When your pipeline is full – with business coming out of your ears – the notion of people asking for a discount will sound hilarious, because you’ll already be at capacity

We all need salespeople who help people with the same enthusiasm shown by a small child describing the best Christmas present EVER

Get up in the morning on a mission to save prospective clients from the shabby, ill-fitting, overpriced and worthless alternatives that those charlatans - who are your competition - are trying to get away with flogging them.

The salesperson you’d ideally like to be and the salesperson you’d like to encounter as a customer should roughly be the same, shouldn’t they?

Salespeople who think that it’s all about price aren’t required: If it can be sold on the internet at the lowest price, you can take the huge cost of a sales team out of the equation.

We all need salespeople who understand the problem and can deliver a solution that works brilliantly for both sides.

We all need salespeople who deliver value that wasn’t there before they arrived.

I can’t and won’t promise you magic sales fairy dust or the Jedi Mind Trick for salespeople – they simply don’t exist.

Remember: when you walk into a DIY store to buy a drill, you don’t want the drill. Your end goal is to make a hole and, in order to achieve this, you have to buy the drill.

Your target market are more bothered about whether what you sell will get them promoted, sacked, recognised, accepted, praised or laid.

Don’t tell me you’re passionate about your job – show me that you’re passionate about helping people like me.

If what you sell doesn’t help me then why are you knocking on my door?

We all need salespeople with humility, honesty, integrity, empathy and an old-fashioned work ethic that ensures the job gets done.

Ignore the people who say that the sales industry needs to become professionalised: it already has.

For all salespeople - Driving around and talking to people for a living, with no recognisable return for the time or money spent by your employer - is a job description that belongs in the past.

If you sound like a contestant from The Apprentice or if the customer believes that they are being sold AT, you have already failed.

If you don’t earn their trust at the beginning, they sure as hell won’t trust you with their money at the end.

In this wonderful modern age, if you know what you want, you can just reach out and, with the click of a mouse, take complete control of your entire buying and shopping experience.

22% of current business-to-business salespeople will be replaced by search engines within the next five years.

We all desperately need brilliant sales professionals far more than ever before – to help us, guide us, keep us informed and stop us from making diabolically stupid buying decisions.

Salespeople need to “Earn the right” to become suppliers more than they ever did before.

Trust me. If you do not decide where you are heading, and refuse to take the appropriate action, you will end up being shaped into what others would have you become. Then any change will not be made for your benefit but for theirs.

People submit too easily to change from others. And yet, for some reason, whenever they consider changing themselves, the focus is always on what they are giving up, never what they are about to gain

Everything you desire is always just outside your comfort zone, dear boy. If it wasn't you would already possess it, would you not?

You truly help people with the things that you sell. Once you are aware of that vital piece of information every demonstration, every presentation, every transaction will be delivered with a light shining from your heart. From your heart will shine a beacon that tells all prospects you can truly help and that that is your sole purpose for being there.

Allowing yourself to be a conduit for opportunity requires a brand new outlook on life. Lady fortune cannot enter a locked door, you know. And contrary to that well known saying, she has rarely been known to knock

The fact that you wish to become extremely successful must mean that you currently do not see yourself as such. Therefore, you need to change. The question you should be asking is what do you need to become?

Success would be a fairly boring and uninspiring dish if anybody could create it with a single ingredient, however difficult that ingredient was to find. No, success has several layers to its pallet. This is just the beginning

If I can make you feel the same way that I feel about my product or service we'll have a meaningful conversation about it and how it can help. The trouble is that most sales people don't feel anything. Nothing at all.

Listen to people from your heart, as if your life depended on it, and you will find that in turn people will listen to you with all of theirs.

The choices you make from this day forward will lead you, step by step, to the future you deserve.

Spend your time designing the greatest reputation a man could possess.

What you deserve will be down to you, and you alone.

Destiny and fate are of one’s own making, and riches and happiness are rarely found at the end of an easily-traversed path.

