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Kurt Mortensen - EzineArticles.com Expert Author  

Kurt W. Mortensen is one of America's leading authorities on persuasion, motivation and influence. Kurt spent 15 years researching personal development and motivational psychology and is currently a professor on the university level. He offers his speaking, training, and consulting programs nationwide, helping thousands achieve unprecedented success in business and personal endeavors. Kurt is author of Maximum Influence, an Amazon.com bestseller and is endorsed by Stephen R. Covey, Brian Tracy, Robert Allen, and Mark ... [More]

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  • The Exponential Success Roadmap
    [Self-Improvement:Attraction] The journey to success starts with belief, proven principles and a burning desire to change. A lot of it will boil down to how your mind is programmed and whether you have given yourself permission to win.


  • Bigger and Better
    [Business:Sales-Management] Peace and satisfaction will never come because the looming possibility of something or someone bigger and better coming along will always exist. One relishing their position at the top of the hill can never rest easy for too long. Pride is a false sense of accomplishment because it is not based on true or pure motives. As C.S. Lewis observed, "Pride is a spiritual cancer; it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense."


  • Ego Proof
    [Business:Sales-Training] Anytime someone challenges your abilities, especially your abilities to do your business, your immediate and instinctive reaction is to prove them wrong! When employing this tactic, be careful to avoid damaging the ego. When you cause damage instead of producing a challenge, you will create an air of indifference from your prospect.


  • How to Make Others Feel Important
    [Business:Sales-Training] Many people consider ingratiation sucking up or brown-nosing, but the method works and ingratiation makes people more persuadable.


  • Praise Others Daily
    [Business:Sales-Management] Sincere praise and compliments can have a powerful effect on people. Praise boosts one's self-esteem. When you genuinely give praise, it releases energy in the other person. When you receive sincere compliments or praise, you get a smile on your face, your spirits soar, and you have a new aura about you.


  • One Good Turn Amplified
    [Business:Sales] The adage "one good turn deserves another" seems to be a part of social conditioning in every culture. And, even beyond that, the maxim serves as an ethical code that does not necessarily need to be taught but nevertheless is understood. When someone smiles or gives a compliment, we tend to return the smile or compliment. Even when these gestures are unsolicited, we feel a sense of urgency to repay the person who has created the mental or psychological debt. In some cases, our need to repay this debt is so overwhelming that we end up dramatically exceeding the original favor.


  • Return on Investment
    [Business:Sales-Management] One university professor chose names at random from a telephone directory, and then sent these complete strangers his Christmas cards. Holiday cards addressed to him came pouring back, all from people who did not know him and, for that matter, who had never even heard of him.


  • The Placebo Effect: Persuasive Suggestions
    [Business:Sales-Management] One form that expectations can take is in the shape of a placebo. A placebo is a non-medicinal substance that is given to patients so they believe they are receiving medicine. Placebos were used during the Korean War when MASH units ran out of morphine. When medical workers gave wounded soldiers placebos, 25 percent of the soldiers reported a reduction in pain. The placebo works because the expectation that the "medicine" will help is so strong that our brains actually translate it into reality. In some studies, placebos worked 25 percent to 40 percent of the time!


  • First Impression Expectations
    [Business:Sales-Management] Have you ever noticed how the people you assume are going to be jerks turn out to be just that? And if there is someone you're especially excited to meet, then you meet her and she seems great! Often our assumptions and expectations about someone we're about to meet for the first time play out exactly as we've already mentally conceived them. Once again, even when first meeting someone, you will send subconscious messages about how they are to respond and behave.


  • Environmental Expectations
    [Business:Sales-Management] Your environment and the expectations of that environment should be persuasive. In a theory they call the Broken Window Theory, James Wilson and George Kelling suggest that a building full of broken windows will cause people to assume that no one cares for the building or its appearance. This in turn will spur more vandalism. In other words, the environment's condition gives suggestions that lead people to hold certain assumptions, and people then act on those assumptions.


  • Pacing and Leading
    [Business:Sales-Management] Pacing involves establishing rapport and making persuasive communication easier; leading involves steering your prospect toward your point of view. Pacing and leading will enable you to direct a person's thoughts so they tend to move in your direction.


  • Expect with Confidence
    [Business:Sales-Management] Often our expectations are based on the assumptions we have about people or groups of people. The same is true of us. Have you ever noticed how your expectations become reality in your personal life? Expectation is literally a self-fulfilling prophecy. We do this consciously and subconsciously. Remember the kid in grade school who was always really rowdy and disruptive? Sometimes if people already assume they are perceived a certain way, then that is indeed exactly how they will act, even if they don't mean to. The rowdy kid in grade school knew everyone perceived him as disruptive, and so he was. The teacher expected bad behavior, and the expectations were fulfilled.


  • The Impact of Suggestion
    [Business:Sales] Expectations influence reality and create results. Individuals tend to make decisions based on how others expect them to perform. As a result, people fulfill those expectations whether positive or negative. Expectations have a powerful impact on those we trust and respect, but, interestingly, an even greater impact on perfect strangers. When we know someone expects something from us, we will try to satisfy him or her in order to gain respect and rapport.


  • Cognitive Dissonance and Public Commitment
    [Business:Sales-Training] Public commitments and dissonance go hand in hand. Even when we feel an action is not right, we still go through with it if we have publicly committed to such a course of action.


  • Brand Loyalty
    [Business:Sales-Training] It's a challenge getting consumers to remain loyal to a particular brand. Unlike the good old days when brand loyalty was a given, times have changed. As a society, we no longer feel compelled to stick with a certain company or product.


  • Everyday Examples of Dissonance
    [Business:Sales-Management] "Buyer's remorse" is also a form of dissonance. When we purchase a product or service, we tend to look for ways to convince ourselves that we made the right decision. If the people around us or other factors make us question our decision, we experience buyer's remorse. On feeling this inconsistency, we'll look for anything--facts, peer validation, expert opinion--to reduce the dissonance in our minds concerning the purchase. Some of us even use selective exposure to minimize the risk of seeing or hearing something that could cause dissonance. Often people won't even tell family or friends about their purchase or decision because they know it will create dissonance.


  • Three Steps to Using the Law of Dissonance
    [Business:Sales-Training] Just like anything in life, there is an art an a science. In this article I outline the step by step science to using dissonance effectively. Take the material I teach you and use your art to apply the most effective method in a given situation.


  • Stirring an Audience
    [Business:Sales] Are we rational human beings? Do we follow all forms of logic? Do we only act if it feels right? Do we even want the facts all the time? Have you ever tried to persuade an emotional person with logic? We generally think we make decisions based on facts, but truly this is not the case. It has been found that when people agree with a particular message, they tend to perceive it as being more logical or rational. On the other hand, when people disagree with the message, they perceive it as an emotional plea.1 The truth is that that our decision-making process relies on a mixture between emotion and its partner, logic. However, we cannot rely entirely on emotion until our logical side has been engaged.


  • Your Emotional Radar
    [Business:Sales] When using emotions in persuasion, you must pay attention to the circumstances that surround your presentation. Aristotle highlighted three aspects you should consider:


  • Common Logical Fallacies
    [Business:Sales] Often a prospect spirals into a negative abyss. As a master persuader you need to understand what is happening to your prospect. By having an understanding of your prospects concerns, you will have a greater ability to resolve concerns and close more sales.


  • Compelling Evidence
    [Business:Sales-Management] As you prepare your message, understand that we humans aren't capable of absorbing all of the information you can gather. We are hit with data all day long and most of the time we don't absorb it. In fact, we are very selective in what we allow ourselves to retain. When we hit information overload, we turn our minds off and retain nothing.


  • Emotion: Winning People's Hearts
    [Business:Sales-Management] Whereas logic is the language of the conscious mind, emotion is the language of the unconscious mind. We know that emotions are reactions to perceived and imagined stimuli, not based on logic, but on one's own personal experiences. Emotions often outweigh our logic. Imagine placing a plank of wood on the ground and walking its length a few times. Easy enough, right? But suppose you placed it a hundred feet in the air between two buildings. You know you can walk that plank - you just did it over and over again. Yet now, emotions and fears outweigh logic. Your "what-ifs" and your imagination supersede the concrete knowledge of your ability to walk the plank.


  • Emotional Types Mastery
    [Business:Sales-Management] Over the centuries, philosophers have tried to categorize the very many complex emotions of humanity - no easy task. Philosophers argued emotions are largely influenced by one's time period and culture. In the persuasive process, you want to eliminate negative emotions while constructing positive emotions.


  • Reinforcement Methods
    [Business:Sales-Management] Prospects are slow to accept your message because they don't trust you. As a master persuader you need to utilize certain resources to break down those walls, warm up your prospect and move them closer to making a buying decision.


  • Relative Evidence
    [Business:Sales] Evidence is an extremely effective tool in persuading an audience. Often a prospect needs just a little bit of help in order to be tipped over the edge. Facts register in the human brain as unbiased truth. A fact is rarely questioned and unconsciously accepted. The use of evidence works best when it is suited to the audience and their experience.


  • The "Let’s" Technique
    [Business:Sales-Management] You can create unity and alliance and lessen defensiveness when you use "let’s" in place of "you," even when that individual, not you, is really going to be the one carrying the duty out.


  • How to Keep Your Prospects On Track
    [Business:Sales-Management] Following are some simple guidelines to keep your speech and verbal packaging on the right track.


  • How to Use Silence
    [Business:Sales] Sometimes the right word is no word. On occasion we need to remain silent and let the other person talk. We have heard in sales that the first one to talk after the close loses. After the persuasion process and the final decision is ready to be made, make your proposal and shut up. The silence is nerve-wracking, but it’s a critical time to let the prospect make the decision without you rambling on and on about the product or service.


  • How to Use Word Choice in Marketing
    [Business:Sales] Word choice in marketing and advertising is absolutely critical. When advertisers spend millions of dollars each year, you can bet they have tested every word they are going to use. They want their word choices to psychologically lead you to believe their product is the best, that it will change your life. Skilled advertisers can get us to absorb their message unconsciously. They might even package an identical product with different words and phrases to reach a wider segment of the public.


  • The Value of the Simple Statement
    [Business:Sales] It is best to assume that with spoken language, simple is better than complex. Since we are unable to recapture or replay our spoken words, we hope that they will be correctly interpreted the first time they are heard. Unfortunately, spoken words can be the most misread and misinterpreted form of communication, and therefore, can be a great hindrance to effective persuasion. When you’re in a persuasive situation, use simple, direct, and concise language, rather than fretting about how eloquent you’re sounding. If you are preoccupied, you’ll miss a lot of important cues. Moreover, complex language may not effectively deliver your point.


