It seems everyone in the country just doesn’t want to do anything during the two months of the holiday season.  Clients all seem to say they’ll wait until after the holidays.

So, immediately, that might seem to make your job just a little bit harder…during a time when the natural tendency is for you to slow down and have some more cookies.

Yet every single day in your industry someone is buying (or selling if it’s real estate sales) your product or service.  EVERY SINGLE DAY.

True, there are fewer people that pull the trigger this time of year, yet the one’s you’ll be dealing with are much more serious.  Think about it, people have the holidays on their mind.  There’s Thanksgiving, which could mean a trip, or hosting with all the preparation.  Then Christmas, et al which equals shopping, as well as either a trip or hosting with all the preparation.

So, with all that in mind, if they’re still nosing around for your product or service, chances are they’re serious enough to want to pull the trigger.  So, there are fewer people out there, yet there are fewer tire kickers as well.

So, as I’ve mentioned before, be on your A game for the next 6-8 weeks and you will get some of those sales.  And, even if you don’t, the act and mindset of your A game will pay off loads in the first quarter of next year.

Meanwhile, don’t buy into the hype of what your prospects and clients (and co-workers) will try to sell you on.  It’s all about your expectations and intentions.

I used to work with a guy who literally declared he was done working on November 1st.  His track record showed he didn’t do much business at all in the 4th quater of each year.  I wonder why.

More recently a client of mine was lamenting about how few people were home and answering the phone when he called.  He got himself into a rut where he wasn’t happy that no one was home, then he started expecting no one to be home, and he kept finding no one home.  He would dial an insane amount of phone numbers and reach very few people.  The ones he did reach were not happy to hear from him.  I wonder why.

Then he shifted his expectation (and attitude), and all of the sudden people started answering the phone, and were happy to hear from him.  Magic?  No.  But if you expect a good outcome, you will most often get a good outcome.

So, change your expectation of what you think is going to happen with your sales clients.  Expect people to be interested.  Look for the interested ones.  Focus on finding them…and you will.

And then point out all the reasons why the holidays are the perfect time to buy or sell…

…next post!

Scott Friedman

scott@yourethedifference.com

See I’m all about them words
Over numbers, unencumbered numbered words
Hundreds of pages, pages, pages for words
More words then I had ever heard and I feel so alive

Honestly, I don’t really know why it fits in this post.  I just happen to love the music and lyrics of Jason Mraz, he loves words, and this blog is about words.  Plus, I’m the one writing it, so there.

Okay, to the actual reason for the blog.  I posted yesterday about how the team I was coaching had words and thoughts that were detrimental to their business.  Words and thoughts lead to actions and results.  And there’s a correlation between good words and thoughts and good actions and results, and vice versa.

Think about it, our words create our reality.  So we really have to monitor what we say and think about ourselves, our environments and other people around us.

If you’ve been following this blog, you’ll note that I posted a list of words to eradicate from your vocabulary (eradicate’s a great word, isn’t it?) on August 21st and  August 23rd (click either date to read that post).

Words simply have a huge effect on us.

Think about what feelings you get when you see a loved one’s name pop up on your cell phone caller ID or text.  Whether it’s our spouse, or someone you just started dating, you get a feeling (hopefully a good feeling!) when you see their name.  You’ve attached meaning and feeling to the word(s) in their name.

Think about arguments you’ve been in with loved ones.  Many times one word, or one phrase gets taken the wrong way, and all hell breaks loose.

Words are very powerful.  You say certain words to a child and they will bring those words with them into adulthood.  Those words will sit in the psyche of that child and that child will quite possibly live their life branded by those words.

So, since words are very powerful, why not make sure you’re thinking and saying the best words for the most powerful mindset?  Why not be careful what you say?  Why not watch your language?

If you’re thinking how bad the market is, or how you’re not a good enough salesperson, then chances are you’re going to end up being right.  It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.  You’re perpetuating the condition.

I have a client who likes to beat you to the punch, so to speak, when she does something that she deems as stupid.  She’ll say some version of “I’m an idiot,” or “I’m such a loser!”  I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how her self esteem, self image, and self worth is, do I?  If you view yourself as an idiot or a loser, how do think you feel about yourself?  Probably not good.

So, if she would stop thinking and verbalizing that about herself, her self image would go up immediately, just because of that little tweak.

“See, I’m all about them words,” and you need to be as well.

Scott Friedman

scott@yourethedifference.com

Now, to be clear, these guys have great skills.  They do, however, lack discipline, accountability and time management.

Anyway, I came to find out that the off day was more like an off quarter.  They have both been cutting back expenses personally and professionally (normal in this economy), all the while professing how broke they are and that it’s getting harder and harder to find buyers and sellers.

