12 Great Selling Skills!

Chapter 2: Making a Personal Sales Plan

Find something you really love

and you’ll never have to work a day in your life. – Harvey Mackay(1)

TOP 20% of the best sales people in every field earn more

than 80% of the total income of all sales people.

Your goal is to be one of those top 20%,

and then continuously increase your sales and income.

In this chapter,

you will learn that successful people achieve far,

far beyond the average person

by planning their upcoming actions and goals.

What is the most important

and highest paying job you have ever had?

The answer is:

Think!

The way you think

and the quality of those thoughts is an extremely important factor

in determining the quality of your life.

The more accurately you think about yourself,

your goals,

and the activities needed to achieve them,

the higher your chances of succeeding in everything you do.

“A person is obviously going to excel and do best in those areas in which

he or she invests the most attention

and takes the most action.” – Grant Cardone

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Your Most Valuable Asset

What is your most valuable asset?

It’s your ability to make money.

Your earning potential can be defined

by your ability to produce results

that make others willing to pay you.

The difference between high performers

and low performers is that high performers develop a high level

of monetization and low performers do not.

Your earning potential at the present time is the sum of your knowledge

and experience,

your habits and skills,

all your education and training, up to now.

The good news is that all of those abilities,

knowledge,

and habits can be improved.

You can increase your earning potential continuously

and throughout your career.

However, just like other assets,

your earning potential can increase or decrease.

For those in the top 20%,

their earning potential increases

by an average of 11% per year

(according to data from studies conducted

at the University of Chicago).

For the remaining 80%,

their earning potential,

if they still have a job,

increases by about 1% per year,

if at all.

If your most valuable asset grew

by an average of 11% per year,

your income would double within seven years,

then double again,

and double again and again.

And on your career path,

you will soon become one of the highest paid people in society.

But if your income is only growing by 1% per year

because you are not doing anything

to increase your earning potential,

it will take you 72 years to double your income.

And that’s as long as the industry

or economy you live in is free of inflation,

unemployment,

or collapse.

Perhaps the most important difference in work life today,

when compared to the past,

is that each of us has taken full responsibility for our careers

and financial futures.

As I said in the previous chapter,

you are the president of the company with one employee

– yourself.

You are responsible for selling a product

– your own personal service.

Your main goal at work is to increase the quality

and quantity of the services you provide

thereby increasing your income and quality of life.

The biggest mistake you can make is thinking you’re working for someone,

not yourself.

You are the president of a company called Your Company.

You are the chairman of your own career,

your own life,

and your own future.

You determine your income over time

by what you do and what you cannot do.

Often the things you fail to do are the things

that have the biggest impact on your life.

If you fail to plan your life and work every day,

every hour,

the price you will pay lies in the results you achieve

and your ability to make money.

If you fail to organize and prioritize the things you do,

this failure will hurt you.

If you are not continuously improving your knowledge

and skills to become better and better,

turning your earning power into a prized asset,

it will have a negative effect on your life,

and your future.

“Never cut anything,

never dilute greatness,

never pull back on your horsepower,

and never put a limit on your ambition,

drive, and passion.” – Grant Cardone

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Your Most Valuable Resource

What is your most valuable resource?

The answer is: time!

At the beginning of your career,

if you are like everyone else,

you will have little or no money,

but a lot of time.

You enter the market

and exchange your services for money.

If you are a good trader,

your income will increase gradually over time.

When you have reached the final stages of your career,

you will have very little time,

but you need to accumulate a lot of money already.

The worst thing that can happen to everyone

are that they work all their lives,

trading 30,

40 years of hard work only to end up

with no money to live a leisurely life in old age.

Unfortunately,

that’s the situation a lot of people find themselves in today.

“Show up early,

treat people with respect

and perform at the highest levels till the world can’t deny you.” – Grant Cardone

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Personal planning

The purpose of strategic planning in business is

to increase return on equity (ROE), which is defined as:

“Increasing financial returns based on

a given amount of invested in the business.”

The goal of personal planning is also

to increase your return on equity.

But in this respect,

ROE is defined

as the rate of return on energy invested (return on energy).

That is increasing financial income based on “human capital”.

Mental, emotional,

and physical energy make up your human capital,

and that’s all you really have to sell at the start of your career.

