Robert Fiacco's Blog, page 27

Six Steps to Overcoming Phone Fear

It’s hard to believe, but it has been a year since I started this blog. My intention from the beginning was to share challenges and fears that I have faced during my career, share ideas to make your business more successful and hopefully to provide inspiration to my readers.

 

Since our start we have grown to several thousand unique viewers monthly and are being read in over one hundred and twenty countries. My book “Showing Up To Play” is scheduled to be released by BQB Publishing on June 21st of this year. I want to thank everyone for the hundreds of emails and calls I have received over this past year regarding how my posts have helped their lives and their businesses. I hope that I can continue to add value and will work to bring the best possible content to each post. Thank you for support.

Over the next month my blog site will be relocating and the look will change. My hope is to make the site less congested and more focused on the message that I am trying to convey in my post. I will continue to not allow advertisers on the site (although I will encourage readers to check out my new book…..you can’t blame me for that). The content will not mention specific companies or products. I truly want to focus on the internal issues that hold us back in this life and business.

Finally in celebration of my first year I am going to repost today my very first blog. It was entitled ” I’m not lazy, I’m an insurance agent and I’m just scared as hell.” It is one of my favorites, enjoy.

Well, here I am, my first day as a new sales agent and I gotta make that first phone call. Man, do I hate telemarketers. I don’t want to be hated…I wonder if the person I’m going to call will hate me. Gee…I hope not. No, that can’t be! All of these other people in the office call people and I like them…mostly. Except that one guy. He’s such a know it all. I wish he would just shut up in the sales meetings. I’m going to go get a cup of coffee.

OK, let me get started and pick up the phone. Man, this phone is heavy…where is the speakerphone! If I call, what’s the worst that could happen? I guess the person could come find me and kill me! No, that probably wouldn’t happen…would it? No way! OK, the worst thing they could do is hang up on me. It’s awfully rude to hang up on someone. Well, that’s what I would do if a telemarketer called me…man, I hate telemarketers. I wonder if there are any donuts left?

When I first started in the business, I showed up at the office two days in a row and they made me the manager. Back in those days, that’s sorta how it was done. I’m not sure it’s much different today. Since that time I have seen many agents come and go out of this great business. To figure out what makes one person successful, while so many others fail, is an issue that the sales industry has struggled with for years. Obviously, we know that most people leave because they aren’t making enough money. This can be blamed on a number of issues. Training and leadership are certainly among these. I believe the number one reason people fail is lack of activity. Now listen, you don’t have to have an MBA to figure that one out. Let’s take a deeper look into why there would be a lack of activity in an industry that can offer such great rewards for those who work hard.

The answer is not an easy one to figure out. The go-to solution for most managers is that the agent has a lack of motivation. I’m not going to say that some of us don’t need a little extra inspiration from time to time, but I do find it hard to believe that a person would choose to go through what it takes to either get an insurance license or join a sales organization if they don’t intend to work.

I think the problem is much deeper and my perspective is based on my personal experience as a sales agent and a sales manager over the last 32 years…FEAR!!!! You may be asking, why would you be afraid of sales? That’s an issue that could take up a blog on its own. What I have found is that there are many things that we fear consciously and subconsciously in both our sales life and our personal life. Some of these are:

Fear of rejection

Fear of failure

Fear of success

Fear of the lack of knowledge

My intention is to spend time in future entries about the depths of these fears, why they exist and how we develop them. I believe by understanding these things we can enrich our lives in many ways. Believe it or not, these fears carry over into all aspects of our life. More on that later.

Let’s focus on how we can overcome these fears or at least make it tolerable to do what we are afraid of so we can be successful. I think the number one thing we must do first is face the fact that these fears do exist in one form or another. Then, we can take a look at the next steps.

Take advantage of all available training. Don’t try and become an expert, but make sure that whatever training is offered; whether it is classroom or self-paced online training, you have completed it and taken it seriously. CONFIDENCE CAN HELP OVERCOME FEAR!

Commit to a sales script. Know the script and don’t vary from it. We get hung up on what we are saying instead of understanding the process that comes from using it consistently and owning it.

Why am I doing this? If you focus on the reward that you will receive from attacking your fears; the rewards will help you overcome these fears. When your dreams are bigger than your fears, you can overcome anything.

What good can be done for others? We need to understand that when we are successful, the impact that we can have on a family is immeasurable. We can save a family’s home if Mom or Dad becomes disabled. We can make sure that a family can survive financially if a breadwinner is lost prematurely. Focusing on doing good for others can definitely overcome fear.

Know the numbers. Believe and understand that sales is totally mathematical. The more you call the closer you come to making a sale. This is a tough one because that doesn’t really help you much if the fear takes you over. Knowing this can help you move to action.

TAKE ACTION! Action can overcome fear.

These are just a few simple ideas to help you overcome the fear that is in all of us. I hope you find them helpful.

For now, I’m off to get another donut.

Good Selling, Bob

Photo courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Understanding Faith and Belief for Sales Success

At this time of year the terms faith and belief will be used many times, mainly in the content of the spiritual values that you may or may not hold. Certainly faith is the cornerstone in most religious beliefs.