To go a bit further, when checking on their numbers, in October they worked less than half the days they said they would and made less than half the contacts they said they would.  Consequently, they took half the listings they said they would, and had no buyer sales and nothing go under contract.

Now, if you know me, I’m not a steadfast numbers guy when it comes to coaching salespeople.  I think the numbers are useful, however I find that people focus too much on the wrong numbers and also get a negative mindset when they don’t seem to measure up to their goals on a daily and weekly basis.  It’s like going on a diet and measuring yourself every hour of every day.  You’d drive yourself nuts, or you wouldn’t stay on the diet out of pure frustration.

All that being said, there is some significance to the numbers regarding that they worked half as much as they set out to and did half as much business as they wanted to.

In a nutshell, here’s why it happened.  Not the obvious part of working less equaling less results, I just pointed that part out.  What I’m talking about is the root cause of why they were working less.

For about 3-6 months these guys were thinking and saying that they’re going broke, are broke, need to avoid being broke, need to save money, cut expenses, etc.  All the while they’ve been thinking and saying how hard the market is, how there are no good seller’s who can sell, they can’t find buyers to pull the trigger, etc.

Now, if you believe in the Law of Attraction and the movie The Secret, then you already have your answer.  However, if you’re more of a prove it to me science person, then let me explain it further.

First, there’s the Reticular Activating System in your brain.  That’s the part of your brain that deals with arousal and focus (not limited to sexual arousal).  You notice the workings of the RAS when you look to buy a new car and suddenly notice all of those types of cars on the road that you never really noticed before.

The RAS has been geared up by your mind to find what you say is most important to it, by your words, thoughts and visualizations.  If you’re interested in a BMW, you’re going to find all sorts of BMW’s all over the place (on the road, in ads, etc) because your RAS is now geared up to focus on them.

Likewise, if you think and say things are bad, times are tough, etc., you’re gearing your RAS up to find more evidence of that.

The problem is that your mind is so powerful that it will do whatever it takes to find the stuff you “want” it to find.  So, when your thoughts are crappy about life and business, you find yourself less likely to show up to work (in their case half the time they said they would), less likely to be on time the days you do work, less likely to generate leads (again, they talked to less than half the people they said they would), or less likely to generate leads with any consistency or intensity, less likely to follow up those leads (What’s the point?  They won’t do anything anyway), less likely to feel like doing anything productive, etc., etc.

Your motivation is gone.  And instead of looking for motivated people to buy or sell your product or service, you’re now subconsciously looking for unmotivated people so that you can “gather evidence” of how crappy things are.

Then you start noticing thoughts and feelings of “what’s the use?”

Consequently, you’ll be more likely to take days off physically and mentally, more likely to cancel appointments because you don’t recognize their motivation (”nobody’s motivated right now”), more likely to find out you lost business to other salespeople, more likely to start gossiping with other salespeople in your office around the coffee maker - subconsciously trying to get them to commiserate with you on how bad things are, etc., etc.

So, to answer the question in the title, it’s pretty obvious that YES, your words and thoughts affect your deeds and results.

Monitor your thoughts and monitor your words.

Scott Friedman

scott@yourethedifference.com

Lots of times people in sales play catch up for a day or two and then start to rev up their work week.

Yikes!

So, as stated before, here’s a sure-fire way to make your sales work days and work week very powerful:

Put yourself on a schedule ASAP! - One real estate sales client of mine had a to-do list of 5 things that all got in the way of her lead generation.  She asked me what to do, because she didn’t want to get off schedule, but needed to get the things done for her upcoming appointments.  I told her that in this instance she needed to create a mini schedule inside her normal schedule.  In other words, how much time would she allow herself to do these tasks and then get back on her regular schedule vs. just let the list dictate the schedule?  In other words, she could assign a time frame to do them or she could just try to get through the list in however long it was going to take and see what happens…which is not very powerful or efficient.

She decided on an hour.

Later she let me know that while she didn’t complete every single task, she got very close.  She said that normally it would have taken her all morning, or all day to do those things, partially because without a time limit, she’d have worked less diligently and looked to goof-off.  However, because she only had an hour to do them, she worked very diligently.  She then was able to get back on her schedule and do some lead generation to get some sales, realizing that she could complete the rest of the list very easily during her allotted admin/errand time later that afternoon.

Her company has a one hour sales meeting starting at 9:30am on Tuesdays.  Her lead generation time is 9-11.  So imagine if she blew off Monday’s lead generation for the “tasks” and then blew off Tuesday because of the sales meeting (technically she could make calls from 9-9:30 and again from 10:30-11, but momentum is difficult in that short a time period).  She effectively would have not been generating any kind of business until Wednesday.