A person’s standard of living and income is determined entirely

by his or her ability to sell personal energy in the market

to achieve worthy results

and achievements.

Unfortunately, most people never learn

that the ability to make money

is their most valuable and valuable asset.

They don’t know how to appreciate it.

They ignored it.

They assume that it is something beyond their control.

Most people spend their time indiscriminately and indiscriminately.

They wake up in the morning,

drink coffee,

go to work to listen to music,

chat with co-workers,

have lunch, have coffee,

make a few sales calls,

and then go home to watch TV.

But that schedule is not for you.

Your life is extremely precious.

Your goal is to live life to the fullest possible,

trading every minute of every hour

for the highest possible return on energy investment.

Remember, you are your own boss.

You decide your own income.

You write your own receipt.

If you are not happy with your current income,

go to the nearest mirror

and negotiate with your boss.

If you want more money,

there’s only one way you can get there

– go out

and make more good sales.

And this decision is completely in your control.

“Rich people don’t get rich by accident

and poor people don’t stay poor by accident.” – Grant Cardone

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GOSPA strategy

In the personal planning process,

you always start with your goals

– short,

medium and long term goals.

Where are you currently standing?

Where do you want to be in the future?

And what steps do you need to take to get there?

There is a powerful way to help you think

and make better decisions than using the GOSPA strategic thinking

and planning method (long-term goals,

short-term goals,

strategies,

plans and actions

– goals,

objectives,

strategies,

plans and activities):

“People will pay more for a great attitude than they will for a great product.

The individual who combines a great attitude with a great product.

Becomes unstoppable!” – Grant Cardone

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• Long-term goals.

Those are the goals and desired results

that you need to work hard for a long time to achieve.

Goal setting starts

with deciding exactly how much money you want to earn next year.

You can start by taking the total income

for the year you made the most money so far

and add 25 to 50% of that amount.

For example, if the highest amount you have ever made in a year is $50,000,

you set a goal to earn $62,500 within the next 12 months.

If you’re more ambitious,

you can set a goal of making $75,000 within the next 12 months.

Once you have determined your annual income and sales goals,

the next step is to break it down into monthly,

weekly,

and daily goals.

For example, if your goal is to earn $60,000 next year,

your monthly income would be $5,000.

If your monthly goal is $5,000

and you work 50 weeks per year

then you need to make $1,200 per week

which equates to $240 per workday.

The final, and possibly the most important,

exercise you will need

to do will be determining how much you will earn per hour.

How much money will you want

or need to earn per hour

to be able to meet your daily,

weekly,

and annual income goals?

If your annual income goal is $60,000,

you divide it by 2,000 hours

(250 workdays, 8 hours a day)

to determine your desired hourly earnings of $30.

From today onwards,

throughout your workday,

refuse to do anything that doesn’t pay you more than

or equal to $30 per hour.

“Does your money work as hard for you as you work for it?” – Grant Cardone

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• Short-term goal.

Short-term goals are the sub-goals that you need

to achieve on your way to achieving your long-term goals.

For example, you will have to call a specific number of potential customers

to get a specific number of meetings

and it will lead to the number of offers corresponding

to a certain number of successful deals labor.

Some amount

Specifically, successful transactions will bring specific income numbers.

In addition,

between the small goals will be the goal

of developing a complete,

correct understanding of the product

and improving your sales and time management skills.

Those are all essential goals that you need to accomplish

in order to achieve your long-term income goals.

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• Strategy.

There are many different ways you can accomplish your goal.

For example, there are only three ways to increase sales:

Increase the number of transactions

(make more sales with more individuals.)

Increase the size of each deal

(upsell, cross-sell,

and maximize the potential profit from each sale.)

Increase transaction density

(do all you can to get customers

to buy from you more often

and recommend your products/services to other customers.)

One of the best ways to define a strategy

to achieve a specific goal on the way to your long-term goals is

to make a list of all the things you can do to achieve your sub-goals.

Sort the list you just listed by value and priority.

Decide exactly what you can do

to increase sales in one or more of the ways above.

“Thinking big, dreaming big,

and setting high goals and targets are great,

but unrealistic if you are not disciplined.

