The limit

When you feel you've pushed your life to the limit, and you can't go any further, give that obstacle one last push because that might be the one that gets you through that heavy door to success. If you don't try that one last time, you may never know. Go for it.

Sarah Margaret Bradbury

Attitude

"You can't always change your situation, but you can always change your attitude." -- Larry Hargraves

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude." -- Maya Angelou

"Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it." -- Lou Holtz

"Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will." -- Zig Ziglar

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BECOME A SALES SUCCESS?

There is no quick fix, magic wand, or potion that will give you the success you're dreaming for.

So, what's the secret of sales success? Well -- it's not a single secret -- it's a secret formula. There is a series of 14.5 principles, strategies, and actions that will lead you to success.

OK, OK, the Secrets of Sales Success are not real secrets, they're fundamental steps that successful salespeople and entrepreneurs have been executing for centuries. You can too.

Here are the 14.5 Secrets of Success:

1. Believe you can. Believe that you're the best and that your capable of achievement is the hardest thing to do. It requires daily dedication to self-support, self-encouragement and positive self-talk. You must also believe that your product, service and company are the best.

2. Create the environment. The right home and work environment will encourage you. Supportive spouse, family members and co-workers will make the road to success a smooth ride. It's up to you to create it.

3. Create the associations. The easiest way to learn about how to succeed is to hang around successful people. Who do you hang around with? That is who you are likely to become.

4. Plan for the day. Since you don't know on which day success will occur, you'd better be ready every day. Prepare with education. Plan with goals, and the details for their achievement. Learning and goal setting are the surest methods to be ready for your success.

5. Become valuable. The more valuable you become, the more the marketplace will reward you. Give first. Become known as a resource, not a salesperson. Your value is linked to your knowledge and your willingness to help others.

6. Recognize opportunity. Stay alert for the situations that can create success opportunities. The little known key is to get and maintain a positive attitude. Attitude allows you to see the possibilities when opportunity strikes -- because it often shows up in the form of adversity.

7. Take risk. Taking chances is a common thread among every successful person. No risk, no reward the saying goes -- and it's true. Most people won't risk because they think they fear the unknown. The real reason people won't risk is that they lack the preparation and education that breeds the self-confidence (self-belief) to take a chance.

8. Take action. Just do it (Nike) is the _expression for the 90's. Actions are the only way to bridge plans and goals with accomplishment. Nothing happens until you do something to make it happen -- every day.

9. Take responsibility. Don't blame others or yourself. Take responsibility for your actions and decisions. Blaming others is an easy thing to do, but leads to a path of mediocrity. Successful people take responsibility for everything they do AND everything that happens to them.

10. Make mistakes. The best teacher is failure. It's the rudest of awakenings, and the breeding ground for self-determination. Don't think of them as mistakes -- think of them as learning experiences not to be repeated.

11. Keep your eye on the prize. Post your goals. Stay focused on your dreams and they will become reality. Too many foolish diversions will take you off the path

12. Balance yourself. Your physical, spiritual and emotional health are vital to your success quest. Plan your time to allow your personal goals to be synergized with your work goals.

13. Invest, don't spend. There should be a 10 - 20% gap between earning and spending. Clip your credit cards in half and make a few investments -- with professional guidance.

14. Stick at it till you win. Most people fail because they quit too soon. Don't let that be you. Make a plan AND a commitment to see the plan through -- no matter what. Don't quit on the ten yard line. Have whatever it takes to score.

14.5 Ignore idiots and zealots. Also known as pukers, these people will try to rain on your parade (discourage you) because they have no parade of their own. Avoid them at all costs.

There's the secret -- and it's not real complicated. It's not nuclear physics or brain surgery. And now that I've shared it with thousands of people, you'd think there would be a surge in the ratio of successful sales people. Nope.

The reason the success formula is considered a secret is that it remains an enigma. It seems that there are very few people who are willing to put forth the effort to get from where they are to where they want to be. Most make excuses and blame others for their own poor choices.