  • The Secret of Stories
    [Business:Sales] Stories draw your audience in and they help an audience understand and appreciate your message. We can all think of a time when we were in an audience where we were not paying attention to the speaker. We were off in our own world when, all of a sudden, we perked up and started to listen because the speaker had shifted to telling a story.


  • Presentation Skills
    [Business:Presentation] You've only got about fifteen to thirty seconds before people start to settle into their impressions. Hence, when effectively presenting, we want openers that will not only grab our audiences' attention, but will also quickly establish our credibility, cultivate goodwill with our listeners and introduce our topics.


  • The Success Process
    [Business:Sales] We put on weight over the years, but then we want to lose it overnight. We spend years getting deeper and deeper into debt, but we want to become financially independent overnight. We decide we want to run that marathon-when it's only a month a way. We want to ace that exam, but we only allow ourselves an hour to cram all the material. We start thinking about retirement when it looms only five years out on the horizon. There are many examples of things we want to attain in the shortest amount of time possible and with the least effort possible, but it rarely happens that way. Success is a process and not a quick fix. Progress comes in steps and the foundation first has to be laid.


  • Persuasion and Presentation Preparation
    [Business:Presentation] You have to know as much as you possibly can about the people who will comprise your audience. You must uncover what their interests and expectations are. You must also take into consideration where you'll be speaking, what time of day it will be and what logistical and technical considerations may play a role.


  • Roadmap to Success
    [Business:Sales] Part of your discovery will be making this self-mastery journey a natural process. It will still be challenging, but you need to expand your comfort zone. The journey to success starts with belief, proven principles and a burning desire to change.


  • Top Presentation Tips
    [Business:Presentation] Pace refers to how rapidly you speak. Obviously, you don't want to sound unnatural, but research has shown that people who speak faster, louder and more fluently are perceived as more persuasive than those who do not. Stories that are delivered at a more upbeat pace are more persuasive than those that are delivered more slowly because the lively storyteller comes across as more competent and knowledgeable.


  • Persuasion Used for You or Against You
    [Business:Sales] Advertisers spend billions of dollars researching and analyzing our psychographics and demographics to figure out how to subtly persuade us. Rosseli, Skelly, and Mackie point out that "even by conservative estimates, the average person is exposed to 300 to 400 persuasive media messages a day from the mass media alone."


  • Telling Stories
    [Business:Sales-Training] Paint the picture for your audience. The more you can create the setting-the sights, the sounds, the smells, the feelings-the more your audience will be drawn in. Remember, you want the experience to become their experience-something they can readily identify with. As a persuader, you've got to take them there. As you prepare yourself, keep in mind all the ways in which you can really produce a mental and emotional imprint. You want your prospects to see your story in their minds' eyes, playing out like a movie. You want them to really take the story home, to have a place in their hearts for years to come. When you reach their hearts and involve their minds, you will be persuasive.


  • Winning Structure
    [Business:Sales] Confidence and conviction during your call to action is a critical persuasive component. The effectiveness of your call to action is all about how the audience perceives you. Because it is such a crucial component, I would suggest that you write your call to action before beginning any other phase of your presentation. When doing so, ask yourself what exactly it is you want your audience to do upon completion of your presentation and then build your presentation around the answer.


  • How to Increase Your Confidence
    [Business:Sales-Management] People are constantly looking for someone to help direct them in their lives and to assist them in making the right choices. Demonstrating confidence in everything you do will spur others to put their trust in you.


  • Overcoming Presentation Jitters
    [Business:Sales-Training] I remember my very first speaking engagement. I was excited but also a little nervous. I was faced with some of the common fears everyone experiences. Even though we may know that many of our fears are most likely not ever going to actually happen, they still have a way of trying to take center stage right before we get on stage.


  • Persuasion and Presentation Obstacles
    [Business:Sales] Fear is so debilitating, and yet it is so prevalent. I would say, in fact, that it is probably the number one obstacle standing in the way of having a solid, positive mental mindset. Yet when its true nature is revealed, we are no longer bound by the mental and emotional limitations it imposes upon us.


  • Power Pointers for Story Selling
    [Business:Sales-Management] Nothing disarms and invites an audience in more than humor. We are instantly drawn to people we think are funny. We enjoy listening to humorous individuals and hearing what they have to say. Humor grabs attention, creates rapport and makes a message more memorable. It can also relieve tension, enhance relationships and motivate people.


  • Present with Passion, Compassion and Purpose
    [Business:Sales-Management] Long gone are the days of counting on the subject matter to speak compellingly for itself, compensating for your inadequacies as a presenter. Nowadays, you've got to get inside of your prospects' minds, and you've got to get there fast-before you're even into the heart of your message. When asked what they thought made their managers most effective, 90 percent of all respondents mentioned communication and presentation skills. This tendency reveals how truly critical a life skill effective communication really is.


  • Story Selection
    [Business:Sales-Management] In selecting a story that is appropriate for any given circumstance, there are three fundamental questions you must ask yourself. First, does the story fit your audience? How does it support and underscore your main message? Second, is it a story you love, have lived or have learned from firsthand? These are key elements if you want your story to be as compelling as possible. Third, can your story be related in a way that your audience will not only appreciate it, but also identify with it and be able to relive it?


  • Four Essential Phases of a Great Story
    [Business:Sales-Training] There are four phases that are absolutely essential to making your story cohesive, clear and easy to follow. The first phase involves setting and characters. Your audience needs to have some sense of where and when the story is taking place. Did this story happen in the past or is it occurring in the future? What era is it supposed to take place in? Where does the action take place? On a farm, in the workplace, on a fishing trip or at a store? Immerse your audience within your story's context as much as possible so they can identify with it as much as possible.


  • Fine Tuning Story Selling
    [Business:Sales-Training] The use of repetition can also be very effective when telling a story. Repetition creates familiarity with your ideas, which in turn builds positive association. Repetition also makes a message more memorable. You need to repeat your message several times so your audience understands precisely what you are talking about and what you want them to do.


  • Breeding Confidence
    [Business:Sales-Management] The greatest common denominator of the ultra-prosperous is that wealthy people are master communicators. Impeccable and masterful communication unarguably leads to wealth. The highest paid and most powerful people on the planet are all master communicators. These individuals put themselves at stake in front of large groups, communicating and persuading in such a way that people are inspired to support them.


  • It Is How, Not What You Say
    [Business:Sales-Management] The words we use and the way in which we use them can have a huge impact on how we are perceived by our audience. As Mark Twain said, "The difference between the right word and the wrong word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug."


  • People Skills and Public Speaking
    [Business:Sales-Management] You want your people skills to be so polished that they invariably permeate your presentations. You want every audience member to feel like you're reaching her/him individually.


  • The Aroma of Persuasion
    [Business:Sales] Our sense of smell is so powerful that it can quickly trigger associations with memories and emotions. Our olfactory system is a primitive sense that is wired directly to the center of our brain. By four to six weeks of age, infants can tell the difference between their own mother's scent and that of a stranger. Almost everyone has experienced situations in which a smell evoked a nostalgic memory.


  • Persuasive Humor in the Real World
    [Business:Sales] Often, salespeople use humor to get a prospect to relax, open up and connect. This strategy works, too. If the salesperson gets us laughing along, we like them and we feel like we're having a good time. We're glad for a sales representative who appreciates our needs and concerns but who can also take the stress and anxiety out of making an important purchase.


  • Negotiation Hazards
    [Business:Negotiation] What might work wonderfully in one negotiation situation will not always be appropriate in another. The instant someone feels cheated, misled or taken advantage of, your opportunity to negotiate with her/him is over. Negotiation hazards tend to occur when you are taking a particular strategy too far.


  • Maslows Hierarchy of Motivation
    [Business:Sales] Many of us are familiar with Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. A renowned researcher and psychologist, Maslow proposed a "hierarchy of needs" that demonstrates the human needs we are most motivated to satisfy. The base of the motivational order begins with the fundamentals of life. These fundamental, life-sustaining needs must be met before the higher needs can be targeted. When lower needs are not met, the higher needs become less urgent or persuaded.


  • Humorous Resources
    [Business:Presentation] I would say that your number one resource for funny material is yourself. When searching for comedic stories, think back on your own life experiences. Often those embarrassing moments and awkward scenarios provide excellent, true-to-life humor that people can appreciate, relate to and enjoy. Such personal stories are doubly effective when they underscore a key point you're trying to make to your audience or when they offer a lesson to be learned from the experience.


  • Happy Humor
    [Self-Improvement:Motivation] In our modern, fast-paced but tension-filled world, consider the popularity of or emphasis on such things as psychological care, anti-anxiety and anti-depression medications, treatments, spas, vacation getaways, etc. In this age of "self-help," self-improvement seminars and workshops of all sorts abound. They may take on any one of many different possible forms: public speaking, fashion, wellness, sales, parenting, education, finances, etc. Whatever subjects these workshops address, in the end, they all aim to help people feel better about themselves.


  • Neuro-Linguistic Programming Strategies
    [Business:Sales] One's thought patterns, beliefs and attitudes can be used to "preprogram" actual experiences that are yet to happen. NLP is very focused on how we think, what influences the way we think, and how we structure what we think. Subscribers to the science are encouraged to closely study and then model those individuals who do things well.


  • Increasing Persuasion with Humor
    [Business:Sales] Many people take for granted the powerful persuading influence of humor. Humor is often tossed off as sheer entertainment or mere speech filler. The truth is, when you engage an audience with humor, you are accomplishing much more than just getting a laugh out of them.


  • Anchored Selling
    [Business:Sales] Anchoring is a technique that captures the feelings, memories and emotions of certain events, places or things. The psychology behind the anchoring technique's success lies in the use of elements from a previous situation or circumstance to replay that experience's emotions and feelings in the mind.


  • Critical Humor
    [Business:Sales] The proper use of humor in your introduction is crucial. Your opener is where you set the stage, create the mood and get your audience ready to laugh. It sets up the rest of your delivery. Once you've successfully launched your presentation, you will want to continue using humor throughout. Sometimes, you will use humor to change your pace and re-center your audience's focus. Other times, you may use it to underscore a key point, to lighten the mood or to simply maintain rapport. Don't despair if everyone does not laugh. In fact, many people won't laugh, but they will still be smiling on the inside. A physical or mental smile also helps during the persuasion process.


  • Expectation in Negotiation
    [Business:Negotiation] The fact that people's expectations influence reality can help dramatically in the negotiation process. Individuals tend to make decisions based on how others expect them to perform. When we know someone expects something from us, we try to satisfy her/him in order to gain respect and likeability.


  • Factors Influencing the Impact of Humor in Persuasion
    [Business:Sales] Humor's effectiveness will always ride the emotional tides of your audience members. How well a joke goes over may depend on whose company your prospects are in, whether they are winding down for the day or still up against deadlines or other workplace pressures, whether they are awake and alert or feeling drowsy, whether they have a headache, etc. Always be in tune with how your audience is feeling and always assess the atmosphere you're in to determine whether it is conducive to humor.


