I have to admit that when I first began using GoDaddy, the upselling was a little confusing. Now, however, I “get” the routine and even have come to expect it.

In fact, I have even made purchases based on their recommendations, very happy they had made the suggestion.

Not only does GoDaddy earn more money (if I make this additional purchase) than they otherwise would have had they not made the offer, it’s also an amazingly helpful way to offer me more value. This is because the suggestions are based on a very real potential need.

(Additionally, in all the cases I have noted, making the purchase right then would cost less than coming back to make the purchase later.)

I think of when I waited tables, and I frequently upsold my guests on simple things, like appetizers, salads, and desserts. If I was really on my game, I would have been “reading” and engaging my guests before and throughout their dining experience to determine the more relevant items to suggest.

For example, if they had just been out with the family on their boat, sailing on a hot, summer day, they might enjoy a tall, refreshing glass of our fresh squeezed lemonade or ice tea.

Or, maybe they are visiting from Alabama and might like to experience a taste of home: Our Signature Flaky Crust, hot-out-of-the-oven peach cobbler a la mode, made with organic handmade ice cream from a local ice creamery.

If you were my guest and none of the suggestions tickled your fancy, my guess is you wouldn’t be upset that I offered them to you.

But how good would you feel if it was exactly what you wanted?

What a great feeling that someone was paying attention to you, noticing your needs and wants, and offering you relevant solutions!

Our clients come to use for solutions to their challenges. When they complete whatever it is they purchased from us, they usually will not spontaneously ask what else they can buy from us.

This may happen, but it’s not a reliable sales strategy.

Instead, clients are looking to us to have their best interests at heart and to be thinking about ways we can further serve them. They already know and like us, and we’ve already earned their trust. What an inconvenience for them to have to go down the road, do research, ask their friends and colleagues, etc., in order to find what it is they need!

We may have a product or service offering that is just what they need. Or, we may know someone who can support them.

Either way, upselling is serving. It really is a good thing, because rather than withholding something you know can help them, you honor them by giving the suggestion.

Then they can decide whether to say Yay or Nay.

And, the more we appreciate that frame of reference when someone is upselling us, the more our own clients will be inclined to appreciate what it is we are upselling to them.

Secondly, with the specific client in mind, you need to appeal to them in a way that engages the emotions (people nearly always buy based on emotions – how they perceive making the purchase will make them feel – especially high-ticket items, and later justify the purchase based on factual information) and compels them to see, feel, and experience what their life will be like to have what it is you are offering.

Good marketing (tailored to a specific market segment) is good marketing, and here is an excellent example:

You can check out the full story and the insightful comments below the video by clicking here.

This example, of course,  is of a higher-end real estate transaction opportunity which may or may not pertain to you, but how can you use the same principles (and technology) to engage the senses and the emotions of your audience?

I’m honored to have a man of Jonathan Farrington’s stature write this guest post on The Magnetic Entrepreneur weblog.

Enjoy, and take notes!

~ TB

By Jonathan Farrington

This post is in response to a comment that was left regarding my recent webinar – “How to Become a Sales Superstar in 2010”

The question was:

“Why does Jonathan put knowledge at the very top of the pyramid? Can you touch on that? What knowledge is he defining, specifically?

Knowledge of the product/service, or something else?”

I am delighted to be able to offer this expanded response.

I first began to recognise the need to be able to benchmark sales performance more objectively and more rigorously over twenty five years ago: The motivation to do this was strong because I knew I was wasting thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of pounds on sales skills training programmes which were not providing me with a proper return on my considerable investment. But I needed to prove my theory because without an accurate analysis of my requirements, I would continue to abdicate that responsibility to the training providers, most of whom had only their own interests at heart.

So with this quote from Drucker, “The most effective way to manage change is to create it” firmly in my mind, I set about my task; a task that became a journey, which began in 1981 and is still ongoing.

By taking an analytical approach, I arrived at the following equation:

Attitude + Skills + Process + Knowledge = Success.

My initial reasoning was this: Attitude is fundamental to any achievement because individuals with the right attitude are far more likely to embrace the essential Skills, recognise the control that Process brings and have the desire to continually expand their Knowledge.

