Note what is happening around you, observe and learn

Lesson #3 of TENACITY 

 

 

·        Stay away from negative people as they will drag you down to their level.

 

·        If you want to be successful in this business, hang around with the winners.

 

·        Don't criticize, condemn, or complain - this includes co-workers, bosses, friends - ANYONE!

 

·        Learn about your product.

 

·        Believe in your product.  Is this something your family should own?  Would your parents benefit from this?

 

·        Love what you sell, be passionate about it, learn how to paint pictures with words.

 

·        Differentiate yourself. Make sure your presentation is the best.

 

·        Learn and practice.  Practice and learn.  Constantly.

 

 

 

Don’t be easily distracted – be easily fascinated by who is in front of you.

 

When James Hoffman a professional wrestler was asked how he managed to concentrate with all the commotion going on around him, he replied.  "When I am (on the mat), I don't concentrate on anything except the match.  I don't hear anything when I'm in there. I just keep wrestling until the ref tells me to stop."

 

 

 

·        It is critical that you keep your client focused on you at all times.  If you are distracted by something then they will be distracted too.  

 

·        Prepare for your day in advance.  Start thinking about tomorrow the night before.

 

·        Brain exercise should be a part of a healthy lifestyle just like good nutrition and physical exercise.   Concentrate, remain focused and remain on cue.

 

Basic concentration skills include –

 

·        focusing on what you need to;

 

·        clearing your mind of unnecessary thoughts and irrelevant worries.

 

Here is a simple exercise that can be done every day.  It involves a friend or family member who knows that your goal is to achieve total concentration.

 

Tune the TV to a station broadcasting something you are interested in.  Sit in front of the TV and let your friend/family member tell you a story.  Remember that the object of this exercise is for you to listen to the story and tune out the TV.   Then repeat the story to the other person.  You’ll be surprised at how much information you leave out.  Practice this often and you will increase your power of concentration substantially. 

 

“Tune in” to what you want to accomplish that day. 

 

Note what is happening around you. 

 

This seems like a contradiction to what you’ve just read, but it isn’t.   Being aware and being distracted are two different things.   Distraction we don’t want.   Awareness we do want.

 

Awareness means "to be cognizant, conscious, awake, alert, watchful, and vigilant," adjectives that mean being mindful or heedful of something. Aware implies knowledge gained through one’s perceptions, the attitudes of others. 

 

You can be fully aware of what is happening around you without being distracted by these happenings.

 

It’s like driving a car.  You are aware of things happening in your peripheral vision but you’re not distracted by them.  It’s the same thing in sales.    Remember that successful sales people are highly focused on the goals ahead of them, leaving distractions by the side of the road.

 

Avoid being distracted during a conversation; this discourages the customer from interacting.  They could get the impression that what they’re saying isn’t important to you.  

 

Remember that you don’t get paid if you don’t sell. If you don’t get paid you don’t eat. 

 

“When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely,

like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.”

Shunryu Suzuki

Erase everything from your mind that will stop you from achieving your goal.

Leave home at home.

We are actors.   Our clients are our audience.  We need to hone our acting skills, mentally and physically, and leave our troubles and worries outside of our workplace.    Sounds easy, doesn’t it?  No?   You’re right.  It’s not easy, but it can be done.  Thousands of Hollywood actors do it every day.   They’re humans, too, living lives outside of their professions, experiencing joy and frustration, just like us.  The difference is when an actor steps onstage, he leaves his personal baggage backstage and steps positively into the limelight, totally in tune with the character he is playing at that moment.  So, too, should we leave our baggage outside and walk positively into our roles each morning as professionals, with a smile and a twinkling eye. 

 There is nothing more attractive than a person who seems happy and full of joy.

 Here are some ways to stay positive:

 ·        There is a lot of evidence to suggest that humans have the same type of "mirror neurons" found in monkeys. But it's what these neurons do that's amazing--they activate in the same way when you're watching someone else do something, as they do when you're doing it yourself!  Stay away from negative people and hang out with successful people who are positive and will activate your mirror neurons positively.

 ·        If you want to accomplish something that demands determination and endurance, try to surround yourself with people possessing these qualities.

 ·        When you are talking to someone who is depressed it may make you feel depressed, whereas if you talk to someone who is feeling self-confident and buoyant you’re more likely to feel good about yourself. This is called ‘emotional contagion’.  

·        Negativity spreads – stay away from it!

 ·        Did you know that happiness is associated most heavily with the left (i.e. logical) side of the brain, while anger is associated with the right (emotional, non-logical) side of the brain?   So happy people are able to think more logically than unhappy people.  Makes sense, doesn’t it?

 ·        We all have bad days. We have to learn how to climb out of that place and move forward.  It’s a matter of retraining your brain, a day at a time.  It will become easier to achieve the more you practice being positive.   Fake it till you make it!

 ·        Mentally stretch yourself every day.    Challenge yourself to perform better than you did yesterday, to react better than you did yesterday.   It’s the little things that you do consistently that will eventually link together and force out the unwanted thoughts, the negativity.  Try it, it works!

 ·        Encourage yourself when you feel you’re sliding back towards being negative, and congratulate yourself when you succeed.  Don’t criticize yourself when you fail – instead, motivate yourself to do better, pat yourself on the back every time you conquer your negativity.  There’s nothing more frustrating than always finding fault in what you’re doing- find the solution, do it, and then congratulate yourself.

 ·        You don’t have an option about this.   To be successful in sales, in life, you have to be positive.  Period.  End of story.

 ·        Celebrate all your positive efforts, and then vow to do better the next time.

  

“Is the glass half full, or half empty?
It depends on whether you're pouring, or drinking.”