  • Underlying Keys to Motivation
    [Business:Sales-Management] Motivation starts with vision. In other words, people need to believe that they will succeed in what you are motivating them to do.


  • Time Expectations
    [Business:Sales-Management] In our modern world, we are bound by time. This being the case, we have certain expectations about how long it will take us to accomplish our various tasks. Time often becomes distorted through our perceptions and expectations.


  • Foundations to Success
    [Business:Negotiation] Preparation is the magic ingredient to all successful negotiations. When negotiating, you have to be prepared for anything. You need to know the ins and outs, the intricacies of both sides. The more you prepare, the more knowledge you have, and the better you will do.


  • Feel the Beat
    [Business:Marketing] Music is much like smells in that our brains link music with attitudes and experiences from our past. Music is closely tied to our emotions. Think of the theme music from Rocky and then think of Jaws; the two movie themes evoke different emotions, don't they?


  • Engaging the Five Senses
    [Business:Sales] We were all born with five senses, each one helping us to make generalizations about the world. You should engage all five sensations when trying to persuade an audience.


  • Presentation Structure
    [Business:Presentation] In my younger years, I always heard "practice makes perfect." Persuaders who take the time to craft a well structured presentation find greater success than those who don't. A properly structured presentation includes the following:


  • Reputation Expectations
    [Business:Sales-Management] When people are aware of the good opinions others have about them, they want to live up to those opinions. This tendency is why we act out the roles that are assigned to us. If we receive praise, we want to be worthy of that praise.


  • Secrets of Successful Negotiators
    [Business:Negotiation] Persuasion occurs when your ideas are so convincing that the other party ends up adopting your point of view. With persuasion, there is no compromising as there is in negotiation. Rather, the other party willfully and enthusiastically abandons their position to embrace yours.


  • Techniques for Connecting with Humor
    [Business:Sales] Can you think of a time when you or someone you knew heard a really funny story and then tried to tell it to someone else without evoking a single chuckle? Instead of peals of laughter, you got the old "Guess you had to be there" response. Why is it that the exact same story is hilarious in one instance and bland in another? It all has to do with the delivery. There are many different elements that factor into making humor work. Timing, gestures and facial expressions, vocal tone and inflection, and the setting are examples of just some of the things that should always be considered when delivering a shot of humor.


  • Programming Power
    [Business:Sales-Training] Our brains can be programmed and re-programmed. As a persuader you can use programming to eliminate resistance and set forth the course of action.


  • Achieving Attitude
    [Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] Attitude is a subset of optimism that is a reflection of what is happening inside a person. Our attitude reveals to the world what we expect in return. Our attitude is also one persuasive concept that is completely under our own control.


  • Empathetic Empowerment
    [Business:Sales] When someone feels love or unconditional acceptance, they will be open to your influence. To be this open to your influence, people have to know that you empathize with their situation.


  • Yellow Page Profits
    [Business:Advertising] The Yellow Pages are an advertising medium that shares many of the strengths of other advertising media while, at the same time, avoids some of its competition's limitations or disadvantages. As such, the Yellow Pages are best used to complement or extend the effects of advertising placed in other media. Like other media, the Yellow Pages permit an advertiser to select a well-defined geographic area, ranging from a neighborhood to an entire metropolitan area.


  • What's in an Ad?
    [Business:Advertising] Print ads generally have four written parts: headline, support copy, call to action, company name and a visual. Visuals are usually more important than copy because they're more effective in attracting readers' attention and can instantly present your product or service in a dramatic and motivating way.


  • The Advertising Campaign
    [Business:Advertising] Armed with knowledge of your industry, market and audience, a media plan and schedule, your product or service's most important benefits and measurable goals in terms of sales volume (number of units sold), revenue generated or other criteria, you are ready for action. The first step is to establish the theme and, if appropriate, the specific tagline that identifies your product or service in all of your advertising.


  • Six Ad Program Guidelines
    [Business:Advertising] If you are new to advertising, or if you're using media or publications you haven't tried before, it's important to assign your ads to outside specialists rather than try to create them yourself. These specialists may be the creative group at an advertising agency, a freelance writer and designer or the ad department of the newspaper, magazine, TV channel or radio station where you plan to advertise. Such people are experienced in translating information about a product or service, target market, U.S.P. (unique selling position) and advertising goals into advertising that suits each medium and conveys an effective image and sales message. Moreover, it's extremely helpful to work with and learn from specialists for several years before you consider doing advertising in-house.


  • Research Buying Tips
    [Business:Advertising] In some cases, such as reviewing the Yellow Pages to determine the level of competition for a specific geographic area, marketing research can easily be accomplished by small business owners themselves. However, as the research becomes more complicated, the small businessperson may wish to turn to an expert in the field. Numerous research firms exist throughout the U.S. Some conduct millions of dollars of research each month, such as A.C. Nielsen and its monitoring of television audiences. Others are smaller, independent firms that serve specific geographic areas.


  • Ready, Set, Advertise
    [Business:Advertising] Most of us are impatient; we want our advertising to spark an immediate sales increase. That's equivalent to giving a builder one week to construct a three-bedroom home without a blueprint. Think of the planning process as drawing a blueprint for your advertising campaign structure. First you design the framework, next you fill in the details, and finally you begin to build.


  • Quick Survey of Surveys
    [Business:Advertising] Surveys can be conducted in numerous ways: directly, by mail, by fax or by phone. Generally, you will have a better response if you ask customers to complete surveys while on your premises. Follow the guidelines below and, above all, let your customers know how you have implemented their suggestions. Eight out of ten will come back to see if you have followed their advice.


  • Quantitative Research and Surveys
    [Business:Advertising] When people speak of marketing research, they are usually referring to quantitative research. Quantitative research involves a survey of a selected sample of a specific group using mail, telephone or in-person interviews.


  • Public Relations and Goodwill
    [Business:PR] One highly effective type of advertising costs virtually nothing: public relations. With public relations, the newsworthiness of some aspect of your business or business activities can earn you free publicity in newspapers or magazines, or even on radio or television.


  • Modern Marketing
    [Business:Marketing] The homogeneous mass market, which has dictated the offerings of U.S. producers since the dawn of the industrial revolution, is confronting its demise. At least, that's the word from advertising and marketing experts as we transition into a new millennium. The scattershot advertising approach, which wasn't necessarily all that effective in the past, will be even less so in the 21st century. The most obvious alternative, shifting to narrower and more specialized markets, is already being tried by many small firms with substantial success.


  • Merchandising Methods
    [Business:Advertising] When people hear the term merchandising, many think of window displays or perhaps the mass proliferation of Disney memorabilia. However, merchandising is a much broader concept, encompassing everything a company does to package and present its products or services.


  • Measuring Results
    [Business:Advertising] Advertising is an ongoing process that is designed for sustainable results over time. However, when your ad contains a coupon, a special time-limited offer or other inducement to act immediately, you can get measurable results almost at once - provided your offer, timing and media selection were right and you had already established a rapport with your audience.


  • Marketing Research Types
    [Business:Marketing] All marketing research falls into two basic categories: secondary and primary. Secondary research involves literature searches, article reviews and analysis of existing, available data. While secondary research is limited to the information you have on hand, it is usually much cheaper than primary research and can be conducted by small businesses themselves.


  • Marketing Research Effectiveness
    [Business:Advertising] Marketing research can be used to meet nearly all the marketing information needs of the small businessperson. Every area from developing a business plan to designing an effective advertising program can benefit from the use of carefully planned and executed research.


  • Marketing and Advertising Designs
    [Business:Advertising] Ask most small business owners the best way to improve sales of their products or services, and you will probably hear a wide range of responses: "Reduce the prices," "Increase your advertising," "Improve service" and so on. One unlikely reply, however, would be: "Conduct some marketing research." While marketing research has been a driving force in large companies for years, small businesses have been reluctant to use it. Marketing research can be the key to future success for many small businesses if the buyer or user of the research understands its parameters, strengths and limitations. Failure to conduct and use marketing research correctly result in catastrophe.


  • Fifteen Advertising and Promotional Ideas
    [Business:Advertising] Every successful company uses some sort of promotion to influence certain audiences, usually customers or prospects, by informing or persuading them. Reasons for promoting a business include: increasing visibility; adding credibility to you or your company; enhancing or improving your image and bringing in new business. The following cost-effective, easy-to-execute ideas have the power to increase sales in a way that conventional advertising cannot. The key is to find the methods that are appropriate for your business, marketplace and professional style.


  • Economical Advertising
    [Business:Advertising] If you think advertising is a high-stakes gamble, one that is full of risks and gimmicks at expensive prices, think again. Advertising follows, in fact, some very logical rules. The first is that good advertising is based on market research. Before you advertise, you need to understand the customers you're trying to reach. What are their needs? What factors influence their decisions to buy? What features of your products or services offer what they truly want? And what weaknesses in your competitors could bring these target customers to you?


  • Business Advertising
    [Business:Advertising] Advertising is an investment in your business and is similar to other investments that are designed to improve and expand your business. The return you receive depends on the planning and thought that precede the actual commitment and expenditure of advertising dollars. By first developing an effective advertising plan, you increase the likelihood of a positive return on your advertising investment, regardless of the amount of money you spend.


  • Advertising's Two Important Virtue
    [Business:Advertising] You have complete control. Unlike public relations efforts, you have final word in determining where, when and how often your message will appear, how it will look and what it will say. You can target your audience more readily (working mothers, new home purchasers, small truck owners) and aim at very specific geographic areas. You can be consistent through advertising that presents your company's image and sales message over time to build awareness and trust.


  • Advertising Pitfalls
    [Business:Advertising] Perhaps the greatest obstacle to good advertising is excess. Ads can end up so crammed with ideas and features that they appear dense and uninviting. If over-designed, they can become more artistic than motivational, obscuring the sales message. If over-written, they can become over-subtle or over-cute. Certainly, some of the best ads ever created are clever and visually arresting; but good ads must also sell.


  • Advertising in a Nutshell
    [Business:Advertising] The bottom line of all advertising efforts is an obvious one: to attract customers and bolster sales. But often, small business advertising is wasted on a shotgun approach that doesn't focus on the company's best prospects: those who are ready, willing and able to purchase the product or service. In an attempt to reach "everybody," these advertisers either miss their true market or spend far more than necessary to reach it.


  • Ad Placement
    [Business:Advertising] The following summarizes the relative advantages and disadvantages of the advertising media most frequently used by small businesses.


  • Small Business Money
    [Business] Many new entrepreneurs quickly discover that raising capital may not be easy and can be a complex and frustrating process. However, if you are informed and have planned effectively, raising money for your business will not be a painful experience.