Skills are the ‘tools of the trade’ and have to be developed on an ongoing basis. They also need to be specific, because too much time can be wasted over-burdening employees with inappropriate and irrelevant skills without any identifiable plan for their future requirements.

Process brings organisation, efficiency and control, both for the individual and for management. Effective process provides objective analysis and indicators which can be benchmarked and accurately measured.

Then there is of course a need to build in knowledge and that must include knowledge of products, industry, market sectors, competitors, business, own company and last but not least, self!

So you see, at the bottom of my pyramid, is the foundation – attitude.

But never think that you can remove any one of these four factors from the equation – you do so at your peril. Each is equally important if you are to achieve sustainable success.

You can also catch his hugely popular daily blog at The JF Blogit – http://www.thejfblogit.co.uk

These masterclasses are about $60 for non-members, but my fabulous friend (the Sales Coach & Fundraising Auctioneer) Lori Richardson gifted me this one for free.  (Thank you Lori!)

The topic was “How to Become a Sales Superstar in 2010,” and it centered around Jonathan’s 4-tiered Success Formula Pyramid.  The four tiers are Attitude (the fundamental foundational piece), Skills, Process, and Knowledge.

As we find ourselves beginning the last month of the first quarter of the year, how are you setting yourself up to be Sales Superstar this year?  Where can you improve in these 4 areas?

Here is a graphic depiction of Jonathan Farrington’s Success Formula (Click to Enlarge):

I just learned that you can download (or listen online) this webinar from the Jonathan Farrington’s Blog, or by clicking HERE, but I want to offer a few of my notes on each of these four components to Sales Success Superstardom — a position that is absolutely within your reach.

1. Attitude:  Jonathan says there are two types of personalities:  The “running away” personality, which describes people whose behavior is driven by the desire to avoid pain, and the “running towards” personality, defined by people who are in control, prepared, and allow themselves plenty of time to accomplish what they set out to do.

   Which personality are you cultivating?

   Jonathan puts Attitude at the bottom of the pyramid, the fundamental component of success in sales.  Plan for success by improving and nurturing your “running towards” attitudinal personality, mindset, and action-orientation.

2. Skills:  Sales professionals and teams tend to perpetuate mediocre results because they assume that skills are needed, but have no diagnostic approach to ascertaining exactly what skills are needed, how and when they are needed, and how they will be assessed and measured before and after the training.

   Skills are another foundational component for success, but it must be the right skills at the right time with a specific, clear, and tangible Return On Investment (R.O.I).

   Key Point:  Your training is your responsibility, and it must be continuous and ongoing.

3. Process:  Many sales professionals are resistant to employing process in how they approach sales.  To them, it feels like a time-consuming chose.  Yet, the most successful sales professionals embrace a sales process, which actually saves time.

   In the age of Sales 2.0, exploring and incorporating social media and online tools (examples:  SmartSellingTools.com and FillTheFunnel.com)  in your sales process is essential to sales success in 2010.

4. Knowledge:   Knowledge itself has several components beyond Product Knowledge.  How would you rate yourself in the following additional areas:

• • Industry Knowledge
  • Sector Knowledge
  • Company Knowledge
  • Competitor Knowledge
  • Commercial Knowledge
  • Self Knowledge

That sounds like a lot, doesn’t it?

It is indeed a lot to take in, assimilate, and put into systematic action.  But, do you think you could make just a 1% improvement in 1 or more of these areas each day or each week?

It’s the small, incremental approach to improvement that wins the race every time.

“Every journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step,” quotes Jonathan.  ”Why not take that step today?”

Another colleague is in the medical field and expressed how much he hates having to sell a client on another visit or series of visits.

It’s a common challenge.  “Sell” is a dirty four-letter word to so many solopreneurs — especially to those who consider themselves “heart-centered” entrepreneurs.

I can understand that.

No one likes the feeling of being manipulated, hounded, chased or hunted down by a too-enthusiastic (to put it nicely) salesperson.

However, provided you have done the research and are connecting with someone who needs and wants your services, clients and prospective clients WANT you to offer them your services.

In fact, if you know your service or product is the best thing for them and you genuinely are interested in their well-being, you are doing them a disservice if you do not market to them and make appropriate offers.

