Books Unwound

This is part of an in depth review of The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, by Mike Michalowicz.  This book is about being an entrepreneur and starting and running a successful business. I will focus on 1 section at at time and distill the best information to help your business now.  This should not be considered a replacement for the actual book, which will usually have a lot more in depth information as well as stories, which are an important way to communicate the essentials.  If you find the information in these posts helpful, I recommend buying the book.

Getting anywhere with your business is difficult work. Limiting beliefs just make it harder. How can you expect to be successful if you keep telling yourself that you can’t? Mike Michalowicz refers to the beliefs that hold us back from achieving success in business as “the wall of limiting beliefs.”

Basically, anything you believe that will stop you from reaching a goal is like a wall in your path to achieving that goal. You may want to get your products into grocery stores, but you have convinced yourself that you don’t know how to approach the buyers. This is a limiting belief that will stand in the way of achieving your goal until you can overcome it.

I call these limiting beliefs “The Wall.” The Wall is insurmountable and is more powerful than any physical barrier could ever be. There is no method of knocking it down or destroying it other than to vanquish The Wall by creating a channel of enabling beliefs.

Michalowicz goes on to make a point about when the wall is overcome. In my example of the business trying to sell to a grocery store, it may seem that the wall is overcome when the person receives a referral and signs up one small chain. But the wall doesn’t go away. In fact, it is reinforced, because that person still believes he cannot reach out to a buyer unless he can get more referrals.

The only way to deal with the limiting belief is to find a way around it with what Michalowicz calls an enabling belief.

An enabling belief looks at what has been limiting you and then uses that as a starting point for action. In the book, Michalowicz uses the example of not having enough money to market effectively as a limiting belief. Not dealt with, this could cause the business to fail before it ever got started. He suggests an enabling belief to combat this. That belief is that you have no money, which enables you to focus on creative marketing strategies and gives you the power to learn how to market your product better than any competitor.

Any limiting belief can be turned on its head. You just need to learn to see the positives of your current position. For my own grocery store example, the person might say that he does not know how to reach out to buyers, but he does know how to reach out to consumers. He can then put together a promotional package which has consumers asking the grocery store if it carries the product. This can roll into a presentation package for grocery stores that includes video testimonials of happy consumers.

It may take a couple of tries, but you can come up with enabling beliefs to combat any of your limiting beliefs. This will make it possible for you to navigate around all the walls that currently stand between you and your goal.

This is not a magic trick. Chances are you might make a little progress, and then revert back to old beliefs. Michalowicz refers to the new enabling beliefs as a channel. Only through repeatedly applying enabling beliefs will you build a channel big enough to get around your limiting belief every time.

When in doubt, remember all of the things that used to be impossible. Everything from human flight, to running a 4 minute mile, to a computer that fits in your pocket was once thought impossible. Become a trailblazer through your own doubts and challenge anything that you think is impossible. All you need to do is apply your brain power and your passion, and you will find channels around every wall that stands between you and your success.

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Coming next: Chapter Three: The Fire In Your Belly

Buy or Not: This book is a buy.  The ideas presented here will re-frame how you think about your business and help you find your passion and put it in your business. Even if you already have a business, you can learn a lot from this book.  Buy this book at Amazon

Bradford Shimp helps small business owners and entrepreneurs build successful businesses.  Read his blog at www.allbizanswers.com.  Follow Bradford on Twitter.

This is part of an in depth review of  The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, by Mike Michalowicz.  This book is about being an entrepreneur and starting and running a successful business. I will focus on 1 section at at time and distill the best information to help your business now.  This should not be considered a replacement for the actual book, which will usually have a lot more in depth information as well as stories, which are an important way to communicate the essentials.  If you find the information in these posts helpful, I recommend buying the book.

Chapter 2 – A Little Peace and Quiet (In Your Mind)

Accomplish What Your Believe

What do you believe? I mean, really, deeply believe, not just think at the moment. Mike Michalowicz starts chapter two out by plumbing the depths of what belief is. He says that “belief is the inner, unswayable knowledge of what you know to be true.” In other words, its the things that don’t bend. I think that belief may be shaped over a lifetime, much like a bonsai. Thoughts, on the other hand, may change day to day.

In order to be successful in your life, let alone your business, you need to have a clear picture of your beliefs. The problem is that there is much to distract and pull you away from your inner belief. We have an amazing capability to lie to ourselves and temporarily trick ourselves into believing something that isn’t true. However, that never lasts. The deep belief will always bubble up and fight against it. That may be why you are uncomfortable working a job, because you believe you are meant to do more. The question is, how do you live out your inner beliefs?

Michalowicz makes it clear that there is a difference between beliefs and truth. Beliefs are what guide us personally. Two people could have polar opposite beliefs, but neither is necessarily wrong. With belief, you must be true to yourself. So, if I am quiet and you are loud, we shouldn’t look down on each other, but embrace our differences as different beliefs. Truth is another matter altogether, and its not covered in The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur so I won’t weigh in on it here.