So often faith and belief are intertwined and many times misunderstood to have the same meaning. Where they are in fact very closely related they are distinctly different in their meanings and how you view them for your ultimate sales success.

Faith and belief are concepts that cannot be avoided in any facet of our lives.

The definitions are as follows:

Faith is confidence or trust in a person or thing or deity or in the doctrine or teachings of a religion. It may also be a belief that is not based on truth.

Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition to be true.

Many of my experiences have led me to feel that belief is simply a mental decision based on an opinion that something may or not be true. It is an opinion of reality not reality itself. Also belief, in its purest sense, is a mental concept or decision.

Faith I have come to believe takes an action. I recently read an article that showed the following equation on faith.

Faith = (Belief + Action + Confidence)

Here is an example :

- Belief is knowing that the planet Mars is real and knowing that air flight is also real, so I believe it would be possible to travel to Mars.

- Faith is taking the actions with confidence to actually attempt to travel to Mars with absolutely no guarantee that it is possible.

In our everyday lives, belief and faith are inescapable. We believe when we get up in the morning and start our cars to drive to work that we will in fact arrive safely, this is based on the fact that we have done it hundreds of times before.

Faith normally will be called upon when the unexpected happens and we are faced with the unknown. We never make it to work because of an unfortunate accident. Surgery is required and faith kicks in (believing the surgery will help you + having the surgery (action) + confidence in you doctor).

As I stated belief is an intellectual process. Faith incorporates both mental and emotional concepts that are most times founded on ones inner soul.

For sales success, belief and faith are of paramount importance. I think the challenge lies in the fact that it is easy for someone to believe that individuals can make money in sales and that there is a demand for a specific product or service. The challenge then lies in someone taking action with confidence and doing the things required to sell that product or service.

Call reluctance hampers faith by blocking ones ability to take action with confidence,

thus leaving belief without faith. Faith comes to be when we can take those actions without guarantee of success.

I hope everyone can find faith in their lives by reaching into the depth of their souls to take action on those things that they truly believe.

Good Selling,

Bob

Image courtesy of stock images / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Seven Sales Success Strategies

Over the years as I have seen hundreds of individuals come and go from the sales profession. I have had the opportunity to question many of them as to why they were leaving. The answers as you could imagine have varied greatly. Two central themes, however, seem to be consistent: money and training.

As we all know, building a start up business into a financially successful enterprise can take time. Likewise, learning all that is needed to win in any new career can take time. The question then becomes what does a new sales professional do to bridge the financial and education gap to survive in sales?

Unfortunately there is no “magic bullet” to the challenge of surviving in sales. Thankfully there are some fundamental sales success strategies that anyone can utilize to be successful.

Seven Sales Success Strategies
1. Plan on staying with it for the long term.

Many times I see individuals say “I’ll give it a try.”  I do not personally believe you can be successful in any endeavor of your life without total commitment. I have met many individuals who have said “Yes, I gave marriage a try. It just didn’t work for me.” Of course it didn’t. This year will be my 34th year in sales and my 36th wedding anniversary and neither would have worked if I had just given them a try. Success and commitment go hand in hand.

2. Understand that selling is “mathematical” and not luck or chance.

There is an absolute correlation between surviving in sales and the amount of activity you put into developing potential clients.

3. Plan on tracking your activity hour by hour and day by day.

Few people survive in sales without keeping very meticulous calendars and records of their activity on a daily and weekly basis.

4. Set daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual goals for yourself.

Small short term wins are important to surviving in sales. Your goals need to be both activity and production based.

5. Commit to long term learning

The learning curve in sales is long and most times endless. Changes in products, technology and laws are ongoing in today’s world. Staying committed to long term education is critical to surviving in sales.

6. Protect your thoughts

I have found that in sales and in life so many times we let negative thoughts overcome us. These thoughts can hold us back and sabotage our chances of gaining sales success stratgies to help us survive in sales for the long term.

7. Sales and life are marathons

They are not sprints. Be realistic in what you want to accomplish in a given time period. Remember surviving in sales is about surviving day to day initially.

Please feel free to comment and share your thought on this blog. Your thoughts could be valuable to help someone else.

Good Selling,

Bob

 

Image courtesy of Chaiwat / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Seven Sales Strategies for Dealing with Multiple Decision Makers

According to “Consultation Selling Strategies”, recent research shows that up until 1990 corporate buying decisions could be made by one to two decision makers within an organization. By 2000, that number had grown to between three to five decision makers and today decisions have morphed to include up to eight individuals.

The same research tells us that just a few years ago, decision makers would make a buying decision with five to six sales calls. In today’s competitive and ever changing environment a sales professional my have to call back on a prospective decision maker as many as eight times.

It is apparent that within companies of one hundred employees and larger, more and more buying decisions are being made by committee. A successful sales professional must learn effective sales strategies to navigate through the maze that can be formed when multiple decision makers become involved in making the final decision to purchase.

Seven Sales Strategies for Dealing with Multiple Decision Makers
1. Understand the different players and their particular role and interest in the buying process.

