Millionaire Selling Secrets
How to Become a Millionaire Now Using These Ten Fast, Easy, Proven Secrets of Persuasion!By Brett BaconiUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2009 Brett Bacon
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4401-5976-3Contents
Acknowledgments..........................................................................................................xvAbout the Author.........................................................................................................xviiPreface..................................................................................................................xixIntroduction.............................................................................................................xxiSECRET ONE. The Millionaire Selling Secret of Assuming Your Inevitable Success...........................................1CHAPTER 1 You Are Always Selling Yourself................................................................................3CHAPTER 2 You Must Assume the Sale.......................................................................................5CHAPTER 3 You Must Assume You Will Become a Millionaire..................................................................7SECRET TWO. The Millionaire Selling Secret of Building Passion for What You Do...........................................11CHAPTER 4 Find Passion for What You Sell!................................................................................13CHAPTER 5 Your Passion Must Show! How You Say It Is More Important Than What You Say.....................................15CHAPTER 6 Develop Your Sales Mantra......................................................................................19CHAPTER 7 Passion Makes Hard Work Feel Easy!.............................................................................21CHAPTER 8 Passion Equals Persuasion......................................................................................23SECRET THREE. The Millionaire Selling Secret of Making a Meaningful Contribution to Your Customers.......................27CHAPTER 9 Focus on What You Can Do for Your Customers....................................................................29CHAPTER 10 Your Integrity Must Show......................................................................................33SECRET FOUR. The Millionaire Selling Secret of Building Strong Relationships with Your Customers.........................35CHAPTER 11 Your Goal Is to Establish and Maintain Long-Term Relationships with Your Customers............................37CHAPTER 12 Observe Customer's Manner of Speech and Gestures and Match Them...............................................41CHAPTER 13 Your Customers Are Your Ultimate Source of Business Referrals.................................................45SECRET FIVE. The Millionaire Selling Secret of Asking Questions to Build Your Road Map of Persuasion.....................49CHAPTER 14 Ask Questions about Their Needs and Wants.....................................................................51CHAPTER 15 Build Your Road Map to the Best Value for Your Customer.......................................................55CHAPTER 16 Questions Lead You to the Heart of the Matter for the Customer: "What's In It for Me?"........................57SECRET SIX. The Millionaire Selling Secret of Embracing and Loving Objections............................................61CHAPTER 17 Conquer Your Fear of Objections by Embracing Them. Don't Ignore; Acknowledge!.................................63CHAPTER 18 Then Learn to Love Objections.................................................................................69CHAPTER 19 Tell Stories to Answer Objections.............................................................................71CHAPTER 20 Dealing with the Stress of Objections.........................................................................75SECRET SEVEN. The Millionaire Selling Secret of Providing the Best Value for Your Customer...............................79CHAPTER 21 Concretizing the Benefits.....................................................................................81CHAPTER 22 Comparison to the Competition.................................................................................83CHAPTER 23 Give More Than They Expect....................................................................................87CHAPTER 24 Give the Logical Reasons......................................................................................91SECRET EIGHT. The Millionaire Selling Secret of Agreeing with Your Customers.............................................95CHAPTER 25 That's Right!.................................................................................................97CHAPTER 26 The Power of Repetition.......................................................................................99SECRET NINE. The Millionaire Selling Secret of Advising Your Customer....................................................101CHAPTER 27 You Are Selling Your Advice to the Customer...................................................................103CHAPTER 28 The Persuasive Power of Simplicity............................................................................107CHAPTER 29 The Persuasive Power of Now...................................................................................111CHAPTER 30 The Persuasive Power of Easy..................................................................................115SECRET TEN. The Millionaire Selling Secret of Role-Playing...............................................................117CHAPTER 31 Practice Makes Perfect........................................................................................119CHAPTER 32 Break Down Your Entire Presentation into Stages...............................................................123Conclusion...............................................................................................................127Resources................................................................................................................133Afterword................................................................................................................135Index....................................................................................................................149
Chapter One
You Are Always Selling Yourself
If you don't sell, it's not the product that's wrong, it's you.
Este Lauder
Whether you are aware of it or not, you are selling yourself from the moment you wake up in the morning to the moment you go to sleep, each and every day. There is no time off, no vacation days, no break from selling yourself. The only question is: What kind of selling job are you doing? Poor? Average? Outstanding?
Let's start with some definitions, so that we are on the same page. Millionaire Selling is an incredible system of persuasion that you can apply to any business situation. Millionaire Selling is putting your best foot forward at all times. You must exude confidence, passion, and compassion. Millionaire Selling is not about getting what you want at the expense of others. But it is about getting your point across in the most effective way possible and helping others get what they want. When you advocate something that is good for others, then it will be good for you as well.
So what if you are not paid as a salesperson at this time? Can this book help you? Absolutely! I don't care what job you have; selling is involved. Selling is persuading, and you must be persuasive to be successful, no matter what the job-unless you live on a deserted island!
Good selling is not about being phony or insincere. It is just the opposite. Millionaire Selling is about being true to yourself and true to others. And if what you offer to your customers is good for them, then you will find the road to becoming a millionaire will open up before you in surprising ways as you begin your journey toward greater influence and wealth.
