How many times have you started a new project, reached for a new goal, or set out to accomplish something big, only to abandon the project or goal soon after starting?

Why do people often start out with grand aspirations and then throw in the towel relatively soon? Terror. In fact, the terror barrier is the No. 1 reason people don’t achieve their goals.

Everyone has a comfort zone — a mental place where they feel at peace. If you stay in your comfort zone too long, you don’t grow and achieve new things. However, when most people step out of that zone, they hit the terror barrier, become frightened, procrastinate and make excuses to validate why they should give up and go back to their old ways.

If you want to stretch yourself, set high goals, or learn new skills, you must step up and get out of your comfort zone. This week Promotional Consultant Today will examine five strategies to overcome the terror barrier you so you can push through to your ultimate objectives.

Set Goals That Are Emotional To You

Logical goals never make anyone’s pulse increase. Yet many people set their goals very mechanically, such as “Increase my sales by 10 percent.” Because people don’t get excited about the goal, they’re not willing to go the extra mile to reach it.

The key to creating emotional goals is to start with visualization - creating a picture in your mind of achieving your end result. For example, if you want to increase your sales, envision yourself at your company’s year-end meeting, standing on stage and receiving the Salesperson of the Year award. Hear the crowd applauding. Feel the pride of being recognized as the best. That’s an emotional goal.

Next, write down the goal. But be careful. Don’t start writing the individual action steps — that actually stops people from reaching goals. Too many people think they need to know exactly what to do and how to do it before they can start toward their goal. However, if you spend too much time thinking of the details and action steps, the terror barrier will start to creep in.

First, decide on the goal; you can map it out along the way. Rather than create action steps, write down 10 reasons why you want to achieve the goal. You will need this list later when the going gets tough.

Tomorrow we’ll look at getting off track and taking action toward your new goals.
Source: Ingunn Aursnes is an author, consultant and owner of Quantum Leaps Consulting, LLC.

Don’t Let Negativity Be A Barrier
Those who prevail in difficult times are the ones who steadfastly refuse to allow negativity to form a barrier to their success. They instead deliberately and diligently take constructive action, thereby refreshing and reinvigorating their minds and their spirits, enabling them to take more action, which refreshes and reinvigorates.
This week Promotional Consultant Today will review 14 tips to help get you back on track. Yesterday we looked at four, and today we’ll examine five more.

Source: Francie Dalton is president and founder of Dalton Alliances, Inc, a Maryland based consultancy specializing in the communication, management, and
behavioral sciences. Her new book, Versatility, published by ASAE, is available by clicking here.

     The practice of entertaining customers is one of those issues that needs to be rethought. First, let’s consider whether or not you should entertain your customers. In these days of e-commerce and internet communication, is there a place for this age-old practice?

Consider my experience. I had a high-potential account that did not respond to my efforts. Months went by, and I got nowhere. My company owned four season tickets to the University of Michigan football games, and it was my turn to use them. I invited the head of the purchasing department from that account and her spouse to join me and my wife. We spent the afternoon together, first enjoying a traditional tail-gate meal, then a great college football game.
Immediately thereafter, however, I began to do business with that account. Business grew continually until it became my largest account. The football game was the turning point in the relationship. It wasn’t that I gained inside information. We didn’t even talk about business. But, my customer came to know me better, and, in so doing, became more comfortable with me as a person. That made all the difference. This was not the first, nor the last, time I had the same experience.

Get To Know Your Client
There is an important truth — people like to do business with people they know. The better they know you, the more likely it is that they’ll do business with you. When they spend time with you out side of the business setting, they come to know you better. It really is that simple. This doesn’t mean that you can charge 20 percent more than your competitors, nor does it mean that you can sell an inferior product, or that your company can get away with second-class service. The relationship doesn’t stand in place of quality, price and service, but it can provide a competitive edge.
In this time of high-tech communication, powerful personal relationships provide the high-touch for which many people are subconsciously hungering. Even in this high-tech world characterized by voice mail, e-commerce and instant messaging, face-to-face relationships are necessary. Is there, then, a place for entertaining your customers in this high tech sales environment? Absolutely.

Source: Dave Kahle is a consultant and trainer who helps his clients increase their sales and improve their sales productivity. He speaks from real world experience, having been the number one salesperson in the country for two companies in two distinct industries. Kahle is the author of more than 500 articles, a weekly e-zine, and five books. His latest is 10 Secrets of Time Management for Salespeople.

Go The Extra Mile

Sales
     Successful salespeople go the extra mile when providing service, and turn the customers they serve into advocates to help them promote their business. Your referrals and follow up on business are in direct proportion to the quality and quantity of service you render on a daily basis. Want more referrals? Improve your service!

Following are five powerful tips that will help you improve your customer service.

1. Under-promise and over-deliver. Develop a reputation for reliability; never make a promise that you can’t keep. Your word is your bond.

2. Pay attention to the small things. Get in the habit of returning phone calls, e-mails and other correspondence quickly. Your mantra should be: follow up, follow up, follow up.