Make sure everyone, who works with you or for you, feels the need to tell others about the incredible experience.

Adopt the positive in everything you do, for there will always be positivity there to find, if that is what you seek.

That which is currently beyond your capabilities now, does not have to be so forever

My intention was, only, ever to help you see the light shining brightly in front, and inside, of you.

Tell your good news as an evangelist would. Do so with a passion driven by a need to help and solve problems that some people didn’t even know they had.

Embrace the fundamentals like the closest of friends, for they will be the foundation of your future success.

Whilst people have answered questions, I have only heard my own voice thinking of the next question.

I was so sure that I knew what they needed and what I wanted to sell them that I never stopped long enough to find out what it was they wanted to buy.

In this world of half-jobs and liars, I will prevail.

I have discovered fallen trees across my path and have possessed neither the strength to move them nor the patience or tenacity to find an alternative way round. I have simply returned to where I came from, and told myself there had been no other choice.

Finding happiness by delivering it.

Everything would have been for nothing just because I simply didn’t listen.

I should become happier at what I do and leave others happier than before they’d met me.

Speaking from the heart is simple. Listening wholeheartedly, however, is much, much more difficult and most rare.

You must have realised by now that when one really cares, really tries to help, the other party recognises the fact and, therefore, easily sees the logic in working together for the greater good, for the mutual benefit of both.

You’ve got to be driven to become successful.

What is the true cost of a purchasing decision that goes wrong?

In the past, I have all too often listened without hearing, asking questions when I had no intention of hearing the answer or understand my customer’s requirements.

Like an ant, I will find my way round any obstacle. Like a child, I will persevere with pinpoint focus.

I will not let those, who cannot recognise how I can be of service, dissuade me from showing them how I can help.

I will look the part. I will act the part. I will deliver that which I have promised to deliver.

Like the evangelist, I will shine with the light I have been shown, recognise that I have the ultimate solution for all my prospects, nurture that feeling deep within, and repeat the words to myself every day, until there is no doubt in my mind that keeping such good news hidden would be the very worst type of sin.

I will design myself a reputation, in which prospects can place their trust, and customers return to and recommend.

I will design my reputation and my resolve shall be absolute. I shall not give in when I know I can help.

It saddens me to note that there will always be con artists and charlatans in the world. Men who aim to fool the public by clothing themselves in the robes of experts.

Listening is a discipline. It’s all about being present at that moment in time.

I want you to start realising how far away you are from being able to listen professionally.

You listen like an amateur and fool yourself into believing it is enough when it is not.

Sceptics are persuaded by a good reputation, for it is an unspoken statement of proof.

Reputation is the panacea for those who lack confidence in their own decisions.

How we feel about those we give our business to is of vital importance.

Who would be willing to put up with less than the desired result, if they could afford to have it done properly?

The confidence felt, when dealing with genuine reputation, often outweighs the simplicity of price.

In the past, I have bargained myself away, believing that price was more important than cost, quality, reliability, or reputation. In the past, I was clearly wrong.

I need a first-class reputation

In this world there are those who enjoy giving people balloons and there are those who take great pleasure in popping them. And I wish to be remembered as being firmly in the first party.

Most men have professions, yet few act like professionals.

If you woke before dawn one morning with the formula for a vaccine, which would cure the most ghastly disease currently known to man, releasing millions from an agonising death, would you roll over and resume sleeping until daylight?

There can be no success in sales without tenacity.

Seeking those elusive individuals is like mining for rare gems. It will take hard work, patience, and a persistent attitude. To find that rich seam of colourful stones, you will have to chip through dirt and rock. You will have to learn how to hold rubble in your hands and see the fortune inside.

It is your duty to save these prospects from that disappointment. Every potential customer, who misses out on what you have to offer, due to your lack of zeal or passion, every prospect who ends up with an excuse of an alternative from your lacklustre competition, should rest heavy on your conscience.

Mark my words. Perception is reality and how someone perceives you is their reality.