So, how do you find out what you believe? Well, according to Michalowicz, “our emotions act like an invisible GPS and move us toward our beliefs every time without fail.” You will find that emotion plays a big role in running your own business. You might as well embrace it and let it do its job. If you are going to look to emotions to discover your beliefs, start by listing the things that make you really happy and the things that make you really sad.

What does this all mean? Yes, I admit that it is a bit heady and philosophical at first, but it becomes more clear throughout the chapter. For now, look at it as a starting point. What you believe truly will truly be. Its not that you can snap your fingers and it will be. Just believing something doesn’t automatically get you there. But you do need to absolutely believe something in order to achieve it. If you go into business thinking that you will never succeed, how can you? So, you need to believe that you can succeed. Its like a destination on a map. You have to know its there and believe that you can get there. If you don’t have a destination that you believe in, you will never get there.

So it seems that the path to entrepreneurial success starts right in your own head. What do you believe about your future? You are going to need the deep well of your true beliefs to get you through until you reach the destination, that sweet moment of belief meeting reality.

There is one more important point made in this section. We each have two types of beliefs, enabling and limiting. You are going to have to work to strengthen your enabling beliefs while eliminating your limiting beliefs. This isn’t positive thinking poppy-cock. Its about finding or creating beliefs that will move you forward in life. For instance, you can think everyone is out to get you, or you can think that everyone is looking for a smile. You choose. Your belief will affect your outlook and have a huge impact on where you get in life.

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Coming next: The Wall of Limiting Beliefs

Buy or Not: This book is a buy.  The ideas presented here will re-frame how you think about your business and help you find your passion and put it in your business. Even if you already have a business, you can learn a lot from this book.  Buy this book at Amazon

Bradford Shimp helps small business owners and entrepreneurs build successful businesses.  Read his blog at www.allbizanswers.com.  Follow Bradford on Twitter.

This is part of an in depth review of  The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, by Mike Michalowicz.  This book is about being an entrepreneur and starting and running a successful business. I will focus on 1 section at at time and distill the best information to help your business now.  This should not be considered a replacement for the actual book, which will usually have a lot more in depth information as well as stories, which are an important way to communicate the essentials.  If you find the information in these posts helpful, I recommend buying the book.

Chapter 1 – Nature’s Calling

Destroy Your Excuses

Mike Michalowicz has no patience for excuses. He says that “excuses are a great mechanism to apply logic to our fears.” They are simply a way of convincing ourselves to stay right where we are and avoid success.

Think about it. If you are letting an excuse hold you back, you are allowing words and opinions to rob you of your potential.

Michalowicz lists several common excuses for not starting your own business.

• The economy isn’t right for it. The thing is, everyone experiences the same economy at the same time. The good news is, if you can establish yourself in a weaker economy, you will have the chops to really grow when the economy turns around.
• Having your own business is risky. Yes, if you are not prepared. You can and should prepare yourself, and that will diminish the risk.
• You want job security. Look around you. Is having a job in a big corporation secure? No! The best job security is when you are the boss.
• Too old or too young. If you are waiting for just the right age to start a business, chances are that you will miss it. There is no right age. You can’t control your age, but you can control your destiny, no matter what age you are. And Michalowicz also points out that you can start a business at any age, long before you are old enough to go to work for the man.
• You are worried you won’t make enough money. Working a job, you can often make just enough to get by. Working a business, you can control how much you make. In the end, your own business is a far surer way to wealth.
• You ain’t educated. So what? Its not your degree that determines your success, but your passion, your hunger, and your hard work.
• You have no start up money. So instead of money, you use your brains and your heart to launch your business. Much of the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur is how to succeed through your own pluck. You can learn what you need to know quickly about business if you start off without a lot of money. If you have the money, it may be too late before you realize that you are doing it wrong.
• Too much competition. The competition wants you to think that they are too strong. The last thing they need is an upstart who can do it better and different then they can. Don’t worry about the competition. Build your business so its the best, and let the competition worry about you. At the same time, be unique and don’t try to copy the competition move for move. You lead the dance.
• Will anybody buy? If no one buys, you just need to adjust. It may take a try or two to find the right formula, but soon you will have buyers lining up.
• You don’t feel ready. You probably never will. So ignore that excuse and just get going.

The question you need to ask yourself is whether you want to sit and wonder what could have been? Michalowicz says that you don’t regret the things you do when you follow your passion and take risks. Regret comes out of letting the excuses hold us back from every really trying.

So, Is This Business Going to Make Me Rich?

Michalowicz says there is one good reason not to start a business. If the only reason you are going into a business is to get rich, you really need to reconsider. Successful businesses are not built on a get rich mentality. Instead, they are built out of a passionate heart.

Throughout The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, Mike Michalowicz reiterates this point. You need to start your business around your passion, and nothing else. If you are just in it for the money, your priorities are out of whack. The money follows if you create something that you can be passionate about day in and day out. Otherwise, you will just check out, and never cash in.

One Day

If you have ever said that “one day” you would like to start a business, you need to stop. There is no one day. Right now is the day. Now is always better than later. Maybe you won’t open your doors today, but you can start the process. Set a real date for when you will open, and then figure out and do all the things you need to do first. And once you start doing, never stop. Before you know it, you will have a business.

Do You Have it In You?

