites today on selling most of them if not all of them – promote “benefit selling.”  If you have read my book or attended any of my sales seminars you would know that I do not use FAB (feature, advantage, benefit selling) techniques as the primary means to sell. To me FAB is only there to ensure that I have “the expertise” in what I am selling, I consider it “the foundation” work.

What I do I believe works is having a very strong Client Centered Value Proposition and asking good solid questions to learn about my prospects business and current challenges.

I honestly do believe using FAB to sell can actually hurt your chances of making a sale more than help it.

Please bear with me, while I explain. 

Take a person who wants to buy a car. The salesman taught to use feature, advantage, benefit selling. Might say, have we got a beautiful car for you today, and it’s on special! Just look at this beautiful car, top comes down so you can enjoy a nice country ride with the wind blowing through your hair, soft leather interior for you to just relax into, especially after a hard days of work, it’s a beautiful candy apple red and it has a CD player so you can listen to your favorite music! The customer says great, I would love to have a convertible, with a leather interior, but I want it in black and I want it with satellite radio.

See the problem with feature, advantage, benefit selling is that people can always object to features and advantages. You run the risk of causing a “disconnect” between you and your customer, of being thought of as not being truly present or listening.

Of conducting the meeting according to your own needs, rather than focusing on the only persons needs that really matter – your prospects or customers.

So what about benefits, they’re good aren’t they?

Well yes, they are…

Have you ever had someone tell you how great something is, how great the features are, all the advantages to owning, the benefits they’ll enjoy for years to come?

Have you ever found yourself drifting, your thoughts wandering aimlessly, as a salesperson starts telling you about features and benefits that you don’t even care about? You’re just nodding your head, trying to be polite hoping the salesperson will get to their point or just stop talking?

There is a BIG difference between selling something based on benefits and selling something based on “desired results”.

In regards to selling, the definition of benefit selling is: “In what way is it useful for me?”

While when you are selling “desired results” the definition is: “How is this going to change my life and impact my business?”

A very big difference.

You see the only way for you to know what your customer or prospects “desired results” are, is that you as a salesperson must:

1. Ask good questions
2. Be present
3. And LISTEN

Then you can sell. You take all of the information that your prospect has just given you, and then you “tailor” your presentation to give your prospect their “desired results”.

The “desired results” then becomes an EXPECTATION on the part of your prospect due to your promise. A promise between you and your customer. A promise on which your relationship to do business rests.

Now you have accountability.

Your reputation is on the line.

This is what “Sales Mastery” is really about, being able to look someone directly in the eye and with 100% confidence know that you can deliver your customers “desired results”.

That comes from years of honing my craft, years of working with sales people, sales managers and business owners who want their “desired results” whatever that might be.

I have 100% confidence that when I coach someone one on one, I can help anyone increase their sales.

That is a powerful place to come from.

This is why testimonials are so important. Testimonials prove that you can deliver on “desired results”. It proves that you deliver what you promise, that you are accountable and that you follow through.

I can back up what I say I can do for you, and to prove it you can speak to these people.

And as a customer, that pretty well sums it all up about what I want. Sell people “desired results” and take yourself one step closer to sales mastery.

ps – Did you enjoy this post? Please feel free to add your comments!

Kevin Boyle, Sales Trainer and Coach and Author “The Secrets to Sales Master”

Other Blog Articles on Sales and Marketing Techniques;

Delivering the WoW experience!

Are you asking the right questions?

The best cold calling advice I could ever give you!

If you enjoyed reading this article please let other people know about it by Digging It, Adding it to Delicious, Sharing on Facebook, Stumbling it or Tagging it on Technorati!

Thank you!

I thought it would be a great idea from time to time to post my responses to subscriber questions in my blog for everyone’s benefit!

“Kevin, I have been trying to make some progress with a large Fortune 500 company. I know we have the solution for them, but I have to get everyone on board, specifically their management team and their IT department. Any tips?”

Hi John,

Well you have yourself a huge task in front of you. There is no easy answer to your dilemma but I can give you some good solid advise as to what to do.

Instead of writing a sales proposal – write a white paper. A white paper is a very deep comprehensive review of emerging technologies, trends, and where the market is heading and how your solution fits in.

1) Meet someone from the IT department and figure out what it is that they are trying to accomplish and the best way you can help them reach their goals with your solutions.

2) Try to arrange a meeting where you can present your “white paper” (your findings)
to the department heads of IT and management.

