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Lesson #4: Low Risk Means Low Rewards
When it came to taking the road less traveled, Warner was all about accepting risk. And not just a little bit of risk; Warner knew that the more risk he was willing to take, the greater the reward in the end would be.

Is Your Boss an Asshole?
Question: How many bosses does it take to screw in a light bulb? Answer: One. He holds up the light bulb and expects the universe to revolve around him.

Scheduling
It’s been said, “You can always get more stuff, but you can never get more time!” There will always be more to do than you can accomplish in a day and more people needing more of you than you are willing to give! It’s enough to make you want to pull your hair out! But don’t - instead think about the power of planning.

Using Your Talents
Read and learn from this depressed, overweight housewife who blossomed into a professional speaker and writer. At barely five feet tall, Pam Lontos weighed over a hundred fifty pounds, was spending most of her day in bed, and was under the care of a psychiatrist who told her that she would always need counseling.

Get To Or Got To?
Every morning for several years, promptly at 10:00 a.m., a prominent business woman visited her mother in a nursing home. She was close to her mother and loved her very much.

Face-Time or Phone-Time To Fill Your Sales Pipeline?
Have you noticed that the higher up people move in their organizations or the longer someone has been in a sales role, whether it be in professional services or a traditional sales role, the farther away they move from the daily regimen of outbound prospecting calls to schedule appointments to increase their sales pipeline?

Men's Health Insurance: Staying Healthy

One of the best ways for men to combat the rising health care insurance premiums and out-of-pocket expenses is to obtain, retain and use the benefits and opportunities available in health care coverage. Taking charge of ones own health and being proactive in healthy lifestyle choices, making and keeping regularly scheduled doctors appointments, and being a dynamic force within a personal wellness plan are all methods to help decrease the long-term cost of health care insurance.

Trade Show Selling
Trade shows provide a unique but different type of opportunity to sell your products and services. Here are some tips to help you maximize your time and effectivness.

Overcome Call Reluctance - Get Your Salespeople to Prospect
By decreasing both the amount of resistance and time spent overcoming the resistance, you might be able to make it less overwhelming and therefore easier for your call reluctant salespeople to experience prospecting success.

5 Frustrations that Derail the Sales Force
I write a lot about the things that frustrate Presidents, CEO's, Sales VP's and Salespeople. Yesterday, somebody asked what frustrates me so I attempted to tackle that question here. I'm very steady and what you see on Monday, you'll probably get on Tuesday and Wednesday too. That said, there are things that will make me eat faster or more often, and here you can read my top 5:

Learning From your Work Calendar
As a leader, what does your calendar say about you? Where are you spending your time? Is it where you want to spend your time?

Network Marketing Tips: How To Get Your Spouse On The Same Page
Here is a network marketing tip that most people don't even talk about. If you want to know the secret of getting your spouse to like this industry again, this is for you.

Start A Home Business Working With Your Spouse
In our last article, we talked about how to start home business successfully with your spouse. Here are some additional tips that will help you and your spouse run that business successfully.

Make Writing a Priority, Not a Pain
Whether you're working on a book or an article marketing campaign, writing is like exercise. And if you want it to really work for your business, then you need to make writing a priority, just like going to the gym or your yoga class.

Pets and ADHD

Having pets in your life when you have ADHD is very beneficial not only in reducing unwanted ADHD symptoms, but also for your overall physical health and happiness. While you may be thinking, “but I can barely take care of myself, let alone another living creature,” it has been my experience that adults with ADHD make fabulous pet owners. While they may struggle with the stresses of life, their pet’s health is never compromised. Far from it.

MLM Business Opportunities, Do they Work In A Web 2.0 World?
If you are reading this, you are either looking into an MLM Business Opportunity or your already in one and struggling? Am I right? There are many reasons why they don't work today, but more importantly what can you do about it?

Increase Small Business Sales – Stop Asking for Referrals
Why would I tell you to stop asking for referrals when every sales “trainer”, sales manager, or sales mentor you’ve ever met tells you to ask for referrals? Oddly enough many commonly held beliefs are based on myths rather than facts...

Business Ideas for Beginners – Outsourced Sales & Marketing
An article looking at the benefits of outsourcing sales & marketing.

(11) Questions To Answer Before Starting A New Business!