While there are no good excuses not to start a business, it is also not for everyone. It may not be for you. The one qualification that you need to be a successful entrepreneur is this: you have to want it. If you don’t have a desire to start a business, don’t do it, no matter how good the idea or opportunity is.

If you do have the thirst, then you owe it to yourself and the rest of the world to plunge into the waters. Its the passion and desire to be an entrepreneur that will get you over the mountains and through the valleys, and will allow you to enjoy yourself along the way.

Here’s a bit of good news. You can discover the desire to start a business at any point in your life. It does not have to be a lifelong dream for you. You will know in your heart when it comes on you. And when it does, the time to act is right now.

This brings us to the end of the chapter. I want to let you know that Mike Michalowicz has done a unique and helpful thing with his book. At the end of each chapter, there are action steps. These actions are very helpful if you are ready to start your business (or make it better). I will not be including these steps, but if you are ready, I suggest buying The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur and following these helpful and practical steps.

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Coming next: Accomplish What You Believe

Buy or Not: This book is a buy.  The ideas presented here will re-frame how you think about your business and help you find your passion and put it in your business. Even if you already have a business, you can learn a lot from this book.  Buy this book at Amazon

Bradford Shimp helps small business owners and entrepreneurs build successful businesses.  Read his blog at www.allbizanswers.com.  Follow Bradford on Twitter.

This is part of an in depth review of  The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, by Mike Michalowicz.  This book is about being an entrepreneur and starting and running a successful business. I will focus on 1 section at at time and distill the best information to help your business now.  This should not be considered a replacement for the actual book, which will usually have a lot more in depth information as well as stories, which are an important way to communicate the essentials.  If you find the information in these posts helpful, I recommend buying the book.

Chapter 1 – Nature’s Calling

Build Your Business Around You

Mike Michalowicz starts out chapter one of The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur by talking about passion. He asserts that just as the warrior who is fighting for his country will fight harder than the paid mercenary, so too will the entrepreneur who starts a business because of her passion, and not just to try to cash in on the next big thing that she may not even be that interested in.

In order to gain real success, you need to start with your own passion. Don’t make the mistake of starting a business based on what you know. Rather, base it on what you love. A business takes all of your time. Your best bet is to create one that coincides with what you already live and breath.

If you don’t already know what you love, just take some time to listen to yourself. What do you love talking about or doing? What could you spend hours on? Look at your history, too. Has it always been so, or is this just the latest thing for you. Finding that inner passion that sticks with you is the first step to starting a business that will thrive.

Michalowicz advises that before you start a business, you should stop and take an introspective look at yourself. Think through who you are and what you love and believe. Also, think about what a successful business would mean for you and what the rewards would be. You, of course, want to make a lot of money. But there is probably more at stake. You want to wake up happy and go to bed happy. You want to make an impact and be loved. Think about the end result at the beginning.

Owning your own business can sap the life from you if you are not careful. That is why it is so important at the beginning to clearly define your goals. You don’t want to have to scrap by for money. At the same time, you don’t want the money to control you. If you have a family, that is probably of primary importance to you. You need to create a business that allows you the time to enjoy your family and the financial freedom to support your family. If you are not clear about this from the beginning, it is too easy to get caught in the trap of working too hard for the wrong reasons. Your business should support your life, not the other way around.

Michalowicz asserts that your business should not start based on the markets, the latest trends, or even with what customers supposedly want. A successful business always starts in one place. It starts with you.

Build your business around who you are, and success and happiness are likely to follow. Build it on the market or customers, and aggravation and heartache will likely follow. If you are going to start a business, you might as well start something that you will be ecstatic about every day.

The simple truth is that in order for your business to survive and then thrive, it has to be the best. And you can’t be the best if your heart and soul is not in it. If you only can put in enough effort to get just enough sales to survive, you are doomed to a sad existence. Build a business on your passion, however, and you will be able to create the best, most interesting company there is. It will be an extension of your passion.

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Coming next: Destroy Your Excuses

Buy or Not: This book is a buy.  The ideas presented here will re-frame how you think about your business and help you find your passion and put it in your business. Even if you already have a business, you can learn a lot from this book.  Buy this book at Amazon

Bradford Shimp helps small business owners and entrepreneurs build successful businesses.  Read his blog at www.allbizanswers.com.  Follow Bradford on Twitter.

This is part of an in depth review of  The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies, by Chet Holmes.  We will focus on 1 section at at time and distill the best information to help your business now.  This should not be considered a replacement for the actual book, which will usually have a lot more in depth information as well as stories, which are an important way to communicate the essentials.  If you find the information in these posts helpful, I recommend buying the book or borrowing it from your library.

Chapter 12: All Systems Go

Goals and Focus

In the last chapter of The Ultimate Sales Machine, Chet Holmes drives home the point that you need to have determined focus on just a few areas to make your business hum. He says it is not about doing 4,000 things, but about doing just 12 things 4,000 times.

This is a great reminder that business is actually pretty simple. We often complicate it by adding layers on to layers. But if we could peel away the layers, we would see that we need a simple machine. A good business needs to put out a good product or service and have a strong plan for bringing in customers. And everything must run on systems.