The biggest secret (and the biggest obstacle) to success is you. The formula is there for everyone to know -- BUT, there's a big difference in knowing what to do, and doing it.

Influence

Two Ways to Increase Your Influence

I often teach in my seminars that our whole world revolves around our ability to maintain and develop good relationships. Here are two things I would like to throw your way about this:

Number one is, likeability. Are you a likeable person? People will give you much more opportunity to influence them if they like you. Yet, some people just don't get this. They are total grumps and wonder why no one will follow.

Now, I have a great story related to this. A number of years ago, I went to speak at Cisco Systems. Now my brother-in-law was a buyer for a corporation who used Cisco. So I called him up and asked, "You buy a lot of stuff from Cisco?"

"Yeah, I buy almost exclusively from Cisco.", was his answer.

"Well," I said, "how much?"

"Well, for the last 3 years about 6 million a year, about 20 million total.", he said.

"Why? What is it? Because there's Lucent, Nortel, F1 -- all these different companies. What is it about Cisco? Is it their product, the service? What is it?"

"'Oh no, it's none of that.", he answered.

I said, "Well, what is it?"

''We like their sales guy better."

Right or wrong, moral or immoral, it's a fact that if you want to influence other people you've got to be likable.

The second thing about relationships is this: You've got to be a servant. When was the last time you asked the people you wanted to influence or people you lead in your business, "What can I do for you?" It's the idea of servant leadership, servant influence.

Here is another way to think about it: You are either a hunter or a fisher.

In terms of influence, most people try to come at you, try to influence or try to persuade. What does an animal do when it is being hunted? It runs! Some sales people say 'I can't close the deal.', then Stop hunting! What happens when you fish? You put out attractive bait and animals come. That's what I'm talking to you about, the terms of servant hood. We are attractive people, magnetic people, when we become servants

Live in the Solution

"A person cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his circumstances." - As A Man Thinketh

In her outstanding book, Choose the Happiness Habit, Pam Golden writes: "Take the story of two brothers who are twins. One grows up to be an alcoholic bum. The other becomes an extremely successful businessman. When the alcoholic is asked why he became a drunk, he replies, "My father was a drunk." When the successful businessman is asked why he became successful, he says, "My father was a drunk." Same background. Same upbringing. Very different choices."

The brothers chose different thoughts about the identical experience. Those thoughts over the years shaped the circumstances they now find themselves in.

There was a time in my life when I chose to think about challenges and obstacles as just more of the "bad luck" I seemed to attract. Ever hear the _expression "when it rains, it pours?" That was my constant mantra when others asked me how things were going. So what do you think I got more of? If you answered "RAIN," you're correct!

Bob Proctor says, "you're either living in the problem or you're living in the solution." Now, when I'm confronted with what I used to think was a negative situation, I use a different thought process. I force myself to replace those negative thoughts that creep in with positive thoughts about how I might solve the "problem." Sometimes I'll take a notepad and just start jotting down ideas that might be a solution. At the same time, my thoughts are focused on the possible lessons I might learn from the situation so that I might profit from the experience in the future.

If you've guessed that it doesn't "rain" as much in my life as it used to, you're correct again. In fact, most days it's a beautiful, cloudless and sunny day! Only occasionally now do I get any rain, and it's good rain, the kind that makes living things grow.

And that's worth thinking about.

BELIEF by Lance Armstrong

Without belief, we would be left with nothing but an overwhelming doom, every single day. And it will beat you. I didn't fully see, until the cancer, how we fight every day against the creeping negatives of the world, how we struggle daily against the slow lapping of cynicism. Dispiritedness and disappointment, these are the real perils of life, not some sudden illness or cataclysmic millennium doomsday. I knew now why people fear cancer: because it is a slow and inevitable death, it is the very definition of cynicism and loss of spirit... So, I believed.