Action Steps
1. Make a list of all the situations in your job where you would like to be able to communicate more effectively. Next to each situation, write down the specific objectives that you would like to accomplish.
2. Make a list of all of the people that you would like to be able to persuade and influence in your work, from customers to co-workers to supervisors to suppliers. For each group, write down the objectives that you would like to accomplish through persuasive communications.
3. As you go through this book, think about your list of situations and people that you want to influence, and make notes after each chapter of how you can apply each Millionaire Selling Secret to your particular circumstances. This is an important technique. You are training your mind to focus on the specifics, not general situations that don't apply to your customer.
4. Go to www.brettbacon.com for additional tools and information on how to sell yourself better.
Chapter Two
You Must Assume the Sale There is no such thing as "soft sell" and "hard sell." There is only "smart sell" and "stupid sell."
Charles Brower
What do I mean when I say "assume the sale"? I mean that even before you meet your customer, you imagine how the entire successful presentation will go-from the introduction to shaking hands-and in your mind's eye, your presentation always ends the same way: you get the sale. At all times, your focus must be on your customer and the benefits that your customer will enjoy after the sale.
Your confidence must be absolutely unshakeable. It is okay to feel a little fear-Winston Churchill once said that courage is not the absence of fear. It is taking action in spite of the fear that counts.
Your selling confidence must be built up brick by brick. The bricks of confidence are: (1) you know yourself and you know that you must first and foremost sell yourself before you can sell your product or service; (2) you know your product or service frontward and backward; and (3) you know that your product or service will help your customer to live a better life. When you assume the sale to the marrow of your bones, amazing things start to happen-your customer senses your confidence and is reassured by it.
Action Steps
1. Think about all of the situations and people that you want to persuade-and assume that you will achieve your goals. Create vivid pictures in your mind: your customer agrees to buy, you are recognized and rewarded by your company for your sales, and your family benefits from the money that you make from your increased sales.
2. Don't be your own worst critic. Develop a thick skin to critics who question your ability to achieve your goals. Assume that you will accomplish your goals and keep imagining how good it will feel when you do. Don't get discouraged by temporary setbacks. Keep moving forward!
3. Go to www.brettbacon.com for additional tools and information on how to assume the sale.
Chapter Three
You Must Assume You
Will Become a Millionaire
Nothing can resist a human will that will stake even its existence on its purpose.
Benjamin Disraeli
They conquer who believe they can.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
When I use the word assume, I don't mean a wish or hope. Everybody hopes to be a millionaire someday. In my experience, "someday" is the excuse we tell ourselves to put off taking action today.
You must turn your wish to become a millionaire into a must to become a millionaire. In my 2009 book Wake Up ... Live the Life You Love: In Service, I reveal how you can build your own must-do list of success. The world is full of dreamers. For most of my life, I dreamed of becoming a millionaire like so many others. But my life did not change dramatically until I made the shift from dreaming and wishing to a must-do mentality.
Your personal list of musts that leads you down the path to becoming a millionaire must have, at its core, your personal list of the whys behind the musts. Why you want to become a millionaire is up to you. Start writing down the whys and the musts will inevitably follow. The key to a powerful why is to find something bigger than yourself-for example, achieving financial security for your family, getting the best education for your children, making a lasting contribution to the world, helping your customers, etc.
Take a clean piece of paper. Draw a line down the middle of the paper from top to bottom. On the left side at the top of the paper, write the heading Whys, and on the right side of the paper, write the heading Musts. Start with your list of whys. If you list under whys "to live a long life so that I can be there for my family," then on the right column, across from the why column, list all of the musts that you will accomplish in order to achieve the ultimate why of living a long and healthy life. For example, you could list "lose ten pounds over the next twelve months-final weigh-in on December 31." Your must list needs to be very specific. If your must is not specific, then it is just a dream or a wish, which is definitely not going to lead you to achieving your why. In this case, if you simply write "lose weight," you are not making the must specific enough-when, how, and under what circumstances?
Your musts have to be measurable. In order to know if you are moving ahead toward your musts, you will need to be able to score your progress. Once you have your general why and must lists completed, review them and begin to break them down into separate parts that stand alone.
Your assumption that you will become a millionaire will only be as strong as your commitment to written, specific, measureable must-do steps. And you'll need to have a timetable. Timetables are tricky things-they must be ambitious in order to get you moving and to keep your excitement level high-but on the other hand, your timetable cannot be so outrageously short that even you do not believe it. The key here is not whether anyone else thinks you can do it. What really counts is whether you believe it. And make sure that your timetable is not so long that there is no sense of urgency to it.
For example, you could set a timetable to become a millionaire over a seven-year period. Then break down on your must-do list what you need to accomplish in year one, year two, etc., leading to the achievement of your millionaire must-do by the end of year seven. You should put a great deal of thought into how you will achieve each step-and be very specific.