When it comes to achieving goals for your business, it is important to note that it is not good enough to just write some goals down and refer back to them from time to time. You need to relentlessly focus on your goals until you achieve them.

Throughout The Ultimate Sales Machine, Holmes lays out different plans and systems for achieving business growth and building a thriving business. These are more than theories. If you apply some of these principles on a regular basis, you will really start to see some positive changes in your organization. I have personally seen great benefit in the areas of time management and meetings.

Engage Your Mind

Holmes spends some of the final chapter of this book talking about the power of the mind, and how you need to master yourself and your thinking before you can master your business. This is good personal development stuff, but I am not going to dig into it here.

Be Sure to Measure

In order for you to build a truly efficient machine, you need to focus hard on building the right systems and achieving the right goals. You also need to be able to measure the effectiveness of your efforts at any given time. When you build the systems to run your business, build measurement right in there. While you will be able to have the business run without you, it is still your job to make sure everything is tuned up and bringing in results. You become the mechanic. If you don’t take the time to measure, your carefully crafted systems will decay.

Final Thoughts

My in depth review of this book ends here. Hopefully, you were able to pull out some useful nuggets. The Ultimate Sales Machine is the type of book that is packed full of actionable ideas. If you found yourself  inspired by my posts, I highly recommend that you get your hands on this book. Its the kind that you can refer back to as you build out certain aspects of your business.

This book is not about flashy theory, but about down and dirty tactics to help your business succeed. While a lot of it focuses on sales, it is just as much about operating and running your business, especially the early chapters. Some of the tips I got out of this book have really helped me in my business, and I continue to apply Chet Holmes’ principles.

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Coming next: The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur

Buy or Not: This book is a buy.  It can be used as a manual for reshaping your business which you will refer to time and again.  Buy this book at Amazon.

Bradford Shimp helps small business owners and entrepreneurs build successful businesses.  Read his blog at www.allbizanswers.com.  Follow Bradford on Twitter.

This is part of an in depth review of  The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies, by Chet Holmes.  We will focus on 1 section at at time and distill the best information to help your business now.  This should not be considered a replacement for the actual book, which will usually have a lot more in depth information as well as stories, which are an important way to communicate the essentials.  If you find the information in these posts helpful, I recommend buying the book or borrowing it from your library.

Chapter Eleven: Follow-up and Client Bonding Skills

Follow-up to Build Solid Relationships

If there is one thing that wins or loses more sales, it is follow-up. Good follow up can increase your sales quite a lot. Bad follow-up leaves a trail of “could-have-beens” behind you. Follow-up isn’t just for those sales you haven’t closed yet either. Good follow-up with a customer can get that customer to buy more, buy again, and to tell other people about your business. You should really build a follow-up procedure into your business.

Follow-up is all about staying on the front burner with a prospect or a client. If they don’t keep hearing from you, they will very quickly forget about you. So you need to keep on reminding them. Don’t worry about being annoying. If you are a nice person with a true intent to help, you won’t be. If you are a bad person, you probably don’t care if you annoy people anyway.

A prospect is never closer to the sale as when you are right there talking to him or her. The moment you leave, she begins to cool off. Mostly because she has a lot on her plate. If you want to keep the prospect warmed up to your product or service, you need to work hard to keep it in front of them.

Its not just putting them on a mailing list either. A salesperson makes a personal connection with each customer and prospect. So the follow-up should be personal as well. Some of it should be driven by the salesperson. Keep the relationship going.

Of course, good follow-up happens best after a good sales effort. Throughout the rest of The Ultimate Sales Machine, Chet Holmes talks about how you can change your business and how you can communicate real value to prospects. Your follow-up procedure should spring from that, so that you are continuing a value-based conversation that you have already started through your marketing and sales process.

Holmes gives 10 steps to great follow-up in this chapter. These can be used whether you are still trying to close the sale, or if you have won the customer already.

10 Steps to Great Follow-up

Step One: Send the First Follow-Up Letter

Sending a personal letter immediately after your meeting with the client can help solidify your bond or drive home the importance that the client choose your company. Holmes advises not to make the letter about you and your product. Here are four parts to a good follow-up letter:

1. Include a personal anecdote that you remember from the meeting.
2. Include a compliment.
3. Focus on their stated needs and the benefits of your product or service as they apply to these needs.
4. Be personal in your close.

The letter should focus on the customer, not the sale. Remember, it is about building the relationship. It is okay, even recommended, to add personal touches to the letter.

Step Two: Make the First Follow-up Call

Make this call right after you send the first letter. Think of this as a personal call. You have already done the selling recently at the meeting. You may want to offer something of value, like a piece of advice or something else you thought of that might help the client. The goal here is to increase the bond. If you make this call after the sales pitch and have a somewhat personal conversation, it will be easier in the future for you to connect with this prospect/customer.

Step Three: Share Something

It is a nice gesture to send something along that is humorous or useful. No, don’t forward the latest internet email prank. But if you find an article that may be of interest to the client, cut it out and send it along. If you found out that the client loves bass fishing, and you come across a fishing joke or cartoon, send that along. This is about bonding and letting the client know that you are thinking about him or her.

