Leadership

Asking the Right Questions

Many people don’t know this but selling is more about listening than talking.

Bombarding your prospect with how amazing your offer is won’t turn a “no” into “yes.”

On the other hand, you’ll have a much better shot at it by listening closely.

Like I explained, the way to handle objections is to acknowledge and ask questions. After you’ve confirmed that a prospect dislikes your offer for some reason, the first thing you need to do is to find out why.

If someone tells you that your offer is too expensive, ask why they think so. Do they genuinely not have enough money for it? Or, are they comparing it to something else that seems to offer more value for the price? Maybe it’s neither and the prospect just wants to negotiate a lower price.

In any case, there’s no way to find out what’s wrong unless you ask.

Remember that the answer is “no” by default if you don’t ask.

In my experience, a big reason why people can’t sell is that they don’t ask enough of these questions. And it’s because they freeze as soon as the prospect declines.

You’ll fix this problem by acknowledging the objection and asking questions. It will also make you feel calmer and more rational during a sales meeting or presentation, which is vital to closing the deal.

The more emotional you get, the less intelligent you become.

This is true for just about anything in life, including sales. The prospect will have all the power if you allow emotions to overwhelm you.

To prevent this, ask the right questions and listen closely to the answer. You’re bound to find something that you can use to change a prospect’s mind at some point.

Best of all, this is something that gets better with practice. Even if you have no idea how to handle objections the right way, it shouldn’t take you a lot of time to learn.

Be Awesome,

Blair

If you want know the secrets to asking the right questions, online or offline so they trust, love, and respect you within minutes, I’d like to invite you to click here >>

Assess and Qualify

What’s going to make your business more successful right now?

What would put your mind at ease and show you that you can weather this storm?

It’s sales. Right?

I bet you probably don’t care where those sales are coming from or who’s agreeing to work with you. Like most business owners these days, you’d just be happy to be landing new clients.

Except… This wouldn’t be the right approach.

Even today, you don’t want to work with just anyone!

In my last email, I wrote about asking lots of questions. This would allow you to uncover your audience’s deepest problems that you can solve.

But it actually does more than that.

Asking questions allows you to qualify your prospects and cherry-pick those that will be the right fit. You need a system that will make this happen if you want to thrive in the long run.

For instance, I never accept a client unless I’m 100% sure that I can help them. I’d much rather refer them to someone else if I know of a coach that’s more suitable for their situation.

This is why I always do a thorough assessment of all my prospects before I make a final decision. My goal is to see where the client’s at right now and if I can do something to get them the desired outcome.

I come across way too many business owners who try to sell too soon. Don’t make this mistake or it can be costly. More often than not, you’re going to find that working with unfit clients isn’t worth the money.

Here’s what I’m getting at:

Assess a client’s situation and qualify them first before accepting them as your client. Don’t just accept everyone that knocks on your door.

Finding the right match will not only make sales easier, but it will also allow you to do your best work.

Be Awesome,

Blair Singer

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Triple Your Income Without New Leads

I’d like to tell you a story about a successful client of mine.

Well, he’s successful now. But, when he first came to me, his business was in shambles!

My client owns a little massage clinic. And he had a pretty good way of generating leads. He’d put coupons for a free massage in the newspaper. And when someone claimed that free massage, he’d convert them into a paying member.

Every week, my client would get around 50 people coming to his clinic. He’d get about 15% of them to join his membership program that sold for $600 per year.

On average, that was $4,200 per week, if you assume seven new members. For the year, it was close to $210,000.

Not too bad…but, not that impressive either.

The problem was, my client was losing his mind over his clinic. Both he and his wife worked for hours on end, every day. His wife was pressuring him because he’d promised that they’d make a lot more money.

All in all, everything was getting to be too much. The reward was way too small to make all that work worthwhile.

That’s why the clinic owner came to me for help. He told me that he needed more leads to grow his clinic.

And right from the jump, he was wrong.

I explained that he didn’t need any more leads. In fact, he couldn’t afford to generate any more!

What he needed to do was to look at his processes and find the holes. 

With our help, this is exactly what he did.

After the training, my client started seeing positive changes right away.

Instead of the old $210,000, he now makes almost $600,000. And this happened without a single new lead!

The moral of the story?

What you think is wrong with your business might be far away from the real problem. Hang in there, and I’ll show you what you need to focus on to start selling more.

Be Awesome,

Blair Singer

It’s all about leads, leads, leads!

No matter how many audiences I’m in front of, it seems like everyone has the same concern.

It’s all about leads, leads, leads!

Audiences ask me, “Where can I get them?” or “How can I get more?”

Everybody wants to know how they can generate more leads.

I am a firm believer that you just need to build, harvest, and convert the ones you have.

Remember, it costs six times more money and time to generate a new lead than it does to talk to somebody in your pipeline.

So, keep that in mind as I tell you about this lead generation strategy…

It’s amazing how many times a pit bull personality will go out and call on people without ever calling them back. All they hear is “not interested” and the pit bull salesperson is out the door.

