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By APNWLNS payday loans
How Will You Respond To This Tragedy
On Friday, a madman marched into an Elementary School and killed 27 teachers and children.
For the last three days, the world has mourned.
It has been front cover news in every newspaper I have seen. Even though it was impossible to miss the front page headline, I have refused to read the details because of what it will do to me emotionally. I am sure it has been on the TV nonstop since then, but I can’t verify since I have intentionally not turned on my television – a habit you might consider – because I am susceptible to a constant barrage of negative, discouraging media.
The nation and the world are stricken with grief, loss, disbelief and rage that such insanity is possible.
Our hearts are broken, and as a parent I have thought more than once, how devastated I would feel if that was one of my kids.
This incident has sparked all kinds of reactions. Some rational and worth of discussion and some just knee jerk emotional limbic brain type responses.
Reactions like:
“This just goes to prove that guns are too easy to come by and we need stricter guns laws.”
“We need to put uniformed police officers on our campuses to keep this from happening”
“Maybe we need to let teachers have guns in the classroom. If we did this would never happen.”
“The world is spinning out of control and everything is getting worse and worse.”
“What kind of God allows such senseless tragedies to take place?”
“The government needs to take stricter measures and pass more gun control laws.”
“This is really a mental health issue and we need to get serious in this country about dealing with mental health especially PTSD or we will see more and more of this.”
“This kind of stuff NEVER happened when I was a kid.”
While some of these are valid points, I think there is a bigger issue that not many are talking about. Mainly, how are you responding to all of this and how does it affect YOUR own mental state of mind, YOUR own behavior or YOUR business.
Days like Friday test our resolve, our belief and our hope for a brighter future.
Once our belief and hope begins to fade, we begin to enter the dark side of spirituality.
Yes, we are in a spiritual battle much like Luke Skywalker. Each day we make choices to give in to the dark side or keep the faith that there is hope and a better future tomorrow. Our choices are reflected in our behaviors or lack thereof.
As awful as this event is, and it is awful and gut wrenching, it is not the first time people have been killed senselessly. Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Mao, the late Rev Jim Jones and even the US government has intentionally killed or poisoned it citizens.
The US intentionally exposed black citizens to radioactive material just to see what would happen. They have also exposed them to various other chemical agents that later resulted in mass cancers and deaths.
Yes, we live in a world full of light and darkness. AND it is sometimes easy to lose sight of just what is going on and to then give in to the dark side and give up.
Darkness and despair can only succeed when people lose all hope and give up on dreams and goals to make a better life for themselves, their family and their communities. Evil does prey on people with just such despair and lost hope.
The big picture here is not about guns or the loss of life – as tragic as that is – it is about how people allow such acts to affect them and how willingly people surrender their dreams – primarily the dreams of freedom and self determination.
All that is necessary for evil tyrants to prevail is for good men to stand by and do nothing. Exactly what happened when Hitler first came to power and the world stood by and watched him kill six million Jews.
If one views their existence from a purely secular view, it is easy to fall into the victim and despair trap. But if one has belief in a higher spiritual existence and believes that no matter what GOD is in control, then it becomes much easier to put all of this in perspective and not lose hope or optimism about the future.
“If a madman in Connecticut adds to YOUR hopelessness and poisons your resolve to help other people, to grow your business, to send your kids to school every day… you’re capitulating to the tyrants.
But if the madman in Connecticut inspires you to love your kids more, to pour more goodness into them and send them into the world as bold adults who know who they are and whose they are… if, even though your family like every family has its brokenness and dysfunctions, your children are unconditionally loved…
…then evil loses. Good wins out.” (quoted from Perry Marshall)
Despair begets despair. Hope begets more hope. Whatever you focus on you get more of, so I challenge you to focus on hope. Not shallow positive thinking, but real hope that there can be a better world and that you are responsible to do your part to make it so.
Steve
PS Your comments are most welcomed and will be read – maybe even responded to.
TRUST: The Currency of The New Economy
What if everything you have learned about successfully selling was wrong – at least in this New Economy?
“Trust No One” is the new mantra. Today’s prospects, buyers, business owners, and consumers are the most cynical and jaded group of buyers in history – with good reason. They have been lied to and deceived by government, business and religious and media leaders of all ilk.
In a recent study:
Trust in media in the U.S. reached the lowest point in 201 since Gallop started measuring it in the early 1970s.
- Only 46 percent of informed respondents in the U.S. and 44 percent in the U.K. trust business to do what is right.