What is your intention for your business? One could say to be successful and make money of course. How do you intend to do this? How does it happen? How much time will it take? Who will you become in the process of building your business? This is the important question and the answer. Let’s assume you have never owned a business yet, you really have this burning desire to work for yourself. You have done your research and decided on a business to build, yes build.

2 Reasons to Start an Online Marketing Business
There are many reasons why so many people want to start an online marketing business. There are two that I believe to be the most common to pull people into the online marketing business arena. We will concentrate on just these two in this article.

Be On Time and Win More Business!
Have you ever arrived for an appointment at the correct time only to be told the person you are seeing is running late? I'm sure that has happened to you on many occasions. In the story I'm about to relay to you, this incident happened to one of my clients recently.

What are the 2 Missing Links that Guarantee Sales Strategy Failures?
Have you ever wondered why so many hopeful business owners fail in spite of having a good product or service to sell? The reason isn’t location. It isn’t even insufficient start up cash.

3 Must Have Core Sales Skills
Whether you have a sales force working for you, or do all the selling yourself there are 3 core sales skills required to succeed. These skills are entirely within your control.

Why I Ask
A Marketing Mistake to Stop Making

Smart Women Take the Right Action
This article is about taking action on your marketing for your business. It’s important to realize that there is not just one step that will build your business. There are several steps that will attract clients to you. Create some time to sit down and think about which steps you can take right now so that you can grow your business effectively.

Foot Canvassing
An article discussing the benefits of Foot Canvassing

Cold Calling - Tips to make it easier
An article giving ways to motivate yourself to make cold calls.

Expectations- A Sales Attitude By Any Other Name
Years ago I read something that Zig Ziglar wrote: Attitudes are habits of thought. Pretty simple definition, but incredibly powerful. How many of our thoughts are really sales attitudes including expectations?

Extraordinary Day

The other day a friend made an off-hand comment that made me laugh at first and then ponder. We had had a brief chat early in the day and then he said, “OK, you right the world and I will speak to you later.” There was something paradoxical and empowering about that comment. I would do something totally earth shattering during the day and then we would have another routine chat that evening. Rather like the line “Only got 4 minutes to save the world” from Madonna’s song “4 Minutes.” When I listen to that song, I think, “Well, if Madonna can save the world in four minutes, I can definitely accomplish everything on my to do list,” no matter how daunting it looks.

A Business Dashboard is as Essential as a Car Dashboard
Your business dashboard tells you whether you are cruising for profits or headed for a seize up. Whar does your small business dashboard tell you?

How to Hold The Sales Team Accountable Under the New Rules of Sales Engagement
If you read yesterday's post, there was a comment from Teicko who asked how you can hold the sales team accountable under these new rules of sales engagement where you must work three times harder, three times longer, be three times more effective and have three times more opportunities in the pipeline to get the same results as you used to.

It’s the Holidays!
Prospects make appointments and conduct business before, during and after the holidays, just as they do at other times throughout the year.

The Four Biggest Blocks I’ve Seen Clients Encounter
Selling is a communication skill. And like any communication skill, it can be learned and improved upon. If there are people having success in your chosen field, there is no reason that you cannot have the same success. Educate yourself. Read books, attend teleseminars or live seminars, talk to colleagues, hire a coach do whatever it takes to gain the skills that you need to be successful.

Prospecting Improves Morale & Is The Key to Increasing Sales - Find Out the Success Formula

[Business:Sales] Prospecting needs to be part of the entire sales process not just when a sales persons calendar is filled to the brim with appointments. The reason is when the pipeline of appointments dry up the sales person will feel low and morale will suffer for them and those around them. When morale is low theirs one place to look for the culprit and that is the prospecting pipeline. This will be one of the major clues that will determine why morale is low or high. Find out what the SUCCESS FORMULA IS TO INCREASED SALES & INCREASED MORALE...

BlackBerry and Outlook Tips
Conflicts, repeats, disappearing and reappearing meetings and tasks in BlackBerry and Outlook calendars... infuriating and problematic! The key: Outlook is King. That's really all you need to know - but for good measure, this short article outlines how to deal with calendar items in ways that prevent these problems. (For users of BlackBerry Exchange Server).

Learn Sales Telepathy: How to get into your customer’s head and heart without going out of your mind…
Imagine knowing exactly what's going on inside the head of the person you're talking to about becoming your next client or event attendee. It's not magic or extra-sensory perception -- it's sales 101. And you can learn it...