Step Four: Party

Through a client party and invite everyone to attend. This could be a great time to bond. On a more personal level, invite the client out for lunch. Maybe you will even have something new or interesting to share with them.

Step Five: Send Another Letter

One of the major goals of follow-up is to just keep doing it. Follow-up any additional meetings you have with another letter. Keep it short, interesting, and personal. Sending a follow-up letter shows that you care and that you enjoyed spending time with the client.

Step Six: Plan a Family Event

This usually works best for bigger businesses and big clients. If you are in that position, you can do something extravagant, like a hot air balloon ride. For smaller businesses, you can do something like a picnic and invite the client and his or her family. When the family is involved, it shows a higher level of trust and respect.

Step Seven: Offer Some Help

Can you offer any value, or are you just about getting the sale? Commit to being helpful to your clients. This includes sending them useful information, but it may also include helping them find the people they need for a certain job. You can also help bring two of your clients together so that they can collaborate and both benefit.

There is really no end to the ammount of help you can be if you get your mind around the concept that you are not just a salesperson, but an adviser and friend.

Step Eight: Send Another Letter

Yes, you need to keep this up. It doesn’t have to be a letter in the mail. It could be a fax or an email. But you need to make it personal. This is above and beyond any company newsletter or marketing efforts.

Step Nine: Offer Even More Help

If you can help your client succeed, both through the use of your product or service, and through your advice, you will be establishing a long-lasting and beneficial relationship.  Provide educational opportunities for your client. Send along a book that you know will help them. Always be on the look out for things you can do that will help your client be a success, even if they do not directly relate to your product or service.

Step Ten: Invite Them Over

Having a client to your home, or getting invited to theirs, is the ultimate sign that you have built a relationship that goes beyond sales. This is not a step you will get to, or need to get to, with every client. But when you do get there, it will be because of the relationship you have built, which is turning into a friendship. This is good for both of your businesses, as well as being personally rewarding.

Become a Friend

Your ultimate goal should be that your best clients also become your best friends. Become involved in their personal and business success, and you will succeed along with them. If you do your follow-up with friendship in mind, you will have stunning results. You won’t always become friends, but your follow-up will always be friendly, personal, and helpful.

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Coming next: Chapter 12 – All Systems Go

Buy or Not: This book is a buy.  It can be used as a manual for reshaping your business which you will refer to time and again.  Buy this book at Amazon.

Bradford Shimp helps small business owners and entrepreneurs build successful businesses.  Read his blog at www.allbizanswers.com.  Follow Bradford on Twitter.

This is part of an in depth review of  The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies, by Chet Holmes.  We will focus on 1 section at at time and distill the best information to help your business now.  This should not be considered a replacement for the actual book, which will usually have a lot more in depth information as well as stories, which are an important way to communicate the essentials.  If you find the information in these posts helpful, I recommend buying the book or borrowing it from your library.

Chapter Ten: Sales Skills

6 Steps to Closing the Sale

This chapter provides a lot of in depth information about sales skills and the steps to take when closing the sale. As always, I will try to highlight the best information. Sales is an area that can use work in a lot of businesses, even ones that don’t technically have a sales force.

Many businesses leave the sales process up to the salespeople. This results in a wide array of approaches, most of which are ineffectual. The superstar sales people are naturals at putting repeatable systems in place. But you can’t cross your fingers and hope that your sales staff will figure it out. You need to build a system for sales just like you need to build systems for everything else in your business.

Here are Chet Holmes’ six steps to closing the sale.

Step One: Build Rapport

This seems like a wrinkled old sales concept at first. But Holmes is actually talking about building relationship. He suggests that you build rapport before the sales pitch. No funny baloney sales chatter. Endeavour to become friends with your clients.

One great way to build rapport is to start the whole sales process through an event or party. Get the prospects to come to you and to enjoy themselves. Get to know them a little and then move toward the sale.

Here are some great ways to get a relationship going:

• Ask questions and be interested in the answers
• Be humorous
• Share their pain
• Show that you care (by really caring)
• Find out where your lives intersect (common interests)

Step Two: Find Out the Need

Your success in sales will increase dramatically if you are addressing the buyer’s need. At a company level, you can find out the needs of your ideal customers by conducting a survey. On the sales level, there should to be enough flexibility to recognize unique need and respond accordingly.

Always seek out the need before you try to sell. If you don’t, you may be wasting your breath selling something that the buyer does not need. Or maybe you are not hitting on the need that your product solves that is most important to the buyer.

From a system standpoint, you should develop a list of questions to ask that will help sales people identify buyer needs. Then, you need to train, with scripts and materials, the answers to those needs.

Step Three: Show Value

Once you know the need, you can show the value of your product or service. The value should be directly related to the need.

Value not only shows the prospect that you can answer their need, but it shows the prospect the bigger picture. At this point you might share testimonials or your core story. This is where you begin to hook the buyer. This is also where you would provide an education to the buyer. This all goes toward establishing your business as the leading expert in the industry.

