When cleaning trains and railcars it is important to make sure you have the environmental reclaim devices employed as to collect your waste wash water and prevent it from going into the environment or local creeks. When selling train washing accounts the salesman needs to make sure that the railroad is fully protected from environmental leakage of your waste wash water and that you will comply with all EPA Environmental Protection Agency rules and regulations.

The railroad must understand that you will maintain strict interference to scheduling because the railroad must operate and those trains must leave on time with everything loaded. If you fail to clean a rail car in the proper amount of time, often that rail car must leave without being cleaned because there is a shortage of railcars.

When selling train washing accounts these are major factors that the railroad will want to make sure that you can take care of and they must be confident in your abilities and convinced of it. Please consider this in 2006.

Lance Winslow

We see the Zeigarnik Effect on the television news and other programs. Right before a commercial break, the newscasters announce some interesting tidbit that will come later in the hour. This piques your interest and, rather than flipping the channel, you stay tuned. Movies and dramas on television also leave you hanging in suspense. By leaving something uncompleted right before the commercial break, the programs draw our attention, keep us involved, and motivate us to continue watching. We don’t feel satisfaction until we receive finality, closure, or resolution to the message, our goals, or any aspect of our life.

You also see the Zeigarnik Effect in the courtroom. We already know that people feel more confident and impressed with information they discover for themselves over time. This dictates that persuaders slowly dispel information, rather than dumping large volumes of information all at once. A good lawyer does not disclose everything he knows about the case or the plaintiff during his opening statement. As the trial progresses, the jury can fill in the blanks for themselves with the additional information they gradually receive. This works much better than dumping all the information on them in the beginning. Itl holds the jurors’ attention longer and gives the message more validity. The jury discovers the answers for themselves, and is more likely to arrive at the desired conclusion.

For additional information on The Mystery Element, go to Magnetic Persuasion and kick start your success!

Most humans are very competitive. When you package something as a competition, most people will want to be involved. Certainly some personality types shy away from competition, but most people are naturally competitive. Master Persuaders must be able to see how the use of competition works within the group they are dealing with. As you introduce competition into your presentation, you can create rivalry between different entities. Maybe you are using a competition where each individual is competing against himself or perhaps you create competition among the individual members of the group. Maybe you are pitting the group against another group or perhaps you are trying to get them to compete against the status quo.

All of these approaches will create involvement, but the most effective way may be to get the whole group working together against a common enemy. When you can create a unity of competition against an enemy, you will see more energy, teamwork, and motivation toward the goal. The fastest way to set up this type of competition within a group is to either create an external threat or to simply set your group against another group.

A group of researchers wanted to test the effectiveness of competition as a motivator at a summer camp for boys. As you might imagine, it was pretty easy to create an atmosphere of competition. In fact, simply separating the boys into two cabins created sentiments of “we versus they.” The competitive feelings between the two groups grew as increasingly competitive activities were introduced. For example, as they involved the boys in cabin-against-cabin treasure hunts, tugs-of-war, and other athletic team competitions, name-calling and scuffles grew more common.

The researchers then sought to see whether they could use the competitiveness to create cooperation toward something mutually productive and beneficial. The researchers set conditions so that if the boys didn’t work together, they were all at a disadvantage and, conversely, if the boys did work together, all had the advantage. For example, the truck going into town for food was stuck. It required all the boys helping and pushing to get it on the road again. When the boys were told there was a great movie available to rent but no money to rent it, the boys pooled their resources and enjoyed the movie together.

Distraction has been proven to increase your ability to persuade. On the flip side, if the distraction is disagreeable, your persuasive ability will diminish. This means, depending on the situation, you can persuade better with a distraction than with total concentration. Leon Festinger and Nathan Maccoby proved this theory with their landmark study on what are the best distracters. They discovered that food and sex appeal worked the best.