Balance for small business owners
A brief discussion on creating balance for the life of a small business owner.

Home Staging Offers High Income in Slow Economy
The Staging Diva®, discusses the high earning potential a home stager has even in a slow economy.

How To Write A Really Great Marketing Letter That Makes Readers Take Action
The problem with many articles is that they do not have a Call To Action. Your article should advance the sales process by motivating readers to do something. This article shows you how to do that.

Top 5 Warning Signs Your Employees Are Looking For A New Job
Signs your employees are looking for a new job.

Ten Quick Marketing Actions
It is often difficult to manage to do marketing tasks when you have a busy business or professional practice. Here are 10 ideas each of which take 5 or 10 minutes and can be done between appointments or when you take a break from working on a large project.

The Benefits of having a Company Uniform

Do you remember your school days when you did not have to worry each morning about what to wear; you just put on your uniform and off you would go to school? As adults our lives are ten times busier and yet we choose to complicate things further by not having a uniform. There are many benefits associated with having a company uniform not only for the company itself but also for the employees and customers.

3 Ways to Overcome Mess and Reduce Your Stress

I've mentioned this many times, but I am constantly amazed at how the simple things that I take for granted, to other people it's a great revelation. Do you feel that you're snowed under with paperwork and clutter and cannot seem to get a grip on it? Do you get confused by the vast array of gadgets available to help you manage your time? Are you determined to use that palm pilot or Iphone because you can avoid having to write things down or you get excited that it syncs to your computer?

Is Your Business Still Heading Towards The Goals You Set At The Start?
Every business owner needs to step back a little every so often and critically look at their business; the way it performs; the service it offers; the prices charged and ensure it is still running directly towards the ultimate goals that were in your head when you first set it up. When did you last check yours?

Follow Through or Foul Up

As entrepreneurs, we are usually great at coming up with ideas to promote our business. We know that it's not rocket science, and yet we struggle time and time again getting our ideas off the ground. This isn't really surprising because on top of wearing our marketing hat, we are also wearing our operational, financial, IT and HR hats. Yet when we look at all the different roles we have to play in our businesses, it is truly our sales and marketing hat that can fast track our business to the next level. So how can we ensure that we allocate it the time it deserves? More importantly how do we know that we are fully following through?

Is Your Peak Season Right Around the Corner?
Is the upcoming season usually busy for you? If so, what are you doing now to maximize your results? Far too often we leave our promotional efforts until it’s too late. The next thing we know, we find ourselves scrambling at the last minute, rushing our promotions and not maximizing on the time and money we spent.

How To Commit Career Suicide
Picture this…you are having an amazing career. You are working on some of the most exciting work ever. You just love your job. You are well rewarded because you work hard, you are reliable and trustworthy and most of all you take a few risks, keep your promises and deliver more than what is expected.

Top 7 Ways to Increase Sales Regardless of the Economy
Has the economy put your sales into a tailspin? Here are 7 ways to reverse those dismal sales and put more dollars into your bank account.

What are your Strengths!
Focus on your strengths and you will grow.

How the Choices You Make Will Determine Your Sales Results
Norman Vincent Peale once wrote: Change Your Thoughts, Change Your World. Your choices come from those thoughts. In sales, have you ever consider the impact of those choices as to your sales results?

Too much work and not enough workers Here are seven alternatives to hiring
If you're at the point in your small business where you have too much work, but you just aren't sure you have the business to merit it just yet, here are seven ways to get the ob done without making a giant commitment.

Finding a Way to Succeed

Strategies and Tactics are important - very important, especially in this economy. But even today, they take a back seat to your ability to find a way to get the job done. Whether that job is making appointments, uncovering compelling reasons to buy, getting opportunities qualified, making compelling presentations, dealing with objections or closing, you must find a way to master that part of the sales process.

It's Your Home Business - You Make The Rules
When you work for someone else they make the rules. They decide when you work, who you work with, and what you do at your job. When you run your own business, you make these decisions. This article will show you what rules you can set with your business to be successful with both your family and your business.

Realtors Only...Vocation, Vocation, Vocation
Over the past eight months I have been observing and consulting in the Real Estate industry. I have the utmost compassion for their state of affairs and the struggle that many have had during the ongoing downturn in the industry.

