3 Things Sales Professionals Can Learn From Anthony Joshua

If you aren’t a boxing fan, or have been living under a rock, you may not have heard that on June 1st, 2019, Andy Ruiz, a real life version of Rocky Balboa, and the first Mexican Boxing Heavyweight Champion in history, beat Olympic Gold Medalist and Adonis, Anthony Joshua and stripped him of his boxing titles about 6 months ago. The last time something like this happened was on February 11, 1990 when Buster Douglas knocked out Mike Tyson.  Sales professionals can learn a lot from both fighters, although more can be learned from Anthony Joshua’s return to glory on December 7th, 2019.

I’m going to give you 3 things Sales Pros can learn from Anthony Joshua.

1) No one Is Too Big To Fail

At the time of their first fight, Anthony Joshua was undefeated and Andy Ruiz was an 11-1 underdog. Joshua, underestimated Ruiz and rightfully so. At first glance, Ruiz does not look like your prototypical boxer. Some, perhaps most, would argue that he is overweight. No one can blame Joshua for overlooking his competitor who ultimately defeated him and shocked the world. This was Anthony Joshua’s first mistake: assuming that he was too big to fail.

Netflix and Blockbuster. Amazon and Toys R Us. Uber/Lyft and Taxi Drivers. What do they all have in common? In each case, the original titan fell prey to an emerging competitor that they didn’t take serious enough.

You should embrace the statement, “No one is too big to fail.” as it represents both opportunity and motivation. You may not believe it, but you can most certainly take over a market, or an industry, even if there is a bigger player ahead of you. No one bats .1000 and if you just hang in there long enough, you’ll get your opportunity at bat. Now if your the big dog, this also means that you can’t sit on your laurels. Someone, somewhere is trying to take your spot. You can operate from a place of fear, or you can look at this as an opportunity to keep your edge. If you feel threatened by competition, a career in sales is most certainly not for you.

If you feel threatened by competition, a career in sales is most certainly not for you.

2) Not All of Your Strategies will work

Just like Rocky Balboa, Andy Ruiz, a relatively unknown boxer, was a replacement fighter. He had six week to prepare for the biggest fight of his life where he had a -2500 odds of winning. What most people, including Anthony Joshua didn’t know, was that Andy Ruiz was a powerful puncher with a quick inside game. In other words, if you got too close he could stun you with explosive close range shots.

In their first fight, Anthony Joshua fell prey to Ruiz’s inside game. That is primarily why Joshua lost in one of the greatest upsets in boxing history. He, a much more technical fighter, should have known better. That strategy failed miserably.

Not all of your strategies or ideas are going to work. In fact, many of them are going to fail. Some in as a spectacular fashion as Anthony Joshua’s public fall from his pedestal. Others will be in complete isolation. Don’t fret. It happens to everyone. There’s a reason that companies like Amazon, Disney, Apple, Google, and Facebook spend millions of dollars on research and development on ideas that end up in the trash, and it’s because they want to stay ahead of the pack. I realize that your budget may not permit you to spend that kind of money testing and improving, but there are many inexpensive ways to make your product or service better. Be curious. Test ideas. You will fall. Get back up.

During their second bout, Anthony Joshua put on a boxing clinic. He learned from his mistake in the first fight, and jabbed & punched Andy Ruiz from a distance all twelve rounds. It wasn’t flashy, but it did the job. Joshua won in a unanimous decision.

3) Get Back in The Ring

Anthony Joshua did not have to activate his rematch clause. He could have retired and lived a very comfortable life, but within days of his loss to Ruiz, he asked for a rematch. It wasn’t for the glory nor the money, although I’m sure he had no problem depositing his $100M payout. He didn’t get back in the ring to prove his doubters wrong. He did it to prove himself right.

As an entrepreneur you will experience setbacks. You will experience failures. You will experience losses. There will be moments when you won’t want to get back in the ring. You will want to give up. You will say things like, “It’s not worth it.” or “I can’t take this…” I’ve said those exact same things to myself and even to my wife.

You are one idea away from becoming a millionaire.

You have to be willing to get back in the ring when you don’t want to, and even when you don’t need to. I hate going to the gym at 4:30 AM in the morning. It’s cold. I’m tired. My eyes are red. I dread my early morning workout days which are 3-4 times a week, but every time I walk out of the gym 2 hours later, I feel more accomplished and dare I say, victorious? I conquered the inner voice that said, “Don’t do it.” and I celebrate the first small victory of the day. When you get back in the ring after a lost sale, or a bad day, what you are doing sub-consciously is telling yourself that that one bad day did not define you. Anyone can quit when the going gets tough, but it’s the winners who stay in the game for however long it takes to win.

You are one idea away from becoming a millionaire. You are one recruit or sale away from earning the top position in your company. You are one presentation away from signing the biggest contract of your life. Get back in the ring and prove yourself right.

