Entrepreneur Podcasts | 14 Ways to Increase Sales This Year

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrivetime Show! We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. Started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re on the top. Teaching you the systems to hear what we got. Cullen Dixon’s on the hooks, I’ve written the books. He’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks. As the father of five, that’s where I’mma dive. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi. It’s C and Z up on your radio. And now 3, 2, 1, here we go. Starting from the bottom, now we in. Starting from the bottom, and that’s what we gotta do. Jim, how are you, my friend? I’m happy. I’m glad to be here. This is fun. Hey, I just want to throw a little quick little editor’s note here. Last night, your performance on the guitar was amazing, as always. What’s the name of your of your group my friend? Well my group at home resume the boom and if someone wants to buy this music where can they find this? I’ll go to guitar music live. Okay, calm. Okay, and they can find your stuff right there. That’s me Okay, just want to throw that little pro. It was great last night. Yeah Well today we called the group last night the thrive five the thrive five and it was it was rockin you guys were awesome Today we’re gonna be talking about 14 ways to increase sales this year During this year and if this is exciting topic I’m excited to dive right into it, but I’m gonna start off by reading off all 14 of these powerful super moves I’m gonna call them and then we’re gonna dive into one one kind of each sales move one by one so here we go since We met in 2015. Let’s make it 15 ways, and here’s the 15th one. Tune in to Thrive once a day, every day, and your sales will increase. I will say this, and I will say this. I know I’m obviously biased, but we have had countless Thrivers I’ve talked to who’ve said, hey, just logging on there every day keeps my motivation from dipping. It keeps me motivated, and I get a new idea all the time. So I can 100% agree and say that will absolutely work for you. So there we go. Thank you. So here we go. Move number one is prepare yourself to excel. Number two, notice what is working. Three, know your competitive advantage. Four, improve your sales skill, not just your product knowledge. Five, target the people who are the best prospects. Six, know what to be curious about. Seven, realize who is your ideal customer. Eight, find the diamonds in your own backyard. Nine, ask for specific referrals. Ten, grow your brand identity. Eleven, build a fortress of great relationships. Twelve, manage tension throughout the sales process. Thirteen, give samples of the experience you represent. And fourteen, know when and how to ask for the order. Well, we’re done. There you go. And that wraps another episode of Thrive Today. Well, here we go. We’re going to dive into this first one, OK? So let’s do. Prepare yourself to excel. Break it down like fractions, my friend. What do you mean by that? Well, I mean, if you prepare, don’t just prepare. Prepare to do an exceptionally good job. You know, when you’re getting ready, it’s not enough to just, you know, I got basically what I need. I’ll wing it from here. Right. I’ve got the rest of this. I don’t have to worry about it. No, no. If you’re going to do a really good job, then prepare to excel. Because what you expect for the day tells you what you need to get ready for. If you expect excellence, you’ll get ready for more. I think if you haven’t seen excellence before, sometimes it’s hard to kind of… Example, when my wife and I first got married we basically was excellent you were not that is true. Yeah, I had a trick But we were gonna build a house Yeah She had mentioned that she wanted to get nice countertops and I had honestly never been to a home that had granite countertops I never seen him Ah, and so I had no idea what she was talking about in your book You kind of define in my mind like the granite countertops of sales here You say use a checklist to prepare your attitude, appearance, customer information, company and the product information, and the selling environment so you can be at your best on every call. Use a checklist. Can you break that down? What are you talking about? Well, think about a pilot and the checklist. That’s the classic checklist. The pilot before every flight has an exact checklist and must go over every item. They can’t just say, yeah, been there, done that, they have to look at that gauge and see that it’s working and look at that lever and make sure that it is where it should be and so forth. And matter of fact, when I was flying in here day before yesterday, the reason I had to go through two or three different cities over several thousand miles to ultimately get here was because when the pilot was going over his checklist, everything checked out except one landing light that had a broken lens And one hour later, we were all busy missing our connecting flights, right? Yeah, but we’ve got to do that in our own life. You know, it may be let’s say for example, you’re Going over your materials for the day and you say okay. I need to get my sales brochure I need to get this. I need to have a suit and a tie on I need to groom my hair, I need to whatever. Okay, great. And then you’re sitting there with your client and you pull out a pen and the pen says, uh, Babes Dancing Girls. Yeah. Right? Right. And everything about you says professional except Babes Dancing Girls. And the client says, uh oh. Even if the client doesn’t consciously notice, on some level they will notice that pin and how it kind of contradicts everything else? I want to throw this out first. I want to make sure we break this down to really specific action items. What you’re saying is 100% right. I know with my entertainment company, we used to meet with brides and grooms and they would come into the office. We’re trying to convince the mother of the bride and the bride to hire us for what they think is one of the most important days of their lives. To entertain for the wedding. And I’m not making this up. I used to walk in and kind of spy on our sales guys to make sure they were following the checklists. And literally the lights would be off in the presentation room. I’m not exaggerating. I’d walk in the room and it would be like a sales room where there was some natural light, but the room was dark. And they’re in the office meeting with the bride, then the mom and the bride in the dark, and the screen is illuminated, but the room is dark. And then the room kind of smells like weird. You’ve had like 12 couples come in in five hours. Yeah. And so I had to add to my checklist, turn lights on, spray the, you know, whatever, the vanilla flavored air freshener. And it changed the whole thing. But, but so I guess the action item for the Thrivers is what right now? Just think of all the things you need. Yeah. I’ve had friends who are highly professional, skilled people who I respected and admired. And they said, hey, let’s go grab a cup of coffee. And we go out and we get in their car and the car is a mess. And all of my good impressions are now contradicted by something else. They say, Jim, give them a break. I mean, the car is a mess. So what? Well, here’s what. When we are looking, well, this is instinctive. When we’re looking at any scenario, let’s say you’re looking at a crowd of people and you want to walk through that crowd of people to wherever you’re going. Your mind instinctively searches for threats. And the way we search for threats is we look for exceptions. We look at patterns and if all the patterns seem to match and blend, we go ahead confidently. But if there’s something standing out, kind of like the proverbial red flag, right? We say, wait a minute, be careful with this one, right? Because something’s not quite right. And a lot of times that’s on a subconscious level. We don’t notice it. We do notice it, but we don’t realize we noticed it. We just say, I don’t know, there was something about him that made me kind of pause, you know? So I’m gonna, I guess as an action item, I’m just gonna say to the Thrivers right now, if you’re watching this, just your action item right now is just ask yourself, what are the things, the tangible things, the tangible things, that what are the action items you need to do on every sales presentation to be successful? And go ahead and pause and make that checklist right now. Go ahead and just think through. You need your sales book, your suit, your pen. Maybe in your business you don’t need a pen or a suit, but whatever you need, just go ahead, your iPad, your phone. Turn on the lights. Turn on the lights. Turn on the lights. I mean, just the.