What it Takes to Get More Appointments

Without question, the most popular requests I receive each week are for help with making appointments and, specifically, creating positioning statements. For example, Pat and I traded about 6 emails over the past 10 days to get his positioning statements just right. But what if you nail your positioning statement but you're still struggling to get appointments? My guess is that you're doing one of the following things ineffectively...

3 Ways to Feel Better About the Economy
Three Ways to Feel Better About the Economy...

Win More Sales By Thinking Like a NFL Team
Yes, winning in sales and in sports obviously have a lot in common. However, a recent statistic may provide even greater insight in that you may need to start thinking like a NFL team.

Home Business Expert: Inbound Marketing v Outbound Marketing
Every business needs to market itself no matter how big or small it is.

How to Outsource to Free Up Your Time and Increase Your Income

How many tasks do you take on in your business? Do you pride yourself on doing the bookkeeping, reacting to email, preparing your own proposals and presentations, attending networking events, making appointments, keeping on top of the paperwork, providing your service, packaging and delivering your products, running around doing all your errands, looking after children, taking the dog for a walk...and then fitting in time to take care of yourself? How about marketing and developing your business? Where does that fit in?

Give Your Business a Short And Quick Marketing Blitz
Want to give your business a some new ideas and make concentrated effort to obtain new customers? Why not take on a student or more experienced person for a few months and have a marketing blitz?

Entrepreneurs – Are You Working Efficiently Or Are You Just Plain Disorganized?
We all know the situation, you are working for yourself, you are working hard but you just don’t seem to be getting anywhere. Could you be disorganized? If you are often late, miss deadlines, often stay late? Do you have a messy working environment and can never find anything you need? Yup you are disorganized.

Salespeople Can Conquer a Sales Slump Like Getting Out of Quicksand
When you’re in quicksand, like a sales slump, if you have a lot of heavy stuff strapped to you, like limiting beliefs, you will not get out. Top salespeople don’t get caught in a sales slump, even in the toughest of times, because they know what to do to steer around a slump.

Top 7 Sales Skills to Increase Sales in 2009 Regardless of the Economy
Being a top sales producer extends beyond your technical sales skills into your personal or self leadership skills. You must have knowledge of the results from your marketing and selling actions along with incredible self leadership skills. These seven sales skills can potentially deliver far more results than any technical selling skill such as fact finding to closing.

Work At Home As A Virtual Assistant
A virtual assistant is anyone who provides assistance to a company or individual from his or her home or alternate location via the internet. Virtual assistants is a growing trend in these tough economic times, even though the cost of fuel is falling the recent economic problems have alerted companies that they need to cut costs and become more efficient.

How to Sell More Effectively in a Recession
How can you sell more effectively in this economy? You'll need to perform some self-diagnostics. If you use Sales Force Automation of some kind, perhaps a report like the one in figure 1.0 below is available to you.

Business Networkings 1 Myth Networking Selling
No other concept has caused so many people to hate or dislike networking than the idea that Networking = Selling. Learn the true equation that ultimately leads to the same destination ... Networking = Mutually Beneficial Relationships

Launching a New Nontraditional Offering
KLA is often introduced to companies that want to launch a new offering outside their traditional suite of products and services. These companies have developed a valuable service, but aren't sure how to generate awareness and drive leads with their customers and prospects.

Three Tips for Improving IT Reselling
For the information technology (IT) reseller, the need for continual improvement can't be overlooked, especially given the fierce competition in the marketplace. It's important for resellers to revisit some of the basics when it comes to bringing in and retaining new customers.

Sales Training – Salesperson’s Universal Distress Signals
Each salesperson likely has their own universal distress call. Here are ideas to save salespeople suffering from five common sales problems.

HAVE HIGH STANDARDS FOR YOURSELF
Standards are the behaviors you hold yourself to (as opposed to boundaries which are the behaviors you hold others to. Standards aren't what you think you "should" do or what you think other people want or expect you to do. Rather, standards are behaviors that you commit to because they will help you be your best.

Fear is Making it Even Harder to Sell Insurance

As if selling insurance hasn’t always been a challenge you can thank our friends in Washington D.C. for making it even harder. Yep, thanks to the government’s failure to sound the alarm before it became a crisis, and ineptitude dealing with the crisis once it hit Uncle Sam has created a very special new client for you. Your new potential clients are scared to death and guard their wallet like a junk yard dog.