Follow me here and subscribe here for all the latest tips on how to increase sales by up to 400%!

– Paul

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3 Tips That Will Get You More Sales

No. This isn’t click bait. Yes. I know that the generic answer is simple: sell more of your company’s product or service and you will make more money. That is a given. You already know that. What you may not know is how to do this while adding even more value to your position without going crazy.

Here’s what I know about you. You are a professional salesperson, or you employ professional salespeople.

Right now, I’m only speaking to the professional sales people, although employers can still benefit from this content. Personally, I am both. I still sell and I employ professional salespeople so I do empathize and relate to both very important positions as one cannot exist without the other.

I am going to give you 3 quick tips on how to make more money at sales.

Tip #1 – Outbound Prospecting

I’m used to reaching out to the client cold. I come from an industry where we fish for business. All day. Every day. Real Estate practitioners are not fed leads unless they are purchased or the salesperson has developed some type of internet marketing that gets their phone or their IM to buzz. Other professions receive warm lead inquiries from their marketing departments and it is the salesperson’s job to get a hold of the prospect. Either way – you will need to develop your outbound prospecting skills and strategies.

The best of the best sales salespeople know how to follow up with a client using all the tools that they have access to including but not limited to texting, instant messaging, social media messaging, and even video messaging. Not someone might argue, “But Paul, isn’t that taking it too far? Do I really want to send them a text, an email, a video message, and a social media IM?” My short answer is YES. You don’t ever know what form of communication they prefer, and more importantly, you are making the false assumption that they will review every message they get immediately. That’s is a huge false assumption. They might review the text message today, and not get to your email until 3-4 weeks from now. I’ve seen it happen with my own eyes. I’ve had clients not reply to a single email or text message, but respond to my LinkedIn inmail request. It’ll happen to you too. Use everything you’ve got unless prohibited by your company.

You don’t know [initially] what form of communication a prospect prefers, and you assume that they will review every message they get immediately.

Tip #2 – Close Early. Close Often.

Has this ever happened to you? You receive a lead. You contact lead. Lead says I’m ready to buy. You start selling them on all the benefits of your product or service over the phone, text, or via IM. Lead receives info and never buys. What happened? Chances are you talked them out of the sale. When someone says I am ready to buy, that isn’t the moment to start selling again. They’ve already sold themselves. You close the sale. Simple closes include:

• How would you like to pay for this?
• I’m sending you the link to order it right now.
• I think I have a coupon code that expires in the next few hours…(only if true)

Here’s my point – close early. It’s your job to make the sale, not give them ammunition that could result in additional objections you’ll have to overcome. The minute you start closing, any objections or questions they might have about your product or service will come out. Then and only then should you be handling those and only those objections. Then once you’ve handled those objections, your close again. So it should look something like this:

• Close.
• Handle objection if any.
• Close Again.
• Handle objection if any.
• Close Again.
• Handle objection if any.
• Close Again.

A true sales professional knows that it may take you closing up to 4 to 5 times before the buyer buys your product or service. Amateurs give up after the very first now. Handle objection. Close again.

Let me be clear. Closing a sale is not the same as convincing someone to do something they don’t want to do. You are not a professional “convincer.” You are a professional salesperson that can help someone who is already interested in your product or service make an educated decision based on how you handle their objections and close the sale. If they aren’t interested, there is no closing strategy in the world that you can use to get them to buy, and even if they do, they’ll suffer buyers remorse and you’ll suffer cancelled contracts or charge backs. You don’t want or need that.

Tip #3 – Follow Up

Chances are, you’ve heard the saying, “The fortune is in the follow up.” This couldn’t be more true. Outside of not closing the prospect enough times, not following up is the second biggest reason professional salespeople fail.

The higher the price point, the longer the prospect will take to make a decision. As crazy as this sounds, people don’t like making decisions-especially big ones. More often than not, people will take the, “If it ain’t broke, why fix it?” path.

As the professional salesperson, you have to stay in communication with the prospect as they weigh out their options. This is where most salespeople give up. Believe it or not, you will lose more business due to lack of follow up than you will ever lose to a poor presentation or due to your professional sales skills.

The average consumer needs to be reminded (contacted) a minimum of 7 times in order for them to remember your message and/or who you are. Just having one conversation, one consultation, sending one email, one text message, or leaving one voicemail is not enough for them to consider you as their Real Estate Agent.

Most salespeople DO NOT follow up enough with their prospects because they are afraid of calling, texting, messaging, mailing, or contacting them too much out of fear that the client will be turned off by them.

You will lose more clients by not following up enough over a bad presentation.

There are plenty of ways for a client to be turned off by you, but professionally following up and demonstrating your enthusiasm to work with them is not one of them. If you do your job and follow up effectively and professionally, only one of two things will happen:

1. The client will let you know they aren’t interested
2. The client will let you know they are interested.

That’s it.