  • Powerful Product Names
    [Business] Like company names, names for products and services may express a benefit to customers or a personality trait. More than with companies, however, product and service names must be strongly competitive.


  • Aligning All My Ducks
    [Business:Sales] Time is tight, you don't have time to check the plane or see if there is gas in the tank so you just prepare yourself to take off. The consequences would be devastating. Many treat their future this way. They are so excited to do things that will return a profit that they forget to work on themselves and learn the tools necessary to make their life successful.


  • Changing Knowledge
    [Self-Improvement:Motivation] Sometimes, people are immobilized from moving ahead simply because they don't know what to do or where to begin. To bring change about in your life, you need the necessary knowledge to make that change successful. Consider what you can read, whom you can talk to, what seminar or workshop you can attend.


  • Commercial Identity
    [Business] The name you select for your business, product or service explains who you are or what you sell. It identifies what sets you apart in the marketplace. It helps determine how you're perceived. Be sure that your name communicates exactly the right message.


  • Critical Change
    [Business:Change-Management] Change is critical to your success and happiness. I cringe to think what might happen in our lives if we don't allow ourselves the opportunity to make the appropriate changes. Sure, we can pretend that we don't need to change, that there is nothing wrong with our lives. Then, however, we soon forget the consequences of not taking action and making the changes we know we need to make.


  • Developing Plans
    [Business] If you've researched your market, thought over the pros and cons of a home-based business, and decided to go ahead, it's time to put together a business plan.


  • Do You Have What It Takes
    [Business] Every day, people are achieving economic and creative independence by turning their skills into dollars. Garages, basements and attics are being transformed into the corporate headquarters of the newest entrepreneurs, home-based business people. With recent technological advances and a rising demand for ";service-oriented" businesses, the opportunities seem to be endless.


  • Drive to Success
    [Business] Consistent and rapid changes are impacting the economy, and the small businesses that create approximately two-thirds of the nation's new jobs. These changes are all around us and envelope all areas of business. The most obvious changes range from: telecommunications, manufacturing, distribution and natural resource management to evolving consumer needs and demands. Thus we see a tremendous growth in worldwide competition and making the road to success much more complex and difficult, especially for small businesses and entrepreneurs.


  • Finding Your Niche
    [Home-Based-Business] Choosing a home business is like choosing a spouse or partner -- your decision must be approached with a great deal of care. You need to learn as much about the market as you can for any product or service.


  • Home Based Business Considerations
    [Home-Based-Business] Before you dive head first into a home-based business, it's essential that you know why you are doing it and how you will do it. To succeed, your business must be based on something greater than a desire to be your own boss: an honest assessment of your own personality, an understanding of what's involved, and a lot of hard work.


  • Motivation Muster
    [Self-Improvement:Motivation] We all have those days when we just don't feel like doing what we need to do. We intend to, but then it still doesn't happen. Well, not only do we have "those days," but we could probably point to such a scenario every single day! Procrastination is just part of the human condition-"Oh, I'll get to it...later...." How do we muster the motivation to get things done and to stay on track, even during those inevitable times when we just don't feel like it?


  • Legal Restrictions
    [Business] A home-based business is subject to many of the same laws and regulations affecting other businesses and you will be responsible for complying with them.


  • Legal Structures
    [Business] One of the most important decisions entrepreneurs make is how to legally set up their businesses. The choice can be a wise move or a costly mistake with regard to taxes paid, protection from liability, and the amount of resultant flexibility in running the operation.


  • Obstacles to Lasting Change
    [Business:Change-Management] Change is the key to our success and to our financial future. Often in our own lives, however, change is something we fiercely resist. We can only become who we want to become through change.


  • Old Outdated Tactics
    [Business:Sales] Research shows the old style techniques of persuasion and influence have lost their effectiveness. So after timeless research and application, I found the answer to persuasion and influence.


  • Solidifying Foundations
    [Business] To ensure that your business runs smoothly, you need to establish a solid structure. The success of your business depends on how well you manage it.


  • Tune Your Piano of Persuasion
    [Business:Sales] You have all heard the adage that if you are a hammer, everyone is a nail. You can't treat everyone exactly the same. You have to customize your presentation. You have to read the customer. Imagine if the only tool your dentist had was a hammer. Think about it.


  • Vivid Vision
    [Self-Improvement:Motivation] Visualizing your success is crucial; if your mind can't conceive it, you sure won't achieve it! Since belief dictates behavior, you've got to believe first. And it is much easier to believe in something if you can visualize it.


  • Writing A Loan Proposal
    [Finance:Loans] Approval of your loan request depends on how well you present yourself, your business, and your financial needs to a lender. Remember, lenders want to make loans, but they must make loans they know will be repaid.


  • Change Assessment
    [Business:Change-Management] Change is such a key ingredient in helping you discover and achieve success, and adaptability to change is vital to coping with some of life's most common challenges. Now it's time to really assess where you are on the transformation scale. How badly do you really want to change?


  • How to Build Loyal Followers
    [Self-Improvement:Leadership] Legitimate Power, also know as earned or respect power, is a combination of respect, reputation, and your history. Reputation is the sum total of how you have conducted yourself in your professional and personal affairs. If you have shown respect, integrity, and character in all your dealings, people will know it.


  • Network Marketing Success 101
    [Home-Based-Business:Network-Marketing] A few simple truths can change your experience with network marketing from disaster to success.


  • Network Marketing Basics
    [Business:Careers-Employment] What is network marketing and what can it do for me?


  • Beware of Network Marketing Scams
    [Business:Marketing] Some companies claim a huge payout percentage. Buyer beware! If a company pays out too much in commissions, chances are great that it'll go belly up or be forced to make major revisions.


  • Choose Wisely
    [Business] This is an exciting time to pursue a career in network marketing. All of your dreams can be realized with commitment and perseverance. Choose wisely.


  • Determining the Right MLM for You
    [Home-Based-Business:Network-Marketing] ou must seriously consider every topic outlined in this report. The decision when you choose to start your own business can be a very rewarding decision but you must choose a company with which you will receive the right support, the right product, and the chance to grow to fulfill your potential.


  • MLM Compensation
    [Home-Based-Business:Network-Marketing] Making money in this industry depends on a few fundamental factors: the soundness of the company, the quality and the market of the products, and your own enthusiasm, commitment, and hard work.


  • Selecting a Network Marketing Company
    [Business:Networking] Just like in any business, failure to attract new customers will inevitably lead to failure. Therefore, it is imperative to the success of any network marketing business to have an effective marketing plan.


  • Gain Willing Cooperation
    [Business:Sales-Management] Reward Power refers to the ability to deliver rewards or benefits to influence others. These can be financial, material, or psychological rewards. Reward Power is the fastest way to persuade.


  • Psychological Power
    [Business:Workplace-Communication] Psychological Power is the ability people have to disguise what they really want from you when they are attempting to persuade or influence you. Psychological Power is based on the ability to alter an individual's perception of reality. This power (like most power) can obviously be used dishonestly. However, it is important to understand the various psychological tactics so that you will have a greater ability to detect people who are being dishonest or devious with you. You will be able to tell the difference between the Psychological Power of the salesman and the Legitimate Power of the Master Persuader.


  • 101 Ways to Motivate, Energize and Inspire Your Team
    [Business:Team-Building] Here is a long list of effective and simple incentives for your team.


  • Getting Inside the Closed Mind
    [Business:Sales] Life is change; persuasion is change. As a Master Persuader, you must be able to create and motivate change. Understand most people will resist change and burrow into their comfort zones. We tend to follow the path of least resistance. However, change is the only thing that can lift us up from where we currently lie. Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "Man's mind, stretched to a new idea, never goes back to its original dimensions." We all want to become a better person and to be "stretched" to accomplish more things, but we are stuck in our daily patterns.


  • Monitoring the Acceptance Level
    [Business:Sales] An important part of the Pre-Persuasion Checklist is determining what the audience's current acceptance level is for the subject you want to present.


  • Personality Directional Selling
    [Business:Sales] The more we understand personality directions and personality types, the better we will be able to customize our persuasive presentations. A personality direction is the way we lean most of the time in terms of the way we act and react to most stimuli. We hate to be put in a box and categorized, but the reality is that (most of the time) we are predictable. Sure, people can never be 100 percent predictable, but you will be amazed at how predictable they actually are as you become a student of human nature.


  • Sales Memory
    [Business:Sales] Once the call to action has taken place, your audience needs to remember, retain, and respond to your message. They have to keep doing what you want them to do. Have your points been memorable, easy to understand, and simple to follow? Remember, your message will boil down not to what you say and do, but to what the other person remembers. The following critical items must be included in your persuasive presentation.


  • Pre Persuasion Preparation
    [Business:Sales-Training] In order to successfully sell, you must first know your prospect.


  • Selling Through Inoculation
    [Business:Sales] To be an effective persuader, you cannot use the same tactics for all people all the time. You have to customize your message to fit the demographics, interests, and values of your audience. This chapter presents what I call the Pre-Persuasion Checklist. It will help you to effectively adapt your persuasive techniques to your target audience. The foundation of the Pre-Persuasion Checklist is rooted in a solid understanding of human psychology, the ways to handle resistance, and the methods of effectively structuring a persuasive argument. This is the knowledge necessary to make the Pre-Persuasion Checklist work in any persuasive situation.


  • Achieving Exponential Success
    [Self-Improvement:Success] Exponential success is the mathematical process of multiplying numbers. Remember your math days and the different calculations you used. Remember that 4+4=8 and 4X4 is 16 but 4 to the 4th power is 256. Same numbers still math, same amount of effort of do the math on a calculator but look at the difference in results. This process yields greater numbers than any other mathematical process. Some people are satisfied with minor success throughout their lives, adding to their lives a little at a time. Some people want to multiply the joy they have and the goals they want to accomplish. Learn to demand the most from life and achieve success exponentially.


  • Psychology of the Prosperous
    [Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] Let's talk about thoughts and changing your thoughts because the way to change your income and your future is to change your thoughts. Your subconscious mind is the center for all emotions. When your subconscious accepts an idea it begins to execute it. And what it does is it uses ideas, knowledge, energy, wisdom, it will go out there and find the solution.


  • Motivational Equation: Find the Switch and Turn People On
    [Self-Improvement:Motivation] When determining how to eliminate or overcome obstacles that stand in the way of one's taking action, you must analyze the Motivational Equation and learn how it applies to that particular person.


  • Motivation Defined
    [Self-Improvement:Motivation] Motivation is a call to action. Motivation inspires change, movement, and focus; it is what makes the world turn. The Art of Motivation is a must for Master Persuaders. How do you motivate in such a way that prompts people to take the actions you want them to take? How can you plant the seeds to encourage motivation? As a persuader, one of the keys to success is to motivate yourself and others. We have all had days when we did not feel like doing the things we knew we needed to do. It is useless to persuade and have others agree with your point of view if you can't get them to take action.