Selling Insurance in the Land of Opportunity
Okay, so right now it looks like the land of barren desperation. You get a “no” before you even open your mouth. Your appointment book is empty and if something doesn’t happen soon you’ll have a matching bank account. So what’s this baloney about the land of opportunity?

Most Frequently Requested Help
What do you think is the most frequently requested plea for help? Overcoming Objections? Handling Stalls and Put-Offs? Closing? Getting Appointments? It's getting calls returned.

Stress-Free Selling® - Eliminate Stress in Sales

A sale is stressful when we approach Prospects with the intention of making a sale and the fear of not making a sale. To compound matters, Prospects are afraid we are going to manipulate them. They are afraid we are going to sell them something. . . something that's not in their best interest. Prospects accept appointments reluctantly (which is why we have difficulty getting them on the phone in the first place) and are pre-armed with a litany of excuses (aka objections) to get rid of you. It is this dichotomy of goals (you want to make a sale and Prospects want to protect themselves) that creates stress. Imagine if you both want to meet. Imagine if neither feels the other is going to try to force anything on him. Imagine you both feel the only acceptable outcome is the satisfaction of your Prospect's goals.

Pre-Call Touch: A Creative Way to Make Prospecting Appointments

Here's a situation. You have created a list of 20 highly qualified prospects. You've researched them, and you know that these 20 people hold your prosperity in their hands. But they don't know you, have never spoken to you, and aren't inclined to drop everything and see you. How do you get to see them? You can do what everyone else does. Send them an email. Maybe leave a voice mail message. Then be really frustrated that no one calls back. Or, you can do something a bit different, and much more creative.

9 Signals Foreshadowing Rejection
If you’re at all normal you don’t like getting rejected. Sometimes it’s over quickly and other times you think things are going well until…wham you get clobbered. With the way things are now you’re getting rejected more often and more quickly than ever before.

What Have Your Salespeople Been Listening To?
In reality, there is no such thing as a spending freeze except for being something that top management tells bottom management. [Read More]

Insurance Sales Planning that Works
You’ve got a list of names. You’ve got a phone script. You’ve got a sales presentation. Now all you need to do is make 100 phone calls, hold 15 appointments a week, and write 4 policies. Wrong!

The Secret Other Insurance Producers Won't Tell You
If you’ve been in the insurance industry less than four years you’re holding onto a dream. The dream that someday you’ll have a full book of business with lots of residual income is what fuels your fire. The dream that someday you won’t have to work so hard to get appointments is what drives you to make one more call.

How to Make Getting Sales Success Easier
Man, sometimes it feels like everything depends on you. If you let up for one second you’re falling behind. Can you keep up the pace?

Time Management Tip - Make an Appointment with Yourself
Are you losing minutes and hours? Learn a simple technique to enhance your time management.

Sales Stops & Starts
Do you have a costly sales habit? The habit of heavily prospecting until you fill your sales funnel, and then stopping your prospecting efforts. You do it because you get busy meeting with prospects and taking care of clients.

Your Focus Determines Your Direction
What are you focussing on achieving in your business in the next 90 days? Do you have any idea? If you don't then you better come up with a goal or outcome otherwise you may find that another 3 months has passed you by and you're no further ahead than where you are right now. When you've got a clear focus, you can easily say 'no' to activities that distract you.

Arranging Your Work Area for Efficiency
The arrangement of the work area – particularly of your desk or work station – should be governed by two considerations: • Easy access to necessary work materials • Elimination of distraction Manage these two concerns and your performance will increase!

6 Strategies to Get More From Your Planner
Even with the influx of Blackberries, smart phones and Palm, many people still stick with their paper planners. There is something about writing on paper that makes them comfortable and pleased. If you love your paper too, check out these strategies to make the most of your planning tool.

Scheduling and Planning - Keeping on Track - Part 1
Keeping your day on track can often times be a challenge in today's schedule hectic environment. We have provided 7 tips for you to use to make your day go smoother.

Nine Ways to Network More Effectively
One of the best ways to convert prospects into customers is by networking. Here are some simple strategies for making your networking more effective.