That said, selling the person is really the very last thing you want to be thinking about anyway.  When you go out on a first date with someone, do you immediately ask them to marry you?

(I hope not!)

What is needed is a specific marketing plan, where your prospect sees your message over and over again until they are ready to buy, ready to refer someone to you who is ready to buy, or they tell you to stop marketing to them.

Another possible purpose behind a marketing plan might be to establish and maintain relationships with colleagues, persons with specific industry influence, and referral partners.

In most cases, sales professionals give up too soon.  They don’t have a follow-up system in place that they follow regularly and consistently.

This may be why my friend wondered whether he was bothering people.  Without a system, all efforts to market or follow-up are random, at best, and you really don’t know when and how often you are following up with someone.

Besides that, if you don’t follow up regularly with people who have shown interest, they may forget who you are or that you provide the service they are looking for when the time comes that they need it.

People have so many choices about where to spend their money, positioning yourself so that you occupy a prominent place in their minds requires actively and frequently reminding folks in your target market about how you can solve their challenges.

Gary Keller in his The Millionaire Real Estate Agent points out that over 86% of buyers and sellers (in 2002) met with only one or two real estate agents.  “In the battle for real estate consumer mind share, you’re either first or second or you’re out of contention.”

With most consumers pre-shopping for homes (or anything else, for that matter) on the Internet, I’d wager that this is even more important today.

In almost every industry (not just real estate), there are tens or hundreds or thousands of people who do what you do.  How are you standing out and differentiating yourself?

How often are you reminding qualified folks of that difference?

People want you to educate them and make life easier for them.  They are so busy with family, work, and other obligations that if you give up out of fear of looking like the proverbial “used car salesman”, they will have already forgotten about you.

This personal example I’m about to relate is a little embarrassing because it illustrates how disorganized I can be (and I bet I’m not alone in the disorganization department!), but I’ll share it anyway.

Just last week, I met with Portland, Oregon-based Corporate Shaman, Jacke Schroeder.  For the last several weeks prior to that, Jacke left me several messages via email, social media and phone before I finally got back to her weeks later.

(I told you it would be embarrassing.)

Was I uninterested in connecting with her?  Did I feel she was bothering me?

On the contrary, I let myself become so consumed with who-knows-what-all that I didn’t respond to her efforts to communicate with me.  Still she (thankfully) persisted.

After meeting with her last week, I now know that she and I will be working together in some capacity in the near future.  I’m kicking myself for letting so much time elapse.

What an incredible loss for both of us had Jacke decided she’d had enough of my silly antics!  I may never have called her back!

I imagine all those prospects you let slip through the cracks may have a similar story.  With SPAM filters, multiple inboxes, and having to check multiple voicemail messages, who’s to say your potential client even got your last message?

Of course, no professional wants to feel like they are wasting their time.  Certainly, if a prospect tells you they are not interested (like unsubscribes from your newsletter, for example), I don’t recommend stalking them!

Craig Klein of Sell, Sell, Sell! suggests that sales professionals get to fire their prospects after following up with them a certain number of times without a response.  He even offers a way to do this via a voicemail script (complete with a downloadable pdf tip sheet you can print out and place right at your phone when you’re doing the “firing”!) you can drop right at the end of your follow-up system.

This, of course, assumes you have a follow-up system in place in the first place.

It also assumes that the person you are spending time following up with is really a qualified candidate for your services and likely needs and wants what you have to offer.

If that’s the case, if you do change nothing else, follow up!  Show your prospects you care and are thinking about them.

Your perfect clients WANT to hear from you!

(You can view Caelan’s 3-minute-52 second video by clicking the link above or by accessing it here below this blog entry.)

This is an intriguing thought because of its apparent paradox.

Caelan subscribes to the now-familiar-but-ancient-school-of-thought described as The Law of Attraction, the surface understanding of which holds that “like attracts like.”

Is it possible, then, to focus on certain negative emotions (which theoretically a person does not want) and manifest more sales (something that same person probably does want) as a result?

Caelan answers affirmatively to this question, using a personal example to drive the point home.

As he explains in the video, he was working toward a sales award, called Liberty Leaders, that should he accomplish the various prescriptive sales goals by the end of the year, he would receive a sizable monetary award and a trip to Southern California.

