More Effective Selling

Most of us need to get better at using our time efficiently and we can do this by spending more time being more effective.

One way is to build better connections with people. Finding out what they want from your product or service, before we tell them what you think is so great about it.

Rather than telling them the benefits of your product or service straight away, why not ask them what they are looking for in that sort of service or what they’re looking for in that sort of opportunity or product.

Then match their criteria to the good points in yours that can be matched.

There may be ten good things about what you do, for instance, ten real strong strategy points and you may think that four of them are the key ones. Somebody else may think it’s a completely different four of the ten so you could be doing yourself a disservice even by getting all enthusiastic about the wrong four!

If we know what people are looking for, we know where people want to go, if we know what their destiny is with the product or service or their business or whatever, we can build quality connections by just taking the time to find out what it is they’re looking for? What would make things better for them? and then see what we have to offer we can match to their needs.

Doing the things that holds you back

If we’re honest, we all know that one thing that if we were to do it we could start to build things differently in our lives, whether it’s that we could go across the room and talk to a stranger or that we could make that sales call, or speak to that person at that networking event, or attend networking events.

A lot of us have uncomfortable feelings around those situations but we know that if we could master those situations, if we could think about how great our lives would be, and list out all the positive things how great our lives would be if we were to do that one thing.

Then list out all the negative things if we were never able to do that, what it would mean to our lives.

For instance, on the positive list, list all the great things, let’s say my problem was I didn’t want to go and approach strangers at a networking event.

Now, I could list out all the positives to going and talking to strangers at a networking event and what that could possibly mean to my life:

I could grow a bigger business

I’d be able to give the family a more secure future

I’d be able to do things for the children, take them on holiday

Put them in the School I want, the education system that I wanted to put them in…

Anything, anything that really, really gets you inspired even if its things like you’d be able to:

Buy a sports car

I’d be able to go round the World

I’d be able to go on fantastic holidays

Whatever it is, list all the positives that would exist in your life if you could do that one thing, if you got over that one thing.

Then list the negatives to your life if you never get over that one thing for example:

I’d never feel I’d reached my true potential in life

I won’t be able to give the kids the best I could possibly give them.

You see if you can come up with enough emotional blackmail on yourself, either the negatives of not doing it or the positives of doing it, and if you can come up with what you need that becomes more important than that feeling of going across the room and talking to somebody, if you can put more worth on what that would mean to your life and got over the “failure”, which is really the potential of an unplanned outcome, then you will cross that line, and you will expand your Comfort Zone.

It’s not about getting outside your Comfort Zone, it’s about expanding your Comfort Zone, taking those steps to expand your Comfort Zone and make it bigger.

So, get that emotional blackmail listed out and if you sit down, spend a few minutes reading the list of all the positive things if you actually did this, see how that makes you feel, does that inspire you?

If not, find some others, take a ten minute break, then make a list of all the negatives things that would happen in your life if you never mastered this, if you never did this such as:

I won’t realise my full potential

I won’t be able to do the best for my family

All those sorts of things list those down; read that list, does that inspire you more?

If one of the lists inspires you more than the other then throw the one that doesn’t inspire you as much away and focus on the one that really inspires you.

Think about that list that inspires you, think about it, and when you think about that and you’re motivated towards that, imagine yourself going across that room and speaking to that person, or whatever your one thing is and imagine that you are doing it with enthusiasm.

We have to imagine things in our minds whether we realise it or not before we do them.

It has to exist in the mind before it exists in your reality.

If you show your mind nervousness and hesitation, it won’t want to take your body there.

So, see these things going as best as they could.

Do the above exercise every day as often as you can think about that one thing whatever it is for you that would move you to the next level.

See yourself doing it with enthusiasm and expectation of a good outcome!

If you feel yourself held back from doing things you say you “Can’t” then download the free ebook on changing how you feel about things you say you can’t do you can download your copy here

What are your Goals? And are they really your Goals?

