7 Steps to Conquer fear

In her book, “Conquer Fear!”, Lisa Jimenez, a professional speaker, lists “The Seven Truths” that can help anyone harness and overcome their fears.  I’ve paraphrased them for you here:

 

Truth #1

 

Fear is the dominant challenge in your life today.

 

 

Truth #2

 

Fear is a “gift” that was instilled in you as a means of protection, and a way to bring you closer to your “higher power.”

 

 

Truth #3

 

When you run from, or deny your fear, you leave that “gift” unopened.

 

 

Truth #4

 

When your fear of success, or fear of failure is exposed, you break through the control they have over you.

 

 

Truth #5

 

Your belief system is the driving force behind your behaviours and your results.

 

 

Truth #6

 

Your everyday habits broadcast your belief system, your fears, and your unmet needs, loud and clear, for other to “pick up.”

 

 

Truth #7

 

Change your beliefs (the way you think) and you change your behaviours (which are a reflection of the way you feel).  Change your behaviours (feelings) and you change your results. Change your results and you change your life.  It’s the only way you can…

 

 

…and that’s worth thinking about, isn’t it.

Do You Understand Why Your Customers Buy?

 

The first thing to understand about selling is why people buy a particular product or service and what it is that they really buy. You may be surprised to learn that people buy only two things:

 

• Good feelings

 

• Solutions to problems

 

That means: People do not buy your golf lessons. They buy a vision of how good they will feel when they have successfully completed those lessons!

 

In other words, people always buy to satisfy their own needs and desires. This important basic premise is overlooked all too often. An instructor will try to sign up a new student based on his own playing ability, his style of teaching etc.; all things he thinks are important to the customer. Don’t make this mistake. You must see your service as it is perceived through the eyes of your customer.

 

The prospective student will gladly sign on the dotted line when he senses that your teaching will bring him enjoyment and/or provide a solution to any perceived problem he is currently experiencing. When you make helping the customer your first consideration, you will find the stress of having to sell becomes a thing of the past, and in its place you will enjoy the satisfaction of having helped another person. Therefore, if you are to make a successful sales presentation, you must first find out the problems your prospective student needs you to solve, and what feelings he hopes to obtain from your golf lessons.

 

Some of the more common buying motives are:

 

• The need to feel secure.

 

• The need to feel appreciated, (a most important need).

 

• The need to eliminate or lessen fear, (real or perceived).

 

• The need to have good feelings, (happiness, fun, pleasure).

 

• The need to enhance self-image.

 

• The need to improve, grow and enjoy new experiences.

 

How buying motives are expressed

 

Your prospect is not about to come right out and tell you what his motives are. You have to deduce this information through a series of carefully worded questions. In interviewing a prospective student, you will often hear these needs and desires expressed as:

 

• I want to be more confident in my ability, (eliminate fear of failure).

 

• I want to have fun, (enjoyment).I want to improve my self-image, (security, improvement).

 

• I want to solve a particular problem, (growth, improvement).

 

• I need to feel important, (security).

 

• I want to be respected, (security).

 

• I want to be successful, (improvement)

 

• I want to experience something new, (enjoyment).

 

• I want to be liked by others, (appreciation).

 

• I want to make new friends, (appreciation).

 

• I want encouragement, (appreciation).

 

By listening intently to discover your prospect’s true motives, you can then structure your sales presentation to reinforce these motives and provide answers that meet his objectives. When a prospect can clearly see that he has something to gain by enrolling in your teaching program, he will gladly sign up.

 

Many people think of selling as a distasteful, stressful and manipulative activity. True, most of us resent having a product or service forced upon us and would not want to do the same to others. Nearly everyone, however, enjoys the satisfaction experienced from helping others. Selling doesn’t have to be manipulative.
Instead, focus on what the customer really wants and try to match those needs to what you have to offer. If necessary, see if you can modify your current program to accommodate this customer.