- Only 40 percent of people in the U.S. trust government to do what is right.
- Only 33 percent of Americans had a great deal of trust in medical leadership, down from 73 percent in 1966.
- 53 percent of U.S. workers do not think their boss is honest, and 69 percent are dissatisfied with the ethical climate in today’s society.
What About Salespeople?
How many buyers and prospects trust you, the sales professional? Trust, whether you realize it or know about it or have even given it thought is the currency of the New Economy.
In another study conducted in 2009:
- 77 percent of respondents said they refused to buy products or services from companies or individuals the distrusted.
- 72 percent criticized a distrusted company to a friend of colleague.
- 55 percent of respondents said they were willing to pay a higher price to companies and individuals they trusted
- 76 percent said they were willing to refer their friends to trusted brands they trusted. (This willingness to refer is the ultimate example of trust as a currency, in that it represents a “transference of trust” that goes from current customer to a new prospect and back to the seller.)
If you ignore these facts, stick your head in the sand and continue doing business as usual you may wind up the way of the dinosaur.
Smart companies and sales professional now realize that the #1 thing they are selling is trust. Without it nothing else really matters. These same companies and sales professional are setting about deliberately to develop marketing strategies and sales processes that focus on selling trust before they try to sell their products or services. You dear reader would be wise to do the same.
How Does One Go About Selling Trust
The biggest key and the most difficult task for companies and their salespeople involves fundamentally changing the way they view sales. Traditionally, sales have been made by solicitation initiated by the sales professional. This hunting or seeking out or prospecting, as it has been called for decades, needs to be replaced with a philosophy and process that attracts clients as opposed to seeking clients. This is not merely a play on words. It is a fundamental shift on the part of the sales professional. And the more one targets affluent clients the more important this becomes.
Frankly, hunting is antithetical for creating trust. If you want to establish trust you must get clients to seek you out. Becoming the sought after provider of choice involves instituting a sophisticated and comprehensive marketing strategy that involves many different activities and behaviors. It takes time and it takes effort and it takes some money – not a lot of money but it does take some money.
Of course, I realize most reading this will instantly reject this philosophy because they need to hunt today in order to eat. I understand this and agree that if you don’t have clients seeking you out today then you need to become a hunter and seek them out. Hunting does work. I have done it successfully in the past when I had to acquire a new client immediately and you can too. And you can take comfort in the fact that if you hunt, the landscape will be void of most competitors who are too lazy to hunt.
If you must hunt, by all means, hunt and hunt aggressively and expansively. But AT THE SAME TIME, work at not needing to hunt as much, by developing a longer term strategy that will get clients coming to you so that one day you will not be dependent upon the grunt work of having to solicit and seek new clients.
If you fail to do this you will forever be on the treadmill looking for the next deal. This is exhausting, not much fun and will eventually lead to burnout. All highly successful sales people have figured this out and have developed multiple strategies that position them as authority experts with a certain local celebrity status in their marketplace. Some of these strategies include speaking, writing and publishing, developing local media relationships, becoming involved and taking leadership positions in business and civic organizations, hosting radio or television programs, conducting educational workshops.
The better you get at this, the less hunting you will have to do.
Wishing you all the success you have the guts to grab!
Steve
PS Check out the New School Selling Facebook Page
Got an E mail from an Irritated Client
Got an email response from an irritated coaching client the other day about some advice I gave him and thought you might benefit from the unadulterated but uncomfortable advice I gave him.
Steve,
I am not arguing with you. (oh yes he is) I am merely trying to learn and discuss what works best and I have been willing to try most everything.
I am simply trying to discuss what I learn and talk about with other top advisors around the country.
I do not claim to have all the answers, knowledge, and authority and I never have. I am also sure that you know a lot more about it than I do. And I try to make that point on a regular basis.
Irritated Client
PS You probably don’t mean to, but sometimes it seems as if you feel the need to set me straight through your responses.
Dear Irritated Client,
I am not trying to “set you straight”. I am trying to help you gain clarity of thought. Sometimes the price of clarity is the risk of offense.
When you say things like:
“most of the time people will not come to an advisors office or go to a seminar especially without dinner” you are stating an opinion based on your own experience or the experience of those you talk with.
Your experience does not make it fact. It only makes it true for you.
Truth is there are advisors who are very good at attracting people and making them stand in line for an appointment.
These are the people you should seek out and talk with – not the ones who are failing to do what you want to do. Most of all don’t let your personal experience color what is possible. The only reason that you can’t get enough people to come to you and refer to you is that you have not “cracked the code”. It can be done but only if you want to do what is required.