  • Millionaire Psychology - The Universe Will Not Reward You Physically Until You Believe It Mentally
    [Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] As you study successful people, they all agree a big part of the reason they are successful is the ability to harness and tap into their subconscious mind, so hold your breath we are going to deep. We are talking about programming your mind for success.


  • Fear Mastery - Steps to Overcome Obstacles
    [Self-Improvement:Success] What is fear? Where does it come from? We know logically that we should not have these fears, but emotionally these fears are larger than life. These fears we have learned through out our life. In fact, we are only born with 2 fears. A new born baby only has 2 fears: the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. If these are the only fear you were born with all the other fears are learned. If you learned these fears you can unlearn them.


  • The Essence of A Call To Action
    [Business:Sales] If you want motivation to last, you need to rely on inspiration. Inspiration is rooted in our emotions. The positive results of using inspiration as the motivator are obvious. Inspired people tend to be proactive, driven personality types. They don't need a carrot dangling in front of them to get anything accomplished.


  • Dream Spitters
    [Self-Improvement:Success] Take a look at those around you they are the ones who influence your life the most. What are they doing to your dreams, your esteem, and your potential? They are either being destructive or constructive to your future plans. Never let anybody tell you what you can or can't do or what you should or should not do. This is your life and it is up to you.


  • The 5 P's of Success
    [Self-Improvement] Throughout my years of study, I have found the ultra-prosperous all have common characteristics. I call these common characteristics the 5 P’s of Success because each attribute clearly adds to their success.


  • Defining Your Target
    [Self-Improvement:Goal-Setting] Many people don't like the idea of goal setting; in fact, just the mere mention of the words makes them cringe. However, there is no doubt that goal setting works. The problem is most people aren't doing it the right way.


  • Discipline Yourself to Accomplishment
    [Self-Improvement:Goal-Setting] Now we've heard that self-discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment. Studies show that willpower is actually like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the more you use it, the stronger you get it.


  • The Ultra-Prosperous Study Persuasion
    [Self-Improvement] Understanding the theories of persuasion, motivation, and influence will put you in life's driver's seat. Why? Because everything you want, or will want, in life comes from these three simple concepts. Did you know that less than 1 percent of the world's population understand and can actually apply the twelve Laws of Persuasion? Therefore, as I reveal the secrets of influence and science of persuasion, you will be able to persuade and influence with 99 percent accuracy. You will gain instant influence over others and inspire others to take action, all while getting exactly what you want from life. You will win people to your way of thinking and will empower yourself with an unshakable confidence. You will triple your prosperity in sales and marketing. You will become a captivating magnet of success.


  • Hierarchy of Persuasion - Part 2
    [Business:Sales] Focus on using influence in positive ways. Misuse of the laws will only come back to haunt you in the long run. You might get short-term instant results, but your long-term future will be bleak. The tools outlined in this book are powerful and are not to be used selfishly. They should not be considered a means of gaining a desired result at any cost. Rather, you should use these tools to get your desired outcome only when it is a win-win situation for all involved.


  • Attaining Trust Through Competence
    [Self-Improvement:Leadership] Competence is your knowledge and ability in a particular subject area. Competency can be real, perceived, or imagined. True competence comes from life-long learning and experience that gradually taught you what you know. Perceived competence comes from other people judging you based on external factors and their experiences with you.


  • Power Groups
    [Self-Improvement:Leadership] Anytime we find ourselves part of a group, we feel some susceptibility to peer pressure and/or the opinions of others in the group. The more esteem we feel for the group, the more their opinions matter to us, and therefore the more we feel pressured to align our own opinions with those of the group. Even when we don't really agree with the group, we will often go along with the group in order to be rewarded instead of punished, or liked instead of scorned.


  • Social Validation Sells
    [Business:Sales] For the most part, we are all conformists. We will do what the crowd does. We might not like to admit that, but it is true. Only 5 to 10 percent of the population engages in behavior contrary to the social norm. We see this law operating in groups, in organizations, in meetings, and in day-to-day public life. In all of these circumstances, there is a certain standard or norm. In churches, the moral code determines the standard behavior acceptable for the group. In organizations, the bylaws and years of tradition establish a standard operating procedure. Because we want to fit into these groups and maintain our membership with them, we conform our actions to the norm.


  • Social Validation Marketing
    [Business:Sales] We are social animals. We all have an innate desire to belong to a social group. It is precisely because we value this sense of belonging so highly that the more other people find an idea, trend, or position appealing or correct, the more correct that idea becomes in our own minds. We tend to change our perceptions, opinions, and behaviors in ways that are consistent with group norms. Even if we don't admit it, or maybe even realize it, we care about what others think. As such, we use others' behavior as a guide in establishing the standard for the choices and decisions we make.


  • Weakness Of The Masses
    [Self-Improvement:Leadership] Have you ever been in a situation where, because of the numbers in your group, you didn't really give it your all? For example, maybe on an academic group project you weren't as diligent as you would have been had you been solely responsible for the assignment. Or, maybe you've helped push a stalled car to safety with some other people but didn't really push your hardest.


  • Rhetoric Selling
    [Business:Sales] One’s ability to persuade meant great social prestige in the ancient Greek world. Homer regarded the rhetorical skills of Nestor and Odysseus as tremendous inborn gifts. It was Aristotle who first introduced persuasion as a skill that could be learned. At that time, rhetorical training became the craze for citizens of Athens, especially for the politically elite. The first book ever written on persuasion was Aristotle’s The Art of Rhetoric. The book’s basic principles established a foundation for persuasion that still holds true today. Aristotle taught that rhetoric was an art form that could be approached systematically by a formula for all persuasive attempts.


  • Restricting Your Clients Always Seals The Deal
    [Business:Sales] Anytime someone feels their freedom to choose, think, or act is being restricted, they "experience psychological reactance and attempt to restore their freedom." With this restriction on freedom we are driven to latch on to that thing which we fear will be restricted even more.


  • Less Is More In Sales
    [Business:Sales] Opportunities are always more valuable and exciting when they are scarce and less available. We want to be the ones to own the rare items or to get the last widget on the shelf. The more the scarcity of an item increases, the more the item increases in value, and the greater the urge to own it.


  • Marketing Obligations
    [Business:Sales] The more indebted we feel, the more motivated we are to eliminate the debt. Pre-giving makes us feel like we have to return the favor. Greenburg said this feeling of discomfort is created because the favor threatens our independence. An interesting report from the Disabled American Veterans Organization revealed that their usual 18 percent donation response rate nearly doubled when the mailing included a small, free gift


  • The Need To Give Back Works To Your Advantage
    [Business:Sales] When others do something for us, we feel a strong need, even a push, to return the favor. Returning the favor rids us of the obligation created by the first good deed. The adage "one good turn deserves another" seems to be a part of social conditioning in every culture.


  • The Decision Making Cycle
    [Business:Sales] Do we understand the advertising and how the market works? When you go to the supermarket to by shampoo, what dictates what we buy? There are over 50 different choices, which one do you buy? You don’t have time to process all the information, analyze ingredients, or figure the cost per ounce. Why do we make the decision we do.


  • Secret Strengths
    [Business:Sales] Everybody loves secrets. We all love to be in the know. When you share something personal or private with another person, you create an instant bond and sense of obligation and trust with them. By offering inside knowledge, you've created a sense of intimacy and made your listener feel important.


  • Scarce Markets Or Scarce Salesmen?
    [Business:Sales] Whenever choice is limited or threatened, the human need to maintain a share of the limited commodity makes us crave it even more. Scarcity increases the value of any product or service. Scarcity drives people to action, making us act quickly for fear of missing out on an opportunity.


  • Creating More Sales Through Active Participation
    [Business:Sales] People have an innate desire to feel wanted and needed. When you fulfill this need, you open the door to persuasion, a fact that has been proved beyond a doubt by records kept on industrial workers. Workers who have no voice whatsoever in management, who cannot make suggestions, or who are not allowed to express their ideas simply do not do as much work as workers who are encouraged to contribute. The same is true in families. Dr. Ruth Barbee said, "It is surprising how willingly a child will accept the final authority of the father, even if the decision goes against him, provided he has had a chance to voice his opinions, and make his suggestions, before the final decision is reached."


  • Do Your Prospects Visualize Themselves Using Your Product Or Service?
    [Business:Sales] No one can follow through on an act or message without first thinking or seeing in his or her mind that it is possible to accomplish it. You can mentally achieve participation by helping your audience visualize and see in their mind how your product or service will help them. Real estate agents attempt to help their clients visualize living with their family in a certain home. When showing the home, the agent wants the people to envision it as their own.


  • Handling Objections Successfully
    [Business:Sales] Be prepared to field questions that the audience will ask and want to know. Brainstorm ahead of time for possible questions, scenarios, and answers. There will always be someone who asks the tough questions. If you are the expert, you are expected to know the answers. Obviously, if you don't know the answer, you should not make one up. If the question is way out of line, you can say you don't know the answer. But what do you do when your audience expects you to know the answer and you don't? How do you save yourself from losing credibility?


  • Pre-Sell Through Branding And Exposure
    [Business:Sales] The more you expose someone to a particular concept or idea, the more that concept or idea will become favorable to them. Things do grow on us. Have you ever heard a song on the radio that you didn't like until it started to grow on you? This is also true with people. You may not like some people at first, but after awhile you grow to like them, and sometimes you even become their friend. Ever wonder why politicians want signs and posters with their names and faces all over everyone's yards, street corners, bumpers, and windows? The use of repetition can be very effective. It is often said that repetition is the mother of all learning, but it is also the mother of effective persuasion. Repetition increases awareness, understanding, and retention.


  • The Mystery Element In Sales
    [Business:Sales-Training] The element of mystery can be effectively employed to involve your audience. We are all naturally curious about the unknown. When we feel we've been left hanging, it drives us crazy! We want to know the end of the story. We want our tasks to be completed so we can check them off our list. This is also known as the "Zeigarnik Effect," named after Bluma Zeigarnik, a Russian psychologist. This effect is the tendency we have to remember uncompleted thoughts, ideas, or tasks more than completed ones.


  • Parenting Sales
    [Home-and-Family:Parenting] The Law of Expectations uses expectations to influence reality and create results. Individuals tend to make decisions based on how others expect them to perform. As a result, people fulfill those expectations whether positive or negative. Expectations have a powerful impact on those we trust and respect, but, interestingly, an even greater impact on perfect strangers. When we know someone expects something from us, we will try to satisfy him or her in order to gain respect and likeability.


