Everyone has a different view of sales and selling, but there is one thing we can all agree on; We want to sell more.

Just like any position or profession, we should all strive to increase our skill level on a daily basis. Sales however can be a tough profession to “study-up” on because it is such a vague profession. We may all be essentially doing the same thing, but each of us and each of our products are probably very different.

The thing that is universal about sales is that when you break it down to its fundamentals, it is the same for every person and every product. continue reading…

Lets get something straight right out of the gate.

I don’t want your direct messages about making money.

Nobody else does either.

Over the past few weeks I have started to track the amount of direct messages I get on Twitter every day. I average between 15 and continue reading…

Over the past 6 months I have had about 12 different Twitter apps for the Iphone and all of them have sucked. A great number of them were proficient at 1 thing,  sending and receiving tweets. That is perfectly fine if all you want to do is send and receive tweets like text messages, but I wanted to try and get more out of the platform. The problem I had was that I have fallen in love with the lists, direct messages, mentions, ect ect that twitter offers and none of the apps I came across could do all of them until I found Twitbird.

Twitbird is way down the list of top grossing or top downloaded apps in the utilities or social networking categories of the app store, but I have yet to understand why. This is literally the end-all twitter application. I now have full use of all of the tools that twitter has to offer: lists, direct messages, mentions, tracking, search, profile, ect ect.

Why do I care? It’s because I have crapped away about 20 hours of time looking for an app that does all of the things that Twitter offers and I am trying to save you the 20 hours of wasted time. continue reading…

Here it is, my overall goal list for 2010.  It’s quick, it’s candid and it’s honest. Literally copied and pasted from the word doc file I keep them in.

1. Average closing 6-8 transactions per month:
   1. Continuously improving efficiency
   2. b. Stay genuinely connected with clients from start to finish
   3. Make no less than $100,000 in income
2. Improve my health by:
   1. Working out at least 3-4 days a week
   2. Completely break poor eating habits
3. Get closer to God by:
   1. Correcting poor habits
   2. Surrounding myself with positive people
   3. Attending Church/study sessions
   4. Taking initiative to study and pray
4. Family:
   1. Make Alison part of the family
   2. Taking the hour and a half to go see my brother in STL
   3. Take the time to actually talk to my parents
5. Become closer to Alison by:
   1. Taking our trip to Mexico
   2. Making time
   3. Finding her a new occupation
6. Properly split personal and work time:
   1. Make a daily schedule and follow it
   2. Write plans and take steps FORWARD each day
7. Buy a house
   1. Make myself a sanctuary where I can relax
   2. Rebuild my home office
8. Build my social network
   1. Introduce myself to at least 2 new people a day
   2. Add 100+ friends/followers a day to social network
9. Buy a new Motorcycle
   1. Keep my eyes open for deals
   2. Stop searching and commit

10.  Get back into Music

1.  Start taking Piano lessons again

2.  Get back into classical vocals

3.  Perform at Ryman Auditorium

Selling to clients from online sales leads can be tough. First, you are never going to see them; and even though we would like to think technology has brought us to a point of no longer needing this interaction, it’s a tough hurdle to overcome. Secondly, as much as it pains me to say it and depending on the industry, internet leads are generally lower quality than walk-ins. That said, we all have to take steps to sift through these leads and make sure we are not wasting our time on the ones that won’t convert and building solid relationships with the ones that will.

There are 5 categories of focus that I know will convert online leads:

1. Building Rapport
2. Dynamic Language
3. Listening
4. Being Assertive
5. Customer Service

All 5 categories are fundamentally similar, but their slight differences are what make them so important in their own standing.

Building Rapport

Put simply, we have to get clients to trust us through the phone in a very short window of time.

Be Honest-There is nothing that will kill a transaction faster than getting caught in a lie by a client that doesn’t have a physical connection with you.

Be Yourself-Sure you may not have that many friends, but I can guarantee your genuine personality will close more deals that the front you think you should put up.

Dynamic Language

Scripts are for people raising money for the Children’s Miracle Network. If you want to sell, know your product and go with the flow.

Creativity is Powerful. You need to be unique when you are making your connection over the interwebs or else you are going to look like every other Acai berry selling sqeezepage out there.

Listening

Most salespeople should take a step back and shut the F up every now and then. I can’t even count how many times I have gotten done with a sales call and realized that the person on the other line hadn’t said more than 3 words. We are usually so concerned about saying what we think we need to say, we miss the point of the sales call, vomit info on the client and lose the deal.

“Talk less and Say More”

Being Assertive

Depending on your industry, if you are not assertive on the phone, people will walk all over you.

Call to action. Whether it’s via phone, email, website, fax……whatever, you need to have a call to action with every interaction. Even if there is nothing to do and you are simply updating everyone, give them a task. Clients that interact with you will stick with you.

Customer Service

The Golden rule of the Bible is the Golden Rule of Sales.

If you go above and beyond for each and every one of your customers, you will not have to worry about conversion. Clients work hard and are committed to people that care about them, so if you want to close on every deal, work hard and commit to every client.

Merry Christmas