Caelan enjoys selling, but absolutely dislikes (It might be safe to say that he HATES it) the subsequent paperwork his company requires that he does in order to actually complete the sale.

He asserts that he’s been focusing so heavily on how distressing the paperwork is to him that he ended up selling 6 insurance policies at once, resulting in him having to come into the office on Saturday to spend 4 hours completing paperwork.

In this way, explains Caelan, he was able to concentrate on what he didn’t want in order to get what he did want (My interpretation).

The first thing I want to say is that resisting negative emotions is never a good thing.  In fact, there is nothing “negative” about any emotions.  They just are what the are.

It is when we resist them and judge them instead of allowing them to naturally flow through us is when we run into problems.

It’s more accurate (and helpful) to think in terms of an outcome that we desire as opposed to one we would rather not have.

What happens when our thoughts and emotions are aligned with what we want is that we perceive corresponding people, things or events that allow us to easily, almost miraculously achieve our desired result.

Focusing on a certain way for what we want to happen (what coaches call “being attached to the outcome”, or labeling an emotion as bad or negative, or concentrating on a result that we do not want in efforts to obtain something else we do want is a recipe for disaster.

First, it sends a signal of confusion to the Universe, and secondly, it runs the risk of setting up contrary intentions (also called “psychological reversal”) which results in a neutral result.

So, was Caelan’s experience an example of using negative emotions to get more sales?

Well, all of us manifest multiple things on an ongoing basis.  We are creating some kind of experience every minute of the day.

In my view, Caelan was more likely using so-called “negative” emotions toward what he didn’t want in order to attract to him more of what he didn’t want, in this case, more paperwork.

He also created more sales.  But that is more likely attributable to his love of sales.  The love of sales naturally led him to situations, events and circumstances that presented him with the opportunity to manifest more of that “loving feeling.”

The truth is (Well, “my truth,” to be exact) that the best, most efficient (and reliable) place from which to manifest is from a place of clean, unencumbered energy.

From this place, the Magnetic Entrepreneur who operates from a place of joy knows exactly what to expect and easily attracts perfect clients and perfect sales/selling experiences.

Here’s Caelan’s video:

What’s YOUR take on the matter?

How are you using emotions in the act of creating more sales?

Today I’m committed to relaxing and essentially doing a whole lot of nothing (It’s my birthday!  Happy Birthday to me!!!), but first I wanted to share with a couple of key take-aways from Iyabo Asani’s awesome interview.

At first glance, any talk of “Inner Genius” appears on the surface as New Agey, wu-wu, or “out there.”  Certainly, it seems a bit far-fetched to equate something called “Inner Genius” with success in business and sales.

That’s why I was intrigued with what Coach Iyabo would say on the matter, especially from the perspective of someone who practiced law for over 16 years!

(Not exactly a touchy-feeling occupation!)

In essence, what Iyabo is talking about when she uses the term “Inner Genius,” is accessing the whole person in everything we do.  In other words, using Whole Brain and Whole Body Wisdom to make decisions and execute based on them.

Most people, Iyabo says, are working their businesses (and their lives) based almost entirely on information received from the Left Brain.  This source of information includes our reasoned directives on how and in what way we should sell our products or services.

Left Brain information is sequential, orderly.  It’s highly developed and where we do all of our learning.

However, says Iyabo, if we’re solely operating from the Left Brain Paradigm — which is based on our skills and talents and the acquisition of more skills and talents — we’re missing the boat because “Inner Genius” is comprised of 5 components, not just one.

They include:

1. Left Brain:  As noted above, the Left Brain is Scholastic, Logical, Linear.  Its mode of learning is rational, analytical and sequential, and looks at constituent parts of a thing or idea or concept.
2. Right Brain:  Right Brain thinking is creative and non-sequential.  It’s described as random, intuitive, subjective.  It synthesizes holistically and looks at “wholes” of a thing rather than “parts”.
3. Emotion:  Emotion is more related to Right Brain than to Left Brain, but is not thought of as “Thinking” at all.  It’s associated with feelings, in this “Inner Genius” paradigm.
4. Body:  Iyabo associates the Body Component with Energy Centers in the body called Chakras (“Chakra” comes from the Indian Sanskrit word meaning “wheel” or “turning”).  Each Chakra corresponds to a Value, says Iyabo.  So every decision or action in business or in life must also be aligned with the Body Component of Inner Genius.
5. Spirit(uality):  Iyabo offers that we are all spiritual beings and that ‘Connection with a Higher Being’ is essential to accessing all of each person’s Inner Genius in the business of business and sales and marketing.