Your Sanity Savers - Have Time for the Good Life - Part One
Interruptions can be a huge time waster! Today there are more ways than ever to get interrupted, someone at your door, phone, cell phone, pager, instant messaging, email and more. Gain control of your environment by practicing some of these tips. The following tips will help you gain control of your time and your sanity!

How long does it take for a person to get organized and is it possible to stay that way?
Productivity and organizing project timing varies by project and person. Here are some factors that impact the length of time a project may take:

Productivity: Rhythm vs. Perpetual Motion

Many people feel that in order to be truly efficient in their work day, they have to be constantly busy, constantly moving from one thing to another. These people make a constant effort to not waste a single moment in their day. The reality? Productivity is more about rhythm than perpetual motion. Just as top athletes and performers need to find a personal rhythm, so you, as a professional in your field, need to find the proper rhythm for how you use your day.

Why Are You Not Making A Lot Of Money?
Discover what is in the way of you making a lot of money. And this one simple principle can be applied to other areas of your life as well.

Your Questions Determine Your Success
Allocate resources so your most important projects get your best efforts. Do the most important things when you are awake, rested, focused and eager. Arrange you budget so there is enough money, enough time, and enough "space". First things deserve the very best of your key resources!

Who Else Wants to Get Rich Slowly Selling Insurance?
Unfortunately, many producers enter the business with dollar signs in their eyes. It isn’t because you’re greedy or afraid of hard work.

Salespeople Aren't Made of Glass
This article shows what you'll see inside your salespeople if you could see their DNA.

The Importance of Practice
How to become more proficient at sales by knowing what you should practice.

Sales Planning Basics
Sales planning should be your number 1 priority if you want to succeed in sales. Success is no accident, you have to plan for it. Learn how now!

Problem Employee? – Attack the Behavior Not the Person

Dealing with a bad attitude can only realistically be accomplished by dealing with a person’s behavior. They have no doubt already been told about their bad attitude, so if you start the conversation with “I need to talk to you about your attitude,” they already have tuned you out. Concentrate instead on the “specific behaviors” you have observed, which come across to you and others as an attitude problem.

They’re All Tuned to WIIFM
Be Impressed, Not Impressive. Spend most of your time with someone making him or her feel that you're tuned into his or her station and you're bound to have better results.

Should we cold call?
Cold Calling! Most people don't like doing it. But millions of pounds of business are changing hands today with people that do. Would you like to be amonst them?

You've been Burned...Does that Mean You Stop Trying?
Show me a producer who can’t earn a decent living as long as they have a full appointment book, and I’ll show you a bumbling idiot. If you hold enough appointments with enough people even the worst salesperson in the world will sell someone something on a fairly regular basis.

Does it Make Sense to Keep Doing What isn't Working & Expect Increased Sales?
Persistence is good, but not if you're persistently doing the wrong things. That's just being pig headed and stupid.

Are You Asking the Right Questions to Increase Your Sales?
The right questions probably aren't the questions you’re using now. Do you and your prospects feel uncomfortable with the questions you're asking?

Reason Number 13 You Can’t Sell Insurance
You don’t set appointments for the right reason. The only reason to set an appointment with a prospect is to explore how you can do business together.

When Sales are Down these are the 3 things You Don't Want to Do
At some point in your business your sales will be down. When this happens you have a natural desire to do the very three things that will keep your sales down.

How Well Are You Keeping Your Focus on Increasing Sales?
Keeping your focus on increasing sales may sound a little odd to you. You’re in sales or own your own small business of course your focus is on sales, or is it?

If You Can Answer Yes to These 5 Questions, Don’t Need More Sales Training!
Most service sales people won’t last longer than 3 years. Of those that make it past the 3 year mark, 20% will barely hang on and 20% will be top producers.

10 top tips to reduce your Carbon footprint when selling
Most salespeople never give it a second thought when it comes to thinking about reducing their own carbon footprint during their sales role, so here are my top tips on how to help save the planet and still make the sale

Price Is an Issue Its Not THE Issue
You’ve hired a dedicated sales force. Your company has the best product. Great service is delivered after the sale. So why is your team losing sales to “low price?” Colleen Stanley of SalesLeadership explains four reasons great companies run into this problem.