In another experiment, the two men attempted to persuade college students that fraternities are bad. Their presentation was not well received by the students, so they did the experiment a second time. This time they used a funny silent movie during the presentation. The results were clear. More of the students who were distracted with the silent movie changed their opinions about fraternities. In this study, distracting the conscious mind increased the persuasiveness of the message.

Peter considers himself very intelligent. He usually calls and places an order after he has done his own research. Even though he is a customer, you never had to persuade him. You have a great product he has never ordered, but is better than the one he has. Use the Zeigarnik effect to persuade him.

Another aspect of involvement is persistence. If you have ever been in sales, you know that the most successful salespeople are the most persistent; they keep nudging until the sale is made. Most sales reps try to close the sale only once or twice, but we know the average person has to be asked five to six times before a sale takes place. Many people are afraid to ask again and again. We tend to think that if we ask someone to do something and they say they’ll think about, that they will. Well, I hate to break the news to you, but they don’t. We forget. Our lives are busy. That is why repetition and persistence increase your involvement and your ability to persuade.

Master Persuaders can feel the fine line between persistence and annoyance. My general rule is that if you detect even the slightest of interest, keep up your persistence. I was in Mexico recently with a friend. We were enjoying a nice walk through the town, looking at all the shops and buildings. Out of nowhere, a vendor selling bracelets and necklaces approached and disrupted our nice stroll. “No, thank you” did little to deter the pesky vendor. He followed us through the town and through the streets. When we went into a shop hoping he’d leave, he even waited outside the store for us. Again, we told him “no, thank you” and that we had no need for his gold and silver bracelets. “But I have a special deal,” he kept telling us! Well, he was persistent (or we could say a pain in the butt) but it finally paid off. We bought a bracelet and he went home happy.

Conclusion
Persuasion is the missing puzzle piece that will crack the code to dramatically increase your income, improve your relationships, and help you get what you want, when you want, and win friends for life. Ask yourself how much money and income you have lost because of your inability to persuade and influence. Think about it. Sure you’ve seen some success, but think of the times you couldn’t get it done. Has there ever been a time when you did not get your point across? Were you unable to convince someone to do something? Have you reached your full potential? Are you able to motivate yourself and others to achieve more and accomplish their goals? What about your relationships? Imagine being able to overcome objections before they happen, know what your prospect is thinking and feeling, feel more confident in your ability to persuade.

Kurt Mortensen’s trademark is Magnetic Persuasion; rather than convincing others, he teaches that you should attract them, just like a magnet attracts metal filings. He teaches that sales have changed and the consumer has become exponentially more skeptical and cynical within the last five years. Most persuaders are using only 2 or 3 persuasion techniques when there are actually 120 available!

Kurt Mortensen teaches over a hundred techniques to give you the ability to effectively work with every customer that walks in your door. Professional success, personal happiness, leadership potential, and income depend on the ability to persuade, influence, and motivate others. Learning how to persuade and influence will make the difference between hoping for a better income and having a better income. If you are ready to claim your success and learn what only the ultra-prosperous know, begin by going to http://www.PreWealth.com and getting my free report “10 Mistakes That Continue Costing You Thousands.” After reading my free report, go to http://www.PreWealth.com/IQ and take the free Persuasion IQ analysis to determine where you rank and what area of the sales cycle you need to improve in order to close every sale!

You can’t afford take chances with telemarketing sales lists. The lists should include all the verified names and addresses. The authenticity of the lists will have a significant bearing on your business prospect. The content in the telemarketing sales list must be relevant to your business. If you find it’s too difficult for you to maintain an up to date telemarketing sales lists, you can hire any telemarketing database administrator to do the job for you. However before appointing any telemarketing company, you have to ensure that it has got the experience and expertise to take care of your needs and requirements. The telemarketing companies usually offer reliable and affordable sales lists phenomenal in making all the difference in your business. If you opt for a proficient telemarketing company, you will definitely get some great sales leads. The business thrives on the quality of the sales leads it can generate.