3. Stay in contact and keep good records. Take the time to jot down notes from meetings and phone calls making certain to record all relevant information. Maintain a written record of service.
This is especially helpful when clients are reassigned to a new sales rep. Setup a suspense system to track important contact dates such as client review calls and birthdays. Consider sending a personal note or an article of interest every six months.

4. Give your customers a promotional product. It sounds like a given, however it is often forgotten. It is your business — use the power of promotional products to your advantage. Remember, the product will be around, even when you are not.

5. Establish a feedback system to monitor how your customers perceive the quality and quantity of the service you provide. Service is not defined by what you think it is, but rather how your customers perceive its value. When it comes to customer service, perception is reality.

Progressive companies emphasize commitment to customer service from the top down by establishing training standards and continuously monitoring customer satisfaction. Companies that fail to implement an effective customer service program actually do a disservice to their customers and unknowingly, leave the backdoor open to their competitors. If you do it right, sales and service blend seamlessly and you will exceed your customer’s expectations.

Source: John Boe presents a wide variety of motivational and sales-oriented keynotes and seminar programs for sales meetings and conventions. He is a nationally recognized sales trainer.

Note: Today’s PCT is the last for e-newsletter for 2008. You will see us back in your e-mail inbox on Monday, January 3, 2009. Our wish is for a safe, healthy and prosperous New Year!

Stress is building as many small business owners watch the economy evaporate in front of their eyes.   As the economic news continues to worsen daily they struggle to meet their most basic obligations. If the slowdown continues, some may face hard decisions.
However, most entrepreneurs have a sink or swim mentality. Focus on the right things and you can get through this downturn.

Today and tomorrow, Promotional Consultant Today will explore 10 ways to stay focused and survive these challenging times. Today we’ll look at the first five.

1. Cash flow is king:  As a small business owner, you must know how your cash flows. This isn’t fancy accounting; it’s simply tracking how cash comes in versus how it goes out. Take two hours, and use your QuickBooks or check register to get a grasp of this monetary movement.

2. Trim the fat:  Many small businesses experienced a tremendous run in the last 10 years. Since they had good cash flow coming in the door, they allowed fat to accumulate in the things going out the door.  Now is the time to look at where your money is going, and eliminate unnecessary items.
Think about trading in business Hummer for a less expensive and fuel-efficient car and getting rid of that expensive copier lease.
In addition, you may need to make some tough decisions about eliminating employees. It’s critical to quickly get your cash outflows to a manageable level.

3. Look into the future:  When clients and projects were rolling, most entrepreneurs believed new business would materialize whenever things temporarily slowed down. Those times are gone. Analyze what money is coming in during the next three months, specifically from where, and when. Compare this to the new cash outflows that you assessed in step No. 2. If things are tight, that’s fine; if more is going out than coming in, trim more and find additional income. Do this exercise each month, always looking three months out.

4. Get back to basics:  When you first went into business, you may have had to fight and claw to make ends meet. Make a list of the things you did then to bring in revenue. You probably moved away from many of those strategies when business improved. This is the time to aggressively return to them.

5. Avoid the evil temptation:  It’s tempting to use debt and credit cards to borrow your way through slow times. Since no one knows how long this slump will last, borrowing may result in the demise of your business. Say “no” to using credit cards, the equity in your home, or any other borrowing. Resolve that you’re going to scratch and claw your way through this using the cash flows of the business. You’ll come out stronger in the end.

Source: Thomas E. Houck, CPA, CFP, is a speaker, author and consultant whose program, “Your CFO Advantage” helps business owners grow their businesses, reduce their taxes and lower their stress level. His book, The Top 10 Mistakes Business Owners Make (and how to fix them), helps business owners develop strategies to lead a better life by running a better business.

By. Promotional Consultant Today

Fighting The Word ‘No’
You’ve done the research. You’ve made the cold calls. You’ve made the sales pitch. But, your job as a promotional consultant begins when the client says “No.” It’s when the client says “No” that your job really begins.
Following are a few tips to consider when you hear rejection.

Don’t Take “No” As A Personal Rejection
If you are going to be a top sales producer, you’ve got to learn how to deal with “No”!

Source: Chuck Bauer has more than two decades of sales experience. An author, consultant and speaker, he is a member of the National Speakers Association. A man of many interests, he is an instrument rated private pilot, body builder and mountain biker. Contact Bauer by clicking here.

The Heart Of The Job

Everyday you have new products to learn, paperwork to complete, hundreds of customer problems to solve, meetings to attend, inside people to cajole, managers to mollify-and, on top of all this, you are expected to sell something.
It’s hard to do so when you have all these other aspects of your job howling for your attention.
How do you manage all of this while at the same time build sales? How do you sort through all of this and focus on the essentials of your job?
Good question. Let’s start by identifying one of those essentials. Think about the sales process-the activities it takes to make a sale. Certain key activities come to mind. You know that you need to make appointments with qualified decision makers, to collect information about their needs, to build relationships, to demonstrate products, to follow up, to answer questions, etc. Your list of important sales activities is probably expanding monthly.

