influence

Most business people will tell you that selling is not their favorite activity. Let’s explore a way to look at the process of sales a bit more favorably.

Whether we like it or not—”we’re all in sales”. Most of us have an internal dialogue about both selling and closing that is less than positive. Most of us approach the sales portion of our business hoping we’re not “coming off like a salesman”.

Most of us hate to be sold to. Most of us have to sell to live. Most of us realize that in order to keep our business afloat, we need to sell. I suggest that you give up that need to sell. Please notice that I didn’t ask you to give up the commitment to sell but rather the need.

The hardest time to do anything is when you need to. In the revised edition of his book “Man’s Search for Meaning”, the noted psychiatrist and author Victor Frankl coined the term “Paradoxical Intentionality”. He defines “Paradoxical Intentionality” as “The twofold fact that fear brings about that which one is afraid of, and that hyper-intention makes impossible that which one wishes.”

In other words, if you need to do something it makes the task much more difficult. Frankl’s thesis can best be illustrated by an example with which we all can identify:

The last time you needed to get to sleep because you had something important to do the next morning how easy was it to get to sleep? The last time you needed to stay awake for the end of a film how easy was it to stay awake?

So I repeat give up the need to sell. Be committed 150% to making the sale but avoid becoming tied to the “outcome” of making the sale.
This is contrary to what many of us have been taught. However, if you view yourself as a “problem solver” rather than a “maker of sales” this concept will make much greater sense.

I define a problem as, “something that exists when there is a difference between what you have and what you want.” My definition of business is, “The ability to solve other people’s problems and get compensated for it”.
Closing is “the ability to create an environment in which the prospect comes to the conclusion that our product or service will solve his/her problem.”

Based on these definitions our job becomes a process in which we first uncover whether the prospect has the type of problems our business solves. Next we have to find out if the prospect truly believes that a problem exists (and it’s important to let the prospect be the judge.) If the prospect believes that there is a problem and that the problem is likely to cause monetary or emotional sacrifices, he or she will be open to having someone who can be trusted help solve the problem. In other words, the prospect begins to close the deal.

Your prospect will begin to convince and influence you that there is a need for your help. He or she will become the source of the sales presentation and the close. As backwards sounding as this may seem it’s really the way it works.

Because the responsibility of convincing and influencing is assumed willingly by the prospect nearly all of the stress and negativity we associate with selling literally disappears.

Use this approach to selling and you’ll see a big difference. Instead of a day filled with trying to sell things to people, you will get to solve people’s problems. This is a much more enjoyable way to approach the selling part of your business.

In summary give up the need to sell and think of yourself as a magical problem solver.

Ike Krieger is the founder of BusinessSuccessBuilder.com. He is a nationally known business language expert, mentor, speaker, radio and TV talk show host, educator and author. He is a former communications instructor at Ohio State University.

He has served as business makeover specialist for the LA Times and writes for the San Fernando Valley Business Journal. He is the current Chairman of the Board of the North San Fernando Valley Regional Chamber of Commerce. Ike’s business success builder programs have helped thousands of entrepreneurs, executives, salespeople, consultants and professionals get an even bettershot at networking, selling and business success.

Ike can be reached at 800-700-4334 or by e-mail at ike@businesssuccessbuilder.com.

BusinessSuccessBuilder.com. Build it Big, Build it Bigger!

http://www.businesssuccessbuilder.com

818-997-7575 - 800-700-4334

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There are so many people I talk to who are beaten down by outside influences, such as their spouses, family members, friends, and social influences. Everybody is willing to put their two cents in on what is right for you. People have this bad habit of classifying individuals, and putting them in what they consider to be a suitable box. It really doesn’t matter if you are happy, fulfilled, or want to do better. People love to say the stereo typical things like, are you crazy, you have a family and responsibilities. What do mean you want to start a business and fulfill your life time dream?

Many of these people have a secret lives, and use the internet as a way of trying to build up the nerve to do what they want. They spend numerous hours looking at other people’s successes, and really it just makes them more and more miserable. Once and awhile they actually find a situation that makes sense to them, but as soon as they get really close, they back down because they do not want to deal with the backlash from the box people.

The long and short is not everybody is going to agree with what you want to do, believe in your idea, or see the benefits at the end. If you have the desire to change your life, do better, be successful, then you need to go for it.

Arnold Nadler is a long-time entrepreneur and founder of The Startup Business Doctor, a private company specializing in helping new and small businesses get their company off the ground. Programs include professional coaching, franchise opportunities and inexpensive advertising packages. You can get more information at StartUpBusinessDoctor.com.

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Outside of the academic environment, a harsh and seemingly ever-growing debate has appeared, concerning how mass media distorts the political agenda. Few would argue with the notion that the institutions of the mass media are important to contemporary politics. In the transition to liberal democratic politics in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe the media was a key battleground. In the West, elections increasingly focus around television, with the emphasis on spin and marketing. Democratic politics places emphasis on the mass media as a site for democratic demand and the formation of “public opinion”. The media are seen to empower citizens, and subject government to restraint and redress. Yet the media are not just neutral observers but are political actors themselves. The interaction of mass communication and political actors politicians, interest groups, strategists, and others who play important roles in the political process is apparent. Under this framework, the American political arena can be characterized as a dynamic environment in which communication, particularly journalism in all its forms, substantially influences and is influenced by it.

According to the theory of democracy, people rule. The pluralism of different political parties provides the people with “alternatives,” and if and when one party loses their confidence, they can support another. The democratic principle of “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” would be nice if it were all so simple. But in a medium-to-large modern state things are not quite like that. Today, several elements contribute to the shaping of the public’s political discourse, including the goals and success of public relations and advertising strategies used by politically engaged individuals and the rising influence of new media technologies such as the Internet.

A naive assumption of liberal democracy is that citizens have adequate knowledge of political events. But how do citizens acquire the information and knowledge necessary for them to use their votes other than by blind guesswork? They cannot possibly witness everything that is happening on the national scene, still less at the level of world events. The vast majority are not students of politics. They don’t really know what is happening, and even if they did they would need guidance as to how to interpret what they knew. Since the early twentieth century this has been fulfilled through the mass media. Few today in United States can say that they do not have access to at least one form of the mass media, yet political knowledge is remarkably low. Although political information is available through the proliferation of mass media, different critics support that events are shaped and packaged, frames are constructed by politicians and news casters, and ownership influences between political actors and the media provide important short hand cues to how to interpret and understand the news.

One must not forget another interesting fact about the media. Their political influence extends far beyond newspaper reports and articles of a direct political nature, or television programs connected with current affairs that bear upon politics. In a much more subtle way, they can influence people’s thought patterns by other means, like “goodwill” stories, pages dealing with entertainment and popular culture, movies, TV “soaps”, “educational” programs. All these types of information form human values, concepts of good and evil, right and wrong, sense and nonsense, what is “fashionable” and “unfashionable,” and what is “acceptable” and “unacceptable”. These human value systems, in turn, shape people’s attitude to political issues, influence how they vote and therefore determine who holds political power.

Jonathon Hardcastle writes articles on many topics including Business, Beauty, and Finance

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