That’s why telemarketing sales lists assume greater significance among the business entrepreneurs. If you want to give your business a favorable climate to prosper, there is no option left but to go for a great telemarketing sales lists. The telemarketing sales lists basically contain contacts of various prospective clients who may subscribe to your products or services. Maintaining such a list is vital to every business houses.

Fair question. And almost impossible to answer in 10 seconds.

Before I answer, let me ask you something. Have you noticed how some businesses do very well while others struggle to break even? And not only do they appear to make more profit and expand regardless of economic trends, but it also looks like they are having fun while making lots of people happy by taking their money?

Four years ago we relocated to Sydney’s lower North Shore. During the first week in our new suburb we started checking basic service providers. It was easy to decide which baker was going to be ‘ours’ – there was only one within walking distance, as well as only one fruit shop and one hardware store. But we immediately noticed we had a choice of no less than 5 butchers! All of them had a nice clean shop, with a very decent range of meats. However, one shop stood out ‘head and shoulders’ above the other four: there was something very special about that place. What made them very special? They had twice the range of products; everything on display was presented in a very special way; looked fresh, smelled superb; and customer service was the best we had ever received in any butchers shop. Their butchers wore a clean white shirt and bow-tie, and smiled at us even when we spent just $2.50. In other words, they had created what I call the WOW effect.

What is the WOW effect? Well this is something that cannot be easily measured and described, but you can feel it the moment you walk into a business. It is a magical combination of what’s on display (product) and the way the business satisfies your needs – customer service.

Today, we consumers are programmed to expect nothing but the best – the largest, greatest, most efficient, timesaving product. And even if we only need one super gadget we expect it to be presented in a range of colours, shapes and sizes. Our senses no longer notice and react to one-piece-of-whatever; we only see the stacks and piles, and then, only when they are prominently displayed, not an inch lower or higher than eye level.

This is the reason why (unfortunately) the WOW effect can no longer be guaranteed, even with $500 worth of jewellery! Your 30 or 35 piece display may not be enough to capture the imagination of your buyer. No, there is nothing wrong with your product – you just need more of it before you start being noticed. And before you start selling it.

From time to time we have overseas visitors. We always make sure to take them to “our” butcher, even if they are strict vegetarians. Why? Because we know they will be impressed. The WOW effect is contagious. It simply works.

Regardless of what kind of business you run, you should constantly ask yourself the most important question: do I have what it takes to make my customers happy and satisfied, to make them come back again and to bring their friends? Am I offering them a range of product that should satisfy their curiosity? Do they have a choice of colours, sizes and styles? What makes my jewellery special and different from competitors?

After 12 years of retailing jewellery I have yet to find a customer who woke up in the morning, grabbed the Yellow Pages and started looking for his/her local “fashion jewellery provider”. Although Yellow Pages browsing may work perfectly well for essential goods and services, the harsh reality is that fashion and luxury are not essential to anyone. It’s up to YOU to create that magical feeling about your product, in the hope it will be recognized and appreciated by potential buyers.

I see on a daily basis customers who say ‘no’ to 20, 30 or 50 designs in a row. And then, all of a sudden, they say ‘yes’ to the following 3. The tricky thing is that I can rarely guess what someone else finds attractive or pretty. But if I have enough designs in stock they will eventually say ‘yes’, and that will make all the difference between making a deal or losing a prospective customer forever.

In other words, when it comes to fashion, glitz and glamour it’s never ‘about me’. It’s always ‘about them’ . The best you can do as a seller is to satisfy their needs, taste and style, by offering a wide range of designs and providing professional and friendly service – and the WOW magic will follow!

Fantasy Fair is a small costume jewellery wholesale business located in Sydney operated by Tanya Hacko. As an architect by trade Tanya enjoys designing costume jewellery. The philosophy behind Fantasy Fair is simple – beautiful and wearable costume jewellery at affordable price. http://FantasyFair.com.au

How did this happen? Certainly I’m not an overnight success. I had a huge learning curve. I kicked and screamed when business friends said, “Judy, you have to have an email account.” My Web master friend said, “Judy, you have to have a Web site.” That was two years ago, and now I’m known by many as the eBook Queen.