The financial officer will be interested in the effect on the P&L, while the human resources manager will be concerned with the value to the employee and overall organization and the chief administrator will no doubt be concerned about the effect on his or her work load. It is critical that you try and connect with each decision maker on a personal level.

2. Determine the process that will be used to make the final decision.

Will it be group vote or will one decision maker, after gathering information from the group, make the final decision. Failure to understand the process will be like throwing a dart and hoping.

3.Find each decision maker’s hot button

Once you do, try to make eye contact with that person when presenting on that particular issue. Discovery is invaluable when working with multiple decision makers.

4. Develop a sales strategy to deal with each decision maker after the presentation.

Individual contact by phone or email should be made with every participant shortly after meeting. Never try and determine that any one individual in the meeting is less important that another, you just never know.

5. Encourage participation from all decision makers.

Give everyone in the presentation a chance to speak before the meeting ends, you never know what valuable information they may disclose.

6. Listen and Observe

When meeting with multiple decision makers watch the group closely and try to determine if one individual gets more attention when they speak. This can sometimes point to the key player in the group.

7. Show Everyone Equal Attention

Remember that you are dealing with a group and never show anyone decision maker too much attention in your presentation

Times are rapidly changing in the world. There is greater competition in the evolving markets in all areas of business. It is important for you to be persistent and patient and develop effective sales strategies to close the deal. You have to be willing to stay with a prospective client through the whole decision making process and not rush it.

Good Selling,

Bob

Image courtesy of Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Overcoming Fear: 5 Fears that Hold Us Back in Life

We all fear something: spiders, heights, public speaking.  These fears can be inconvenient and certainly burdensome, but they do not normally hold us back in life or business. I call these fears “fears with faces” because in most cases we recognize them and are willing to discuss them.

The fears that are the most destructive in our lives I refer to as “faceless fears”. I refer to them this way because many times they are not obvious to us. Many times we will not be honest and admit to ourselves that they exist and sometimes they are buried so deeply in our subconscious that their destruction in our lives is tantamount to guerrilla warfare against our lives and overcoming fear is much more difficult.

“Faceless fears” hold us back from moving forward in our careers and our lives in general. They can, unconsciously, cause us to undermine our efforts to be successful and happy. And, it is quite possible to live our whole lives under the oppression of these faceless tyrants.

Overcoming Fear: 5 Fears That Hold Us Back In Life
1. Fear of Failure

It is not uncommon to not want to fail at our endeavors but we must not allow the fear of failing to stop us from trying. Failure is subjective in each person’s mind. Once when my son was playing Little League baseball there were two outs and his team was down by one run and the bases were loaded. To the devastation of an overzealous father he struck out. I went over to console him and said something to the effect about not feeling bad because he struck out and was the last batter. He said, “I wasn’t the last batter there were guys behind me they just didn’t get a chance to bat.”

If we can reframe our view of failure and look at setbacks differently, we can unshackle our lives and open up vast opportunities to ourselves by overcoming fear.

2. Fear of Success

If there is one fear that is the most challenging and hardest to face up to it is the fear of success. Few of us will admit to it and even fewer are willing to discuss this issue. We could probably substitute “deserving” for “fear”. I believe that many individuals just don’t believe they are deserving of being successful.

Poor self-image issues are difficult to uncover and even more difficult to face up to. Many times, these issues stem from real or unreal perceptions that have been with us since childhood. Poor self-image can be overcome; it takes time, honesty with one’s self and sometimes, professional help.

3. Fear of Rejection

Let’s be honest, no one likes to be rejected. It starts when we are young – you go to the junior high dance and stand in the corner. Why? We are sure if we ask a girl to dance we will be told no, so we don’t ask.

This fear is particularly devastating if you are in sales, but it can truly affect any career. The fear of not wanting to express yourself for fear of being ridiculed can hamper growth in any job.

The key to overcoming fear in this instance is to try and understand why someone may be rejecting you or your idea. Most times it has nothing to do with you personally, they may not understand, not be interested or have their own issues they are dealing with at the moment. Once we understand that and we can deal with the “no” on a less personal basis we can move forward.

4. Fear of Loss

One thing I have learned in my life is that as my career has moved forward I have had to leave certain things behind. To gain in life most times you have to give something up. Most of the time these things are not good for you but most of us don’t like giving anything up, good or bad.

It is important that we realize in order to grow, what we will gain in most cases is much better than what we give up. It helps to look at it as a trade instead of a loss, a trade that will enrich our lives.

5. Fear of Change

One of the most difficult actions for any individual to do is change. Change comes with uncertainty and difficulty. For many individuals, changes can only take place with both physical as well as emotional struggle. These struggles can be magnified by the uncertainty that change can in fact take place in our lives.

The major step in overcoming fear of change is making the decision that we want to change and understanding that change will affect our lives positively.

Overcoming fear of any type is not easy. It takes courage, willpower and persistence. The first step is recognizing that we have fear and wanting to unburden ourselves. We can all enrich our lives by taking these first steps in conquering our fears.

Good Selling,

Bob

Image courtesy of imagerymajestic / FreeDigitalPhotos.net