Focus on the naysayers – get the naysayers on board – or else they will kill your proposal.

3) Realize the differences between management and people in IT departments. Management generally thinks short term profitability and shareholder returns while IT thinks in terms of long term systems and processes.

You need a white knight in the IT department or the management team that will help you sell your “idea’s” and/or “proposal” to the other department.

Good luck John!

Kevin Boyle.
John’s reply :

I absolutely agree that was some good solid advice. I am impressed with your observations. I particularly like the white paper idea, selling the naysayers, and getting their input on what they want to accomplish. Do you have any questions you ask a potential customer that gets them to lower their guard and open up about their situation?
Dear John,
 
A good starter question to ask would be; “Mr. Prospect, what would be your greatest concern about…” From there I would explore the “implications” of his answer(s) on his company’s operations, profitability, internal processes, etc… by a process I call “layering questions” (found on page 75 in my book).

Also, take a few minutes to read my blog on “Repositioning your Competition” It is a technique I use all of the time to great effect.
 
Essentially you are “educating” your clients on “what to look for” and “what to look out for” when they
are trying to make a business decision about which way they need/want to go.
 
You will also find this concept explained in my book.
 
Also read my chapters on the – 1st key to asking for and making the sale and the 4 E’s of Competition (page 84).
John’s reply :

“You have sold me. I will be ordering your book today! Its great to know there is someone out there you can seek great salesmanship advice from. Thanks, Kevin. I will keep you in the loop regarding your book.”

Would you like to learn practical sales skills and strategies on how to get your foot in the door, book more sales appointments and dramatically improve your sales results?

Then go here…

Kevin Boyle
Author / Public Speaker / Sales Trainer and Coach
“The Secrets to Sales Mastery”

ps – Did you enjoy this post? Do you have any tricks or tips for handling two different departments? Please feel free to add your comments!

More great articles are coming your way!

Are you truly grateful, or just too busy to be grateful? Today I would like to talk to you about some great strategies and techniques I use on how to get more referrals!

“In marketing I’ve seen only one strategy that can’t miss – and that is to market to your best customers first, your best prospects second and the rest of the world last.”               John Romero

 
Saying thank you to someone is one thing, but demonstrating appreciation is another.

So this week I would like to talk to you about acknowledgement and appreciation.

A common question I get asked is, Kevin, What can I do to get more referrals to help build my business?

It’s simple.

Acknowledgment and Appreciation.

It’s the little things that matter and if you are not doing these things then frankly you are taking your customers and clients for granted. Never a good thing considering how competitive the market is and how many choices today’s consumer has.
So how do you show Acknowledgement and Appreciation?

1) Hand written thank you cards/notes

After every deal my clients get a personalized thank you for the business. In my opinion this is as IMPORTANT to your business as prospecting and marketing. Think about it, who do you think is more likely to give you more business? Someone who has never used you before or someone who has used your product or service and had a great experience with you? The answer seems fairly obvious, but you will be amazed at how many sales people and business owners are too lazy to send out thank you cards.

2) 1 year business anniversary letters with something of value attached.

Not only do I thank clients for doing business with me, they get get an anniversary letter from me every year thanking them – plus I include some sort of special promotion – just for them – again personalized.

3) Christmas Cards

If you want to make a real impact – hand deliver them over a lunch. Christmas time is my favorite time of the year, and not just for the reasons you might think. I love visiting people and it’s a great time of the year to strengthen existing relationships!

4) The Follow Up Call

A 2 minute follow call cannot be stressed enough. There is simply no reason as a sales rep not to know how you are doing with your clients/customers. “Heh Bob, how’s everything? How did we do on our last order?”

5) Invitations to trade shows / conventions

I like to send customers 2 to 4 FREE invitations to trade shows and conventions and ask them if they know anyone in our industry that might also like to go. This way my client looks good because they are the one doing the inviting, and it’s a win for me because I get to meet more prospects who are introduced to me personally by my client base.

 
So the next time you are pondering “getting more referrals” think appreciation and acknowledgement!

Would you like to learn practical sales skills and strategies on how to get your foot in the door, book more sales appointments and dramatically improve your sales results?

Then go here…

Kevin Boyle
Author / Public Speaker / Sales Trainer and Coach
“The Secrets to Sales Mastery”

ps – Did you enjoy this post? Do you have any tricks or tips for getting more referrals? Please feel free to add your comments!

More great articles are coming your way!

How to get more referrals