If you want to do an exercise that will help you gain clarity of thought I suggest you get a legal pad and begin to write down all of your beliefs and things you think to be true of the Financial Services industry. When you have written these down; go back and make a list of all of the industry standards, practices and norms.
Once you have done this go back and look at the two lists and make a conscious but painful effort to violate every standard, norm and the things you think to be true. (I am not advocating doing anything unethical or illegal but I am advocating breaking all of the self limiting rules that you have set for yourself or the rules of others that you have accepted as truth)
Your current belief system is responsible for your results. If you want to work with me on this project be advised that you will experience great psychological discomfort as you change your belief system. If you want to dramatically change your results you must be willing to embrace discomfort and shatter many of the beliefs you have about business.
Just to leave you with one more thing to think about. We live in a dual universe where the physicists can’t agree whether light is a particle or a wavelength. Turns out these two polar opposites are both true. How can that be? How can two opposite things both be true simultaneously?
If this universal polar opposite concept is true in physics it must therefore also be true in every other aspect of our life. (Granted this is a hard concept to wrap your head around)
For every night there is day. For every sunrise there is a sunset. For every winter there is a summer. For every incoming tide there is an outgoing tide. For every right there is a wrong. For every up there is a down. And for EVERYTHING you think to be true the opposite is also true simultaneously.
What you and I call truth is simply what we choose to believe is true because all things exist simultaneously.
Steve
Why Am I Not As Successful As I Should Be?
I’m asked this question all the time from clients, other coaches (yes, even other coaches), and many other ‘professional types’. In fact, I just got back from the 2012 Glazer Kennedy Super Conference in Dallas and heard Larry Winget speak on just that issue. His approach is rough but it works. I’m thick-skinned so I can look past all of the “rough” and understand exactly what he’s saying..…
If you don’t know Larry (that’s him in the photo to my left) he’s authored several NY Times and Wall Street Best-Selling books including: Shut Up, Stop Whining &; Get a Life, and You’re Broke Because You Want To Be . Larry doesn’t hold anything back and is right on the money when it comes success and creating the kind of life that you want. His political incorrectness is refreshing.
What’s holding me and you back from achieving success is ME and YOU! I know that and as painful as it is to admit, I have known it for a long time. If I don’t like my life, I have no one to blame but myself, I’ve created it. Ditto for you.
I KNOW some reading this will take issue with what is being said and be offended. If so, hit the unsubscribe button at the bottom and I will no longer send you nuggets of truth that you obviously can’t handle. (And I’m really ok with you unsubscribing!)
Frankly, I don’t know about you but I am tired of whiners and complainers in my life.
Are you still with me? If so, here’s an exercise you can do right now to kick your success into high gear.
Take a few minutes and do the following 3 things:
1) Write down where you are in every aspect of your life right now (and be specific – financial,
physical, spiritual, etc.)
2) Next, write down where you’d like to be. Be specific. The more detail the better.
3) Last but not least, write down what you’ll have to GIVE UP in order get to what you want.
This is the hard one and the one most people will never do.
Did you read STEP 3? I mean really read it??!! Go back and read it – I’ll wait!
Most people know where they are in life and how they got there. Some people know want they want out of life, but very few are willing to give up ANYTHING to get to where they want to be. They abhor sacrifice and are constantly looking for the easy button to push. Success never works that way.
The only way to reach true success is in giving up whatever is making you unsuccessful, unhealthy….whatever it is that is keeping you from being as successful as you want to be or making the kind of money you want to make. This is huge. You have just been given the golden key to success so take the time and sit down and think long and hard about what you need to do and what you need to GIVE UP to get exactly what you want .
If you really want to succeed – if you want it badly enough, you better be willing to do WHATEVER it takes to get there. So get moving! Take those much needed steps and I’ll see you at the top of the “ladder of success!”
Wishing you all the success you have the guts to grab!
Steve
PS I really would like to hear from a lot of you on this. I promise to read every comment and to reply to as many as I can. Let me know what you think.
Direct Marketing Has Grown Beyond It’s Roots
Direct marketing has grown beyond its roots in traditional mail order to embrace a host of new technologies, customer relationship-building techniques and performance measures. Today, businesses and nonprofits of all kinds use direct marketing, which now garners 25% of the U.S. marketer’s budget, surpassing newspapers and broadcast TV.