All of these targets will turn into failures

if you do not get real with yourself sooner than later.

You are in total control of your success,

start acknowledging that.” – Grant Cardone

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• Plan.

A plan is an organized list of things to do

to accomplish the strategies in the master plan.

All of the most productive people work on a pre-made list.

They are the people who constantly make lists.

Perhaps the best time management tool is a checklist that you create

by writing down all the steps,

in order,

that need to be taken to achieve a short-term goals on the way

to conquering long-term goals.

Once you have this checklist,

you will work on it,

completing each task in turn,

until you reach your larger goal.

“Money seems to flow to those who give it the most attention & take responsibility for it.” – Grant Cardone

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• Action.

There will be activities that you must do every day

to execute your plan,

execute your strategy,

achieve your short-term goals,

and finally conquer your long-term goals.

The more thoughtfully you think about these activities,

the quicker you will achieve better results.

“Money doesn’t buy happiness.

Poverty can’t buy anything.” – Grant Cardone

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Control your actions

The key to sales success is staying in control of your actions.

You’ve identified your annual income goal

and the number of products you need

to sell to earn that amount.

Now break this recipe down into even smaller pieces.

First, what is the average size of your sale?

Good salespeople regularly keep accurate reports

on their business activities.

They can tell you the average size of their sales by month,

by year.

They know very well how much money they make.

They use this information as a baseline

and regularly work to improve their average earnings per trade.

How many products do you need to sell each week,

month,

or year to individual customers

in order to earn the desired annual income?

How many potential customers do you need to meet?

How many people will you need to contact

to get the number of meetings needed with real leads?

You may have to make five, 10,

and even 20 calls to get a meeting with your real prospect.

Always keep accurate reports of these numbers.

How many pitches do you have to make with real leads

to get the number of successful deals you need

to reach your personal income goal?

What is your closing rate,

per meeting,

per offer,

per customer service?

Do you know how many people you need to talk to in the beginning

to get how many appointments,

how many sales pitches,

how many customer service sessions,

thereby making how many deals?

successful and how much money per trade?

By keeping accurate reporting on this issue,

you know the answers to these questions every day,

every week,

every month.

With a well-written plan,

you can make more money in a week

or a month than you could make in a year

or even two years without any plan.

A personal strategic plan places on your shoulders the responsibility

to accomplish and helps you achieve more than you can imagine.

All the best salespeople work with a well-written plan.

And you should too!

Remember:

Every 10 minutes you spend on planning will save you about 10 minutes

in the process of getting important results.

If you spend 10 minutes a day planning,

you will save about 100 minutes a day.

You get paid 10 times what you put in,

or rate of return on invested energy is 1000%.

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Sales funnel

Use the template of a sales funnel to plan your sales activities and activities.

There are a few different parts to a professional sales process,

but there are three of the biggest that we can see,

namely finding,

selling,

customer care,

and closing the deal.

Imagine a funnel that is wide at the top of the mouth

and narrow at the bottom.

Your search is an operation that fills the mouth of the funnel.

You have to put a lot of potential customers into the mouth of the funnel

because only a few of them will move down,

all the way to the bottom of the funnel

and become your actual customers.

The second major part of selling,

and also the second part of the funnel,

is to offer your product/service

as the best possible choice for this particular customer.

(You’ll learn in the next sections

that the place of the sale is the place of the sale.)

There’s a direct ratio

between the number of new leads you talk to

and the number of opportunities you’ll have to offer

to sell its products or services.

In this example,

let’s say you need 20 leads at the top of the funnel

to make five sales in the middle of the funnel.

The third part of the funnel,

the bottom,

is when you take care of the customer

and complete the transaction.

If you had to contact 20 leads to get five sales,

out of those five you could get two real leads to take care of.

With these two customers you can complete a transaction.

In this example,

your sales ratio is 20:1.

Once you’ve determined your current sales rate

– which will vary due to market conditions,

personal experience,

skills,

and other factors

– here’s your strategy:

keep the funnel full.

Continue to search,

offer for sale and care.

And finally, dedicate yourself

to get even better results in each specific section.

“True wealth is not created by saving,

it is created by expanding and investing.” – Grant Cardone

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Key Results Areas

There are seven Key Results Areas in the sales process.