  • The Secret Techniques Salesmen Use to Dig Deeper Into Your Pocket
    [Business:Sales] Ingratiation is gaining favor by deliberate effort. Ingratiation techniques can include compliments, flattery, and agreeableness. Ingratiation can also involve a special recognition of someone such as, "We don't usually do this, but in your case I'm going to make an exception," or "I am personally going to take care of this matter and see that you get what you want." Many people consider ingratiation sucking up or brown-nosing, but the method works and ingratiation makes people more persuadable. The reason this strategy works is because The Law of Esteem increases likeability and promotes an increase in ego.


  • The Psychological Tactics Salesmen Use to Cheat You Out of More Money
    [Business:Sales] The hope and expectations you can create in your persuasive environment will forecast your ability to persuade. One experiment volunteers were asked to participate in an experiment on prison environments. Half of the volunteers posed as prison workers, while the other half posed as prison inmates. The results were astounding. Previously tested to be psychologically sound people, the participants rapidly became more and more hostile, crude, rebellious, and abusive--both those acting as inmates and as guards! One "prisoner" became so hysterical and emotionally distressed that he had to be released. The study was supposed to last two weeks but was called off after only six days!


  • Principles From Kindergarten Apply To Successful Sales
    [Business:Networking] The Law of Esteem recognizes that all humans need and want praise, recognition, and acceptance. Acceptance and praise are two of our deepest cravings; we can never get enough. William James once said, "The deepest principle of human nature is the craving to be appreciated." You can give simple praise to a child and watch them soar to the top of the world. We know how a simple thank you can make our day. Human beings have a psychological need to be respected and accepted. We need affection to satisfy the need to belong, we want praise so we can feel admired, and we want recognition to satisfy our need for personal worth.


  • Assume the Sale
    [Business:Sales] The power of suggestion can also be extremely effective when you engage the emotions in your tactics. For example, when your car salesman says, "You're really going to love how this car handles in the mountains," he is shifting the focus away from the sale and creating an exciting image in your head. He is also speaking as though you had already agreed to the sale because you wouldn't be driving it in the mountains unless you were going to buy it. He's acting like it's a done deal--and the truth is, the more he does this, the more it is!


  • Contrast Your Prospects Into Selling Themselves
    [Business:Sales] Many times, we can fly under the radar with the contrast principle. There is a theory called the "Just Noticeable Difference" (JND), which means the minimum amount of difference in the intensity of the stimulus that can be detected. What does this mean? How much can you raise the price of a product without anyone noticing? How many ounces can you take out of a can of soup before people start to catch on? Can we really tell the difference between 21 ounces and 20.25 ounces? Many marketers would rather change the packaging and offer less of their product than resort to charging more. When we don't notice the difference, we think we are getting the same deal.


  • The Rubber Band Effect In Sales
    [Business:Sales] People will naturally act in a manner that is consistent with their cognitions (beliefs, attitudes, and values). Therefore, when people behave in a manner that is inconsistent with these cognitions, they find themselves in a state of discomfort. In such an uncomfortable state, they will naturally be inclined to adjust their behaviors or attitudes to regain mental and emotional consistency. When our beliefs, attitudes, and actions mesh, we live harmoniously. When they don't, we feel dissonance at some level--that is, we feel awkward, uncomfortable, unsettled, disturbed, upset, nervous, or confused. In order to eliminate or reduce such tension, we will do everything possible to change our attitudes and behavior, even if it means doing something we don't want to do.


  • Reduce The Sale To The Ridiculous
    [Business:Sales] This technique involves paring down your request to something that seems manageable to your prospect. Let's say you are trying to convince someone to purchase a life insurance policy. The client wants a $250,000 policy and you feel that is not high enough for his needs. To adequately take care of his family, you suggest a $500,000 policy. He feels that the monthly payment for a $500,000 policy is too high. So you break it down for him, telling him that for an extra 50 cents a day, or the cost of a can of soda, he can insure himself and adequately take care of his family if something were to happen to him. With this contrast, your client can see that the extra 50 cents is worth it to have the extra $250,000 in coverage. You have reframed your request into simple terms to help your prospect see it fitting into his way of life.


  • Selling to a Door in the Face
    [Business:Sales] We are affected when we are introduced to two vastly different alternatives in succession. We know that contrasting two alternatives can distort or amplify our perceptions of things. Generally, if the second item is quite different from the first, we will tend to see them even more differently than they actually are. As a Master Persuader, you can use this contrast to steer your audience toward the object of your persuasion.


  • Get The Decision To Buy
    [Business:Sales] A critical key to persuasion is to understand and use dissonance. You always want your prospect to feel they made the decision, and they persuaded themselves. That is why we say internal pressure is the secret. Let the rubber band stretch. When talking to a prospect you want them to make a decision as soon as possible. They don’t need to know everything about your product or service. Get them involved and fill in the blanks later.


  • Getting Your Foot in the Door
    [Business:Sales-Training] One aspect of the law of dissonance is the urge to remain consistent with our commitments. Even if someone begins with a small request then follows it up with a larger request, we still tend to remain consistent in our behavior and answers. This technique of capitalizing on such a principle has been called by several names, including "foot-in-the-door," FITD, self-perception theory, or the "sequential request."


  • Sliding Sales
    [Business:Sales] Your prospect has seen your product/service and needs it, wants it and can afford it. He is wearing a badge that says convince me. He is right on the edge and his rubber band is tight, but he always blames someone else for his inability to make a decision. Dissonance will seal the deal!


  • Using Dissonance To Increase Sales
    [Business:Sales-Training] Procedures, customs, and traditions are often specifically established for the purposes of creating psychological commitment. Consider fraternity initiations, military boot camps, political rallies, protest marches, and demonstrations. When we make our vows, beliefs, statements, or endeavors public, we feel bound to them. We can back out on commitments and claims we've made public, but we will pay a psychological and emotional price. What's more, the more public we made those commitments, the greater the emotional price tag will be.


  • Dissonance Selling
    [Business:Sales-Training] If you can get someone to mentally commit to a product or a decision, he is likely to remain committed even after the terms and conditions change. This is why when stores, for example, advertise very low prices on a television set, they include in small print, "Quantities Limited." By the time you get to the store, all the bargain televisions are sold, but you are mentally committed to buying a new TV. Luckily for you, there are more expensive models available. So, you go home having spent $300 more on a television set than you originally planned, just because you needed to maintain a consistency between your desire for a new TV and your action of being in the store.


  • Selling with Stories
    [Business:Sales] Stories are powerful tools for persuaders. Compelling storytelling automatically creates involvement and attention with your audience. We can all think of a time when we were in an audience and not paying attention to the speaker. We were off in our own world when all of a sudden we perked up and started to listen because the speaker had begun to tell a story. We sat up, attentively listened attentively, took note of what was being said, and wanted to know what would happen next. Whenever you sense your audience is starting to wander, you should have a relevant story ready.


  • Question Selling
    [Business:Sales] The more you engage someone's five senses, involve them mentally and physically, and create the right atmosphere for persuasion, the more effective and persuasive you'll be. Listening can be a very passive act; you can listen to an entire speech and not feel or do a thing. As a persuader, you need to help your audience be one step closer to taking action. As a Master Persuader, your goal is to decrease the distance someone has to go to reach your objective.


  • The Vitality of Building Value in Closing the Sale
    [Business:Sales] Everyone is concern about the price. Money is a common denominator in every country. We use money and prices to orient ourselves in our commercial society. It enables us to analyze and compare all products and services. The price allows us to measure where a product ranks among the other products available. The prospects willingness to pay and ability to pay are different issues. Convince the prospect of the value of what you are selling is greater than the price you are charging.


  • Nine Out Of Ten Salesmen Are Repulsive: Do You Have The Necessary People Skills?
    [Business:Sales] We have all had the experience of feeling an instant connection or bond with someone after just a few seconds of being in their presence. This is the Law of Connectivity. We have probably all met someone whom we instantly did not like and did not want to be around. This is caused by a lack of connectivity and usually takes only a few seconds to manifest itself. The Law of Connectivity states that the more we feel connected to, part of, liked by, or attracted to someone, the more persuasive they become. When you create an instant bond or connection, people feel comfortable around you. They will feel like they have known you for a long time and that they can easily relate to you. When we feel connected with someone, we feel comfortable and understood; they can relate to us and a sense of trust ensues.


  • Is Your Sales Presentation Balanced?
    [Business:Sales] Logic and emotion are the two elements that make for perfect persuasion. We can be persuaded using only logic or only emotion, but the effect will be short-term and unbalanced.


  • Have You Successfully Anchored Your Sales Associations: You Could Be Losing Millions
    [Business:Sales] Anchoring is a technique that captures the feelings, memories, and emotions of certain events, places, or things. The psychology behind the technique lies in the use of elements from a previous situation or circumstance to replay the emotions and feelings of that experience. An anchor can be anything that brings up a thought or feeling and reminds you of something you have previously experienced. It will usually reproduce the exact emotion or feeling you experienced at the time. Remember the experiment of Pavlov's dog? It's the same idea: You use a certain stimulus to create an association that will bring about a particular response.


  • Evidence Greatly Enhances Your Ability to Persuade and Influence
    [Business:Sales] Some people are suspicious of statistical proof, so make sure your statistics are credible and sound. Know where you got them and who did the research. People know you can arrange statistics to say just about anything. Use statistics sparingly and only in conjunction with other forms of evidence. Besides, a roll of statistics can be very boring.


  • The Use of Attraction Will Empower Your Sales Team
    [Business:Sales-Management] We have all had the experience of feeling an instant connection or bond with someone after just a few seconds of being in their presence. This is the Law of Connectivity. We have probably all met someone whom we instantly did not like and did not want to be around. This is caused by a lack of connectivity and usually takes only a few seconds to manifest itself. The Law of Connectivity states that the more we feel connected to, part of, liked by, or attracted to someone, the more persuasive they become. When you create an instant bond or connection, people feel comfortable around you. They will feel like they have known you for a long time and that they can easily relate to you. When we feel connected with someone, we feel comfortable and understood; they can relate to us and a sense of trust ensues.


  • The Psychological Aspects of Closing the Deal
    [Business:Sales-Training] The call to action is the most important part of your presentation. This is where your audience understands exactly what you want them to do. It's where you define yourself as a persuader instead of a presenter. This conclusion should not come as a shock to your audience. Throughout your presentation, you should have gently led them to the same conclusion that you are now giving them. You should have already prompted them to want to do what you are about to tell them to do.


  • More Success Will Come To You When You Find More Similarities You Have With Your Prospect
    [Business:Sales-Training] Studies show that we tend to like and are more attracted to those who are like us and with whom we can relate. If you watch people a party, you will see them instantly gravitate towards people who seem to be similar to themselves. I can remember walking in a foreign country, taking in the unfamiliar sights and sounds, and then running into someone from my own country. We could have been from opposites sides of the nation, but there was an instantaneous bond between us, all because we had something in common in a mutually unfamiliar place.