In addition to putting your must-do list in writing and making it specific and measurable, you need to review your must-do list every day! Carry in your pocket a laminated card about the size of a credit card with your own personal must-do list for the calendar year. Then refer to it every day. Why? Because we live in a fast-paced world of changes and distractions, and it is too easy to get sidetracked and forget your must-do list if you do not refer to it on a daily basis.
When you refer to your must-do list every day, you will not lose track of Your objectives-and your mind will work both consciously and subconsciously on taking the daily steps toward you achieving your millionaire status.
So what happens if you fall short of your must-do timetable? Take stock of what went right and what went wrong. Do more of what went right, and do less of what went wrong. Sounds simple, doesn't it? It is simple to understand but not so simple to do, unless you keep your eye on the prize on a daily basis. That is why it is so critical to review your must-do list daily and make changes to your list, including specific musts and timetables as necessary in real time, not six months after the fact.
If you stick to the daily review of your millionaire must-do list for a week, then you can do it for two weeks-then a month, then a quarter, then a year. You will have increased confidence and resolve to stick to your must-do plan because you will know what your plan is and how to get there. It is your own personal road map, with GPS capability. If you run a little off course, just like GPS in your car, your must-do road map will redirect you back on course.
So take the following millionaire must-do Action Steps below to build your own road map to millionaire success.
Action Steps
1. Write out your Why List on the left side of a two column piece of paper. Write out your Must-Do List on the right hand column.
2. Print the ten key headings of your annual millionaire must-do list on a credit card-sized piece of paper, laminate it, and keep in your pocket for daily review.
3. Review your master Must-Do Action Plan on a monthly basis, make revisions, and add new must-dos as you go.
4. Share your Must-Do Action Plan with your family and friends. They will share your excitement and spur you on to greater achievement. This will also tap into your desire to keep your word-to yourself!
5. Go to www.brettbacon.com for additional tools and information on how to build your Must-Do Action Plan.
Chapter Four
Find Passion for What You Sell! Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too; this is why a great mind loves ardently and see distinctively what he loves.
Blais Pascal
You must have passion for what you do. More specifically, you must have passion for what you sell. Secret Two is broken down into five key parts: (1) finding the passion for what you sell, (2) showing your passion to your customers, (3) creating your sales mantra to maintain your passion, (4) realizing the benefits of passion to your work, and (5) bringing it all together.
Finding the passion in what you sell may be easier said than done. In my case, finding passion for our products and services was easy for me. One of our companies, for example, offers hearing aid products and services to the hearing impaired. I am passionate about helping our patients to hear better so that they can live better.
So where is the passion in your product or service? Let's suppose that you sell newspaper advertising space to small businesses in your community. On its surface, this may seem to be a service that is difficult to feel passionate about. But let's take a closer look. Small business advertising is a critical part of making a small business a success. And small business is the backbone of the American economy. Small businesses provide vital products and services to the community. Small businesses provide jobs and income to both owners and employees. These are all things that you can be very passionate about! You are making an important contribution to your community and the economy when you sell advertising to your small business customers.
Now take a closer look at your particular product or service. Ask yourself the following questions to find the passion in your work:
How will my product or service improve the lives of my customers?
How do I add value for my customers?
What is unique about what I offer that I can be truly proud of?
Follow the additional Action Steps below to find the passion in what you sell!
Action Steps
1. Write down all of the things that your customers get when they own your product or service. Identify all of the features and matching benefits to your customers. What is it about the benefits that create passion for what you do?
2. Share your passion with your friends and family.
3. Go to www.brettbacon.com for additional tools and information on how to build passion for your work.
Chapter Five
Your Passion Must Show! How You Say It Is More Important Than What You Say You have to have your heart in the business and the business in your heart.
Thomas J. Watson, Sr.
Now that you have identified what gets you excited about what you sell, you must show it to your customer! You will immediately stand out from the crowd if you master this Millionaire Selling Secret. The key here is to show your customer that you are passionate. If your customer has to guess about your level of interest and commitment to your product or service, you are not going to succeed as much as you are capable of.
You must realize that your customer is buying you first, and then your product or service second. In large part, the customer's decision to buy from you is based on their sense of your passion for your product or service. After all, if you are not passionate about what you do, why should the customer spend their dollars on what you sell?
So how do you show your passion? It starts with your body posture. Do you express energy and excitement in your posture and body movement? This can be very powerful. For example, we train our employees to get out from behind the counter and walk up to and personally greet each and every patient who walks in the door of one of our hearing centers. Our patients are pleasantly surprised by this small but important gesture. When is the last time anyone got up out of their chair in a health care center to greet you? How about in a retail store? I bet it's difficult to recall a single example. Actions speak louder than words-and the action of getting up and walking up to your customer in a relaxed and friendly manner speaks volumes to the customer.
Your voice is a critical measure of your passion and is one of the most neglected areas I find when observing sales presentations. Does your voice sound engaging and exciting? Or is it dull and non-expressive? Psychologists tell us that the pitch and pace of your voice has an enormous impact on people, so you must be aware of how you say everything to the customer.
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Excerpted from Millionaire Selling Secretsby Brett Bacon Copyright © 2009 by Brett Bacon. Excerpted by permission.
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