Shoot! Five tips for working with newspaper photographers

Good art is a crucial element in an effective news story. Lots of people read newspapers from cover to cover, but many more scan pages for points of interest. They’ll be drawn in by a photo and caption, then read the full story. That's why you should consider yourself doubly blessed when a newspaper editor calls to set up an interview with a reporter and photographer. Newspapers strapped for resources make fewer and fewer of these appointments. You’ve been given a wonderful opportunity. How do you make the most of it?

Am I Cut Out to Work For Myself?
ot everyone is cut out to be a self-employed business person. To work for yourself, you are required to be an innovative and motivated individual and need to have a professional attitude.

Part Ten - Prospecting for More Sales

The last installment of a Ten Part Series. In this series, we explore all the different avenues of prospecting necessary for a business to succeed. Think of your business as a a beautiful garden, and then consider all the things you need to do to keep that garden beautiful and growing, rather than dreary, dead or decaying. Need help with Prospecting? Feel free to get in touch with us via our website.

Part Nine - Prospecting for More Sales
Part Nine of a Ten Part Series. In this series, we explore all the different avenues of prospecting necessary for a business to succeed. Think of your business as a a beautiful garden, and then consider all the things you need to do to keep that garden beautiful and growing, rather than dreary, dead or decaying. Need help with Prospecting? Feel free to get in touch with us via our website.

Lessons from the Gym that Can Help Your Business
It's been a difficult journey toward becoming fit, but it reminded me of a few lessons that apply equally to building a business. The following are a few of the lessons I have learned from the gym.

We All Have Strengths
Be warned – this posting reveals who has been ‘fired’ from the forth episode and the rest of the post is only my observation and opinion based upon 60 minutes of edited TV, nothing more.

Accountability, An Essential Element for High Performance

I recently learned a new method for making myself and others more accountable. It is called behavioural contracting and was taught to me by Bob Davies, a trainer and coach based in the U.S. I tried his method and found it highly effective. To make this work you need to have someone, a coach or friend to work with you to form a behavioural contract. Take a look at your one key goal you set for yourself this year, or set one now. My experience is that if we set and focus on one wildly important goal and take action towards achieving it, other areas of our lives or business improve as well.

Solving ‘Too Many Clients – Not Enough Profit'
Steve Leach teaches us how 20% of clients provide 80% of your profits and how to solve the challenge.

Get More Done and Have More Fun in Your Business
Is time on your side or do you find yourself running out of day before your tasks are done? Read on to find out how to feel good about what you've accomplished at the end of each day.

Are You a Human Being or a Human Doing?
What's this personal time for? Anything other than work. Remember that gym membership? This is when you can actually use it. Or get a massage, visit a museum, browse the bookstore, or have lunch with a friend. This is [a part of] the time that will make you a well-rounded, interesting human being rather than a worker-bee "human doing."

Make Every Call Count
It is not enough to go on appointments, send out fancy packets and pass your card around. You have to be willing to become masterful at using the phone. Review these "quick tips" for making every call count, and see if you are not more masterful the next time you dial.

Four-Step-Formula Revealed by America Highest Paid Ad Writer

I’m going to show you a four-step formula passed to me from one of America’s highest paid ad writer. As soon as I applied the formula to the sale page on my website, it increased the number of people responding to my ad more than ten folds almost overnight. Curious to know what I did? Here’s the text version after the make-over, you can find the original unformatted version on my website. Scroll down to the end of this article and you will find the web link. =========================================== Why Almost Everyone Is Dead Wrong About How To Get New Customers ===========================================

How to advertise without spending $1 on advertising

Are you a boot-strapping entrepreneur struggling to get appointments and find new customers through conventional advertising methods? What if you could discover one method to generate business around the clock without spending a dime on advertising? Does it sound too good to be true? Before I explain, let me ask you one question… Have you ever jumped into the deep-end of a pool without learning to swim first? That’s exactly what most businesses are doing with advertising. They believe what the advertising sale rep tells them, that as soon as their ads go live, their phone will ring off the hook and their inbox will be filled with floods of incoming emails.

Who’s in the meeting – and who’s not?
So many sales folks are targeting ‘appointments’ these days. I wonder if you know who actually is in attendance. And who isn’t but should be. As you enter your meeting, do you know what percent of the entire Buying Decision Team is there? What weight your contact has on the full Buying Decision Team?