Let your customers and prospects recommend you to each other and let you competition wish they were you. That is our mission.

Sometimes, if you get too close to a subject you can miss what’s most important.

You look green, immature. A young boy playing at business, dressing up in the manner in which he believes an actual grown-up would. Your viewpoint of business attire is one of wide-eyed wonder from the nursery door.

Perception number one, how you want people to think about you when you arrive and perception number two, how you want them to talk about you once you have left.

In short, the difference between you and your doctor is that he has a well-designed reputation and you do not.

If your doctor told you that you needed immediate surgery could you perform it yourself?

Trust me. In a very short time, you will become sought out by those in your network. Initially for your sound advice, but soon after as a provider of service. Few people seek advice about a subject that doesn’t require a solution.

Each step of your current journey will take you to new and interesting worlds of opportunity and as every intrepid explorer knows, when one visits strange new lands one must be aware of their customs.

You will never change a prospective customer’s mind, my boy. There is a chance that he might make a new decision if enough reliable evidence comes his way, but to do that he has to want to listen - to hear it - and that requires trust and respect.

Young man, your problem and the reason so many like you fail, is simply because you allow yourself to give up far too early.

Fascinatingly resilient the tenacity of a child. Not yet conditioned by society to give up when instructed to do so.

We must design how we wish to be perceived, and then we must work even harder to continuously recreate and re-evaluate that perception.

Where he comes from, the education he has received, his family history, his wealth, they matter not a jot, but the perception he conveys - that my, boy, is the key. If they believe he belongs - that he is part of the room - then he does, he is. And whichever room he is about to step into, then that is who he must become.

If you honestly know how you help people, then you should become passionate about sharing it, spread the good news, give everyone a chance to share in the solutions that you can provide.

From today onward, you will learn how to become evangelical about the many ways you help people.

His belief is so passionate that it fills him with the burning desire to share his fabulous news with anyone who will listen. He is concerned that it is us that might be missing out, not him. His faith in a single road to salvation and paradise is so intense, that it would be ungodly not to share the good news with all those who are not aware.

This is how you must be. You must become as evangelical about your promised outcome as he is about his. You must believe that you, and you alone, have the solution to your prospects problems. Even if they do not recognise those problems themselves.

Think upon the numbers I have been sharing with you. Of your competitors, five out of ten will do little more than take their customer's money immorally. A further three out of ten will leave them dissatisfied.

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You should feel so driven to help the world that it would weigh you down if a single person received anything but the best.

A gentleman of ambition is aware of the people he wishes to be associated with both socially and commercially. He knows that moving through different levels of society is akin to stepping through different rooms in an enormous house, each door leading to a grander environment than the last. He may, of course, settle for the comfort of any room he reaches. Alternatively, he may continue through successive doors to surround himself with even greater fineries and riches.

And so it must be with the energy you muster for your own work. Get out there and convert the unconverted. Save them all from the charlatans and the nearly-men.

Understand why you are different and how you help, recognise your target market, and give them something they might not even realise they are missing.

To my shame, I had never thought to ask anything of the future, and yet woke each and every day embittered because it was never what I needed it to be.

Unwittingly, I have sailed through my entire life, so far, with neither direction nor destination.I had a vague instinct to reach dry land every once in a while for supplies, but never anything more than that.

It has nothing to do with the time being right or wrong. Storms just happen.

The reward for living my life in this manner? An existence like that of a seagull picking up scraps from the back of a fishing boat. Surviving day to day. Nothing left for tomorrow and no idea what tomorrow should be.

The only time you have is the where and when of right now. There will always be good times, bad times, hard times, and complete disasters. However, there is no other option but to be where you are, when you are. That is a universal truth for everyone. The important thing is how you respond, what you decide to do, and when you decide to do it.

Respect, wealth, property, friendship, even love. Did I expect to simply fall over each of them as I strolled aimlessly through the years? Was I expecting my whole life to be some form of lucky accident?