Live by your schedule.  Work within it to help you.  Be responsible for when you’re off it.  Focus on income producing activities.

**Also, remember, there are only about 25-30 work days left this quarter.  Each day you don’t do what you know you’re supposed to be doing is another day towards your Holiday Coma, thereby assuring you of little or no business now and for the first quarter of 2009.

It’s very easy to let the day, the work week and this whole quarter get away from us.  Next thing you know it’s Christmas and you’re taking a week or so off and you realize that you have no new or pipeline/pending business.  Then you have to start from scratch on January 2nd.

Not fun.

It’s Wednesday.  Make the rest of the week, and quarter very powerful!

Scott Friedman

scott@yourethedifference.com

609-601-1296

What are you going to do this morning, today, this week?

What are you going to do to move your business forward?

Are you going to generate leads today and every day this week, or just hope business comes your way?

Have you set a daily and weekly intention/goal, or do you just go into the office and see what happens?

I’m not sure about other sales jobs, but real estate sales agents typically have very slow Mondays which are followed by sales meetings on Tuesdays.  By Wednesday they’re usually ready to start the week.  YUCK!

Start off today and make it a great day.  Start off today and make it a great week.

Come in ready to roll.  Set a daily and weekly intention.  Go for it!

It’s Monday.  What are you going to do about it?

Scott Friedman

scott@yourethedifference.com

609-601-1296

Some believe that everyone else is focused on the holidays and just not going to do anything until after the new year.

Others view the two holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas as two long, drawn out months.  They get caught up in all the drama, etc.  I find this especially funny when the salesperson in question is doing nothing for Thanksgiving beyond driving an hour to a relative’s house.  Or, better yet, their spouse is preparing for Thanksgiving at their house where they, themselves, have to do nothing but eat.

And still others just want to stop working for a couple months.

Whatever the reason, it’s pretty easy to hibernate for the fourth quarter in sales.  Affiliates and customers send in trays of lunch platters, cookies, cakes, etc. -every day you could be in a food coma by 1:30pm.  Holiday parties are all around, so it’s easy to have a bunch of late nights, leading to foggy next days.  If you’re in an area where you have the winter season, it gets dark earlier (I hate that!) and it’s cold.  That typically doesn’t make for optimal mental motivation.

And, if you do work during the fourth quarter (and by work I mean do more than show up, I mean actually do the same things you do the other 9 months of the year), it can be a struggle because customers do tend to have the mentality of waiting for the New Year, which means it’s harder to find motivated people.

So, then you feel like you’re working twice as hard to get half the business you normally get and….aw, screw it….what kind of cookies came in today?

******

Working in the 4th quarter is going to set you apart from your competition.  Working in the 4th quarter is going to set up your first quarter of next year, and possibly your whole next year.

True, you may feel like you’re spinning your wheels in December, all your work will pay off in January, February and March.  Meanwhile, your competition will have just woken up again in January and try to start from scratch.  Their whole first quarter will be like your fourth quarter, and they won’t ever catch up to you if you keep working through the year!

What you have business-wise, in front of you now, is a result of how you worked the previous three months.  So, naturally by working the 4th quarter, you will have a great first quarter next year!

AND…I’m not saying work through the holidays.  Take time off, enjoy your family, friends and holidays.  Just be sure to work on the other 40-50 something weekdays of the quarter when you come into the office.  Don’t screw around on those days.  Only screw around on your designated “Screw Around Days” (even if you want to make those days once or twice a week this quarter, it’s still better to work 3-4 solid days a week than to just blow off a whole week due to screwing around.

So, take time off, enjoy the holidays, but don’t let the holiday season be the season of sales hibernation for you.

Scott Friedman

scott@yourethedifference.com

First of all, for those of you who have clients who say they’re waiting until after the election to do something, that’s a smoke screen.  It’s the same as saying they want to wait till the new year.  Think about it, the election happened, the new president can’t take office until January 20th, then he enacts whatever he wants to enact, gets Congress’s approval and it goes into effect.  By the time it actually has an effect on the economy, it’s going to be at least March, if not Summer 2009.

But, if you’re in real estate, you have the very real challenge of raised capital gains taxes, as well as interest rates going up…so watch out.

Really, just don’t buy into the hype.  People need to buy and sell your product or service now.  And they are doing that, every day.  You just need to find them.

And, that’s just business as usual.  Sure, with hard economic times it’s getting harder to find those people, yet they’re out there if you’re willing to look.  Gone for the foreseeable future are the order taker days of people just showing up to buy or sell.  You have to be willing to go after people.