The first step before we can start programming ourselves for success with our Goals is to really discover what our Goals are, often we believe we know what our Goals are but the real Goal can be beyond what we first believe.

To get started ask yourself what is it you want? What is your ultimate Goal or aim in life?

Now for most people they will sell themselves short and pick an easier Goal because their limiting beliefs prevent them even considering the Goal They really would like to achieve.

So, back to your Goal then, ask yourself this:

“If I could do or be anything in life without risk of failure, regardless of qualifications and experience to date – what would I be or what would I do?”

Here we are trying to find that ultimate Goal, the one you probably stopped considering some time ago.

Once you have that then let us see what the Ultimate Goal is behind that – ask yourself about the Dream Goal you have come up with:

“What would that do for me?”

The answers that come up here are more what you really want and are looking for, and you may find there are other ways in addition to the Dream Goal of achieving them.

For example a lot of people would say “My dream goal is to be a millionaire” – the goal is the money. However, is that what they are really looking for or is the money a means to an end?

When we ask that person “and what would that do for you?” quite typically they will start to list off things like:

Peace of Mind

Security

Contentment

Happiness

and many others, what you can realise though is that these things can be obtained and are achieved by others regardless of achieving that Dream Goal.

Does this mean we should not go for our Dream Goal? Not at all, it means let us make sure we know what our Goal is really so we can focus on that whilst working with other Goals along the way. It may be we realise an even better Dream Goal than the original once we understand what we are really looking for from that Dream Goal.

How to Massively Improve your Results with little or no extra effort!

Mark Rhodes – Business Mentor, Speaker and Trainer – showing you how you could massively improve your results with little or no extra effort.

Winning more sales, getting more clients and customers and achieving your business Goals

How?

By using the same methods, tools, techniques and ideas that I have used to achieve every goal I have ever set for myself, including starting, building and then selling my own Internet Software company to a USA based Silicon Valley Corporation after just 2 years in business, having sold products and services to top brand names and beat competition from household name competitors to secure those customers and clients.

When?

One to one as a Business Mentor for Business Owners to achieve your Goals for yourself and your business and to work on specific potential client/customer presentations.

Internal Workshops for your staff to improve their enthusiasm, direction and performance for their own goals and in turn benefit the company.

Consulting services to improve sales presentations and get more sales, be more effective at Networking, and improve communication.

Speaking at your conference, event or company meetings.

…..and at my Public Seminars, Workshops and Mentoring Days open to everyone.

More details about Mentoring with Mark can be found on the Mentor Page.

Expanding Your Comfort Zone

One of our biggest ongoing challenges is to keep feeling that Comfort Zone and continue to push it outwards and be ever expanding.

Here is something to try, even if you’ve experienced this before try it again now.

-Fold your arms.
-Look down very carefully noticing how you have done it, what hand goes where?
-Is the left hand on top or bottom, where is the right hand?

Now, fold your arms the opposite way, be very careful that you have actually done it the complete opposite way, it’s all too easy to spin the arms a few times and fall back into the usual old way – the comfortable way.

If you have done this totally opposite to how you normally do it then more than likely it feels really awkward, and does not feel right at all.

The reason is you are not familiar with this pattern of folding your arms, if you did this for a few days it would feel comfortable and natural, but because it is not something you usually do, it feels awkward until your brain detects the pattern and you get use to it.

Once we get use to things they become natural to us and don’t have that awkward feeling about them.

This “awkward” feeling is a signal to “be aware” that this is something different, something we are not use to. It does not have to be a signal to “beware” and retreat.

You see the most basic activities in life have patterns we become familiar with and even simple things in an unfamiliar way generate an awkward feeling.

Here is another one, when getting dressed next, put the other foot to the usual one in your trousers or underwear first, you will probably fall over! You see we are all over the place when something is not natural to us, when we are not an expert at something, even something simple.

Does that mean you can never do it? Of course not. It means by paying attention, and practise you can develop a new pattern that those areas of life that were once uncomfortable can become natural.