Bill Cosby

TENACITY - TAKE THE TIME TO PLAN YOUR DAY

 

Take the time to plan your day and focus on what’s important.  

 

Don’t Prejudge.

 

 

Sales people often make the mistake of prejudging a prospective client according to name, occupation, color, race, income, etc.   This can be a very costly mistake but that one we can overcome with constant practice and diligence.

 

Nothing we do in life is automatic.   Most actions we use ‘automatically’ every day we learned early on in life.   Walking is automatic, right?  Wrong!  

 

When you learned to walk you fell repeatedly - you got back up until you mastered the art of walking and it became automatic.  Today you probably can walk, talk and eat all at the same time, but it took practice to reach this stage of ‘automaticism’, of performance without conscious thought.

 

So it is with our brain.   We learn to string together specific words with specific meanings or judgments, usually dependent on our past experiences.

 

Words are not stored in our mind independently.   Every content word seems to have a link with another.  This is the way form and meaning interact in helping us retrieve a word we need – the link between the word “fish” and “chips” will be stronger for an Englishman whose Friday night dinner is fish and chips wrapped in newspaper, than perhaps for someone who seldom eats fish and chips.  For that other person “fish” might link itself to “river” or “aquarium” depending on his experiences and various other facets of his life.    Therefore, the words we see and use the most are the easiest ones for us to retrieve and string together.

 

However, the stringing of words can work against us, as in the case of prejudgment. This is something that may happen at any time, anywhere, in all walks of life.   We prejudge a person before meeting them; or we prejudge a situation before the situation actually arises, based on a couple of words.   We’re so used to stringing together certain combinations of words that we do it automatically and often in the wrong combination. 

 

For example, Mr and Mrs. Smith have signed up for a timeshare presentation.  Their income is below $40,000 per annum.  He is a truck driver and she is a home maker.  They rent their home and have three children.  This is all the information that is available.

 

As a timeshare salesperson, the Smith's yearly income may trigger off an automatic association in our brain, linking the amount to such thoughts as ‘poor’, ‘can’t afford it’, ‘waste of time’, etc.   Is this a true reflection of the Smiths?   Do we know who and what they are before we spend some time with them?   Indeed, do we know what they can or can’t afford to buy?  We don’t know anything about the Smiths, except that they are married, have children, he works and gets paid, and she is a home maker.

 

To be successful, the salesperson must master the art of carefully listening to what the client is saying, observing body language and demeanor, and then mentally attaching the information to the product or service being offered. 

 

In other words, the good sales person will link words together to form a new string of thought. 

 

It takes time and practice to reach the stage where you don’t string words together automatically.  If you hear a word/phrase, be conscious of what that word/phrase makes you think of.  Make the word/phrase stand-alone until you have gleaned more information. 

 

Your old way of thinking = $40,000 income = probably won’t be able to afford this.

 

Your new way of thinking - $40,000 income = they earn $40,000 a year.

 

Period!   End of thought!  Until you know more, don’t make a judgment.

 

Why shouldn’t we prejudge?

 

·        If you have already judged your client because of a random word, you may never find out what their desires, needs, wants and passions are, and you may lose the sale.

 

·        Your attitude and honest willingness to help your client may make a huge difference as to how your client judges YOU.

 

 

Learn not to prejudge

         

·        Your brain is not a manmade machine.  You can retrain it to think anyway you want it to.

 

·        Realign your brain every morning so that it does not automatically string together certain trigger words, e.g. income, race, age, creed, nationality, occupation.   Think of each word as an island, separate from anything else.

 

·        Be continuously conscious of what you hear and what you say.

 

·        Use words wisely.  Remember that the client’s brain also strings words together.

 

·        Take each word literally... don’t judge a word without concrete evidence to back it up. 

 

 

 

“Discoveries are often made by not following instructions,

by going off the main road, by trying the untried.”

Frank Tyger

 

 

Make a Commitment to You

Someone once said that timeshare salespeople are too scared to rob a bank, but too lazy to work...

In fact, it's just the opposite. We're not scared to step into that uncomfortable place and we work smart instead of hard, and that is hard work in itself.

No one said that selling timshare is easy. In fact, it's the most difficult easiest job there is.

When you’re on a roll and successfully selling, this is the best job in town. However, when you’re on a downward spiral and deals are slipping through your fingers, this is absolutely the worst job in the world.

The trick is to maintain balance, to never lost sight of your goals, and most importantly, not to take affront to the stream of “no’s” that are constantly coming your way.

Set your goals high and take one step at a time. Sometimes you don't think you're progressing until you take a moment, step back and see how far you've really come.


The best predictor of success is your degree of commitment to your goals. Whenever you set a goal, write out why you're committed to accomplishing it.

The "why" is far more important than the "how."

Commitment -- sheer passion and will power -- can help overcome any deficiency in time, money or education. Make sure each of your goals is worthy of the time and effort necessary to achieve it. Then, make sure each of your goals is getting the absolute, unconditional commitment it deserves.

Take a few minutes ... close your eyes... stop the chatter in your brain... and write down what you EXPECT to SEE happen:

"The world is full of abundance and opportunity, but far too many people come to the fountain of life with a sieve instead of a tank car... a teaspoon instead of a steam shovel. They expect little and as a result they get little."
~ Ben Sweetland

How to Retrain your Brain and Succeed in Business

Tenacitise Yourself!

What does that mean? Simply put, it means

Have tenacity, don't give up, and above all, enjoy yourself.

Take the time to plot your day and focus on what’s important.

Erase everything in your mind that will stop you from achieving your goal.

Note what is happening around you, observe and learn.

Act like you've made it, even if you haven’t.

Carefully listen and skillfully question.

Invest in yourself.

Train your mind.

You can do it!

TENACITY = SUCCESS