Step Four: Create Desire

Once you have shown value, you need to focus on getting the prospect to want what you have to offer right now. There are many things you can do. The goal is to bring into focus the need and the plan to solve the need. You can walk the prospect through a series of questions which will let them talk themselves into your solution. You can present market data that makes a decision obvious. The important thing is to get the prospect to see the negative impact of not acting and the positive result of acting.

If you can reframe the prospects current situation so that it is no longer acceptable to them, you are within a breath of getting the sale. So, spend time doing just that. Show them a better way and make them see that where they are at is not where they want to stay. Holmes points out, “if your prospects are comfortable with the current situation, they are not motivated to change.”

Step Five: Overcoming Objections

Objections threaten to derail any sale. The first thing you need is a system to identify objections in the qualifying stage of the sale. This can go hand in hand with finding out the need. By finding out the need and asking a few questions, you can usually understand what common objections may come up and then neutralize them.

There will be times when hidden objections come up before the close, and you need to have a plan to handle them.

First, view every objection as an opportunity to close. This isn’t hubris. Instead, its about executing a good plan. When a prospect says that they want to buy, but then list something that is standing in the way, you have been giving a golden opportunity. They have basically agreed to buy from you, you just need to have an answer for their objection.

When you get an objection like this late in the game, you need to always agree with it validity. This will disarm the prospect and give you the opportunity to work together on solving the objection.

The next key step, and one that is often missed, is to isolate the objection. Ask if this objection is the only thing standing in the way of a purchase. If the answer is yes, you know that if you can solve the objection, you will get the sale. So you need to let them know that they have a valid objection, and then ask them if it is the only thing standing in the way of making a purchase.

Now you ask the prospect if they will buy if you can find a way to neutralize their objection. If the answer is yes, you are very close to getting the sale. You just need to show them how you will overcome the objection. There are many ways to do this, from showing them data to changing the pricing structure to adding on a little extra service.

Step Six: Close the Deal

There are lots of tricks and practices for closing the sale. But the best thing that Holmes says here is that people are usually bad at making decisions, and that it is your job to help them make a decision.

Most people are very happy when they buy something. Think about when you buy something. You are usually excited to get it and use it. The same goes for all buyers. As long as you are not selling a scam or a lemon, you should be proud that you are helping make buyers happy. You are solving a problem, filling a need, or satisfying a desire.

The reason most sales people have a hard time closing has nothing to do with they buyers. It has everything to do with the self esteem of the sales person. If a sales person has low self confidence and a fear of rejection, he will not do a very good job closing the sale.

The trick is to refocus on what you are providing to the buyer. You are providing a great product or service, yes. But you also need to provide them with help making a decision that will benefit them. Once you realize that people have a hard time making a decision, even benefiting decisions, you will see how important the role of a sales person really is.

Closing the deal is about all of the prior steps, but as a step unto itself, it is just helping the prospect make the right decision.

–

Coming next: Chapter 11 – Follow Up and Client-Bonding Skills

Buy or Not: This book is a buy.  It can be used as a manual for reshaping your business which you will refer to time and again.  Buy this book at Amazon.

Bradford Shimp helps small business owners and entrepreneurs build successful businesses.  Read his blog at www.allbizanswers.com.  Follow Bradford on Twitter.

This is part of an in depth review of  The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies, by Chet Holmes.  We will focus on 1 section at at time and distill the best information to help your business now.  This should not be considered a replacement for the actual book, which will usually have a lot more in depth information as well as stories, which are an important way to communicate the essentials.  If you find the information in these posts helpful, I recommend buying the book or borrowing it from your library.

Chapter Nine: The Nitty-Gritty of Getting the Best Buyers

6 Steps to Land Your Dream Customers

Dream customers. Those are the ones that, if you are honest with yourself, you want more than any other kind. They are the big buyers or the consistent buyers. A few of these sprinkled in will help your business to soar. The only thing that is stopping you from getting them right now is … they are hard to land. Or at least you think so.

You need a plan to land these customers. A plan that you can stick with. One that you won’t abandon at the first no (or even the second, or twelfth). Chet Holmes presents just such a plan in Chapter Nine of the Ultimate Sales Machine. Here are his six steps to help you land your dream clients.

1. Choose Your Dream Customers

Holmes recommends that you pick around 100 prospects that you would really like to land. Don’t just pick them randomly, but come up with some kind of criteria. Perhaps they have a certain income level or live in a certain neighborhood if you are targeting consumers. If you are targeting businesses, maybe you are looking for a certain size or type. Taking a little time before you get started to write up the profile of an ideal customer can be helpful.

Once you have the criteria, start to build your database. It is an important step to create more than a list. A database, whether done on Excel or with your CRM solution, is a place for you to store ongoing information about these prospects. You need to track your every move in trying to win them, as well as their responses and whatever new information you learn about these dream customers. The more you know, the better you will be able to hone in on the customer.

For businesses, you not only need to determine which businesses to target, but who in that business to target. You really need to market to the person who has the authority to say yes. In many cases, this means appealing directly to the CEO. As difficult as that may seem to some of us, the rest of these steps show how it is achievable and worthwhile.