  • The Importance Of Understanding Body Language Part 2 of 2
    [Self-Improvement:Attraction] Have you ever met a perfect stranger and just hit it off? Finding plenty to talk about, you almost felt as if you had met before. It just felt right. So comfortable were you in talking about practically anything that you lost track of time. You developed such a strong bond with that person that you knew what he was going to say. Everything just clicked between the two of you and you felt very close to this person. It might have been a physical attraction, or it might have just entailed being on the same wavelength. You felt your ideas were in sync and you enjoyed your time with each other. This is rapport. When there is rapport, we can differ in our opinions with someone else but still feel a connection or bond with that person. Rapport can even exist between two people who share very few similarities.


  • The Importance Of Understanding Body Language Part 1 of 2
    [Self-Improvement:Attraction] Have you ever met a perfect stranger and just hit it off? Finding plenty to talk about, you almost felt as if you had met before. It just felt right. So comfortable were you in talking about practically anything that you lost track of time. You developed such a strong bond with that person that you knew what he was going to say. Everything just clicked between the two of you and you felt very close to this person. It might have been a physical attraction, or it might have just entailed being on the same wavelength. You felt your ideas were in sync and you enjoyed your time with each other. This is rapport. When there is rapport, we can differ in our opinions with someone else but still feel a connection or bond with that person. Rapport can even exist between two people who share very few similarities.


  • Sell With Logic
    [Business:Sales] The logical side of an argument appeals to our reason. Reasoning is the process of drawing a conclusion based on evidence. For an argument to be legitimate, it has to be true and valid, and logical reasoning must be used to back it up. Many persuaders and marketers use faulty forms of logic, leaving gaping holes that require the audience to make assumptions and fill in the blanks. These are called logical fallacies. A fallacy is, very generally, an error in reasoning. It differs from a factual error, which is simply being wrong about the facts. In other words, a fallacy is an "argument" in which the premises don't completely support the conclusion. In the next section, some of the most common logical fallacies are outlined.


  • Sales Will Increase by Applying the Law of Association by Affiliation
    [Business:Sales] To maintain order of the world, our brains link objects, gestures, and symbols with our feelings, memories, and life experiences. We mentally associate ourselves with such things as endorsements, sights, sounds, colors, music, and symbols, just to name a few. This association allows us to make judgment calls when we don't have the required time to do thorough research.


  • Perfecting the Art of Mirror and Matching In the Sales Cycle
    [Business:Sales] John Grinder and Richard Bandler developed the concept of "mirror and matching." The idea is to align your movements and body image with your prospect's demeanor. The goal is to mirror or reflect their actions, not to imitate them. If people think you are imitating them, they may feel like you're mocking them and they may become offended. They will see you as phony and no longer trust you. Instead of directly imitating, just mirror or match the overall tone and demeanor of your prospect. You can safely mirror things such as language, posture, gestures, and mood.


  • Color Sells
    [Business:Marketing] Countless hours of research indicate that color does matter. Notice how fast food restaurants, schools, and professional sports teams all choose certain colors that "represent" them. You already know that colors can suggest a mood or attitude, but did you also know that color accounts for 60 percent of the acceptance or rejection of an object or a person? These impressions don't change overnight. We all have automatic color triggers and hidden associations about various colors. Color impacts our thinking, our actions, and our reactions. Armed with this knowledge, we must take into account the association of colors in our persuasion and marketing efforts.


  • Close More Sales by Not Allowing Your Prospects To Think It Over
    [Business:Sales-Training] People put off until tomorrow only those decisions they lack the confidence to make today. We live in a society where no one has time. How ironic is that we don't have time to do the things we want, but your prospect is going to spend time to think about it? Sure there will be times when your prospect will have to think and ponder about this decision. Most of the time it is a knee jerk reaction, and the prospect is feeling a need to buy and they feel the pressure to buy, so now they will put you off. Remember if you do have to follow up, after they are thinking about it, the emotion has left and you need to reignite the fire before you complete your follow-up.


  • Associate Yourself to Success and Increased Sales
    [Business:Networking] Association is a powerful tool in helping you influence and persuade your audience. If used correctly, you will be able to create the desired feelings, emotions, and behavior in your prospects. It is in this way that you can use association to bring about the best experiences and create a persuasive environment. Whatever your subject is drawn to, impressed by, or desirous of, seek to incorporate it into your message, your product, or your service.


  • Turning Objections Into Sales
    [Business:Sales-Training] When you become a Master Persuader, you will learn to love objections. You will come to understand that when people voice their objections, it actually indicates interest and shows that they are paying attention to what you are saying. The key to persuasion is anticipating all objections before you hear them. Fielding questions and handling objections can make or break you as a persuader. Such skills will help you in every aspect of your life.


  • Top Producers Use Closing Techniques
    [Business:Sales-Training] I have not included many of the old, outdated, offensive, repackaged closes you often hear or read about. The following recommended closes can always be tailored and adapted to fit the style and approach that works best for you. Remember that you should only have to resort to these last-minute closing strategies if you have not completely closed your prospect throughout the presentation. Your goal should be to never have to use these tactics, but in the event that you do, these strategies sure will help.


  • Major Obstacles to Selling
    [Business:Sales-Training] Beware of these common areas that will cause you to lose the deal.


  • Can You Trust In Others Ability To Trust You?
    [Self-Improvement:Leadership] Trustworthiness increases when we are big enough to own up to our mistakes and weaknesses. People can forgive weakness, but they won’t be as quick to forgive cover-ups. Oftentimes, if a salesperson is open about a weakness or drawback in a particular product, he or she still closes the deal. If you can present both sides of an issue, you will be considered more fair and honest. Often your honesty will be the characteristic that wins people over. It is better to risk rejection than to hide something your prospect will find out later.


  • Confidence Is Key To Lasting Influence
    [Self-Improvement:Leadership] When you've gained someone's trust, you;ve also gained his or her confidence – another key to lasting influence. Dwight D. Eisenhower once stated, "In order to be a leader, a man must have followers. And to have followers, a man must have their confidence." I love the story about how John D. Rockefeller dealt with his creditors. When a creditor came knowing on John's door, hoping to have his bill paid, Rockefeller would reach for his checkbook with gusto and ask, "Which would you rather have: cash or Standard Oil Stock?" He did so with such confidence that people almost always chose to take stock in his company.


  • Do You Have Each Aspect of Trust
    [Business:Sales-Training] The ability to gain and keep trust is a vital factor in being able to influence others. Research has shown, time and time again, that trust is always a contributing factor in the ability to influence others. When a person trusts you, trust alone can cause them to accept your message. On the flip side, if people don't trust you, all the evidence, reasoning, facts, or figures in the world won't get them to budge.


  • Discover Your Vision and Unleash Your Driving Force
    [Self-Improvement:Inspirational] You should be able to see the future with clarity. When you want something bad enough, you have already seen it in your mind. The universe will not reward you physically, until you believe it mentally. Tell me about your future, your dream home or how you will change the world. You need to be able to see it, taste it, feel it and know it is part of your future. “The person who has no imagination has no wings.” – Muhammad


  • Do You Have the Level of Competence That Sells?
    [Business:Sales-Training] Competence is your knowledge and ability in a particular subject area. Competency can be real, perceived, or imagined. True competence comes from life-long learning and experience that gradually taught you what you know. Perceived competence comes from other people judging you based on external factors and their experiences with you.


  • Genuine Competence Increases Your Ability To Influence Others
    [Business:Sales] Remember that the more consistent and congruent you are in every aspect of your life, the more honest and genuine you’re perceived to be. If you believe in your message, you’ll practice what you preach. If you practice what you preach, you’ll be more authentic, and the door of trust will swing open for you. When you possess congruency, there’s no need to manipulate or camouflage.


  • Optimistic People Make More Money
    [Self-Improvement:Positive-Attitude] Optimism is more than a positive mental attitude. It is not constantly saying positive things to yourself and hoping they will come true. True optimism is a frame of reference that governs how you look at the world. Optimism means having expectations that, for the most part, things will eventually turn out okay. Being optimistic means that you really believe you will be able to accomplish everything you want to do. Influence and optimism come together when you can transfer your hope and courage concerning the state of the world, the product, or yourself into the minds of others so that they will be inclined to follow you.


  • Passion Unlocks the Door To Your Massive Success
    [Self-Improvement:Motivation] More than anything else, passion recruits the hearts and minds of your audience. When the audience can sense your passion and heartfelt conviction for your cause or product – they emotionally jump on board. We love people who are excited, animated, and full of passion. There is a difference between charisma and passion, however. Charisma is an attribute, while passion is a transfer of emotion. “If a man hasn’t discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.” – Martin Luther King


  • Power Inspires Your Audience
    [Business:Sales-Training] Power is intricately connected to persuasion in that it increases your ability to persuade, influence, and stir action in others. Power enhances all aspects of persuasion and influence. Power will magnify your ability to hit the persuasion target. Power opens the window for you to have greater persuasive capabilities and influence over your audience. Consequently, when your audience perceives that you hold great power over them, you will be very persuasive in moving them to action.


  • The Art of Listening
    [Business:Workplace-Communication] Good listening is not just looking at someone and nodding your head in agreement. You have to acknowledge what is being said and let the other person know that you understand. The more you can acknowledge what is being said, the greater ability you have to persuade and influence. Why? Because the person speaking with you will feel important and understood (Law of Esteem). Why is listening so difficult for most of us? Why is it that when two people get together and talk, they both walk away with two completely different views about the conversation?


  • The Highest Form of Persuasion Revealed
    [Business:Sales-Management] Influence is a key element in mastering the techniques of Magnetic Persuasion. Influence is the highest form of persuasion. With influence, people are spurred on to action because of your character, not your maneuvers. Persuasion is what you do or say, but influence is who you are.


  • The Role of Authority In Power Part One of Two
    [Business:Sales] When someone has a higher position or more authority than you, the automatic trigger is that whatever that person says must be true. The FAA found that many errors by flight captains were not challenged or corrected by other members of the crew. This blind obedience to position and authority resulted in catastrophes. One airline, concerned about this evidence, tested their own flight crews via flight simulators. They created conditions that would lead to mental overload and emotional stimulation. The captains (in one study) would make fatal mistakes at a critical moment. The airline was shocked to find that 25% of the flights would have crashed because the subordinates did not take corrective action and challenge the position of the plane’s captain.


  • The Role of Authority In Power Part Two of Two
    [Business:Sales] Some people perceive someone to be powerful because of his/her physical characteristics. For example, being tall can emit authority to another, even before you’ve spoken to that person. If you look back through history, presidential elections in the United States have been won by the taller candidate twenty out of twenty-three elections since 1900. Recognize that many of the things we possess serve as status symbols.