It seems like they forget the rule:

Just because you’re ready to sell doesn’t mean they’re ready to buy.

However, if you can maintain some follow-up and follow-through, you may eventually get the sale.

This strategy doesn’t involve generating new leads. It’s more about reviving the previously dead ones.

So, how do you go about reviving leads that said no?

It goes to your follow-through and frequency of interaction.

What systems do you have in place to keep in touch with prospects that said, “not right now?”

If you don’t have any, you’re leaving a lot of potential money on the table.

So, get out that list and set up a system.

Use newsletters to reach out to prospects or let them know about upcoming webinars. Try to schedule callbacks to follow up with them and see if their situation has changed.

You just need to put a system in place to stay in continual contact with all the people on your list.

Facebook and other forms of social media make staying in contact a little easier. But, don’t rely on social media alone.

Why?

There are 100 other people vying for space on Facebook, too. You have lots of competition for their attention.

Instead, try to couple your social media posts with other strategies like a newsletter blog. Post something on a regular basis and keep them informed.

If you keep that up, there will come a day when they’re ready to buy. And, you’ll get calls out of the blue!

But, you must maintain a system of follow-up and follow-through for that turnaround.

Different Ways to Generate More Leads

In all the years I’ve travelled the world and spoken on stage, audiences ask me the same question:

Blair, how do I find people with money and a need?

Those are the leads that you want. But, it may be a struggle for you to pinpoint which way works best.

I can take you through different ways to generate more leads.

Pick out the one that works best for you and your target audience:

  1. Serving First
    I’ve used this method in every business I’ve ever been with.It works like this…I find a customer or a few customers that I could work for. I do it for free if it’s a service or at cost if it was a product. This helped me get established and also get a testimonial.This is a powerful strategy to use to get yourself started. You get a testimonial, referrals, and that free customer could be a better paying customer later.
  2. Cold Calling
    I have friends in the business that still maintain that cold calling is the most efficient way to generate leads, in terms of time and money.There are a few caveats to make this work, though.You need to:

      • Organize
      • Know what you’re doing
      • Practice what to say
      • Understand your selling cycle

      Also, remember that the purpose of cold calling isn’t necessarily to sell. It’s to get an appointment if your business lends itself to that.

  3. Poodle Strategy
    You may be familiar with our SalesDog personalities. If you are, you know that the poodle type schmoozes and networks.Just remember that introductions from someone else lend more credibility. So, get someone you know to introduce you to the other person.
  4. Retriever Approach
    Following the dog selling personalities, another strategy you can take is the golden retriever. With this strategy, you find leads by association. That means your network, any group you belong to, whether it’s a parent-teacher group or the Chamber of Commerce.

    Also, you can join groups associated with big international business networking organizations. These groups are there specifically to network with other professionals.

    There are a variety of ways to approach lead generation. The key is to choose the one that works best for your business and your target audience.

    #blairsinger #salesdogs #TeamCodeofHonor #RichDadAdvisors #Entrepreneurship #Leadership #Sales #PersonalDevelopment #Management

How to Get the Money You need when I Close?

I’ve been on countless stages and one question I hear a lot is:

Blair, how do I get the money I need when I close?

The answer is simple if you’ve followed my techniques so far.

You got through the basic elements to close a deal. Now it’s time to deliver.

If you asked trial close questions throughout your conversations, your client may already be on board. But, now you need to arrange the delivery and payment part.

First, you’re going to talk about pricing. Especially if you haven’t worked out a deal beforehand.

Your business or product costs money. And, this is where a lot of salespeople get hung up.

I always bring up two prices when closing a deal. The first price is your competitor’s pricing or pricing that’s not yours. Choose a price that’s more expensive than yours and bring it up first.

For example, I did a deal with an airline company a few years back for some team development training and a little bit of sales training. I knew that they used a very big global consulting firm at the time.

The firm was very good and very professional. And they were also very expensive.

So, when I got around to pricing, I broached the $100,000 per month they were paying for the firm’s consulting service. I also brought up the value of my training, but I wasn’t charging $100,000 per month.

When I mentioned my pricing, it looked cheaper in comparison.

What happens if you just throw a number out there without the comparison?

Many people don’t understand the value of what you have in a monetary sense. So, it’s a good idea to offer a comparison price before you tell them what your prices are. Otherwise, your pricing looks expensive without the comparison.

Sometimes you may have a third price or discounted price. If you have the ability to give a discounted price, offer it last. Don’t say it upfront, though.

Talk about the discounted price at the very end once they’re already sold on the whole deal.

Also, give a limitation on the deal by quantity or by time. If you don’t put limitations on it, the deal has no validity. Plus, it sounds like you’re just trying to schmooze people.

Remember, it’s all about how you frame it.

#blairsinger #salesdogs #TeamCodeofHonor #RichDadAdvisors #Entrepreneurship #Leadership #Sales #PersonalDevelopment #Management