Five Steps to Cold Calling Success
Are you having a hard time reaching decision-makers, setting up well-qualified appointments, getting past gatekeepers, gathering information or finding if you are calling on an appropriate prospect in the first place? Maybe it seems impossible to get your cold calls returned or you are getting stuck into an endless loop of voice mail. Read on...

How to Increase Sales by 20%
The managers in your dealership must have a written job description with clearly defined responsibilities and expectations. Having specific goals for the department is required. Daily action plans for selling, training, appointments, one-on-one coaching, save-a deal meetings, deal structuring, follow-up, etc will increase sales by 20 percent without spending more for advertising.

Why Trying To Get The Appoinment, Can Be a Recipe for Dis-Appointment
Last week, this e-mail from Jack arrived in my inbox:

The Wall of Defensiveness: 7 Ways to Tear It Down
Have you ever gotten frustrated when you realize that your prospects keep stereotyping you as a "salesperson"?

Relief for Small Business Owners
What can a VA do for your business?

Urgency
If you’re serious about success and if time is valuable to you, you only want to deal with Joint Venture Partners who are seriously motivated and make your interaction, project, Joint Venture a priority.

Top Time Management Tips
Time is a common problem among small business owners. Helen Dowling from Exceptional Thinking shows you her top tips to coping with it.

Stop By All That Business Your Are Driving By If You Want to Increase Sales
Most sales people drive by more business than they will ever realize. Read how this one simple strategy can increase your sales.

14 Characteristics of Top-Flight Salespeople

The Difference between The Best And The Also-Rans… As a consultant and trainer in sales and the sales process, I’m often asked the question, “What makes a top-performing salesperson?” As with most things in life, the answer can be summarised in just two words, Attitude and Activity. Attitude determines the difference between the best and the rest. The best don’t necessarily know more, they just do more and do it better and more frequently. Activity is the manifestation of their desire to succeed. Combined, they become Actitude - activity conducted with a positive attitude.

Business Travel: Staying Connected when You Are Away for a Long Time
Here are some ways to stay connected to the loved ones you leave behind when you travel.

Making Time for Team Building Relationships
Whatever else you are doing - STOP! - whenever you engage with someone in conversation. Ignore pagers. Put off interruptions. At the very least make sure that you 'honour' the space that you have when you are in any sort of one-to-one with someone else...

Is there any benefit to hiring less skilled sales people to prospect for my skilled sales people?
Telephone sales people must understand the sales process used by your team, and understand your products and services. However they must know not to talk about these on the telephone. If they do, then no appointment is needed is it? Instead they must talk only about the benefits of a face to face meeting with someone who can provide more details.

Get Yourself Unstuck: 8 Smart Reminders
Whether you consider yourself a occasional procrastinator, or a terminal one, getting stuck in the mud occasionally - paralyzing your ability to act sometimes happens. While it's certainly useful to explore the reasons behind persistent procrastination patterns and resolve them, this article is intended to offer you 8 smart reminders, to free you up, and get you moving again. Here they are:

10 Ways To Overcome Your Fear Of Selling
Some salespeople and many entrepreneurs lack self-confidence in certain aspects of professional selling. This article provides 10 ideas how you can overcome any fear of selling you may have.

Summertime Blues
Life and work continue, even in the summer! If it’s too hot, then your prospects will be in their nice, air-conditioned offices—where you should be, too, making calls. If it is a beautiful day, some people may be out. The rest will not.

Cold Calls Anyone?
Does cold calling work anymore? If so, when and how should you do it? If it doesn't what should you do instead?

Getting Appointments over the Phone By Mike Le Put
If your selling cycle depends on getting FACE TO FACE appointments, then you must become outstanding in this master skill of selling appointments. It is the start of your sales production line and will ultimately determine your success.

New Metrics for the Sales Force - Unusual Thoughts for Unusual Times
More is less - you will close more sales if your salespeople book fewer appointments but concentrate on more quality appointments. Quality is not how well your salespeople are received, it's the fit and need of the opportunity.

"Your Memory - Have You Forgotten How To Use It?"
How good is your memory? If you're someone who regularly forgets pin numbers, appointments, and people's names, this article will change your life!

How To Get Appointments With Crazy-Busy Customers
What’s the real secret to land appointments with insanely busy customers? How can you deal with postponements, excuses, unanswered emails and missed calls? Here are 4 must-have tips to get appointments with your crazy-busy clients.

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