If you’re like me, you may want to create an ezine to let people know who you are and what services you can give them. Be open to growing and ask people who know more than you do for help. It’s amazing that the higher you go, the more willing people ahead of you are willing to help.

Yes, it takes some effort, but what else would I do since I love this work so much? Willing to delegate, my virtual assistant and myself work as a team, I do the writing and the creating, and he offers technical support to get the word out to millions of Internet savvy people who want to buy online. We spend 3 days a week 2 hours a day on these online projects.

I discovered that marketing is everything and online marketing is so much easier, faster, and more profitable than offline. It’s convenient. You don’t have to travel; you don’t even have to talk to large groups or sell products at the back of the room. Like myself, you can sell many more products each month than through traditional publishing and promotion methods.

Online costs are low: no printing bills, no wrapping, no postage, no trucking, no inventory, and no sales tax. Another benefit? Your customers are happy because they get immediate delivery of their books to their email address.

The biggest benefit? This endless virtual marketing machine is out there for anyone of you, and you can learn from a qualified teacher, author, take a teleclass, or get individual coaching to boost your Online sales beyond your wildest imagination. What are you waiting for?

The last step is once you are accepted, and begin taking surveys as they become available to you. The more surveys you take, the more you will get paid. Getting Ford Customer Satisfaction Survey is simple. There are plenty of forums and sites that will give you this information for free, read on more about Ford Customer Satisfaction Survey. You can make money filling out surveys from places that pay top dollar for your opinion and effort. Also see Show Examples Of Using Phone In Surveys. What should you do next? Join 2 – 3 good programs read the step-by-step guidance work hard exercise patience and enjoy your new work at home endeavor.

If we told you that it’s possible to make $250 an hour what would you say? Something like, “Yea, right.” Hey, it’s perfectly understandable and to be quite honest it was the first thing we thought of when the Get Cash For Surveys review came across our desk. Once you hit the website the very first thing you see is, “You can earn up to $250 an hour taking surveys online.” You will only have to pay around $35 dollars and this is a one-time fee. Find out more about Ford Customer Satisfaction Survey and Show Examples Of Using Phone In Surveys. The first thing that caught our attention when viewing the Instant Paid Surveys site was the fact that they talk about making a secondary income.

It’s going to be a lot simpler than you think it is. More about Ford Customer Satisfaction Survey and Show Examples Of Using Phone In Surveys at our website. Also look for details about the amount of time there usually is between completion of work and payout. Get all the info on Ford Customer Satisfaction Survey from our homepage. Potential members would be well advised to search out reputable networks before signing up if real money is to be made. Get paid survey network list absolutely FREE from our website! Absolutely no charge for joining the industry’s TOP 7 paying survey networks.

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Good Luck!

The method recommended by all of the professional trainers and doctors is Long Slow Distance, LSD. That is swim, bike, and run for longer and longer distances while maintaining a relatively stable heart rate. The results should be a stronger ability to perform at higher heart rates. As you maintain this training regimen, you will perform faster because your ability to replace oxygen increases. So, you will be able to swim, bike and run faster while maintaining the same heart rate.

Now, simply apply this idea to Prospecting and you can see the value of making cold calls on a regular basis. As you maintain your Prospecting efforts you get better and better at the skill. Also, you begin to build up a large reserve of potential customers with whom you will need to follow up in the weeks, months, and years ahead.

It doesn’t take long to realize the benefits from simply persisting at your Prospecting efforts.

Let’s consider how many real Prospecting/cold calls you make in any year. Now when I say a Prospecting call I mean that you “talk to a potential customer with the intent of making them a customer.”

When you stop in a talk to a receptionist, get a name, leave some literature and a card, but, don’t talk to the actual prospect that is only half a Prospecting call. You simply have another lead. When you call back or get that person on the phone, then you have made a Prospecting call.