2. Pick the Gifts

Holmes advises that in order to get noticed by your dream customers, you should regularly send them gifts. Not gifts that are in the bribe category, ie. expensive gifts. Send inexpensive things that will get attention and maybe a laugh. Make them useful, things they will want to use or play with, or give to their kids. Tie the gift in to the message you want to relate, as well.

Giving a little something extra, like a squirt gun or a desk toy, helps you to stand out from the crowd. It will help you get your sales letter read and the name of your company remembered when you do your follow up call.

3. Craft a Letter

You need to include a letter with every gift that you send. It should be short, and it should be different each time. Make sure it ties in well with the gift in a clever way. For instance, if you send a magnifying glass, you can talk about the clues to greater success.

In the letter, you need to offer them something that they can easily say yes to. You need to do it in a very clear call to action, so that they will know exactly what you want them to do next. Don’t push for the sale too early. The short letter is not a good place to do that. Instead, try to get a meeting, or have them attend a webinar.

A note if you are selling directly to consumers. You will probably not be able to send out a gift to each consumer (unless you can). So make your marketing piece, or letter, stand out on its own. Also, be consistent.

4. Get It Scheduled

For a campaign like this to work, you need to have consistency. You need to continue to market to these dream customers every single month, until you get the sale. At least once a month.

Every thing you send does not need to include a gift, but that should be a regular calling card of your effort.

If you decide when you get started that you are going to stick it out, and plan each marketing piece ahead, you will be able to succeed. The more these dream customers become familiar with your business, the more likely they will make the jump to becoming your customers.

5. Follow Up on the Phone

Your mailing is just the opening salvo to soften up the customer. Holmes says that you must follow up every mailing with a phone call. At least if you are selling to a business.

The goal of the follow up phone call is the same as the goal of your letter. You want to move the prospect not to the close, but to a meeting or webinar where you can present them with your story.

One idea is to offer a free report about something that will be of interest to the prospect. This report should be delivered live by someone from your business. I say someone, but it will usually be the salesperson. Just don’t call a salesperson that. Come up with a new name, such as advisor or expert.

Following up via phone will increase your closing rate and will speed up the marketing process, thus saving you money while making you money. So don’t neglect this important step.

6. Do the Presentation

Once you do get a presentation with one of your dream customers, you don’t want to blow it by just giving an average sales pitch. Instead, you should present a report, or briefing, that will be riveting and educational to your prospect.

Here is how to do that:

• Use data that is relevant to the customer (and avoid listing product benefits)
• Tell a story or educate in a way that encourages a buying attitude (ie. show them why they need to be worried about something, etc.)
• Find a “smoking gun,” the thing that will make you stand out from all the competition
• Focus on their pain points (and how to solve them)
• Make your pitch only after you have provided them great value (and keep it brief and at the end)

Always make education the goal of your presentation. With a little effort, you can put together a briefing that will be very valuable to your dream customers. Overdeliver on the educational component, and they will be very receptive to hear your short sales message at the end of the presentation.

If you follow these 6 steps thoroughly and consistently, you will be able to win the majority of your dream customers.

–

Next: Chapter 10 – Sales Skills: 6 Steps to Closing the Sale

Buy or Not: This book is a buy.  It can be used as a manual for reshaping your business which you will refer to time and again.  Buy this book at Amazon.

Bradford Shimp helps small business owners and entrepreneurs build successful businesses.  Read his blog at www.allbizanswers.com.  Follow Bradford on Twitter.

This is part of an in depth review of  The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies, by Chet Holmes.  We will focus on 1 section at at time and distill the best information to help your business now.  This should not be considered a replacement for the actual book, which will usually have a lot more in depth information as well as stories, which are an important way to communicate the essentials.  If you find the information in these posts helpful, I recommend buying the book or borrowing it from your library.  

Chapter Eight: The Eyes Have It

Part 2: 8 Mistakes Presenters Make

In this section of The Ultimate Sales Machine, Chet Holmes talks about eight common mistakes made by presenters.

1. Thanking Prospects for Time or Apologizing for Taking Their Time

Thanking prospects for their precious time or apologizing for taking their time is not a good idea. It is setting up the precept in their mind (and yours) that your time is less valuable then theirs and that your presentation is a waste of their time. Instead of thanking them for taking time out of their busy schedules, do a great job on your presentation and have them thanking you for taking your time to share it with them.

A big side effect of respecting prospects time more than your own is that you will often rush your presentation to fit into their schedule. Instead, create a great educational seminar and find out how long it takes you to present it fully, allowing time for questions. Then tell the prospects exactly how much time you need and how they will benefit from giving you that time. 

2. Keeping Your Hands in Your Pockets

Holmes says that this makes you look like a slacker. Always keep your hands visible, above your waist and in front of your body. Your hands are a powerful tool to help punctuate your speaking.

3. Sitting Down

Don’t ever do a presentation sitting down (unless you can’t stand for physical reasons). Standing up helps you present from a position of authority, as in most cases your prospects will be sitting down. It helps them cue in on who they should be paying attention to and it helps give your words more weight. 