Sound intriguing?

Want to learn how to more fully utilize Inner Genius in your life and business?

The replay recording is available online and as a free download at http://SalesSuccessSeries.com/iyabo/reg.html, where Coach Iyabo offers concrete examples of how to use Inner Genius and answers listener’s questions live on the call.

Now off to more birthday fun!

When I’m talking about being magnetic with your marketing, there really is no complicated secret.

It really boils down to embracing who you are, shamelessly being yourself, and unabashedly sharing your unique personality with the world.

It’s about having fun, which is pretty easy when you‚’re being yourself, since that‚’s what comes most naturally.

When you give up self-judgment and insecure what-will-they-think mentality, you are free to be yourself.  This way, your best and perfect clients are naturally drawn to you.

It’s because they resonant with who you are, what you‚’re about, and what you stand for.  They’re attracted to you.

It’s your unapologetic uniqueness that makes you magnetic.

You might be wondering how you might apply this to your business.  If you are selling a professional service, like financial planning, real estate, mortgages, life insurance, etc., there are obviously tons of agents in your industry running around wherever you are in the world.

At any networking event or Chamber of Commerce meeting, you know this is true.

How can you be authentically unique?

How can you separate yourself from the competition in a way that is congruent with who you are and magnetically draws your best clients to you?

I was reading Ben McConnell‘s article on TOMS shoes.  I’d never previously heard of TOMS shoes (they’ve only been around since 2006), but it’s a great example of how the founder (Blake Mycoskie) embraced who he is and what he stands for to create magnetic buzz (and customers!) for his product.

You can read Ben’s take on TOMS shoes by reading his article, but basically Blake Mycoskie went to Argentina, fell in love with a certain style of shoe they wore, and decided to redesign them for the American market.

The second thing that he discovered about himself while on this trip to Argentina was the compassion he felt for those living in poverty.

Already, you are probably thinking about how this story resembles your own story.  I’m going to use agents selling real estate as an example, but this can be applied to any of you in the selling professions, so when I refer to real estate or real estate agents in this article, just substitute your industry.

So, there is a reason you began selling real estate, and on the surface that reason may simply be entrepreneurial, as in the case of Blake.

This is a good thing.

Secondly, you may have tapped into a more emotional reason that resonates with who you are as a person.  Maybe you want to help single mothers discover the joy of home ownership.

Or, perhaps you’ve seen people interested in real property investing, and they are struggling with that.

Maybe you connect with the plight of those who have great credit histories, but cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel because they can’t come up with a down payment.

These are just examples.  They all boil down to the human need and desire to connect meaningfully to others and to do good work that leaves a living legacy.

Some call this need or desire in action giving back or paying it forward, and this “giving back” may be true for you.

But, I want to offer another view.  I think that at our core, each of us fundamentally is seeking self-expression of our spirit and of our personality.  Whatever we are doing, we want to express who we are.

This is true whether we are the seller or salesperson, or if we are the buyer.

And when you as an entrepreneur do that — dare to boldly express who you are through selling — you stand out to the best and most perfect clients for you . . . clients who are necessarily different from who are perfect for someone else.

Like a magnet, they cannot help but — they are compelled, as it were — be drawn to you.

But, back to our example of Blake and the creation of his TOMS shoes.

So, Blake took the Argentine shoe model, redesigned it, and decided that for every pair of shoes sold, another pair would be donated to children in third world countries who do not have shoes.

This was brilliant.

His entrepreneurial spirit coupled with a desire to express his personality through giving in this specific way resonated with his ideal clients, and they came in throngs.

At the time of Ben’s article (About this time last year — July 2008, to be exact — so the number is surely substantially higher by now), Blake has sold over 200,000 shoes since 2006 and has given away the same.