Now with those parameters in mind how many Prospecting/cold calls did you make in the last year? Could you have made more? If you had, would your have been more successful in your mind?

Most of us have about 40 full weeks available in the year for selling. Vacations, holidays, meetings, etc. take up the rest of our year. Please consider the following idea.

In aerobic training, we are supposed to swim, bike, or run for a set period of time everyday of the week, weekends we can rest. For a few weeks of the year we need to add Anaerobic training, which is “speed work.” This builds up our ability to go faster in the long haul.

What would happen if you made one or two Prospecting/cold calls everyday you were selling? That would be 5 or 10 new prospect calls a week, 200 – 400 per year. That could be your “aerobic selling.”

Next, you could add a few “anaerobic” weeks to your selling by making several Prospecting/cold calls a day one week a quarter or so. You choose when.

What I suggest is that you simply decide IF you would like to do this or not. If yes, then start. Use our System for Prospecting and Making Cold Calls, or your own, or someone else’s. The important thing is that you actually DO the calls.

The more I train the more I see the similarity between athletic performance and selling performance. Unfortunately for me we have to go out there everyday, we can’t just think about it. If you don’t train or you don’t Prospect the results are obvious. The next time you show up at a “Triathlon” you may have trouble finishing.

Now you know why I feel that Persistence in Prospecting is Simply the Aerobic Training of Sales.

Sell Well and Often

Bill Truax

Bill@BlitzCall.com

© Copyright 2006 WJ Truax

Sometimes, when we have something we passionately want to say, we become so involved in formulating the crucial words that might make the listener take heed (we are caught up in needing to be heard) that we forget to ask ourselves one fundamental question: do we want to speak? Or have someone hear us?

I just found out how difficult this choice can be on a recent trip to Hong Kong and Shanghai. And this is a problem many of us face when attempting to enter another culture – be it a personal, inner culture, a group culture, or a country culture.

REMAINING IN OUR OWN WORLD

Let me begin by saying that both Hong Kong and Shanghai are where I believe the revolutionaries went when they left the States four years ago. Hong Kong is a very exciting place. I’ve been there twice now, and find the people smart, innovative, sophisticated, and creative. They are bursting with dynamism and ready to take risks. Shanghai is quite different and less international, but it, too, it exudes excitement and warmth and vibrancy – filled with anticipation and a special glow (with a large dose of humor and a gold-rush mentality).

Both cities welcome change, believing it’s better to face change than stay the same. In fact, I find it more exciting to do business there than in the States right now: from my vantage point as an innovator, it seems to me that America has become rather risk-averse.

The ‘dot.com’ era’s disintegration caused the American companies I’ve done business with to cut back on innovation. As a result, they’re holding on to what they know – however successful that might be – and trying to make it work. Companies are ‘making do’ or doing the same thing harder/faster/larger.

Before I open up a discussion around global communication, let me take a long ‘way round to harp on one of my pet peeves (I’ll come back full circle, you’ll see): I see this inability to truly go outside our thinking box and do something different as actually harming our revenues and, worse, our future.

I see Hong Kong and Shanghai growing, innovating, changing, learning, creating, and barging full throttle into the unknown, and having the massive growth and expansion that comes with that type of risk. I’m afraid that America will have a long road to hoe to catch up when it’s ready to begin innovating again. Not to mention that the innovators may not want to move back from Asia where the action is.

PUSHING PRODUCTS INTO EXISTING SYSTEMS
The problem is most apparent to me in the sales field, of course. It’s the field I have known since the 70s and the field I’ve been innovating in since the 80s. Our risk-averse behavior is creating its own set of problems, and indeed holding back our revenue growth.

Here are the four main issues that I see as making sales more difficult in today’s environment:

* Competition is global, and products can be easily purchased from anywhere in the world. Products have invisible competition, so pitching and presenting is often done in a vacuum.

* Decisions entail highly complex layers of consideration before buyers make final buying decisions. The sales cycle is elongated accordingly and the seller is left out of the loop in the process.