Having someone tell you they aren’t moving forward is not the end of the world. In fact, it’ll help save you time in the long run. You want prospective clients to make a decision. It saves you time. Stop taking it personal when someone decides to not sell or buy. Them deciding to not buy or sell has nothing to do with you. Now, if they tell you they aren’t going to buy or sell, and then they do with someone else-that was you. Sorry. Sorry not sorry.

You will have that happen to you. More than once. There’s nothing you can do about it. Your goal should be to have about 20-30 warm prospects and 4-5 hot prospects that you are working with at any given time.

You warm and hot list should be changing on a daily basis. You are adding and subtracting hot and warm leads daily. If your funnel of hot and warm prospects is shrinking consistently for more than 3 days, you are not prospecting enough. There will reach a time when your inflow of prospects is more than your outbound efforts through the use of internet marketing.

Most coaches will tell you to just prospect on the phone or to just canvass. These coaches don’t want to adapt to the market or learn new skills. This is why you must always incorporate an active and passive marketing strategy daily. Too passive and you won’t see results for 6-8 months MAYBE. Too active and you’ll be stuck prospecting for the rest of your career.

Apply this tips today. Make our profession proud!

Follow me here and subscribe here for all the latest tips on how to increase sales by up to 400%!

– Paul

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4 Ways To Deal With Stress During The Holidays

It should come as no surprise that stress levels peak during the holidays. You’ve got parties to go to, dinners to attend, festive holiday wardrobe to wear, and gifts to purchase, all the while stretching a paycheck, that for most of us, didn’t cut it during the regular part of the year, let alone during the 4th quarter when most retailers are using every gimmick in the book to get themselves back in the black.

I’m not poo-poo’ing the Holidays. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. I love the Holidays and the hustle & bustle, the smells, the special dishes that typically only come once a year, and more importantly, the opportunity to reconnect with my family.

Yet despite how happy the Holidays make me, I’ve often asked myself, “If this is supposed to be the happiest time of the year-why I am so stressed out?”

Fortunately, I have a pretty high tolerance for stress. This comes in very handy in my line of work, and during the holidays. I’ll share with you my 4 tips to avoid having a mental break down during the holidays.

Tip #1 – Pick Only One Party To Go To

Around this time of year there are going to be parties, luncheons, mixers, and celebratory meetings. You don’t have to go to every event you get invited to. While it may be tempting, and dare I say adventurous to go to 3 events in one day, it can be draining on your energy level and maybe even your liver.

I’m a people pleaser. I enjoy making people happy. Sometimes I have a difficult time saying “No.” especially to people I care about. This often gets me into stressful situations. During the Holidays you might find yourself over-committing to more parties than you need to, or going nuts over how many different homes you need to visit delivering holiday cheer.

“If this is supposed to be the happiest time of the year-why I am so stressed out?”

The truth is, this type of stress can be avoided by simply picking one, maybe two events that you absolutely have to be present at and not worry about the rest. 

Tip #2 – Wear the Same Outfit More Than Once

If you absolutely have to go to more than one Holiday function, consider wearing the same outfit more than once. There is no shame in this and the fashion police aren’t going to arrest you. You have enough stress to deal with by wearing the same outfit more than once, you’ll save yourself time and the agony of trying to figure out what to pair what with. This is the same reason that some of the greatest minds in business wear the same thing every single day. It is to declutter your mind from unnecessary decisions.

Tip #3 – Give the Gift of Your Time

One of the greatest gifts that you can give anyone is the gift of your time. Think of that special person you haven’t visited with or taken the time to meet with and schedule a time to visit them. A gift isn’t even necessary, trust me, they’ll appreciate the gesture. These days even just picking up the phone and calling someone and chatting on the phone is a gift. We’ve become a society of texter’s and IM’ers that many of us have forgotten whats it like to simply talk on the phone. Don’t just text that person an invitation to lunch-CALL him or her. If they don’t answer leave them a message. Even if their schedules don’t permit an opportunity to meet, the fact that you called them speaks volumes. 

Tip #4- Don’t Stress Out Over Gifts

It was Christmas 1991 and my parents were in the middle of a bitter divorce. I was old enough to figure out that Mom and Dad were playing hot potato with holiday duties, which ultimately resulted in Christmas being cancelled at our home.

This was uncharted territory for us. We were used to having a fully decorated tree with enough gifts underneath it to give the fire marshall a panic attack. We’d make a list of everything we wanted, while our mother and father met the demands of our hand written ransom notes. Someway, somehow, we got 90% of what we asked for.

Meeting our holiday expectations didn’t come without its costs, and it wasn’t only a financial toll.

