Kevin Boyle

Just what is the meaning of life? Have you ever pondered and asked yourself “what is the meaning of life?” How far have you got with that question? I remember as a kid, climbing up on to a grassy hill, lying flat on my back and looking up into the sky, watching the cloud formations drift slowly by… I gave up “pondering” the question a long time ago, because I realized the futility of asking such a question. Is there really an answer?

Did you ever think that maybe there is no “one” answer?

Did you ever think that maybe you are asking the wrong question?

How about if you rephrased your question and asked, “What would give my life meaning”?

Did you feel a shift?

You should have.

Everything should just fall into place for you, just by asking yourself the same question only using different wording.

Puts a different perspective on things doesn’t it? We’ve have taken a seemingly unanswerable question and given it a multitude of answers! Now instead of being “stuck”, searching for an answer that seems to alude us, we now have freedom, the freedom to let our imagination and dreams take us where ever we want to go!

So, you are probably asking yourself, “Kevin, how does this concept apply to me closing more sales and building my business?”

Have you ever been “stuck” with a prospect or a customer? Maybe you are asking the wrong kinds of questions…

When I sit down with a prospect or a client he or she may not realize the impact his or her problems are having on their business. We want to explore the implications of our prospects or clients in not taking any actions to solve their problems.

There is a process for doing this. I call it layering questions.

For instance, my main question I always begin my presentation with is: “I’m just curious, Bob–what do you see as being some of the biggest challenges for your sales team right now?”

His response might be, “Being proactive in getting new business.”

What then?

With our client we need to explore the implications of his or her sales staff’s not being proactive enough in getting new business.

In order to create even more value in our client’s mind, we need to thoroughly understand the impact this will have on his or her business and build on the original question by layering. The way I do this is to ask further questions about what effect that (not being proactive or cold calling) has on their business right now in terms of sales.
 
* By the way, how fast is your industry growing right now?
* How proactive are your competitors in soliciting new business?
* How is this affecting your market share?

This makes the client think. If my people are not being proactive, my competitors’ salespeople are. That means my competitor is getting my business!

When you ask the right questions and layer them, it gives you an opportunity to really give your clients a different perspective on what the cost of doing nothing to solve their problem really is.

Authored by Kevin Boyle, Sales Coach, Trainer and Author of “The Secrets to Sales Mastery”.

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

Other Blog Articles on Sales and Marketing Techniques;

What would you like to be when you grow up?

Marketing Blunder #34

How to use stories to overcome objections…

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What do you want to be when you grow up?

Do you know what you want out of life? Are you living the life you have always wanted? For me I knew early on that I wanted one thing out of life, I wanted to be the captain of my own ship.

It has had it’s risks, but I do enjoy the freedom of being an entrepreneur and the life experiences it has brought me.

Today, I want to talk to you about what I believe to be the 5 requirements for success:

1. getting an education
2. setting goals
3. passion
4. relationships
5. ownership

I enjoy devoting my time to the community and one way that I do that is through Junior Achievement BC.
JA is a high school program that teaches students how to run a business. This is my 4th year of being a facilitator for JA and I have to admit I love it!

Every year I am asked to give an informal presentation on my perspective on what a person should do if they want to prepare themselves to be an entrepreneur.

1) Getting an education.

Let me clarify myself here, I’m talking in a broader sense about “learning”. I don’t care what age you are. Never stop learning. There is always something you don’t know and there is always something that you thought you did know, but you really didn’t, and there is always someone out there that knows more than you. (having said this, if you are in younger I strongly reccomend gettign a good solid education).

If you are an adult, take at least one seminar or course a year on your current occupation. You can always be better at what you do. Why? Because if your dream is to be an entrepreneur you are going to need to be an expert in what you do and you will also need a lot of secondary skills to back you up while you get your feet planted firmly on the ground in your business.

Besides what are you going to do when a key employee gets sick? As a small business owner or entrepreneur you need to wear many different hats.

If you are a young adult, go to University! I can’t stress this enough. As a young person your eduction is critically important to what kinds of jobs you are going to be able to get and what kinds of doors will open for you. If you are still uncertain what you want to be when you grow up (who ever grows up?) then take a business degree. Sales and business is a very viable career option.

2) Setting Goals (long and short term)

You can’t get somewhere if you are wandering aimlessly through life. Goals keep us moving forward, they make us accountable to ourselves. I write out a to do list every morning. It keeps me focused and on track.

Break big goals into smaller goals. It’s much easier to tackle a task when you don’t see some huge monumental mountain in front of you, and don’t forget to reward yourself when you reach those goals!

Remember those who “fail to plan, plan to fail”.