* Buyers’ demands are almost ruthless: because of the amount of information they can get over the internet, they know exactly what they want, exactly what they can ask for and exactly how much they are going to pay. All of this, before they make a purchase.

* Because products seem so similar when viewed on the internet or in marketing descriptions, buyers can’t differentiate. They end up commoditizing products, and buyers are buying more on price than ever before.

Given the above, and the commensurate revenue sluggishness, companies are attempting to close the gap in sales cycles and product/price differentiation by trying to sell harder, or gather data differently, or offering more product information, or attempting to ‘understand buyer’s buying patterns’ (a tip of the hat to my work over the past decade, but still not touching the heart of the issue), etc.

When this isn’t working, they are adding software (i.e. CRM), or using incentives to get sales folks to work harder, or using price as an incentive to close deals. All of the above continue to be rooted in conventional sales thinking and are still predicated on the product as being the primary offering, rather than adding new, innovative skills to the sales process itself.

In fact, sellers still work hard at making their product fit the buyer rather than the other way ’round. Even the newer form of selling methodologies are different forms of traditional sales, just with a customer focus assertion as a new ‘angle’. Sales continues to be based on selling something. The belief systems and the very fabric of the thinking has remained the same for a long, long time. And in this global market we’re in today, the rules, the thinking, and the focus must change or there will be continued loss of revenues.

In the meantime, we’ll continue to experience our current problems: Longer than necessary sales cycles. Difficulty closing. Business being lost for unknown reasons. Profit margins slipping as prices get cut to their slimmest margins. Difficulty discovering how/why people are buying. Great presentations and proposals that don’t win the business. Rambling excuses as to when deals might close.

With this array of problems, supervisors – who are now hiring ’seasoned’ sellers who know their product and market (as if were the magic bullet) – are perplexed, and end up firing the salespeople when they don’t bring in the expected results.

But while companies play musical sales people (firing one person and hiring the same person with a different name), they are not changing the nature of the problems inherent in the very act of ’sales’.

ARE WE SELLING? OR HELPING FOLKS BUY?
Indeed, the very act of the sales process causes the deficient results.

Before our modern business era, pushing information or gathering client data to help them solve problems was inefficient, but at least it worked eventually. But that’s not happening today. Nothing is happening.

It’s just not effective any more to push (with product or service) against a system (like a buyer’s culture or environment) and assume that the system (complex, global) will open enthusiastically for the product being pushed.

When we will truly get it that it’s not about our product but about the buyer’s environment? Not about the seller but about how the buyer needs to manage their internal variables before making a decision? Not about how or why the buyer needs our product but about the kind of solution that will address all of the buyer’s relationships, initiatives, and norms.

Even when sellers think they are ‘gathering data’ so they can do that mythical thing they now think they are doing by ‘becoming a trusted advisor’, they are only focusing on the specific bits of information they can use to support their sales pitch. So by pushing against the system, giving information that will be relevant only after the buyer understands what their solution needs to contain, trying to differentiate themselves by giving ‘good service’, it’s causing buyers to spend more time doing external research, taking longer to do their internal systems-change work, and making our differentiation process even more difficult to boot.

Now that I’ve complained heartily around the problem – the erroneous belief that we can convince someone to do what we want them to do by pushing product or solution ideas into an existent system that protects its status quo – let me admit that I entered China doing the exact thing. I was selling the idea that there is a new sales paradigm, and that they would do well to learn it, by golly. And, of course, I was the One who would teach it to them.

This will come as a gleeful reminder to some: working from the belief that we have some ‘important’ solution to share, and we know we’re right and think everyone wants to hear us (cuz we’re so right, of course) is a universal, alas, human, trait.

BUT AM I COMMUNICATING?
For some reason, I entered China believing that ‘people are people’, that given rapport, collaboration, mutual beliefs and needs, and a shared language, that I’d be able to communicate easily with anyone. I found that to be basically true in Hong Kong – a reputed high-level international business community – but was shocked to find a Chinese (Shanghainese I believe is the right word here) audience staring at me without comment or expression or agreement.