And stop buying into the hype yourself.  So many salespeople have convinced themselves that nobody is buying or selling.  Not true.  It’s happening every day.  Maybe less than we all would like, but if you’re actually working to find them, you’ll benefit.

And, remember, 99.9% of salespeople shut down from Halloween until January 3rd.  So, even if you work it just a little bit more now, and don’t see great results, it’ll pay off in January, February and March, while the others are just waking up from their holiday comas.

Now, to switch gears, here’s my unsolicited take on the election.  I am a Republican and voted for McCain.  However, I’m an American who loves his country and will support my President.  Yet, 52% of the country wanted “change” without knowing if it was going to be good or bad change.  The House and Senate now is overwhelmingly Democrat.  So, with half the Supreme Court Justices being liberal (and a swing vote justice who tends to lean liberal), Democrats pretty much now control the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of the government.  That’s all three of the branches.  The system of checks and balances doesn’t seem to have any checks and balances right now.  That’s really not a good sign.

What’s worse is so many people seemed to vote for Obama out of “change” and charisma.  They wanted a savior.  We should be looking for a leader.  A leader leads and inspires others to lead.  A savior begets people just swooning and expecting all to be okay and things to be handed to them.

Let’s hope the new President is a leader and he inspires the people to lead with him.

Scott Friedman

scott@yourethedifference.com

And now the post:

Honestly, I wrote enough about sales in the last post on this subject.

If you don’t get that the best way to sell, the best way to set an appointment and the best way to handle objections is to first ask good questions and then shut up and listen, please go back to the previous post.

And, as with many lessons, this goes way beyond sales.  This goes for your life.  Your relationships will be so much better if you just shut up once in a while.  Just listen to what people have to say.  And I don’t mean hear their words.  I mean listen to them, and get where they’re coming from.

Stop thinking you’re the smartest person on the planet.  You don’t know everything.  You really don’t know what a person is going to say next, or what they really mean when they say it.  You only have your perception, your opinion about what they meant.

And, since your perception is rooted in your own survival, you’re really not thinking about the other person’s meaning in the way it was probably meant, were you?  Actually, you’re thinking about the other person’s meaning pertaining to how it affects, and more often than not, how if offends, you.

Ever have a conversation where you wonder what the hell the other person is so upset about?  You know, where you think you’re having a regular conversation, maybe even a debate or slight argument, but no matter what you say, the other person seems to get more and more upset or angry?  They don’t seem to hear anything you say; they keep coming back at you with things that are almost irrelevant, things you didn’t say, do or even think.

Chances are that person is having a conversation only with themselves.  They have their preconceived notion of your meanings and intentions, then they filter it with their perceptions, and viola!, it’s a full-on fight and a half.  And you’re thinking, “What the hell just happened?”

SHUT UP!!!!!  Take a breath.  Listen.

The person on the other end is doing the best they can.  More often times than not, they’re just trying to protect themselves from their perceptions of you and your intentions.  Your friends and loved ones don’t purposely look to upset you, or wrong you.  Your clients and prospects just want to make sure they’re not getting screwed.

So, instead of attacking or defending or justifying, why not qualify?  If something can be taken two ways, and one of them makes you sad or angry, the chances are that wasn’t what was intended by the other person.  So, take a breath and ask them what they meant.  And don’t ask them in a nasty way.  Ask them nicely to explain what they meant.  Most likely you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

That’s why the old addage is so true: you were given two ears and only one mouth for a reason.  You should use your ears twice as much as your mouth.

Scott Friedman

scott@yourethedifference.com

VOTE TODAY!

It sounds weird because sales is about conversations, talking to people.

Yet, most salespeople really don’t know what to say, so they start saying way too much.

So, if you want more sales then you need to shut up.

Actually, you need to shut up and listen.

If at anytime during your lead generation, lead follow up or sales presentations you find yourself doing most of the talking, you’re most likely talking yourself out of that sale.

If you’re pontificating about how great you or company is, or throwing out stats left and right…you’re on the wrong track.  If you’re justifying or defending…you’re on the wrong track.  Actually, if you find yourself answering a bunch of questions, you’re on the wrong track.

And that last one is a tough one.  People will ask you questions, and you will want to answer them.  It’s kind of ego based, because you want to prove to the prospect that you know your stuff.  The problem with that is that the prospect is controlling the conversation, and therefore being a better salesperson than you.

The simple fact is that you need to be asking good questions and then shutting up while listening to the answers.  Repeat and/or approve of what they said, so they know you heard them, and ask another question.  Keep asking questions until you hear an opening to set an appointment, or otherwise close…and do that with a question, too!

