ATTENTION DECODED

It has been said that your attitude not your aptitude will determine your altitude. Though I fundamentally could not agree more... Try using that phrase as inspiring motivation for someone wreathing in pain and sorrow. The point is that knowing something is logical and true does not always mean you are able to embrace it and bring it to fruition on your own.  Not right then and there anyway. That is not a practice way to pick ourselves back up when we have been brought to our knees by life. No... Getting back up is much more difficult than that.  Thank goodness "difficult" is not impossible. Like many other emotions, hope feeds on itself in order to grow.  To truly take root and help us renew our outlook.  Through each effort filled movement we make... With every positive thought... Hope will grow. The hardest truth to accept when we are feeling a complete loss of hope is that hope starts as nothing more than a seed. And that by understanding that regardless of how y...

Urgency. After two conversations and permission to begin sending a prospect free information... Bring on the urgency! Why now and not in the first conversation? Because urgency in the first conversation sounds like a pitch. Even if it's not a pitch and you are being genuine it will still "feel" pitchy. Urgency is a pitch. Timing is of the essence when urgency should be used. The urgency we feel versus feeling pushed is a matter of taking the time to build trust. If urgency is conveyed before trust is established the message is "pushy " feeling. Pushy is NOT how you want to come across when you want a prospect to buy from you.   Here is an example: If someone we don't know tells us what we " need to do" we feel invaded and our guard goes up. However, if someone has been getting to know us and giving is "no strings attached " information that benefits us to know and THEN they tell us to do something it feels more like a nudge forward and...

Time to take a step back... One of the hardest things to do is to initiate a "pause" in our workflow for the sake of our workflow. It feels counterintuitive to STOP working for the sake of your work. But when the work and energy you are putting in is not reaping the desired outcome you had envisioned for yourself... As Jeff Foxyworthy would say: "here's yer sign." This methodology applies to anyone who is spinning his or her wheels or experiencing a dip in business or happiness. The Human Condition 101: We are a product of the situations we go through. Our individual experiences make up for what gets imprinted on our psyche and our happiness will be directly impacted. If we do not acknowledge and deal with disappointments and frustrations as they come. Your job… Your service to others… Your income… Your happiness and health... They are all at the mercy of how you internalize stress , fe...

Mark Cuban attributes having a leg up on his competitors to the fact he reads everything he can get his hands on. Today, knowing how the market is trending is easier than ever before. The guru factor: Arm yourself with knowledge. Acquire information from reputable sources and then use that knowledge to start the second and subsequent (4-5) conversations you will need to sign your prospects on as paying clients. A scenario to think from a different perspective : If you know a person who obsesses about what car breaks down the least over time, who would you ask about cars that run the longest when looking for a car? A random car dealer or the person you know who is always giving you free information and talking about what car is the best currently? You would pick the person who is always talking about how you can save money by picking the right car. The same tactic will work for prospecting your future clients. Yes they ca...

80% of clients who sign on with a service provider do so on the 5th sales attempt. About 50% of salespeople mentally stop considering a prospect a potential client after they are told no the first time. Call it lazy... Tired of being rejected... Whatever you think the reason why most people attempt to make a sale only once, you are probably right. You should be happy about that drop out rate. It means more business for you if you are committed to ensuring a few "no's" will not stop you. Keeping in constant contact without being invasive is a skill. It requires a strategically diverse arsenal of conversation starters and for you to be willing to have conversations with people. Let’s put aside what good conversation starters sound like for a moment. First we need to focus on the importance of preparing ourselves to hear a series of "no's" from clients. “There is no fear in the bang, only in the anticipation of...

Let's say you write movie scripts. You write them and then you sell them to producers. Think of your clients as the producers that are debating on buying your script and making it into their movie. Until they buy the script they do not know what their next movie will be about. In order to buy your script, it has to resonate with them. Connect with them and create urgency for wanting to be a part of bringing that script to life. In sales... Lead conversion is about creating urgency. It's not about selling. Selling comes later. Selling (the movie) is a byproduct of the urgency you create in your prospect. Urgency is not about persuasion. It is about painting a picture for a prospect to naturally conclude that they MUST act. The decision to act is an "output". Salespeople who focus on outputs will not sell as well as salespeople who focus their efforts on "inputs". Inputs are a person’s perception and ...

Wait a minute... Maybe it isn't falling. We all over react from time to time. No one can escape overacting all the time. Not you. Not me. Clearly not Chicken Little... Chicken Little assumed the worst case scenario as soon as something hit him in the head. We would like to think we have it a little more together than him. We  would like to think that we only emotionally jump to conclusions and overreact when something can realistically endanger the important things. The things that we care about the most. Like our family and our job security. It is human nature to react sometimes instead of taking a moment to think and respond. Or is it? What if overreacting were merely a bad habit? Just a learned response from a situation that has come and gone. Sure habits are a challenge to get out of... but maybe it would be a really good idea to accept the challenge. Instead of immediately responding to a harsh email, lets wait a few minutes. Instead...