I see what I have to become and I recognise the time it will take.

You can’t plough a field by turning it over in your mind. Either you get out there and plough it or it doesn’t get done.

Plans are easy to make, dreams are easy to dream. But putting your back into it? A little bit of hard graft and discipline? That is just too scary and far too much effort for the masses

Ready? No one is ever ready, my boy. But some do what they plan to do and some never will. The difference between the two is that the first group understand that they need to start somewhere, so they do so. Straight away

And by making that plan you have differentiated yourself from more than ninety percent of the population. You are one of the few, who has a clear direction, a decisive plan of action.

Sometime in the future, when business slumps and there appears to be no solution in sight, you will hear others moaning about and blaming the things that are completely out of their control, wasting hour after hour on elements, which cannot be changed. Meanwhile, you, my boy, you will be focusing your efforts on the only thing that matters. The response which ensures you reach your destination.

You see continuous movement is the important thing here. Those who remain in one position and then lie to themselves about their progress are the ones in real trouble.

You may have an overall target to achieve with each prospect, but if you are going to have an ideal outcome for each call, should you not also have a tolerable outcome to fall back on? Something you are willing to put up with if things don't go completely to plan, but something that still moves things forward ever so slightly?

Currently, you are approaching each opportunity with a single possible outcome and when that doesn't happen you fool yourself that there was nothing more that you could have done.

The future is a fabulous place to bury your success.

Don't allow your imagination to colour events as lesser men would, and see movement in motionless things.

All these ships are currently safe at anchor but that is not what they were designed for is it? Your job is not to remain anchored and safe. Your job is to move closer to your destination at every attempt.

When things get tough, remember this mariner’s star. Bring to mind that everything external is designed as a challenge. A test sent to ensure you are actually worthy of acquiring your goal and reward. Recognise them as such and you will always find a way to go through, go round, or ignore them as required.

Until you take the first step forward, failure remains reassuringly impossible.

No one can mock your meagre achievements or inability to accomplish the simplest of tasks, if they remain figments of your imagination. You can revel, again and again, in the glory of a fairy tale doomed never to appear in reality.

As soon as I can find the courage to put my plans to action, I will turn from being a “maybe man” into someone whose future success lies completely in his own hands.

Falling has become far more terrifying to me than rising.

You can only see your current horizon. Every time you move nearer to your desired destination, new horizons will become clear. New, previously hidden, opportunities will come into view.

Dreaming and becoming are completely separate parts of the process. However, they are both as important as each other. Never discount how powerful your dreams are. If you cannot visualise what it is you wish to become, then the brain doesn’t have the first clue how to get you there.

I will ask questions that are so wide and open they will feel the need to speak for a week. Then from the information that they give to me, I will mould solutions designed specifically for them.

The vast majority of the populace would never think of setting themselves any deadlines for the achievement of their dreams. They may have a vague notion they will get older and that one day they will probably die, but it all seems a long way away, and tomorrow will bring its own share of problems and pressing issues to fill their time.

Could trying your hardest, but never being quite good enough ever be acceptable to anyone? Is that what your dreams are made of?

Simeon had to agree that his future plans, although quite grand, were like pictures painted in fog. Nothing he could put his finger on. No dream ever remained unchanged long enough to take on any weight or substance, just a notion of something better waiting for him somewhere in the future.

Most people haven’t set themselves any course with regards to their life. They have no idea whether or not they are being blown in any useful direction whatsoever. They are just at the whim of wherever the winds of life take them.

I’ll record what I’ve learnt on the subject of what I sell. What it actually is means little to anyone other than me, but what it does and how it helps, means everything to those who require it.

How do I go about cataloguing my dreams?

Moving continuously forward doesn’t necessarily get us to where we want to be, just somewhere other than where we started.

If you have designed your last day on earth, if you have decided how you wish to be thought of on your deathbed, only then can you start to plot a course to that point, to your ideal final destination.

