Are you living intentionally or by accident? Are you proactive or reactive? Do you find yourself thinking that things are out of control and feel that you are being swept up in a vortex that is beyond your control?

Most people are living their life by accident. They are stumbling through life as if they are a pebble being swept downstream by a current they cannot control. They feel powerless and out of control. They feel helpless and victimized by circumstances.

This sense of helplessness has horrendous consequences. Today there are more personal bankruptcies than at any point in history. The use of anti-depressants is epidemic. Libido enhancing commercials dominate the Super Bowl ads. People are whacked out.

Why?

One of the reasons is that individuals have given up the idea of personal responsibility. They have abandoned the idea that “happiness is an inside job”. Instead of looking inwardly for direction and meaning in life they have given up and now look outwardly to the government, the company, their parents or employers for their direction. This is easier than looking in the mirror and asking hard questions such as “Why am I here? What do I really want? Or what do I need to change about myself?”

Why don’t we talk about these things openly like we talk about sports or politics? Perhaps it is because we don’t want to accept the ultimate truth that we are who we are and where we are because of what we have either done or not done in our life. It’s tough to admit that we, not someone else, is responsible for our circumstances in life.

People who live intentionally take ultimate responsibility for everything in their life. They refuse to make excuses or rationalize their situation. They accept that the problems in their life are of their own doing. Once they accept this they get on with fixing what needs to be fixed in their life. It takes a lot of courage to do this. Unfortunately, most people don’t have it.

A wise man once said, “You can either be part of your plan or you WILL be part of someone else’s plan.” The choice is yours.

1. The human brain is a physiological organ which, through a specific electrochemical process, collects, processes, stores, and acts on information it receives.
2. Information presented to the subconscious mind triggers both a physiological response and psychological response.
3. Any information presented to the subconscious mind is always linked to, and affected by, previously stored information.
4. The subconscious mind is a neutral mechanism which responds to information without subjective regard for its action.
5. The subconscious mind holds no beliefs or biases other than those which it receives as a result of its programming.
6. When faced with two or more programs that are in conflict with each other, the subconscious will attempt to act on the program which is strongest.
7. The strength of the program is influenced by the number of times the same or similar information is presented.
8. The strength of the program is influenced by the perceived importance of the program source.
9. The strength of the program is influenced by the amount of emotion associated with the program.
10. The subconscious mind will, at all times, attempt to act on its dominate operative program.

Suppose you are the CFO of a medium sized manufacturing firm and you have plans to meet with two agents from difference insurance agencies.

The agent from agency A sits down and does a few things to establish rapport. Then he starts telling you about his company, its reputation and commitment to quality service. Soon he goes into his presentation about their standards, number of markets and risk management philosophy and asks you for an opportunity to provide a competitive quote and see how they do.

The agent from agency B comes in, and after doing a few things to establish rapport, begins with a brief story to gain some credibility and then asks a few questions.

Producer: “Recently during a meeting with the executive of a manufacturing firm, the CFO told me his greatest concern was that all of the services available to him were poorly coordinated and because of that he didn’t feel he was getting all that he was paying for. What he said he wanted was a more defined annual service plan that was proactive in nature and would help him exercise maximum control to prevent and manage losses. We gave him that and as a result his cost of losses has decreased by over 37%. I don’t suppose that you are concerned with anything like that are you?”

Prospect: “That’s been a significant challenge. I don’t have the time to really manage all the aspects to make sure they happen.”

Producer: “Just out of curiosity, when your agent came out at renewal time to go through your service plan and laid out when he would deliver policies, review claims, review your mod worksheet, review payroll, and set up a renewal strategy so you wouldn’t waste your time or overpay for insurance, were you comfortable with how they laid everything out?”

Prospect: “It’s never been that formal a process.”

Producer: “Well, maybe it’s not that important because you’ve never had an unpaid claim or an extensive audit.”

Prospect: “Wait a minute - this is important. If we had been doing this last year we wouldn’t have had the surprise with….”

Which of these approaches best describes your selling style?

Remember that people like to buy but they don’t like to be sold. The only way they can do that is by selling you why they want to buy. Instead of trying to persuade, convince or pitch someone why they should buy your product or service, learn the Art of Negative Sell and let them sell you. You’ll make more sales and have a lot of fun doing so.

Often times prospects put out a Request For Proposal and expect a response from all the “vendors” they send it to. When you receive one of these RFP’s what should you do? Good question. Before we answer it let’s take a look at what is happening.

What most likely is happening is that your prospect is entertaining bids or proposals from several of your competitors or they may have even decided on a vendor already and are looking for your proposal to keep your competitor honest.

When you comply with the RFP you are accepting their agenda and are playing by their rules. If you play by their rules and respond to their process you are doing exactly what every one of your competitors is doing. There is no differentiation between you and your competitors except price. And if you are not low price you don’t usually get the business.

There is another problem in doing this. By responding you are assuming that the prospect understands fully the problems, issues and concerns that they are hoping your product or service will eliminate. That assumption, which leads to a premature presentation, is wrong most of the time.

Additionally, bidding is not selling. Selling involves human contact to explore the full nature of the problem so that a customized solution can be recommended. Unless you sell a commodity you should avoid this altogether.

Instead, you should respond by sending a letter politely explaining why you don’t answer RFPs or bids and why it isn’t appropriate for either party to do business this way. The letter should make it very clear that you would like to talk with them to explore the full range of their issues to determine if you may be of service to them. If they choose not to do this then that is their choice.

After all, at some point you must eventually get face to face with them if they are to become a client. Why not start that process early? Do this and you will eliminate a lot of wasted time.

They really are. Before you jump me in an attempt to justify yourself how your business is different and somehow unique, hear me out.

The emerging market forces of technology, competition, globalization, regulation and consolidation ensure that few products are truly unique for very long. These same forces have become the Driving Forces of Commoditization.

Additionally, everything is more complex. Gone are the days when a company would develop a new product or process that could be easily understood by customers and clients. Technology alone has introduced more complexity into everything. Instead of making life simpler it has had the opposite effect of complicating our lives.

So what’s this got to do with selling? Fast forward a few frames in your prospects mind. Prospects don’t fully comprehend the complexity of the problems they experience or the solutions that are available. Because the human mind tends to compress complex data into easily understood thoughts and ideas your prospect resorts to making complex buying decisions based on things they can easily understand. And because they are overwhelmed with complexity their mind tends to simplify the decision process by lumping all competitive products as basically the same, in others words, a commodity.

If the prospect mistakenly thinks there is no difference in a competitor’s products and that “they are all pretty much the same” what do they make their decision to buy on? You got it. PRICE. Think about it. If you think “term insurance is term insurance” or “bank loans are bank loans” or “computers are computers” then the only logical reason to choose one over the other is price.

How as a professional salesperson can you get the prospect to understand that what you sell is different and not a commodity?