After all how does an expert become an expert – by doing something lots of times and continual improvement, doing more of what works and less of what does not work.

You don’t need to have a lot of limiting beliefs to hold you back, quite simply not being use to doing something can cause emotional feedback, it’s feedback not a stop sign!

So relax, pay attention and push forward!

Mark Rhodes

Finding the Belief that holds you back

There are a number of ideas for playing around with Beliefs in the free ebook available from this website, sometimes though we don’t know what the Belief is that is holding us back…….

Now, another way to look at Beliefs is to look at an area of life where we are not taking the actions we would like to take, or feeling the way we’d like to feel in certain situations, and check in with ourselves and see what Belief might be holding us back.

For example, let’s say I didn’t like talking to Strangers, but I don’t know what the exact belief is holding me back. What I can do to find out the belief that is likely to be holding me back is to ask myself this question:

In order to feel like this or act like this in this situation what must I believe about myself, about others and the world in general?

You’ll be surprised how new ideas and thoughts can spring to mind when you ask better questions of yourself……too often we say “Why can’t I do this?” and answer ourselves in a way that is not very helpful….

So apply this method to anything you want to work on, or what would be even better is to notice over the next little while any bad emotions you get or feelings, or anything you hold back from doing and simply say to yourself:

“In order to feel like this or act like this in this situation what must I believe about myself, about others and the world in general?”

One of the things I’d really like you to do is become more aware of when fears come up or negative emotions, perhaps it’s even when you get annoyed if something is not going your way. Notice these times and ask yourself the above question.

Often we are all too familiar with our day to day emotions that although we feel them, we just accept them, they have always been there. If we take time to notice them and pay attention to them, and ask ourselves the above question, then we become more aware of how we work. Once you know how something works it is so much easier to improve it.

Mark Rhodes

Is living in your comfort zone really working for you?

We often find ourselves saying we feel comfortable about a situation or something in our lives, and sometimes we feel uncomfortable. The difference of course is the things that are inside or outside our comfort zone.

It’s not about getting outside your comfort zone it’s about expanding it.

Some people say that they are happiest inside their comfort zone and therefore design their life and ambitions to not cause them to need to expand or get outside their comfort zones.

This is fine unless of course you hit a problem when you ask yourself this simple question:

“Is living inside my comfort zone giving me the results, the passion, the fun and the excitement I REALLY desire in life?”

If not you need to accept that for things to change, you need to change and part of that could well involve expanding your comfort zone. It’s natural, we all have comfort zones, they are just at different places. If you are not pushing your comfort zone you are not growing as a human being.

Think about what small thing could you do differently this week to what you would normally do, something that will just push your comfort zone a little, where you don’t risk a lot but look back with pride and say “I wouldn’t have done that before”

Perhaps its as simple as making a call when usually you’d send an email “because if felt easier”, maybe it is saying “Good Morning” to someone you pass in a store or see at a bus stop.

The outcome of any of these type of things doesn’t really matter, regardles of outcome you have made progress and expanded your comfort zone by doing something you wouldn’t normally do.

I usually expand my comfort zone by thinking how great it will be when the thing in question is done or over, or I give myself some reward, no matter how small, if I do that thing that feels uncomfortable.

Play with it, and have fun. When you feel that comfort zone feeling come in, get curious, ask yourself “What must I believe about me, the situation or others in order to feel like this?”

Then apply the questions and tasks in the free ebook available on the website.

Emails can be dangerous, make sure it doesn’t happen to you

Emails can be dangerous, but so many people don’t realise that until far too late after the damage has been done.

So why are they so dangerous?

I’m sure there has been a time when you’ve done something amazing, or had something amazing happen, or perhaps learnt a real bit of juicy gossip, and on relaying this to a friend they say to you in amazement “Get out of here!” – You then smile and say “no honest it’s true” and the banter continues.