We were used to our Dad working every Holiday as a grocery store manager so he could make double and triple time. Thanksgiving & Christmas dinners were always without him. He was rarely there to watch us open gifts. We’d visit family members delivering good cheer without Pops. He was an amazing provider, but what we really needed was his time.

Children are more resilient than adults give them credit for, myself included, and I happen to be a former child. My siblings and I didn’t mind not having the tree or gifts Christmas of ‘91, as knew we’d be celebrating elsewhere and one way or another we’d get gifts even if we didn’t get them at home.

“These days even just picking up the phone and calling someone and chatting on the phone is a gift.”

On the morning of Christmas Eve my mother woke us up full of excitement and said, “I have a surprise for you! I’m leaving, but I’ll be right back.”

She disappeared for a couple of hours and our minds ran wild with anticipation. Surely she coming back with the Sega Genesis that was on our list! My brother and I couldn’t wait to play the latest Sonic The Hedgehog game. We sat in the livingroom staring out the front window until we saw her car, a late model white Ford Crown Victoria, and tied to the top of the car was something I will never forget.

Our little minds thought gifts, but my Mom saw the bigger picture. Tied to the top of the car was a Christmas tree. Yep. We got our Christmas tree the night before Christmas. I’m not going to lie, the 1991 teenager in me was disappointed, but the present day Father of 5 in me recognizes the selfless significance of this. Her marriage was in shambles and as easy as it was to let her kids suffer the brunt of the battle, she did her best to make sure Christmas didn’t pass over our home.

I remember just a handful of Christmas gifts I received as a child. I’ll always remember that Christmas of ‘91. It’s easy to get caught up in gift giving, and if you’re not careful you’ll stress yourself out over gifts that most people, including your children, won’t remember.

Don’t stress yourself out over the gifts. Do what you can with what you’ve got. The saying, “Those that mind don’t matter, and those that matter don’t mind.” couldn’t me more true during the holidays. My Grandfather on my Wife’s side of the family gives me a screwdriver or some $4 tool every year, and you know what? Every once in a while they come in extra handy.

I hope you enjoy every second of the Holiday Season as it is one of the most magical times of the year and should be something we look forward to as opposed to dreading, or worse yet-fearing. May the words “Believe”, “Magic”, and “Joy” be with you not only during this season, but throughout the year.

Happy Holidays & New Year!

– Paul

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3 Tips That Will Help You Get Over The Fear of Making Difficult Phone Calls

We’ve all experienced it. The procrastination of having to make a phone call that we don’t want to make. We live in a world where it’s easy to hide behind a keyboard or a text message or even a tweet. I’ve seen collegiate athletes de-commit on twitter and young people break up on Instagram.

“‘These days, when my kids call me, I know it’s urgent.”

This is why more than ever, it’s important to muster the courage and discipline of making the hard phone calls we don’t want to make.

Sometimes it’s because we don’t want to deliver bad news, let alone receive it. Other times it’s because we don’t want to deal with a particular person. On occasion it’s because we don’t want to be held accountable. Either way, you and I both know that nagging, dreadful feeling that comes from avoiding making a call we don’t want to make.

I am going to give you 3 tips that will motivate you to make the calls you’ve been avoiding.

Tip #1 – Stop Playing It Out In Your Head

You are not Quentin Tarantino. You are not a Hollywood producer, and chances are, you don’t write scripts for a living. I need you stop imagining all the possible scenarios of what you think will happen when you make the phone call you have been avoiding. I need you to do this because the scripts we rehearse in our heads are usually not the way the conversation goes.

Yes, you might argue that you knew that the call wasn’t going to end well, and even if you were right, I’m convinced that it didn’t play out exactly as you had imagined it to be. Conversely, how many times have you had conversations with someone, thinking it was going to go well, only to have the conversation turn into a heated debate or worse yet an argument?

All I am saying is that spending time and using energy dreaming up how a conversation is going to go is useless. Now, I’m not saying to go into a call blindly, in fact, quite the contrary. You’ll see that in Tip #3. All I am saying is that your energy is better spent on more productive activities than conjuring up a novela of what you think might happen which usually doesn’t.

Tip #2 – Stand Up

There have been quite a few studies on the benefits of standing while you work. Some support it. Some don’t. I’m not really going to argue for or against the health benefits. I am however going to tell you how it makes me feel when I am standing versus sitting down and conversing with others.

I feel in control.

Have you ever seen someone get into an argument on the phone in public? What happens? Typically they are more expressive, they use their arms, they might pace, and of course they may yell. I’m not saying that you can’t yell when you are sitting down, or that it’s even okay to yell at someone, but I am saying you respond to your bodies posture and it manifests itself in the way you speak.

If you know you are going into a conversation that might be difficult, try standing up first.

Top #3 – Be Upfront. Be Brief. Be Ready.

It is important that you know what you are going to talk about and that you address the most difficult topic(s) first.

