I have just been on my DREAM ski holiday to Heavenly Valley, Lake Tahoe, USA, where I truly experienced “heaven” – powder snow, sunshine and gorgeous views.

Maybe part of the success of the holiday was due to the fact that every time I walked into the hotel, Aston Lakeland Village Inn,  a gentleman called Scott raced out with flair from behind reception to grab my skis off me, put them away and then he offered to help me take off those heavy ski boots. Wow, now that was service!  Not only that, every time I went in and out past reception, he had something to chat about and engage me.  When I think about it, he really made me feel at home in this accommodation.  Nothing was too much trouble. What he did was not his brief.  He just did it for love of his job. His reception would be the reason I would go back to that hotel again and again. He made me feel valued, he made me feel special and I will never forget that.

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SO, WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MAKE SURE YOUR CLIENTS FEEL VALUED AND SPECIAL? IT WILL MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE TO WHETHER THEY COME BACK TO YOU FOR REPEAT BUSINESS OR NOT.  PLEASE MAKE YOUR INTERACTIONS WITH THEM MEMORABLE IN A GOOD WAY LIKE SCOTT.

United Airlines, however, did everything but make me feel special. (more…)

Yes, I know, it’s hard to get started after a holiday so here are some of the reasons why you might take a while to get going on your calls and some ideas how to get over them.

1.  You avoid doing the calls because you  find a lot of things to do like the filing from last year, the email inbox to sort out, the paperwork to prepare for 2012, meetings to attend., the diary to plan

2.  You fear you won’t be well received because people are only just back at work.

3.  You believe the prospects on your list will never buy from you so what is the point in calling them?

4. You think the calls can wait till next week.

5. You have no goals/motivation so you have nothing to aim for yet

6. You don’t feel good about yourself and have a negative self image at the moment

7.  You need to learn more about your new products you are selling before you feel confident to talk about them. Product knowledge is vital.

All of these avoidance behaviours are not going to serve you if you want to have your best year ever. Think about it this way, one hour of procrastination per day equals 225 selling hours wasted a year (based on working 45 weeks a year). There is a way to get round all of them.

Write down the behaviours you personally act out to avoid the calling? Being aware of those is the first step.

7 Ideas To Kickstart Your Telephone Sales (more…)

Jenny Cartwright meets Sir Richard Branson

What an awesome human being I met in Sir Richard Branson when speaking at the same event as him in Melbourne last weekend.

First of all he is humble.  He does not brag about his achievements but tells you about them in a way that inspires you to play a bigger game too. He advises not to put limitations on yourselves when you come up with an idea of something you would like to do. He says the biggest challenge in life is you holding yourself back (the personal challenge).

Here are the 5 major  tips I took away from his talk we can all  benefit from when doing  sales:-

 1.  Records are made to be broken so aim for an extra sale each week. It can be done. Challenge yourself.

 2. Never dwell on your failures, move on to the next call. The more your fail, the more you learn. (That’s why cold calling takes courage – each time you are rejected, pick yourself up and move on. It’s an opportunity to try a different way next time)

3. If you are a  leader, really listen to your staff with no judgement.  Even the young 19 year old may have a good idea for increasing business. Reward them with praise and attention often.

4.  Look after your customers.  Find out what they are looking for and howspecifically you can best help them.  Ask them the question “What do you need in your business right now?”.  So let me know what you need right now and if I can’t help you, I am sure I can refer you to soemone who can.  that is what I do best.

5.  Constantly be on the cutting edge of knowing what is happening in your industry so you can jimp on opportunities that present themselves every day when you stay aware.

I often think that telemarketing and telephone sales is the best personal development training tool in the world. It teaches you to set goals which enables you to focus on getting what you want, how to handle rejection which helps with any knock backs you get in life later on, to exercise self discipline by doing the most important thing (the calls) even when you may not feel like it and to celebrate when you achieve success.

I can think of several people I worked with when working as a seminar promoter making 100 calls a day to promote Anthony Robbins and Tom Hopkins. They, like me, are all running their own successful businesses today. Making those calls was just the best training ground ever and really built our characters. (more…)