4. Allowing Prospects to Lead the Presentation

Holmes refers to this as being lead around by your nose. It is a common mistake to answer prospects questions right in the middle of the presentation and to let that sidetrack the whole thing. You need to maintain control of the presentation. You can always answer questions later on, but even so, maintain as much control as possible. It is always better to lead by asking questions of your prospects, rather than let them lead by asking you questions.

5. Being Glued to the Slides

You need to know your material. Anyone can read the bullet points from your slides. Your job is to give a dynamic presentation. Those bullet points just drive it home for your prospects. If you need to constantly refer to you slides, it shows that you are not prepared and that you do not know your material.

You need to know what to say for each slide. You also must know what is coming next, so that you can lead into it. 

6. Being Too Serious

Humour goes a long way toward keeping interest and helping prospects remember key points. Be sure to add a funny slide, story, or joke. Always remember to tie the humor in to your presentation, though. Use it to drive home important points.

7. Not Practicing Every Time

Holmes says that “the more you know the material, the more persuasive, powerful, and effective you can be.” Get to know your material before you ever present it. Then, keep practicing it before each presentation. You will refresh your knowledge of it and hone your presentation skills. You can’t just read over the presentation before hand. You need to practice it out loud, pretending that you have a live audience. 

8. Not Knowing What’s Next

It is important to pre-sell the upcoming information in your presentation. This keeps prospects engaged and helps them to connect more with the information because they are waiting to hear it. You can’t pre-sell upcoming information if you are not familiar with what is coming next.

You do not want to be on the same page as your prospects, wondering what is on the next slide. You should always be a step or two ahead, drawing your audience along with you.

–

Coming next: Chapter 9 – The Nitty-Gritty of Getting the Best Buyers

Buy or Not: This book is a buy.  It can be used as a manual for reshaping your business which you will refer to time and again.  Buy this book at Amazon.

Bradford Shimp helps small business owners and entrepreneurs build successful businesses.  Read his blog at www.allbizanswers.com.  Follow Bradford on Twitter.

This is part of an in depth review of  The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies, by Chet Holmes.  We will focus on 1 section at at time and distill the best information to help your business now.  This should not be considered a replacement for the actual book, which will usually have a lot more in depth information as well as stories, which are an important way to communicate the essentials.  If you find the information in these posts helpful, I recommend buying the book or borrowing it from your library.

Chapter Eight: The Eyes Have It

Part 1: 8 Ways to Be a Better Presenter

Chet Holmes devotes this chapter to visual aids, which are a very important part of the sales presentation. Humans typically remember about 20% of what we hear and 30% of what we see. However, we remember 50% of what we see and hear. That is case enough to be backing up your presentation with visual aids.

85% of the information we take in to our brains enters via our eyes. In a presentation, if you do not offer something to stimulate the eyes, the brain will be more likely to tune out. A visual presentation can keep the eyes busy and keeps our brains more active and attentive.

Once you have established the importance of offering a visually rich presentation, employ these 8 rules to be a better presenter.

1. Keep It Simple

This may be a no-brainer, but you had better remind yourself of it often. Your presentation must be easy to follow and understand. Also, do not clutter slides with too much information. A key point and/or a picture should do the trick. You will expound on each slide verbally.

2. Keep Up the Pace

Do not spend too much time on any one slide. If you do this, the eyes will become bored and the listeners minds will start to drift. Keep listeners on the edge of their seats by moving through the slide material at a good pace. This will also help you stay away from bunny trails and long and boring expositions.

3. Use Facts and Stats that Stand Out

You’ll know you picked the right facts and stats is your listener says, “I didn’t know that.” The goal here is to educate your way to the sale. Good facts and stats can totally reframe the listeners mindset and key them up to buy your product or service. Teaching also puts you instantly in the position of educator. Your listeners will look up to you as someone that they can learn from.

4. Use Stories

Holmes says that a well-told story can increase recall by 26%. So, if there is a really important point that you want to make, incorporate it into a story.

5. Drive Curiosity

You should “unfold the information in a way that keeps your prospect curious,” Holmes says. One way to do this is to use teasers, or pre-sell upcoming information continously throughout the presentation. If you keep hinting at what is coming next, prospects will keep listening.

6. Respect the Headline

Holmes advises to consider each headline as valuable real estate. Do not waste good headline space by repeating the same headline over and over throughout the presentation. Instead, pull out the key point for the slide and make it pop in the headline. Avoid laziness when it comes to your headlines. Make each one work hard for you.

7. Make a Connection

It is important to develop rapport with your audience. You can do this a variety of ways, such as having everyone stretch or engaging in banter. The key is to establish respect and trust.

8. Focus on Them, Not on You

Everyone likes to talk about themselves. As a presenter, avoid the urge to talk about yourself and instead focus on talking about the listeners. Your job is to focus on them, their needs and how you can help them. You need to engage with your audience and find out what needs and challenges they have. Be sure to be flexible enough in your presentation to engage and customize for particular audiences.

–

Coming next: 8 Presentation Mistakes

Buy or Not: This book is a buy.  It can be used as a manual for reshaping your business which you will refer to time and again.  Buy this book at Amazon.

Bradford Shimp helps small business owners and entrepreneurs build successful businesses.  Read his blog at www.allbizanswers.com.  Follow Bradford on Twitter.