3) Passion

You must love what you do. when you love what you do it’s much easier to stay up until 2 am because you have a project that must be finished by the next day for an important client.

Having passion for what you do also manifests itself in your sales presentations. People will sense that you are passionate about what you do and they will be drawn towards you.

4) Relationships

You can’t get where you are going alone, and why would you want to? The fact is, 99% of what we want to do in life, someone else has done it. “People who have been there done that” can help us get to where we want to go 10 times faster. So why not ask them out for lunch? You might be surprized by their answer! You will generally find that the more successful a person is the more they will want to share their experiences, their trials, and their insights with others.

Never forget the power of relationships and how they can help you get to where you want to go. The geeky guy you went to high school with just might be the next Bill Gates!

5) Ownership

In my opinion there just is no better way to go. It doesn’t matter how old you are or what stage of life you are in, freedom to create, to build, to experience – there’s just nothing like it. Have there been rough times? You bet, during the early stages there were some very close calls where I didn’t know if I was going to make it.

Despite what the late night infomercials and the internet snake oil salesman will tell you there are no short cuts. Having a successful business takes a lot of hard work and knowing the right things to do.

I do want to leave you with one thing I’ve learned over the years since becoming an entrepreneur. Free information you find off the internet is generally worth what you paid for it. There’s nothing worse than having a limited supply of money and blowing it on a promotion or “idea” that doesn’t work.

Free advice from a mentor is priceless.

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;

How to use the Take Away close

Customer Service – Delivering WoW!

Objection Prevention

If you would like to learn more innovative new skill sets and strategies to help you build an incredibly successful business and dramatically improve your sales results, visit my web site http://www.salesmasterybook.com and subscribe to my FREE 8 part email home study e-course on relationship sales and marketing!

FEAR – It keeps us from moving forward… stopping us dead in our tracks. So the question becomes how to overcome fear and stop it from getting us what we really want in our lives?

Take the following statement, and make a big sign – post it where you can see it.

Your power and your ability to create what you want in your life…
ENDS where your fear begins.

Keep in mind, I am a sales trainer who must teach in front of LARGE groups of people. I have had to overcome two of the biggest fears that stop a lot of people from attaining the success that they want out of their life.

My two biggest fears were, public speaking and cold calling. In fact I still get a little bit nervous when I speak in front of large groups. When I first started training I couldn’t speak in front of 20 people, never mind 200! My breathing would get shallow, I would run out of breath.

Cold Calling… my fear was so great that I hated cold calling, I mean I hated it. I used to find any reason to not cold call… I always had something much more pressing to do. So, this article has special meaning for me. I would like to share with you one very effective visualization technique for overcoming fear.

So let’s look at it from the view point of a very common scenario.

Nancy has a fear of public speaking. Standing backstage, she knows that logically, there is nothing to be afraid of. She has rehearsed this speech a thousand times. Still she’s nervous. She thinks to herself, “There’s so many people out there, what if someone doesn’t like me!”

The host introduces Nancy with a wonderful bio and calls Nancy to the stage. She walks to the podium during the applause and when she gets there… her mind goes blank. Her mouth dries up and she begins to tremble and sweat. She’s almost sure that the first three rows can hear her heart pounding.

As she begins her speech, she looks around at the crowd and notices a frowning man, then a woman who seems distracted, and then two people in a conversation who are not even listening to her at all! Nancy thinks ,”Oh, I knew they wouldn’t like me”, and becomes even more nervous…

Stop right there! This is how fear paralyses you! Nancy anticipated her audiences reactions and then soon found evidence to support her belief.

This is true whether you are cold calling, asking for your money back on a bad purchase or public speaking.

Anticipation lives in our imagination. It’s not real. You can choose what to imagine. If you want to overcome fear, begin to imagine the absolute worse thing that could happen if your fear became real.

Before hitting the stage, Nancy imagines the whole crowd going nuts and jumping up and down, thumping their chests like apes. As soon as they see Nancy they go crazy and attack her on the stage. Their throwing banana’s at her and she is covered in food! One of the apes grabs her and puts her into a head lock and starts giving her a “noogie”. And as if things couldn’t get any worse… the stage lighting falls down and the lights go out.

Does this all sound rather silly?

Yes I know it does, but I can GUARENTEE you one thing – your fear will be gone.

By visualizing the absolute worst thing that can happen by confronting your fear – it will melt away. Because you will soon realize just how rediculous it is!

Next time you have a fear over something, try this simple, easy to use technique. You will be amazed at how effective this little exercise is in helping you control your fear.

Kevin I need your help in living the life of my dreams!