“‘People can smell a phony a mile away.”

No one likes someone who tries to soften the blow by bs’ing for 20 minutes only to follow up feigned interest with the real reason you called.

I recommend starting your conversations with, “There’s something I need to talk to you about, can I steal 2 minutes?” Do this for two reasons:

1. The other person knows you are going to drop something on them.
2. It preps them for a short conversation.

The good old, “I’ve got good news and bad news, which do you want first?” doesn’t disappoint either.

It is also a good idea for you to have notes or bullet points ready prior to your conversation. This will keep your conversation brief and make sure you only discuss what needs to be discussed at that time.

There isn’t a phone call or conversation you can’t handle If you follow these simple 3 tips.

Follow me here and subscribe here for all the latest tips on how to increase sales by up to 400%!

– Paul

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3 Tips on How To Deal With Rejection

When I was 18 years old I met someone who I thought was very successful. I vividly recall asking him, “How do I become as successful as you?” His response has remained with me my entire life.

“When you have been told ‘No.’ as many times as I have been, you’ll be successful.”

A light bulb went off in my head. Game on.

Except that, it isn’t that easy. Rejection sucks. It hurts and can be emotionally draining. I don’t care how tough you are, no one likes rejection, and yet, you will have to learn how to overcome it as it is weaved into nearly every part of your life including but not limited to your dating life, social life, sports, insurance carriers, credit card applications, and even employment to name but a few.

Fortunately, there are a few things that you can do to soften the blow and keep moving forward. As a Real Estate Broker who employs Real Estate Agents & Professional Salespeople, I can always tell when one of my sales agents has taken a beating at the hands of the rejection monster. I can hear the defeat in their voice and the fatigue in their posture. They may not say it verbally, but their body language says, “I can’t take this.” This is no different than the person who has been applying to job after job without being hired, or the person who has tried every dating site or app on the web without getting to the second date or worse yet, no dates at all.

Here’s the truth. You can take this. Rejection is just another form of resistance no different than the resistance our bodies must tolerate in order to build the physiques we want. I’d even argue that we can see the results in the same fashion we see our bodies improve, it’s just more subtle. As you become more resilient to rejection you gain confidence and that confidence is usually projected in the way you carry yourself and the way you dress & look. Trust me, you can spot someone who exudes confidence, and I will contend that a lot of that confidence stems in their ability to tolerate rejection. These people have an IDGAF what you think about me attitude. Now I know some of you will argue that this is a mask that some people put on to protect themselves from their insecurities, and while that may be true in some cases, that mask eventually grows thin and we all have to eventually deal with the person we face in the mirror every morning.

I am going to give you 3 quick tips on how to deal with rejection.

Tip #1 – It’s Not Personal

I know you’ve heard, “It’s not personal.” before. You may have also heard different variations of this that include, “It’s not you. It’s me.” or “You were a great candidate, but…”

Anyway you look at it, it’s a form of rejection, and as corny as it sounds, it isn’t personal. That’s right. It. Is. Not. Personal.

I want you to think of your favorite desert. What is it? For me it’s always something fruity and tart. Now, what is your least favorite food? If someone offered it to you would you eat it? Of course you wouldn’t because you don’t like it. When you reject the offer for your least favorite food, does that person break down emotionally? Nope. Why not? Because the fact that you dislike [insert least favorite food], has little to no effect on them. It is not a personal reflection of what you think about them at all, even though it was a form of rejection.

There are some men and women who are attracted to a certain look. Some prefer blondes or brunettes and some like their men with a little fur and facial hair. You can’t change what someone is attracted to, and while you might argue that you can change your physical appearance to match someone else’s tastes, that is a slippery slope you don’t want to be on. Once you start trying to change yourself for someone else, you start to lose your identity. I’m not going to get to deep into this, all I am repeating is that: it’s not an attack on who you are, it’s just what someone else is attracted to. Don’t take it personal.

In business, when someone chooses another product or service-it isn’t personal. Do you have any idea how many times I’ve heard, “Paul, we like you as a person, but we’ve decided to go with XYZ firm.”? More times than I care to admit. And you the know the weird part? I really felt like I had connected with many of those clients during my sales presentation. Why did I lose the sale? Because, say it with me, “It isn’t personal.” I lost that sale because my product or my service, or my presentation was not on point. I had to take responsibility and inventory of that fact. It wasn’t my personality that cost me the sale, it was my presentation or my inability to convey the benefits of my product or service. Once I understood this and took ownership of this, I was able to improve my presentation and properly explain why someone needed to sign with me instead of XYZ firm.

This same rationale applies to job hunting. If you know that you are applying for a position that requires some skills or qualities you don’t have, then you had better spend some time improving yourself instead of blaming the employer for not hiring you.