They key is to shut up and listen to the answer.  Don’t have your response on the tip of your tongue halfway through their sentence, that means you’re not really listening to them, and you want to show them how smart you are.  Don’t feel the need to “top” their answer with something you feel is related, they don’t care.

Yesterday on my way to the Phillies World Series parade in Philadelphia, I was listening to the radio and heard the studio host ask the live broadcast guy where he currently was doing his reporting from.  Every time the on-the-street guy mentioned a landmark, direction or other way to let the audience know where he was, the studio host kept chiming in with, “Yep, I know where that is,” or “I know where you are,” etc.  He must have done it five or six times inside of just two sentences from the street reporter.

I was thinking to myself, “Thanks for telling us how smart you are.  Now if you would just shut your pie hole for two seconds, the listening public could have actually ascertained as to where this guy was broadcasting from.”

Same thing in sales: a prospect or client says something and we’re ready to jump into the conversation and show them how we know everything.

Most of us really don’t know that much.  We think we know.  We have opinions.  We like to think we’re smart.  When you get down to it, we really don’t know what’s going on with someone else unless we pay attention to what they say, and not what we want to say.  We’re really not that smart.

So let’s keep our mouths shut, lest our prospects find that out all too soon.

Scott Friedman

scott@yourethedifference.com

So, Game 5 Take 2 is tentaively scheduled for tonight, Wednesday, weather permitting.

And that just further proves my point.  Roadblocks will always show up in your way when going after your goals.  It’s ineveitable.  If there weren’t road blocks, everyone would achieve everything they always wanted, almost instantaneously.  The whole self-help industry would never have needed to exist, for gosh sakes!

If you follow what’s happening, you’ll hear/read various quotes from the Phillies players.  And for this posting I’m only concentrating on the Phillies, a) because I’m a Phillies fan, and b) because the Phillies are on the verge of winning and the Tampa Bay Rays are simply looking to buck the odds and get a stay of execution down 3 games to 1 in a best of seven series (4 wins takes it).

And before I get into the quotes, I want to briefly re-cap what happened, so you get the gist of it.

It was decided to try to play the game and hopefully catch a weather break.  In the 4th or 5th inning, Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins tried to catch a routine pop-up only to have the ball taken 10-15 feet to his left by a gust of wind.  He dropped the ball.  With the Philies winning 2-1 in the 6th inning, Phillies ace pitcher Cole Hamels couldn’t grip the ball enough (due to the massive rain) to pitch anything other than a fast ball, which is easily hittable.  Jimmy Rollins couldn’t get to a ground ball because of the rain, and Tampa Bay scored a run, tying the game.

Then the game was suspended.

By rights, the Phillies have all sorts of reasons to complain.  The very outcome of the game was affected by the weather.  The game should have been called much earlier.

Yet, when you read the quotes by the Phillies’ players and manager they are all looking ahead to playing the rest of the game and winning.  Yes, there’s frustration, but they’re not going to let it get to them.

Each player quoted said some version of “it is what it is, it affects both teams, everyone did what they thought was the right thing to do, let’s go out and play hard the rest of the game and try to win this thing.”

What do you do when something goes wrong in your sales business or your life?  Most people let it mess with their whole day.  Some people let it take them off their game (pardon the pun) for a week or month.  Still some people let road blocks affect their whole career and life.

Hey.  Nothing good ever came easy.  Unfortunately we live in a 90 second drive thru, microwave, I want it now society.  All that breeds is contempt.  All that breeds is frustration.  All that breeds is a bunch of quitters if things don’t go exactly as they want them to go, right now.

Why do you think most people can’t deal with diets?  It’s because they restrict their eating, feel horrible about it, and then when they think it’s for the greater good but look at the scale on day 4 and they haven’t lost weight yet, they get all pissed off, thinking it doesn’t work, and stop dieting.

Nothing good ever came easy.  That’s not to say that sales isn’t an easy job, and that’s not to say you’re going to have to work really hard (although a little hard work never hurt anyone).

It’s saying that if you want it, you can have it.  You just have to persevere a little, get around some road blocks and look forward to playing (and winning) again.

Just ask the Phillies.

And, by the way, if God forbid they should happen to cough up this series lead and lost the whole thing to Tampa Bay, I will jump off a bridge.  Seriously, if that were to happen it would sting, but they would get right back in the saddle and go try to win it again next year.  And as sad as the fans would be, they would come back in droves next year to watch their team play and try to win it next year.

We, in sales, need to take a lesson from them.  If something goes wrong, come back the next day ready to play and win.

Scott Friedman

scott@yourethedifference.com

609-601-1296