There may also have been a time when as a child you got involved in something you should not have and a parent or teacher said sternly “Get out of here!” – You probably didn’t smile, and quickly your emotional state changed to very negative.

Now in both situations the words “Get out of here” are the same but you reacted differently, the reason is that it’s not the words that define the meaning of the communication – it’s the tonality – how it is said.

So how do you get the tonality right in an email? – You can’t – there is only one tonality for an email – and guess what, as the sender it’s not yours.

The tonality that will be applied by the reader of the email will be their own tonality based on their emotional state at the time, their beliefs about themselves, and beliefs about the world around them and what you have written. You could be saying something in jest and they may get really hurt and think you are serious, because they are sensitive about this subject for some reason and applied a serious tonality to it.

My first suggestion is if you are replying to something you’ve had land in your Inbox that has wound you up then please save your email response as a draft, wait 15 minutes and go back and read it as if you’d received it – is this the best way to respond, in fact is it a response, perhaps it’s a reaction? A response is a considered piece of communication driven by logic and sensible thinking. A reaction is an emotional response driven off your own fears or emotional reactions.

Taking time to calm down and reconsider your approach is the best way to handle such situations, well third best really – first best is face to face, then phone, then this calm email method coming in as third best, but far better than an over passionate over reaction email response that usually happens.

Perhaps you are just composing an email and not responding to something that’s really emotional, still don’t just hit send, go back read it as if you had received it, read it again from a neutral perspective and how the receiver may read it. Is there anything that could be misunderstood? Your brain is running with what you want to say faster than you can type, so you know what it means when you read it again, so try and read it like someone would just receiving it, how can it be read incorrectly? What needs clarifying?

Make sure as much as you can that people getting your emails are getting the message you want them to get!

Oh and I wonder how many have noticed that most people can only answer one question per email, so if you put two or three questions in an email very often they only answer the first or last question and ignore the others and then you have that dilemma of going back and asking the same questions again without knowing if they missed them or ignored them on purpose……..

Mark Rhodes

Welcome

Mark Rhodes – Motivational Speaker

Welcome to the Blog and main website of Mark Rhodes, Motivational Speaker and Trainer in Personal Development and Success in Business.

In addition to speaking for companies and organisations as a guest speaker, I also run live seminars, events and Online Seminars that are open to everyone. You can find out more about me as speaker for companies on my Motivational Speaker Page

There is also a collection of free material on the site and I run regular free online seminars in all aspects of Personal Development.

What I learnt at School (yesterday)

So, yesterday I did my talk to about 270 pupils at a Secondary school in London. They had all gone into what was called the 6th form in my day, it’s all different now….mmmm….sound like my parents yet again.

Anyway in the main my plan worked really well to keep the examples used in the talk to things that they would be interested in so things like relationships, dating, Nintendo DS and Playstations etc……even opened the talk telling them about when I spoke for Ann Summers earlier in the year.

Now the thing is it worked too well at times, because when speaking at schools there is a fine balance in speaking about things that interest them, but will not distract them into lots of whispers and giggling because of something that has been said.

They did brilliantly though, I must say, a real credit, at 16 or 17 if I’d been sent to sit in a hall for an hour and listen to someone talk about anything I’d have been thinking “What’s the point?”.

However I know some of them took the messages on board and hopefully over the coming days and weeks others will too as they encounter things in daily life that remind them of my talk.

As I said to them at the start, you’ve not got to learn anything from me, I’m not going to tell you things you need to learn, I am going to tell you what you need to forget and unlearn.

You see we are all born without limiting beliefs and comfort zone issues, and we all live in the moment in our early years, no fear of failure or what others may think. We learn bad ideas and bad habits, and bad ways of thinking from those around us.

That’s why I always say to my audiences that a 3 year old could do my job, and would be better at it than me! They live for the moment, in the moment and are curious about everything.

I really do wish someone had shared such messages with me at school in the 6th form, although I do wonder even if they had would I have noticed?

Mark Rhodes