Tip #2 – Identify Who Your Prospect Really Is

One of the reasons most professional salespeople suffer a great deal of rejection is because they improperly label someone a candidate for their product, service just because some was nice to them or let them speak. Ditto for the dating scene.

Gals, just because someone gave you 5 minutes of their time does not mean that they are ready to date you.

Improper classification of a prospect is a HUGE reason that people suffer unnecessary rejection because they continue talking to the wrong people who aren’t going to buy what you have to offer anyway.

In sales you need to be spending most of your time prospecting for clients and then identifying which of those clients are potential buyers, or sellers in my case, and then spending most of your time with those opportunities. You have to be willing to let go of clients just as quickly as you have identified them as a lead that isn’t going to perform. I know what you are going to ask yourself next, “At what point do I let them go?”. I’d say after about 4-5 attempts with no contact is a good time to place them on some type of automated campaign. That’s a topic for another blog entry. Either way, get used to casting your net wide, and then sifting through the possible candidates. When you do this, you will see that you are actually being rejected less because you’ve properly identified the right prospects to invest your time in, and your closing ratio will go up.

The same rules apply to the dating scene. Don’t believe me? Why does Eharmony use their proprietary 32 dimensions to identify common interests to match people up? It is designed to help people properly identify the right candidates for them to date. When you do this, it brings down the rejection level considerably.

Tip #3 – Fill Your Pipeline

This might sound a little similar to the last tip, but it is worth mentioning. Once you’ve mastered identifying who your ideal prospects are, it is important that you don’t stop mining for gold. In other words, you can’t stop prospecting.

How does this help me deal with rejection? Well for one thing, if you spend most of your effort prospecting to fill your pipeline, then investing the rest of your time properly identifying the candidates you get, you have little to no time to spend wallowing in your rejection sorrows.

Filling your pipeline may mean different things to different people. At work it means constantly seeking out clients. On the job hunt it may mean applying to as many jobs as you feel qualified for, and for the dating scene, it means dating as many people as you feel comfortable dating until you find Mr. or Mrs. Right. Filling and re-filling your funnel instills a sense of confidence and independence in yourself, and prevents you from just settling for what is handed to you.

Rejection is not fun, but it is a part of life, and the sooner you learn how to deal with it, the more successful you will become in every area of your life. I hope these quick short tips help you on your quest to become the happiest and best version of yourself.

Follow me here and subscribe here for all the latest tips on how to increase sales by up to 400%!

– Paul

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3 Tips That Will Make You Better at Delegating

My son recently brought home a white American Husky to impress his girlfriend. Needless to say, it didn’t impress me. Both my wife and I knew that the responsibility would eventually be assumed by us.

This early morning our dog pee’d on one of our rugs. My first instinct was to clean it up myself as opposed to waking up my 20 year old and instructing him to do it.

“I’ll do it faster.”
“I’ll do it better.”
“In the time it would take him/her to do it, I could have had it done already.”

These were all the valid thoughts that went through my head as I went into his room and yelled at him to wake up. No one likes to be woken up being yelled at. Point taken. I’ll find a better approach. More on that later.

As groggy, tired, and upset as he was, he cleaned it. He didn’t do a good job. He left the dirty rags and cleansers on the floor. He left the wet spot soaking increasing the chances of mildew and damage to the hardwood floors. Bottom line-it was a poor effort, and yet I had to let it him do it or my wife & I would be stuck potty training & cleaning after the puppy for the next 4-6 months.

Wait. He’s not gonna transition his dog peeing into a masterclass on delegating in business is he? Oh yes I am.

I know you’ve said it yourself in the office or at work. So have I. These are all valid reasons easily justified logically. They are also the shackles that prevent us from growing and/or scaling our business. You can’t do it all. Neither can I, and as such it is paramount that we get used to delegating responsibility.

If you are a business owner you will argue that you don’t have the money to hire someone to do delegate tasks to. I’ve made the same argument, and what you will discover is that it will still cost you either in the form of your own personal time invested or in the form of compensating someone else. I firmly believe that using my own time is more expensive that paying someone else.

I want to give you 3 Tips on How to Effectively Delegate

Tip #1 – Make Client Acquisition Your Biggest Priority

Letting go is the first and most challenging part about learning how to delegate, especially when your compensation is based on a closed sale. When you are a professional salesperson every deal counts and it is easy to want to babysit a transaction especially with purchases that have a longer gestation period such as real estate transactions that can last anywhere from 45 days up to a year depending on how complicated the deal is.

Your job is to sell. Your job is to get more deals. Your primary focus should be on customer acquisition and on rain making-not chasing forms. Once a contract has been signed and/or payment has been delivered I want you to operate like an assembly line and delegate the responsibility of customer fulfillment with the appropriate person.