 

Finally, if you genuinely can’t fulfill his needs, refer him to someone who can, and let him know you would like to be of service to him in the future. It may seem as if we’re telling you to deliberately lose a sale by sending a potential customer to your competitors. However, the referrals you will get back and the reputation you will earn as an honest, sincere business person will more than compensate. Often the customer will come back to you anyway, just because he likes your attitude and frankness.

 

Everyone likes to buy, but no one likes to be ‘sold.’

 

Think about it. When you make a sound purchase and get complemented on your decision, you are more than happy to take responsibility for the purchase. But buy something that you later regret, perhaps because you were sold something not in your best interest, and you will feel, “I got a bad deal at that place.”

 

The point? Keep your customer’s best interests in mind when making your sales presentation. Reinforce the benefits you offer that are appropriate to his needs. Make your customer feel good about himself and his decision to enroll in your program.

 

“I think you’ll be really happy with the results we can achieve for you, John. I look forward to seeing you Tuesday morning.”

 

Adopt the above attitude toward selling, and combine this with the sales skills presented I’ll share with you next month and you will find selling to be a very rewarding and stress free activity. You will enjoy what you are doing more and your customers will definitely appreciate you for it.

 

Six qualities of a sales conscious person

 

1. A sales-oriented person must be a ‘people person’, accepting everyone at face value without prejudices or limitations.

 

2. Be open and friendly in the words you choose, your tone of voice and your body language.

 

3. Be patient, and listen attentively to your customer’s wants and needs.

 

4. Show genuine interest and respect. Make your customer feel important.

 

5. Show appreciation for your customer, and continue to be appreciative even after he has enrolled.

 

6. Remember a potential customer’s name and use it to create a bond.

 

OMG…I have crabs!

 

In the book ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’ – Robert Kiyosaki tells the story of the Hawaiian Black Crabs.  If you go down to the beach early in the morning you can easily find black crabs.  You just toss them in your bucket and continue walking on the beach.  Now those crabs start thinking, “We’re bumping around in this little bucket making a lot of noise but going nowhere.”

 

Eventually, one crab looks up and thinks, “There’s a whole new world up there.  If I could just get my foot up over the edge, I could get out, get my freedom and explore the world in my own way.”  So he stretches up, pushes a little, and sure enough, gets one foot over the edge.  But just as he is about to tip the balance and go over the edge — a crab from the bottom of the bucket reaches up and pulls him back down.  Instead of encouraging him and seeing how they could help each other get to freedom one by one, they pull anyone attempting back down into that confining bucket where nothing but a boiling pot of water is waiting for them.  Nobody in that bucket is going to end up a winner.

 

Unfortunately, that’s not an uncommon picture of the world in which we live and work.  Many of us live around a bunch of Black Crabs, ready to ridicule any new idea we have and just as eager to pull us back down to their level of performance.  Small thinkers find it much easier to tell you why something won’t work than to help you find a solution.  People who feel trapped and are struggling at a low level of success are seldom the ones who will cheer you on to a new endeavour.  Prejudice and bigotry are rooted in the same mentality – people who somehow feel better about their own miserable existence by pulling others down.

 

I was talking to someone very dear to me today and recounted this story, one that I Interpret this way…Society is the bucket. I am the black crab. The masses are the other crabs.

 

I am finding more crabs like me now that I am over the lip of the bucket, now I have stopped looking down in the bucket and allowing myself to be pulled back down in the bucket amongst the other crabs.

 

At this point I need to very clear. I am not saying I am better, I am however different. I do not belong in that bucket. I have found that one of the key characteristics of successful people is that they hang around people who are already performing at the level at which they want to perform.

 

There will always be naysayers and whiners; avoid them. Avoid the black crabs around you. Find winners and invest time with them.

 

Now that is worth thinking about!

 

 

 

Applying You  – You; Simply Better

 

 

 

 

Ambush

Ambush or Self sabotage is when you are working against yourself and your goals. It does not have any rationale behind it and you are not even sure why you resort to behavior and action that is not good for you.