In a 2011 case study three significant-sized charities reported the following data:
#1: Percentage of donations secured from first time donors attributable to different media: 76% direct-mail, 13% social media, notably Facebook and YouTube feeds their web sites, 8% email, 3% miscellaneous;
#2: Percentage of donations secured from present and prior and prior donors: 63% direct-mail, 9% printed newsletters. (Added together = 72%). 11% email and their web sites, 9% at live events, promoted by all media, 20% other online media and 2% miscellaneous;
#3: Percentage of internal resources devoted to work on different media-admittedly, their best estimates: 60% social media, 20% other online media, 10% events, 10% direct-mail.
What’s wrong with this picture?
Hint: Study the numbers – 76% vs. 10%. This (stupid) mistake is made over and over again by people who base their marketing decisions on personal preference vs. hard data.
Cancun, Weight Lifting and Winning
Ryan, a new financial advisor coaching client, shared an interesting story with me on our last coaching call about how he won a contest sponsored by his local gym. Turns out his gym was giving away a free trip to Cancun to the winner of a 12 week contest based on the concept of the biggest loser. The winner was chosen based on the amount of weight lost, number of miles run during the course of the event, number of times the contestant worked out at the gym, and number of inches lost around the middle.
I ask Ryan what motivated him to enter and how was he able to win. His answers are insightful and full of lessons about winning in business or sports or anything else. No magical formula just plain ole goal setting, commitment to a daily regimen of activity and accountability in the form of having a trainer watch over his shoulder and hold him accountable for his actions.
His motivation for entering was that, at age 38, he had become disgusted with his physical appearance and the fact that he was turning into a slob at such an early age. His psychological discomfort had been building for some time and finally reached a crescendo about the time the contest was announced.
Once he put down his $200 and entered the contest he went to work. He ran 20 miles a week. He quit smoking. He went to the gym and lifted weights 4 days a week. He limited his caloric intake to less than 2000 calories a day and he eliminated junk food from his diet. None of this required specialized knowledge or skill – just commitment.
As a side note he was the only one who entered the contest and stuck with the program for the entire 12 weeks. Everyone else quit and made excuse after excuse why they could not discipline themselves for even 3 months. The word for these people is LOSER and the world is full of them.
Many times winning means being the only one still standing when everyone else folds their tent, quits and goes home. This does not surprise me because I see it every day with my members. At least 50% of the salespeople who enroll in our Inner Circle Coaching Program quit during the 2 month free trial. Another 30% quit sometime during the first year and only 20% who start are still with us after 12 months. These 20%ers are the true winners who “get it” and their income is evidence of their superiority to the “mediocre majority”. Woody Allen was right when he said 50% of winning is just showing up. These days if you just show up and do anything at all you are in the top 20%.
Jake Has Raving Fans too…….
Hello LOYAL readers…..if you fall into the category of “Loyal Reader” (and DUH it’s safe to assume you do if you’re reading this) I’d like to pitch something but without my “Loyal Readers” it will never fly. I’m tired of hearing from Steve’s RAVING FANS. He’s not the only one with a wealth of knowledge in the Clark household you know. I happen to know a few things myself that Steve will never be able to boast about being the expert on! Ok so I haven’t written a book or produced numerous CD & DVDs – you got me on that one Steve but do you know the first thing about being a dog? No I didn’t think so.
That’s where my pitch comes in. I’m sure many of you have dogs and would love to know what goes through their mind at times. Or what exactly do they do when you leave the house? Or why they can’t just get along with the cat!
Just so happens I have the answers. Now I’m not bragging – well maybe I am bragging a little but hey if Steve can have “Raving Fans” then so can I – even if it is myself. I can’t help it I’m my own biggest fan!!
Ok, let’s focus on the issue at hand here. You HAVE a dog – I AM a dog. You have QUESTIONS about your dog – I have the ANSWERS. How great is it that we found one another!! Here’s the plan – you email your canine related questions to my assistant Cindi at clowden@newschoolselling.com and I’ll see that you get answers in next month’s newsletter. That’s it. Ask and ye shall receive.
Looking forward to hearing from you. Oh and don’t mention to Steve that HIS assistant is also MY assistant. I won’t be the only one pitching things if he finds that out. He’ll pitch a fit if he finds out she’s doing my work too – but that decision was hers. She can obviously handle the workload plus I pay better than Steve so she’d be a fool not work for me. Besides I promised I wouldn’t BARK at her which is more than she can say for Steve!!
Until next month……
Your Friend, Jake
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