What an eye opener. I thought I was good, and smart, as well as ‘right’. Just like a seller selling a product (um, I WAS a seller selling a product!) and believing that their product is needed by the buyer, I just went in and did a great job introducing all of the material that would get them to believe that, yes, I had the credentials to have the right answers, and that no, they weren’t doing sales right, and yes, I could teach them that my way was better, and yes, they truly needed my material. Right.

I did what every sales person has been taught to do from day one: know my product and love it; know how to pitch it so the passion comes through along with the features-functions-benefits; look great and present well; ask a few well-intentioned questions that get the audience to recognize how right I am; be solicitous and understanding so I’m trusted quickly… I did it all just right.

And there were these wonderful, eager-to-learn faces staring back at me blankly, as I continued on my own trip.

What I realized – too late for that audience, but mercifully in time for the next audience – was that I had to do what I taught:

* discover how people in China perceived their business and sales environments (Where are you, in Buying Facilitation language);

* lead people through the discovery process to determine what, if anything, was missing;

* supporting them in fixing their problems with their own inherent policies, people, and skills (Systems with a missing segment tend to self correct wherever possible);

* and help them think through all of their internal systems that would have to shift if they were going to think a new way (Systems won’t do anything different if they can’t manage the chaos that the change would bring).

GLOBAL COMMUNICATION

With the world getting smaller, and each of us being thrown into some form of global competition daily, I think we’re going to need to learn how to get out of our own way. It’s truly time to begin getting out of our own passion, our own belief in the ‘rightness’ of our messages and products, our need to have it our own way.

Our world is shrinking. The internet has made this a very small globe, and what affects us in the States is recognized and managed in major cities all around the world simultaneously. In fact, unless we Americans recognize that it’s time to get into the pool with the rest of the world, we are going to be left behind even more than we are already.

I remember one of the first thoughts I had upon entering Hong Kong for the first time: what is going ON here? They seem much smarter, their technology is ahead of ours, and they are thinking in ways we haven’t begun to think yet… I bet I could find what’s wrong with this picture because it can’t be as wonderful as it seems. But I soon recognized that my belief that America is on the leading edge was faulty.

As an American, I (wrongly, goodness knows) assumed that we were the smartest, or the furthest advanced. I’m seeing now with new eyes: we’re not the smartest, nor are we even advanced. We’ve retreated too far in the last few years to hold those titles. We can win it back, and it will be a great competitive field to play in, but we first must remember the following (and these are the same mistakes sales people use when trying to pitch a product):

1. we have no one to communicate with unless we are willing to enter into communications where there is both a sender AND a receiver;

2. people decide together through collaboration. We cannot stand up, declare our nationality, and assume people will hear us cuz we’re smart;

3. until or unless people are willing to reexamine their existing beliefs, and can change their internal composition while avoiding chaos, they will not be willing to change;

4. as people outside the ‘other’s’ system, we will never understand all of the factors that are involved with a mature culture (country, group, person);

5. for those of us with messages (or products and services) to share, our jobs are to serve other systems by supporting them in recognizing, aligning, confronting, and shifting existent beliefs and behaviors so they might be willing to discover their best solutions should they seek to add new material to what they’ve already got.

By working with others as if we have the answers, by only finding out what they might need in the area our product serves, by assuming groups will change because we have a solution, by only asking questions that glean data to help us sell or position our product, we are senders with no receivers.

If we want to be successful in sales, in communication, in partnering, we’ve got to begin to enter with ‘beginner’s mind’ and learn what the rest of the world has to teach us. Then we might have a shot at becoming again the most innovative, successful country in the world.

Sharon Drew Morgen is the author of NYTimes Best Seller Selling with Integrity. She speaks, teaches and consults globally around her visionary sales method, Buying Facilitation.

http://www.newsalesparadigm.com
http://www.sharondrewmorgen.com
512-457-0246
Morgen Facilitations, Inc.
Austin, TX