Some signs of self sabotage

1) Procrastination on a regular basis
2) Not able to succeed in spite of all the hard work and carefully planned strategies.
3) Getting close to the goal and then giving up.
4) Constant failure

This is a topic that doesn’t receive a lot of attention when it comes to creating the life you really want and reaching your goals is the topic of self sabotage. A lot of people view the concept of self sabotage as something almost esoteric and mystic that suddenly shows up when you have started gaining success and sweep you off your feet, they also think that there is nothing you can do about it and that you might as well surrender to it before it comes.

None of the above is true and concept of self sabotage is actually a very simple one. It is closely associated to what you feel you deserve in life and if you ever go beyond your sense of deservedness you will suddenly start doing some things that you can’t really understand, but you know that they are indirectly holding you back from reaching your goal. These things having nothing mystical about them and can be something like suddenly becoming very lazy, not doing all the things you know you are supposed to do, not taking action, not returning crucial phone calls, not showing up to key meetings etc.

Basically you are doing a lot of things that will indirectly lead to you not reaching your goals. This is because you at a sub conscious level don’t feel you deserve the amount of success you are achieving and therefore try to sabotage it, so you can get back to the comfortable situation you used to have before you started getting successful.

The most important thing when it comes to stopping this cycle is to constantly be aware of why you are taking the actions you are taking and cutting away all the things you are doing that are actually holding you back and not getting you closer to your goal. The more you focus on your everyday actions and which are getting you closer to your goals and which are getting you further away, the easier it will become for you to stop the process of self sabotage.

Once you become better at controlling this process you will naturally start gaining more and more success. The more success you gain the more comfortable you will become with it and your sense of deservedness will increase, in other words your beliefs about yourself and your value will change and you will feel that you deserve only the best life has to offer.

Self Sabotage is caused by two main reasons

1) General Polarity Reversal
Our body consists of meridians which carry the energy through out our body. We can think of the meridians like rivers along which the electricity in our body flows. This flow has been called many other names such as, chi, prana, life force, electromagnetic, electrical or just energy.

These subtle energy circuits have a polarity and the polarity sometimes gets reversed due to years of negative thinking, depression, addictions etc. A battery operated instrument will not operate unless the batteries are placed with the correct polarity. Similarly, unless the polarity in our energy system (polarity reversal) is corrected we will continue to block success.

One of the ways of correcting polarity reversal is with Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT).

2) Secondary Benefit Syndrome
The subconscious mind feels that it is better and safer to hold on to a problem rather then to eliminate it and move forward. Your subconscious mind assumes that it has to keep you safe and opposes any change. There is also some hidden benefit of keeping the problem. You may not be aware of it and may deny it but if you take time to explore, you will find the reasons.

Ask yourself these questions
* What would happen if this problem was not there anymore?
* What would you be focusing after you resolve this problem?
* What makes it impossible to heal this problem?

Some people hold on to excess weight because they know they have to focus on marriage or another commitment that they are fearful about. The excess weight and the weight loss programs keep them occupied and safe. This is not a conscious decision.

Similarly some people hold on to depression (at a subconscious level) because they have some fears about moving forward.

Refusing to forgive people who have hurt you and holding on to anger is also a form of self sabotage as you are only harming yourself and not the person who hurt you.

Once the self sabotage and the reasons behind it is healed, the progress towards your goals will be smooth and joyful.

Now that is worth thinking about!

 

Applying You  – You; Simply Better

You are already naked

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

~ Steve Jobs

You get in life what you expect….not what you want!

“Nobody succeeds beyond his or her wildest expectations unless he
or she begins with some wild expectations.” – RALPH CHARELL

What are your expectations for your life? Are you excited about your future or are you facing it with apprehension and fear? For most people the future holds too many uncertainties and the fear of what might happens tends to overshadow the ray of light that represents the life they ultimately desire. One of the hardest things to do in life is to lift yourself out of your current circumstance and step up to the level of life you desire.