I realize this is easier aid than done depending on the type of sales position you hold, and it is a natural inclination to want to ensure that the sale goes through without any hiccups so as to avoid any cancellations or worse yet, charge backs, but trust me, when you delegate & let go and spend 90% of your time in lead generation & customer acquisition you aren’t dependent on any one sale to survive and this is an exhilarating feeling.

Tip #2 – Let People Make Mistakes

Let me warn you that when you delegate tasks, people will mess up. Especially if they haven’t been trained in your processes or your organization lacks a good on-boarding system. We are all humans and no one is perfect.

It is when a system fails or someone messes up…

that most professional sales people retreat back to the “I do it better…” or “It takes me longer to clean up this mess than if I had done it myself…” mentality.

Herein lies the problem. You have to let people make mistakes. We can review processes all day long, but it isn’t until someone is actually performing their duties that they really learn. The expert in any profession isn’t the one who hasn’t made any mistakes. In fact, it’s quite the contrary, it’s the one who has made the most mistakes.

There will be some angry customers. You will lose sales. You will lose accounts. This is all part of the process of letting people do their jobs. Let your customer know that you are their go-to person and that should anything go wrong, they can call you direct. For a short period, you may be the customer service department as well. I’ve been there. It takes a big person to take responsibility and get yelled at for something you didn’t do, and even worse, don’t get paid to do, but if you don’t let your troops try and fail and try and fail you will be stuck babysitting very deal that comes across your desk and that is no way for a professional salesperson to live.

If someone makes the same error over and over again, that may not be the right person for the job, but I don’t want you chopping off your nose just to spite your face. Let all the other role players in the sales process do their job, while you focus on customer acquisition.

Tip #3 – Inspecting What You Expect

Once you’ve gotten good at delegating, and overcoming the fear of letting people learn from their mistakes, it’s easy to sit back and watch the processes work without feeling the need to go back in and inspect the results-especially as a professional salesperson who quite frankly, only wants to do one thing-SELL. I know because I’ve been there, especially when we are running on full cylinders.

This is where mistakes or poor customer service can happen again. I know I said to spend the majority of your time in customer acquisition, and that still holds true, but I also want you spending at least 10% of your time reviewing the results. Did the product go out on time? Did the client get the bulk discount offered? I’d recommend doing this at least once a week. You’d be surprised by what can slip by you without inspecting the results. It also helps when you reach back out to your customer and/or client and request online reviews.

Comment below if you can relate to some of the items I referenced in the blog. How did you overcome the hurdles that came with delegation? What are some things that you absolutely must delegate?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Follow me here and subscribe here for all the latest tips on how to increase sales by up to 400%!

– Paul

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5 Tips on How To Develop Mental Toughness

One of the greatest gifts I received in life was my ability to hold on despite the tumultuous storms I would find myself in. Some of them were well deserved and self imposed, while others were unwarranted and completely outside of my control. In the end, it didn’t matter if it was a category 1 storm or a category 5 tsunami-I needed to endure them all just as you needed and will continue to need to survive all types of downpour.

In life, you’re either heading into a storm, going through a storm or coming out of a storm. I don’t know who deserves the credit for saying this, but it is 100% accurate.

I am going to give you 5 Tips on How To Develop Mental Toughness.

Tip #1 : Commitment Is More Important than Excitement

I want you to think back to your childhood. Every time you started something new you were excited. The possibilities were endless. During this initial phase you didn’t really know what you didn’t know. Everything was easy. It was all fun. That is, until you decided that you wanted to be good at it.

In the beginning everything is easy-especially when you aren’t keeping tabs on progress. There’s nothing wrong with this. There are plenty of activities & hobbies that people participate in for leisure sport or to pass the time, but the minute you cross over from recreational participation to actually wanting to win or to become great at something, it will inevitably become harder. You cannot escape this.

“But Paul, everyone knows this.”

Do they though? I’ve spoken to a lot of different success stories in different fields, and one common phrase I hear is, “Had I known just how difficult it really was going to be, I might not have gotten started.”

Ditto.

The point here isn’t to dwell on how hard something is or is going to be. The point here is to acknowledge that at some point it won’t be fun, and it is then that it will require commitment on your part. Anyone can give up when the excitement wears off. Champions stay committed for however long it takes.

Tip #2 – Stop Playing All the Negative Possibilities in Your Head

Have you ever had to make a difficult phone call that you’ve been dreading for hours, days, weeks, or even months, and after you eventually mustered the courage to do it, the outcome was nothing like you had expected?

We all have. Human beings are notorious for this. We fantasize about all the possible outcomes, we waste energy and lose sleep over the stories in our heads, over things that don’t happen.

Stop. Doing. This.

There’s no point in wasting time over things that are completely out of your control. In fact, it’s more productive to face your challenges as early as possible so that you can invest your energy in responding to them or in finding solutions.