But if you´re going to focus on the essentials, there is one absolutely necessary activity around which everything else resolves. All of the other activities are either a means to bring about this activity, or actions that spring out of this one key activity.

Making An Offer Is Key
What is it? Making a persuasive offer to your customer. Thinking of it in its simplest terms, making an offer means saying something like: “Here is this … (product, service, package, deal.) How about buying it?”
You make an offer whenever you respond to a request for a price. When you demonstrate a product, you make an offer. When you bring in a piece of literature and tell your customer about some new product or service, you make an offer. When you respond to your customer´s request for information about a product or service, you make an offer. All of these are variations on a theme, but all of them can be classified as the presentation of an offer.
Those offers are the heart of your job. Without them, you can sell nothing. Your customers will never buy if you never offer them something to buy.

Look At The Numbers
It is an unmistakable fact, that in sales, quantity counts. In other words, to be successful, you must make a certain number of sales offers. Regardless of how much skill or sophistication you apply to your job as a salesperson, you cannot totally negate the quantity aspect of it. Given two salespeople in equal territories, of equal abilities, and the one who makes the greater quantity of offers will generally have better results.
With this in mind, one simple way to cut through all the things that you have to do is to focus on the essential component of the sales process-making an appropriate quantity of sales offers. If you’re looking for a simple way to increase your results, focus on the quantity of sales offers that you make.
Do two things.

1. Begin to keep track of how many sales offers you make in the course of a week. Initially, don’t worry about what you’re presenting, and don’t be concerned about the dollar volume of each potential piece of business. Those are more sophisticated concerns that can be considered later. For now, just keep track of how many offers you make. Use a simple hash mark system in your planner. Each day, make a hash mark for each offer you presented to a customer. At the end of each week, add up the number of hash marks.
There is an amazing law of management stating that the behavior you measure is the behavior you get. That applies to self-management as well. Just the act of keeping track (measuring) the quantity of sales offers you present will help you focus on those essential activities. As you become more aware of the quantity of sales offers, you´ll naturally be drawn to ways to increase that quantity.
2. Begin to find ways to increase the quantity of those sales offers. If you find yourself averaging five presentations a week, try to increase that to an average of 10.
When you´re overwhelmed with too much to do, and you´re feeling like you´re being drawn in a kaleidoscope of conflicting directions, focus on the essential part of your job. Measure and increase the quantity of sales offers you make. It will keep you close to the heart of your job and help you focus on the highest priority activities.

Source: Dave Kahle, a nationally-known speaker and sales coach, has published more than 1,000 articles, six books in 10 languages, and numerous multi-media training programs. In addition, he serves on the editorial advisory panel of two newsletters: The Competitive Edge and Sales & Marketing Excellence.

By Vince Dicecco from Sign Business April 2008 pg 80

” …The next time you are thinking of making a significant business decision- to hire more people, to move to a bigger facility, take on a new product line or venture into a new market, to name a few- try to forecast its impact on the company with and without a national emergency.”

Is Your Glass Half Full Or Half Empty?
     Yes, there is magic in positive thinking!
     In aviation, the word attitude means the angle at which the plane meets the wind, whether the wings are level with the horizon, and whether it is climbing or descending. The pilot who fails to take responsibility for the attitude of his aircraft is in serious trouble.

Likewise, any person who has not taken charge of his or her own beliefs and attitudes runs a similar risk. The key to cultivating and maintaining a positive mental attitude is to take control of your thinking and avoid negative minded people. It’s a challenging task to develop a calm, focused mind, but well worth the effort.
     Every setback and failure you experience also comes with a great opportunity. When one door closes, a window of possibility opens. The key is to look for the opportunity and avoid dwelling on failure. Think thoughts of defeat and you are bound to feel defeated.
     Your attitude is not determined by circumstances, but by how you respond to those circumstances. You determine your attitude; you always have the choice to respond either positively or negatively. What happens to a person is less important than what happens within them.
     The great inventor, Thomas A. Edison, was known for his positive mental attitude. In December 1914, the Edison Laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey, was almost entirely destroyed by fire. Edison lost $2 million worth of equipment and the records of much of his life’s work. The morning after the fire, as the 67-year-old inventor walked among the ashes, he was anything but defeated. Looking around, he remarked, “There is great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God we can start anew.”
     Yes, there is magic in a positive attitude!
     I recommend that you read the following books and consider adding them to your personal success library:

How I Raised Myself From Failure To Success In Selling, by Frank Bettger

The Magic Of Believing, by Claude M. Bristol

You’ll See It When You Believe It, by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

What It Takes To Succeed In Sales, by Jeanne & Herbert Greenberg

The Power Of Positive Thinking, by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale

Positive Action Plan, by Dr. Napoleon Hill

The Master-Key To Riches, by Dr. Napoleon Hill and W. Clement Stone

Psycho-Cybernetics, by Dr. Maxwell Maltz

Creative Living For Today, by Dr. Maxwell Maltz

     Source: John Boe presents a variety of training and motivational programs for meetings and conventions. He brings more than years of experience as an award-winning sales trainer to the platform.