It’s your own personal statement of who you want to become, based on how you wish to be remembered.

You know, I have never met a young man who recognises the true value in this exercise, and yet I have met hundreds of old men who wished someone had shared it with them in their youth.

I must turn myself around so that I am viewing life as my prospects see it. Only then can I start addressing their issues, help to prevent their pain, and advise on solutions to their problems.

No one ever reached the top of a mountain by digging underneath it.

You have your whole life to become what you wish to become. As long as we know where we are going, we can prepare ourselves for the journey. That which is currently beyond your capabilities now, does not have to be so forever.

Can a farmer plants his seeds and then demand the crops to grow before harvest?

If you put in the effort and focus towards a goal, you will get there quicker than most.

You cannot become something new without putting in the appropriate effort, can you? Just as a seed cannot grow into an ear of corn without the appropriate time, sunlight, water, and care.

Men constantly miscalculate what they can do in a day, and grossly underestimate what can be achieved in a year.

One of the biggest problems with your average sales call is that the salesman doesn’t know what he is trying to achieve. He hasn’t worked out the end of the journey. So he sets off and just hopes he walks out with…something.

I have set my mind to make sure I am prepared to accept success, whatever the trials ahead, whatever the work required.

So open questions to understand. Closed questions to confirm and gain commitment.

If you wish to sell to anyone you must earn the right to do so.

Success does not judge one man for being worthy above another. Success doesn’t choose you because of your family name or existing wealth.Success is taken by the man, who has made himself ready for its arrival. And although I am not there yet, I have come to this place to become such a man.

I now know that success can not choose me. It is waiting on a path that I must walk. In truth, it waits there for everyone.Many do not know where the path begins. Some search for a shortcut to the end. But the majority of the world does not even realise there is a path there at all.I have been shown the start of that path and I am ready.

So you can speak, can you? Well, that’s going to stand you out from the rest of the crowd, isn’t it? No. Sorry, my boy. The ability to speak does not a salesman make

No, I’m afraid your overconfidence, as with most young men who dream of becoming successful, can quite quickly become the Achilles’ heel of your continued mediocrity

Well, at the risk of sounding a bit harsh…I think we can safely say that your recent successes could have just as easily been achieved by a mute monkey in a tiny business suit, holding up a written explanation of whatever it was the monkey was attempting to sell

Did you sell to them or did you simply facilitate their buying from you, hmm? Very different scenarios, my boy, very different indeed.

You can’t know what you don’t know

Remember this. We are always looking for problems to solve, and to solve problems we need to be ready for clues. And you will never be in the receiving frame of mind if you – never – shut - up!

I shall not waste any of our brief time together flattering your ego, as others have done before, with all this nonsense about skills and talents that do not help, or worse, that you do not actually possess

It has been my experience that around half of those offering a product or service, in every line of business, are quite utterly useless. Some of them actually bordering on criminal. The remainder are split between two camps, the acceptable and the exceptional. Unfortunately for the average man on the street, it is incredibly difficult to recognise which is which

But without a need, even the finest piece of beef is merely a piece of dead bull is it not?

Why do so many salespeople talk to customers about the product and not the result?

Customers do not want a lecture from you and they certainly don’t want some juvenile in a bad suit forcing his wares upon them

You are discovering the conversation that the customer wants to have, instead of the dreadfully limiting presentation you would have given him. And in doing so, you can help him to make a truly wonderful buying decision.

Obvious? Possibly. Sometimes, common sense is only obvious once you have been shown it to be so. Only after a shortcut has been revealed is it an obvious time saver. Before that, it had remained completely unknown to everyone but the enlightened. You can’t know what you don’t know and, therefore, never seek anyone’s tutorage of the subject

Now you learn about the greatest tool available to any salesman. I’m going to give you an introduction into something that will help customers recognise the value of your offer all by themselves.

This next nugget of salesmanship cannot be perfected in a single afternoon. However, once you have it mastered, your competition will continuously believe you possess some mystical customer attracting formula

For some reason salesmen spend most of their time asking questions they already know the answers to. They rarely ask to discover anything new.