The key is disrupting this pattern. I want you to identify a song, photo, scripture, poem, or passage that you can access in an instant that inspires you. For me it’s a photo of my family and certain songs that remind of very special moments with them. These are the kind of songs that give me goosebumps when I hear them. Talk about disrupting a pattern.

When you catch yourself playing, and replaying different cut scenes in your head, look for that source of inspiration. Use it. No matter the hour or the circumstance.

Tip #3 – Listen To Motivational Material Daily

I know you’ve been told this before and chances are you’re not doing enough of it. I consider myself to be one of the most positive and inspirational people I know, and I still have to wash my brain with positive messages daily, multiple times a day-and I’m not alone. The most successful people you know, listen or read these kinds of messages regularly too. It is because we are conditioned to think negative thoughts. It is engrained in our DNA. We come from a long line of hunters and gatherers and our forefathers had to be on their toes at all times or they would be eaten by larger animals. Like them, your brains is hard wired to keep you safe. I don’t need to explain to you why your brain doesn’t want your body to die and in order to survive and stay alive you question everything. You don’t have to be taught to think negative, but you do have to be taught to be a positive thinker.

The best way to become a positive thinker is to read and listen to positive material as often as time permits. If I am not careful I can begin to stew in my own thoughts, and I would much rather listen to something inspirational rather than question my skills or good looks.

Tip #4 – Get Up & Take Action

This sounds overly simplistic, but it’s often overlooked. When you’re stressed out and paralyzed in fear it can be suffocating. Those thoughts manifest themselves physically. Don’t believe me? Stress is one of the leading causes of death in our country.

The best way to combat stress is to take action. Don’t sit on the couch stewing in your mess. That’s quite possibly the worst things you can do, especially if you haven’t mastered your own thoughts yet.

Find and use your source of inspiration. Focus on it until changes your physical state, and most importantly get up! No. I mean physically stand up. When you stand up it puts you in a physical stance of authority. It empowers you. I work standing up in the office.

Ideally I’d like you to tackle what is challenging you at the moment, but even I have a problem with procrastination at times, so I’m going to ask you to find a small easy challenge to overcome. Whatever it might be. Start small. Tackle it. Acknowledge it. Find another task to complete. Complete it. Praise yourself for it. Take pride in work. Don’t half ass it. Whatever you do make sure that you do it to the best of your ability. You are developing a pattern here.

My mantra at home has been and will always be:

“How you do some things, is how you do everything.”

By starting with the smaller tasks and completing them as perfectly as you can you are developing this skill and commitment to excellence. I heard a commencement speech on YouTube and the speaker suggested that to have the perfect day, you start out by making the bed. He and I are saying the same thing.

You will eventually graduate to completing the larger tasks, hopefully sooner rather than later. If not, I’ll have another blog entry for that.

Tip #5 – Most Failure is Never Final

In life there are few mistakes that are truly final, and unfortunately in some rare cases fatal. I am not going to touch on those kinds of failures as I have never experienced them, and wouldn’t dare give advice on how to cope with them. Thankfully, most of us will never experience failure to that degree.

The reason that most people avoid taking risks is out of fear for what other people will think of them. Ready to have your mind blown? Most people don’t care about your screw ups because they are too busy condemning themselves for their own. So if everyone is stuck in their own head chastising themselves, why spend any energy worrying about what other people think about you? Accepting this can be unbelievably liberating. When you give yourself permission to make mistakes in pursuit of your dreams amazing things happen.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not giving you a hall pass to do things unethical or morally wrong. All I am saying is that not all of your ideas are going to work, and that’s okay. There may be a period in your life when you will try anything and everything that is presented to you. You might even be known as the guy or gal that is always trying something new, or the person who is always looking for some get-rich-quick scheme. I can empathize with this. I too have fallen guilty to the shiny object syndrome from time to time in my life. Don’t let those comments discourage you from testing and trying. My only advice is that you don’t make a habit of starting things and never investing the effort to see them through.

Your failures do not define you and the more often you try and fail, try and fail, try and fail, the more resilient you become. It is the people who spend their lives trying to avoid failure that never truly realize their full potential, all because they treated their first failed attempt at something as the end all be all. Don’t let that be you.

The Mental Toughness Muscle

Think of mental toughness like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger it becomes. Don’t believe me? Think of someone you admire. On a scale of 1 to 10 what would you rank their mental toughness muscle? I’d venture to say it’s above 7. I’m not referring to financial success either. I’ve seen mothers flee their country of origin, children in tow, to come to the United States and start a new life. I’ve seen people overcome a debilitating disease. You can’t do these things without being mentally strong. Don’t wait for external circumstances to force you to develop your mental toughness muscle. Start working on it now. You’ll thank me later.

Follow me here and subscribe here for all the latest tips on how to increase sales by up to 400%!

– Paul

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