All are necessary for the success of the sale.

Your average score in each of these ranges determines

how much income you can earn.

If you want to lose weight,

the first thing you do is stand on the scale

and see how much you weigh.

This job gives you a “boundary line,”

and it becomes your starting point.

From this baseline you can compare your weight each day.

With the key result areas of your sales work,

the problem is almost the same.

You start by giving yourself a score from 1 to 10

in each of the following areas:

“The only way to get real freedom is to create massive success.” – Grant Cardone

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Search

Build relationships and trust

Identify the problem

Solution presentation

Responding to objections

End of offering

Resell and recommend

The lowest level of proficiency you need

to achieve business success

is a score of seven or more.

As you rate yourself in each of these Key Results Areas, be honest.

You can only improve yourself in a particular area

if you accept that you are not

as strong as you can be in that area.

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1. Search.

If you give it a score from 1 to 10,

how many points is your search skill?

A 10 means you’ve got all the leads you can talk to

and you’ve scheduled meetings with new leads within the next two,

three weeks or even two,

the next three months.

A score of 1 means you don’t have a single lead

and don’t know who you’ll talk to next.

This is the area where it is easiest to evaluate yourself.

A score of 5 means 50% of your time is scheduled

with prior appointments.

A score of 7 means 70% of your time is scheduled

with prior appointments.

If you give it a score from 1 to 10,

how many points is your search skill?

Please write your score here: ___

“Confidence is built by doing the right things, not buying things.” – Grant Cardone

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2. Build relationships and trust.

This is an important part of being successful in sales.

A score of 10 means you’ve successfully made contact

with most of the people you talk to.

You like them and they love you too.

A score of 1 means you clearly don’t like yourself

or your potential customers.

You don’t feel comfortable talking to them,

and you rarely get the chance to meet them a second time.

The good news in building rapport

and trust is that the more you like yourself,

the more you’ll like other people,

and of course,

the more they’ll like you, too.

As with what you’ve done

to improve your confidence

and self-esteem,

set clear goals

and work every day to execute on your plan.

You’ll feel happier

and in control of your life,

you’ll become more positive,

and the people you come in contact with will enjoy yourself

and your sales-related activities of you more.

Do you consider yourself good at creating close

and harmonious relationships with your potential customers

from the first meeting and in subsequent meetings?

Rate yourself and rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10.

How many points did you get? ___

“Create an atmosphere of abundance,

so that money is no longer the point.” – Grant Cardone

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3. Identify the problem.

The most important part of the first sales contact,

and in the business relationship you are continuing to develop,

is the ability to clearly

and precisely define what your customers want,

need, and are ready pay

for what utility your product/service provides.

You identify your customer’s needs by asking systematic

and carefully prepared questions in a clear and concise manner.

This series of questions can elicit valuable information

that helps you identify features

and benefits that can help customers improve their lives

or work in the product/service you provide.

If you get a 10 in problem definition,

then you have carefully prepared a series of systematic questions,

from the general to the specific,

to ask your prospect.

By the end of the first conversation,

both you

and the other prospect have a very good understanding

of an existing need

or problem that your product/service can satisfy or solve.

Conversely, if your problem-solving ability is only 1 point,

it is clear that your sales conversation is not prepared at all.

You keep talking nonsense,

indiscriminately,

thinking what to say

and then at the end of the conversation the customer

still cannot understand what you are saying

and why he has to see you again.

How many points do you get in the field of identifying customer problems?

Please rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10: ___

“Success is your duty,

obligation,

and responsibility.” – Grant Cardone

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4. Offer a solution.

This is the area where the majority of trades are made.

A score of 10 for solution ability means

that your offer is executed very smoothly, professionally,

and persuasively so that,

in the end,

your customers are ready

to enjoy the benefits

that they have to offer product/service you are offering to sell

and ready to buy that product/service.

Score 1, on the contrary,

means that your presentation is messy

and unclear at all and,

in the end, your customer can’t find any reason to want

to buy your product/service,

that you are offering and therefore there is no reason

to buy that product/service.

Instead, your customer will say,

“Let me consider it.”

Now give yourself a score.

How many points do you get on a scale of 1 to 10? ___

“If you’re having financial trouble it’s

because you have the wrong information.” – Grant Cardone

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5. Respond to customer objections.