I am aware that it can be easily missed, but once you have the ability to uncover and clarify real needs – the things that really matter - you can discuss in detail how you meet each and every one

That’s what marks out the successful from the nearly-rans. Focusing on what makes people itch rather than continuously presenting an entire catalogue of scratches.

You – help - people. You are an expert in your field, who genuinely helps other human beings. Take pride in that, stop hawking your wares, and get a bit of respect for your profession, and earn some from your prospects.

It’s not how I view being a salesman. It’s how I live being a salesman.

Few ever found enlightenment in haste, and nobody will ever discover it in gibberish

Focusing on Earning the Right will have an incredible effect on the success of every single sales call that you will make from this day on.

Think about it: if someone had found a way to manipulate human choice and free will – if someone actually had that kind of power – wouldn’t it be a tad surprising if they then decided to share their secret with the masses in a book for $20? Not to mention how it would be just very slightly unethical.

Solving the problem means helping the customer to understand why you’re the best person for the job

Everybody sells something to somebody every day, whether it’s a product, a service or just a case of making sure that they get their own way.

Asking the appropriate questions means understanding exactly what your customer is trying to achieve

Executing the solution means gaining customer commitment and delivering on your promises

Earn the Right - Ensure you put this chunk of Sales Tetris in place first and all the other pieces just take their own positions naturally.

The commitment gap is the massive distance between “yes” and “maybe

If customers don’t trust you to help them at the beginning of the sales process, they certainly won’t trust you with their money at the end of it.

Earning the Right is a commitment to be the sales professional that your customer really needs

The ability to close sales effectively has never been confined to the last few moments of the conversation.

Why do customers (and that includes you and me) find it so difficult to recall more than a couple of occasions when they felt that they were treated exceptionally by the salespeople who dealt with them?

Customers get exactly what they need, while you hit your sales targets and become incredibly successful – fair deal.

Great selling involves helping people to make great buying decisions.

In many instances, the words “sell” and “influence” are completely interchangeable.

Success does not judge one man for being worthy above another. Success doesn’t choose you because of your family name or existing wealth.

Success is taken by the man, who has made himself ready for its arrival.

I have been like a mediocre concert pianist playing in front of a tone-deaf family, who applaud out of duty rather than for accomplishment.

I now know that success can not choose me. It is waiting on a path that I must walk. In truth, it waits there for everyone. Many do not know where the path begins. Some search for a shortcut to the end. But the majority of the world does not even realise there is a path there at all.

No longer will I measure myself against competitors, who don’t even know that a race is being run. From now on, I will measure myself against the man in front of me. I will measure myself against a new personal best, achieving my next ambitious goal.

If I can make you feel the same way that I feel about myproduct or service we’ll have a meaningful conversation about itand how it can help. The trouble is that most sales people don’t feelanything. Nothing at all

Nobody ever kicked a dog wagging its tail

Allowing yourself to be a conduitfor opportunity requires a brand new outlook on life. Lady fortunecannot enter a locked door, you know. And contrary to that wellknownsaying, she has rarely been known to knock

you truly help people with the things that you sell. Once you are aware of that vital piece of information every demonstration, every presentation, everytransaction will be delivered with a light shining from your heart. From your heart will shine a beacon that tells all prospects you can truly help and that that is your sole purpose for being there

Let us learn things in the time they will take to learn

Everything you desire is always justoutside your comfort zone, dear boy. If it wasn’t you would alreadypossess it, would you not?

Quite so. Quite right. And yet human beings, who dream ofbecoming more successful often fool themselves into believing thatit can happen without changing a single thing about themselves.They believe that success is some mysterious external factor thatwill just sort itself out while they sleep

People submit tooeasily to change from others. And yet, for some reason, wheneverthey consider changing themselves, the focus is always on what theyare giving up, never what they are about to gain