We all live with an unconscious expectation of ourselves and our own lives. This expectation not only determines what we have in our lives but it also represents what we are willing to settle for. Expectation is a very powerful emotion and one that very few people ever learn to fully cultivate. Whatever you expect with certainty is what you will get in your life. Expectation is the emotional state where an idea becomes so real that you feel it even though you can’t hold it yet. Expectation is like an invisible magnet that will attract into your life that which you expect. When you expect something you activate and engage those parts of your mind and your nervous system that can empower you to think the unthinkable and do the undoable. One of the most powerful ways to cultivate expectation is to develop a very clear vision for your life.

Most people never even make the time to really define what they want from their lives, but even those who do follow the hope and pray strategy. They kind of know what they want but they don’t believe they can have it, so they hope that something will happen and come along their life path to fulfil their desires. Expectation however, is a completely different mindset. It is a mindset of absolute certainty that can be consciously cultivated. Inherent in hoping there is a sense of doubt as you always hold two opposing results in your minds eye. When you expect something you know it is definitely happening. The very focus of your mind dwells upon one definite end result. To turn a hope into an expectation, you simply eliminate doubt and fear by eliminating the opposing outcome. Instead of “seeing” something fail or succeed, you now only see the success. With expectation your actions, your words and your imagination dwells upon and reflects you already having and being exactly what you want. When you expect something you remove the doubt that is inherent in hoping.

When a mother to be is pregnant we would say that she is expecting. In other words she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt exactly what’s going to happen. Although some of the details are still unclear she is certain about the fact that she will have a baby and not something unknown. On an emotional level she can feel the result because she is expecting it although she can’t see and touch it yet. What you expect for your life is exactly like that. When you start to expect for your life that which you absolutely desire your whole mindset turns from an uncertain hoping and wishing to the certainty of expecting. The images you encourage and entertain in your minds eye, what you say to yourself and everybody else reflects only the results you are committed to.

Most people expect the worst and hope for the best. Our cultural conditioning has thought us things like “don’t get your hopes up” – just in case you might be disappointed. We’ve been taught to aim as low as possible. Everything above that will be a bonus. Right? Wrong! Remember that what you expect with certainty is what you will get in your life. You have to break away from the autopilot of the masses that just settle for an ordinary life; a life where they are not really happy but they are not unhappy to do something about it. If you want to lift your life and the quality of your life to a higher level than what it is at the moment you need to start by raising your expectations. Raise your expectations of what you are as a person and what you believe you deserve. See, what you believe you deserve is based on your expectations. When you lift your expectations to a higher level you raise your own standards and raising your standards is the first step to improving your life.

When you expect only the very best you will get only the very best. What you earn right now is what you expect to earn. The amount of free time you have right now is what you expect to have as free time. The relationships you have are what you expect it to be. When you expect the best it’s not like expecting something good or something similar, but it is the best and only the best. You have to stop settling for less than you can be or have. On a deep psychological level this is exactly what creates your expectations and that is why a lifetime of settling for less than you can be creates an expectation that is only “o.k”. It becomes the standard that you are willing to settle for. Think of yourself as the pregnant mother who expects (not hopes) only the best and with her imagination she is able to “live” the result in magnificent detail until she eventually has the experience of physically holding her “expectation”. You have to nurture and care for your desires and only by becoming unreasonable in your expectations can you turn your deepest desires into reality. Expectations are ideas that are build on solid rock. They are unshakeable; unlike hopes and wishes that will wash away with the first storm that comes along.

You need no special skills or knowledge to raise your expectations. You simply need a decision that from this point onwards you will never again settle for anything less than you can possible be. The difference between hoping for something with uncertainty and depending on something with expectation is nothing but the way you control and direct the focus of your mind. What you say to yourself, the images you imagine and your behaviour are what you can consciously control and direct. But, only if you choose to. If not, you will revert back to the autopilot of the masses just go with the flow of “whatever” comes along. The cultural autopilot is the emotional default and only through conscious and consistent nurturing of your desires and emotions can you live life by your own standards and create the expectations that will lead you to a life abundance and fulfilment.