(Incidentally, another brilliant marketing component that he employed was the concept of customer interactivity.  His well-crafted strategy allowed people who resonated with his cause to also express their own personality and spirit.  They were able to ride on Blake’s enthusiastic coat tails and, by purchasing TOMS shoes, to participate in his philanthropy.  People LOVE contributing to something bigger than they are, and in this case, it didn’t cost them any more to do so.  Another key takeaway here is that buyers express their own identity through what they buy and through the charities they choose to give to.  Blake’s TOMS shoes offers buyers a powerful outlet for this expression.)

How might you follow Blake’s TOMS shoes example to stand out from the “sea of shoes” in your industry?

Are your proverbial wheels turning in your brain about how you can creatively imitate Blake’s story to create your own?

In the real estate market, many donate time, money and resources to Habitat for Humanity.  This is an amazing charity that does great work.

The challenge is that this charity may not reflect your personality or assist you in standing out so that your ideal clients can recognize you in the crowd of competition.

I think the first step is really getting clear on what turns your crank.  What drives you and excites you?

What is your personality, and how can you make that prominent in your marketing to magnetically attract your perfect clients?

I know I’ve only scratched the surface of this discussion.  I welcome your thoughts and comments, as together we both expand and hone into what it means to be totally and completely ourselves in our business and our marketing in order to attract and magnetize to us our ideal clients.

- – -
Flickr image: “9/365,” by Hannah used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

This is true, but that doesn’t mean beating them over the head with it!

Sometimes because of excitement (or, desperation), an eager sales professional may come off aggressive, pushy, or needy.  If you think of a guy or girl coming on to you or trying to pick you up in this way, it becomes clear this method isn’t what you’d call magnetic or attractive.

I was reading about this very thing over at the Church of the Customer blog.  Jackie Hubba describes the marketing methods of two different types of restaurants she encountered on her trip to Mexico.

The first, who she calls the “barkers” practically jump you to get your business, using all manner of yelling, flashy, in-your-face tactics designed to quickly usher you into their establishment, take your money, and send you on your way before you even know what’s happening.

(Talk about “Wham Bam Thank You Ma’am”)

The other — the “attractor” — relies instead on ambience, attractive decor, helpful staff, and crowded restaurants to naturally inspire inquisitiveness and the desire to inspect further to see what all the (positive) fuss is about.

Which type of marketer are you?

Of course, you won’t last long if you’re the best kept secret in the industry.  Marketing and self-promotion is necessary — essential, even.

But, all great relationships that last are based on attraction, not on barking.

Unless, of course, you’re a dog.

- – -
Flickr image by Kish, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic License

You’re excited (and a little nervous) because you’ve heard all about the iPhone, and you know it costs a few hundred dollars, but if it delivers what you want, you are happy to make the exchange, value for value.

When the sales person approaches you and offers to assist you, you tell him you’ve been thinking about an iPhone.

Twenty minutes later, you find yourself trying to figure out how to extricate yourself from the situation and get the hell outta there, as the sales person is excitedly telling you it has voice control AND a compass; didya know it’s super-fast (“web sites render in a fraction of the time”) and you can shoot video and edit it and share it on YouTube, Mobile me or whatever you want and for backups in allows you to sync to your PC and didya know it has a camera with autofocus and you can even type in landscape if you need more room and oh I almost forgot about the search function and how you can send messages with video, photos, plain ol’ text, locations, and so much more, yaddayaddayaddayadda, up the hill down the hill, blah, blah, blah…..

What happened?  Isn’t that what customers buy?  features and benefits?

“Absolutely not,” says Peak Performance Coach and Integrative Psychology Expert, Paul Anderson of ProLango Consulting, based in Redmond, Washington.  “Benefits alone don’t sell”, even though sales trainers will tell you all day long that they do.”

“No, it’s the benefits the customer cares about that sell.”

Not what YOU care about, Dear Zealous Sales Professional.

Unfortunately, sales people often get so excited about the features and benefits THEY (the sales person) love, they think everyone else has the same values as they do and will be as excited as they are.

They forget to be curious, and to really find out what’s important to the prospective customer.

Want to be super-magnetic and irresistibly attract your perfect customers who ask YOU if they can buy what you’re selling?

Be interested, not interesting.

You’re not buying from yourself, so don’t sell to others as if they were you.  Sell them what they want/

Relate to them on their terms.

And the rest is gravy.