  • The Role of Empathy and Service In the Sales Cycle
    [Business:Sales] Nothing develops or displays your character better than your desire to put others first. As our friend Zig Ziglar says, "The best way to get what you want out of life is to help others get what they want." Empathy and genuine concern encourage communication.


  • The Power Behind Understanding Resistance
    [Business:Sales-Training] Do you want to know why your prospects aren’t buying from you? There are three R’s or three things you need to understand if people walk out that door and don’t purchase from you. Most people are wearing a badge that says convince me, help me make a good decision. They need and want help. They want to be confident in making the right choice. That is what a great persuader does.


  • Doublespeak: Words Invoke Emotions
    [Business:Sales] Words also have a strong bearing on how we remember certain details. For example, in a 1979 study conducted by Elizabeth Loftus, when defendants were asked how fast they were driving when they "smashed" into the other car as opposed to "hit" the other car, much higher speeds were reported. In another study, subjects were asked if they had headaches "frequently" or "occasionally" and how many per week. Those who were interviewed with the word "frequently" reported 2.2 headaches per week, while those interviewed with the word "occasionally" reported only 0.7 per week.


  • Power Selling with Word Choice
    [Business:Sales-Training] The Law of Verbal Packaging states that the more skillful a person is in the use of language, the more persuasive they will be. People are persuaded by us based on the words we use. Words affect our perceptions, our attitudes, our beliefs, and our emotions. The words we use in the persuasion process make all the difference in the world. Language used incorrectly will lose the deal you might otherwise have closed. Word skills are also directly related to earning power. Successful people all share a common ability to use language in ways that evoke vivid thoughts, feelings, and actions in their audiences.


  • Paint The Picture And Get Your Prospects To See What You Want Them To See
    [Business:Sales-Training] What can you say to paint the picture to your prospects and create the right persuasive emotion in your presentation? Analyze your stories. Are you stores vivid? Can you audience taste, feel, touch, and identify with your story? Do you use silence in your presentations? Should you? Where should you implement a good pregnant pause?


  • The Power Words
    [Business:Presentation] We know certain words have more pull than others, but who would have thought that simple words like "because" and "and" would have the power to move mountains? It is best to assume that with spoken language, simple is better than complex. Since we are unable to recapture or replay our spoken words, we hope that they will be correctly interpreted the first time they are heard. Unfortunately, spoken words can be the most misread and misinterpreted form of communication, and therefore, can be a great hindrance to effective persuasion.


  • Vocal Techniques That Attract
    [Business:Presentation] How we say the words we choose is just about as important as the words themselves. Our voice is a powerful instrument that can motivate the troops or lull them to sleep. There is a huge difference between presenting and persuading. Your voice is a complete arsenal of persuasive techniques in and of itself. For example, you can say the same thing but mean five different things, depending on the tone of your voice. You can say "Thank you" laden with sarcasm, love, hate, anger, humor, or surprise--just by changing the tone and inflection of your voice.


  • Emotionally Packed Words Will Earn You More Money
    [Business:Sales] Word choice in marketing and advertising is absolutely critical. When advertisers spend millions of dollars each year, you can bet they have tested every word they are going to use. They want their word choices to psychologically lead you to believe their product is the best, that it will change your life. Skilled advertisers can get us to absorb their message unconsciously. They might even package an identical product with different words and phrases to reach a wider segment of the public.


  • Hierarchy of Persuasion
    [Business:Sales] Obviously, the attributes at the top of the diagram are more desirable, but you cannot hope for instantaneous respect and rapport on this level if it is not something you’ve taken the time to cultivate all along.


  • Psychology of the Sales Professional
    [Business:Sales] One’s attitude has a lot more to do with the level of her/his success than one’s aptitude, ability, IQ, education or other factors do. I’d like to get into the details of a salesperson’s psychology so that, when it comes to building your team and individual team members, you are equipped with the knowledge of what’s really going on in there. As a holder of a management or other sort of leadership position, you may have already experienced being a salesperson yourself. However, it never hurts to review and be reminded of what it’s like to "carry the bag." I also want to emphasize the mental game because so many companies focus on external things, like product knowledge, licensing, etc. And while these things are all important, companies that focus on such externalities often neglect the cultivation of their salespeople’s proper mindset. I’ve always found this selling mentality ironic, because it’s what’s going on in the inside that will most dramatically affect sales.


  • Top 10 Attributes of Successful Sales Managers
    [Business:Sales-Management] Characteristics and attributes you can seek to cultivate as a sales manager. In my mind, there are two broad influential categories: trust and presence. Under each category are five specific characteristics that every effective sales manager must possess. I call them the Five Cs of Trust and the Five Points of Presence.


  • Motivation Equation and Orientation
    [Business:Workplace-Communication] When we break motivation down to its most fundamental level, it’s either inspiration-oriented or desperation-oriented. Whatever action we take, we are moving either toward something we favor or away from something we disfavor. The majority of the world uses desperation as a motivator. Desperation is like a cattle prod forcing you to move forward and take action. You can motivate anyone on your team with desperation. The problem is that motivation spurred by desperation does not last. When desperation is the motivator, sales reps are in an “away from” mentality. This kind of motivation is fleeting, arising only when threat, fear or discomfort is present. If you want motivation to last, you need to rely on inspiration. When your team is motivated by inspiration, they’re moving of their own initiative because they want to and are excited to, rather than because they are being forced to. Motivation becomes long term when it taps into a person’s inner recesses.


  • Effective Rewards and Incentives for Your Team
    [Business:Team-Building] The first place to start when developing an incentive program is to identify exactly what you want to accomplish. You can't just spend money and then hope you see results. You’ve got to have a game plan.


  • 101 Powerful Ways to Inspire, Motivate and Energize Your Team
    [Business:Team-Building] Anytime you’re in a leadership position, you are faced with the question of how best to motivate those who work under you. There are countless philosophies and ideas out there, all claiming to be exactly what you need.


  • Closing Techniques to Make You More Money
    [Business:Sales-Training] I have not included many of the old, outdated, offensive, repackaged closes you often hear or read about. The following recommended closes can always be tailored and adapted to fit the style and approach that works best for you. Remember that you should only have to resort to these last-minute closing strategies if you have not completely closed your prospect throughout the presentation. Your goal should be to never have to use these tactics, but in the event that you do, these strategies sure will help.


  • Overcoming the Objections That Keep You from Achieving Massive Success
    [Business:Sales-Training] Realize that most objections can be resolved before they even arise. Cost is often the first objection that is put up, but usually it’s not the true reason, deep down, for rejecting a product or service. Nothing de-energizes your persuasive efforts more than lingering doubts and concerns that remain unresolved in your prospect’s mind. No matter what you’re selling, all objections can fit into one or more of the following categories. Read on...


  • The Obstacles That Keep You From Closing The Sale
    [Business:Sales-Training] The very first obstacle that many persuaders experience is prejudging a prospect. They set up an appointment, hang up the phone and then immediately say, "Oh, great. This lady’s looking for a product we don’t even have. She’ll never buy." It could be for any number of reasons, but basically the salesperson decides, based on one scrap of information, that the lead isn’t going to go anywhere before s/he has even met or spoken with the prospect. This is a common but huge selling mistake.


  • The Psychology of Closing
    [Business:Sales-Training] I’m going to share with you what I believe are some of the key components of sound closing psychology. One of the most crucial of these components is conscientious and undeviating attention to getting your prospects to open up and reveal their psychology, if you will. What’s really going on in their minds? This psychological technique is absolutely fundamental to a successful close.


  • Perfecting the Art of Closing
    [Business:Sales] Everyone sells for a living. Whether you’re a sales rep, a parent, a leader, a manager or a coach, on a daily basis we all find ourselves in situations where we must sell others on our way of thinking. The more closing skills you have under your belt, the better equipped you will be to land a sale.


  • The Mental Game And Your Burning Desire
    [Self-Improvement:Motivation] Everyone has great ideas, goals, un-started business concepts, dreams and unwritten books inside of them. You have to realize that your mind, skills and talents are not limited natural resources. Don’t be denied of your dreams and what you are supposed to accomplish. Remember that you are responsible for fulfilling your dreams.


  • Master Your Destiny
    [Self-Improvement:Inspirational] We all want a guarantee in life. We want to see the results before we go out on a limb. As natural as this tendency may be, it’s not how life or success works. We have to pay the price, face the test and win the game. Maintain your vision and courage along the journey and prepare yourself to receive the biggest and best rewards life has to offer.


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    [Self-Improvement:Success] We know many of the things we should be doing to be happier, to be more physically fit and to be more financially secure. We know we should set our goals, manage our time, and spend more time with our families, exercise, eat right, work hard, sleep more and have a positive mental attitude. We want to accomplish great feats and to be the best at what we do. And we want it all now.


  • For Things To Change You Must Change - For Things To Get Better You Must Get Better
    [Self-Improvement:Goal-Setting] The biggest obstacles to change are fear, lack of motivation, lack of knowledge and lack of vision. People will not change if they fear failure, if they don’t have a reason to, if they don’t know how to or if they don’t know where change will take them. If changes are to be lasting and successful, it is essential to have the necessary reinforcement and tools at your disposal to assist you in the transformation process.


  • Transformational, Long-Term, Permanent, Lasting Change: The Function of Change in Success
    [News-and-Society:Military] Change is the key to our success and to our financial future. Often in our own lives, however, change is something we fiercely resist. Even when achievement sits on our doorstep, we’re still too comfortable to make an adjustment. The very first place to look for transformation is within. When you take ownership of yourself, your life and your income, you are on your way to harnessing success.


  • Millionaire Psychology: The Universe Will Not Reward You Physically Until You Believe It Mentally
    [Business:Entrepreneurialism] Tell your mind it will work and it will! Let's talk about thoughts and changing your thoughts because the way to change your income and your future is to change your thoughts.


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    [Self-Improvement] In the past, we did not know how our consumers thought, what persuaded them to buy, or take action. Most people in sales and marketing were shooting in the dark. We hoped or guessed what we were doing was working. We now know!


  • 10 Common Mistakes Old School Persuaders Make that Top Sales Professionals Don't Part 2 of 3
    [Self-Improvement] Great persuaders will listen more than they talk. Great persuaders build value, rather than focus on price. Great persuaders focus on achieving success through training themselves mentally.


  • 10 Common Mistakes Old School Persuaders Make that Top Sales Professionals Don't; Part 1 of 3
    [Business:Sales-Training] Great persuaders are not smarter; they just have the right tools. f you look at persuasion like it's a piano, most are playing chopsticks when they could be playing Mozart. You can't use the old school tactics and force every prospect into the same mold; the more tools you have, the more successful you will become...




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