Great expectations create great results. When you expect the best it will become a directional mechanism that will guide you to seeking out and finding what you expect. The difference between great expectations and weak hopes is nothing but a mindset; a mindset that can make the difference between living a life of fulfilment and one of desperation and frustration. Create the expectation by making sincere decisions. Nurture your expectations by never settling for anything less than the best.

Do you want a shag?

Do you want a shag?

 

Simple question really…so do you?

Picture the scene or scenes…

You are at home, maybe working from home if you have built that lifestyle for yourself. Maybe you are busy looking after the children or maybe just at home, because you can be, at home.

The phone rings, there is a 2-3 second silence after you say “Hello”…then you hear a click and some background noise (recognise this so far) this is the realm of call centre cold calling…the trouble is, they are calling YOU!

Then without any warning the voice on the end of the phone states clearly and with no introduction…”Do you want a shag?”

How would you react? What would you think or do? What in god’s name does this individual believe he is actually going to achieve by doing this?

Or scene two…you are on your sofa, glass of vino nearby, the laptop warming your thighs….you social butterfly you, busy Tweeting, Facebooking, Blogging, Beboing…and suddenly your laptop pings….

It’s a contact you added on Facebook a while ago, you weren’t too sure if you knew this person but you share so many friends that you must, so you accepted and forgot.

Out of the blue they have messaged you and said simply “Hi”

Now you are thinking, “OMG, I don’t remember them! How did I know this person? What was our connection? It’s been so long, shall I apologise for not saying hello sooner?

And then he hits you with it….

“Do you want a shag?”

WTF…did he really just ask me that….or am I going mad….I rub my eyes…and its still there, however its changed slightly…now it reads:

“Hey buddy, when you get 5 minutes please like this new page – http://www.facebook.com/some-nobs-fanpage”

Or

“Hey do you want to know how I went from zero to earning £10,000 a month, click here http://www.ripoffmugs.com

What happened to taking someone for a drink? Finding out what music or films they like and maybe taking them to see one or two and walking them home! Building up to and eventually earning the right to go the 10%/90% while the other goes 90%/10% (male/female reader delete as appropriate) and finally planting that kiss….waiting for the front door to shut and then jumping around like Tom Cruise on Oprahs couch.

And guess what, not always when you pan for gold will you strike….but the more you pan, the more chance you have. (the real clever folk stop panning for gold and just focus their energy on making the pans!) and when you do strike it will happen naturally because it is right, you have earned it, there is mutual synergy between both parties. The other party has interest in your product and wants to buy…..you are your product.

**OMG as I am typing this at 22:38 Friday evening, someone has just pinged me and offered me the chance to win an ipod….check my details you Moron…I am in Telecoms!

So for all you SMM’s out there….you PR’s….FF’s and TT’s I have news for you, as you clearly believe that sales is purely a numbers game and no one has ever taken you deeper to understand how we buy as human beings. Maybe they have and you just didn’t listen.

Either way you have missed some key basics:

• I am a person
• People buy from People
• People do not like being sold to
• People do love to buy
• People love to be courted
• People hate being molested

Strong words perhaps, strong emotions associated with them perhaps….and one other thing, strong evidence to show that unless you lift your game, get off your ass and learn how to become great at professionally helping people buy (true definition of selling)

Or you can remain a bottom feeder, harrassing, chasing and wasting resource to get little in return.

Sales is about people, social media is simply a tool just like the phone was all those years ago when sales people were out in the rain knocking doors (for you younger ones, yes we actually did do that, but boy did we at least earn the sale). See it as just that. A tool to help escalate you to greater things, to do that however you first must master people.

To find out more, to invest in yourself and begin again….then come find me

Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Applying-You/368542120423

Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/applyingyou

P.S. If you want to find out what SMM’s PR’s FF’s and TT’s are you will have to get in touch

 

Now that is worth thinking about!

 

Applying You  – You; Simply Better