If your ability to respond to objections scores 10,

you’ve thought through all the objections

the smartest prospect could give you,

and you’ve develop a system of clear

and persuasive responses to each objection.

Once you have given a clear

and convincing answer,

the customer will never raise the issue again.

At the bottom of the scorecard,

a score of 1 on your ability to respond

to customer objections means

that every time you hear an objection,

you feel frustrated and extremely depressed.

You become angry and defensive.

You don’t know what you should say

to the customer right now so that you can satisfy them

and reassure them that your product/service is really a good choice.

Are you really capable of responding to objections?

Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10: ___

“Stay away from negative people.

They don’t use their energy to improve their own life,

instead they use it to bring you down.” – Tai Lopez

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6. Closing the offering.

To get 10 points for doing this step,

you’ll need to have a series of conversational closing questions

that you’re prepared to ask at the right time

and in the right way.

You close the conversation calmly and professionally

with the promise of a purchase

or an order from your customer.

You complete the transaction logically

and feel little or no stress.

Conversely, a score of 1 means you don’t know

how to get orders from customers.

By the end of the offer,

you become nervous and confused.

You don’t know what to say or do right now.

How many points do you have in terms of closing the offer?

Please rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10: ___

“My favorite way to make money is while I sleep.” – Tai Lopez

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7. Resale and referrals.

To get 10 points for doing this job,

you need to create a “golden chain” in reselling

to customers who are satisfied with your product/service

and are willing to recommend you

with the people around you.

Your after-sales service should be good

so that customers want

to buy your products/services again

and recommend you to their friends.

Point 1, of course,

means that after buying your product/service once,

the customer never wants to buy again

and therefore will never refer you to anyone again.

Good sales people structure the public

their business with a “referral only” sales goal.

Based on the percentage of transactions completed

by referrals from past customers out of total transactions,

rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 ___

Remember:

When you rate yourself below a 7 in any area,

it indicates that your skill area is making you less confident,

preventing you from realizing your full potential ability,

in terms of sales and income.

“The goal of life is to enjoy your life.

To do something important.” – Tai Lopez

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Your limited skills

In anyone’s sales career

there will be a “limiting factor” to sales success.

It is almost always your weakest area.

Out of the seven key Key Results Areas above,

which one do you give yourself the worst score in?

The answer to this question is extremely important to you.

You may excel in six of the seven Key Results Areas related to sales,

but it is the area where you are weak

that is holding you back from your ability

to sell and make money.

Here’s the important question:

What is the skill that,

if you become truly outstanding,

will have the most positive effect on your sales

as well as your earnings?

This is one of the most important questions you will ask and answer.

What skills can help you the most?

Whatever it is, make it a goal.

Write it down and make a plan

to achieve that goal.

Work on improving yourself in that skill area every day

until you are fully confident and master the skill.

The Key Results Area (KRA) approach presents a comprehensive picture

of the entire sales process.

To identify your weakest areas,

write all seven key result areas on a piece of paper.

When you fail in an offer,

put an X next to the key results area where you feel that

because of this step you are not selling.

After a week, go back

and look at your overall scoreboard.

In the sales process,

which step have you highlighted the most?

That is the bottleneck

– the key skill you are weakest in.

Immediately get back to work

to address that bottleneck

by improving your abilities in this area.

Once you have improved yourself in this key results area,

the next area of weakness will appear.

Continue with the process you just went through:

Put an X next to the key results area

where you think you failed on your latest offering,

work to improve yourself in that area

until you are absolutely brilliant

and comprehensive in the rest of the sales process.

“Increase your attention span.

Your ability to concentrate predicts your long-term success at almost anything.” – Tai Lopez

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ACTION EXERCISES

Here are some questions

that you can apply these ideas to in your sales:

What are the three ways to be the boss of your company?

What are three ways

that you can determine your own income in sales?

What are the three most important activities in sales?

What are three of the characteristics of the top 10%

of the best salespeople in your field?

What are the three areas

that you need to plan ahead every day

to achieve your sales and income goals?

What is the key skill area where you are weakest in sales?

Finally, after what we’ve learned in this chapter,

if there’s one thing you want to do right away,

what would it be?