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Do you want to be more successful? You can achieve greater success if you begin to follow certain secrets that blow open the doors that are closed for you now. I am comfortable in saying that all people have some closed doors that limit their achievement. What are the doors that I am talking about and how can you open them?

The doors are a metaphor for the gateways to successful achievement. The keys are the secrets that unlock them and allow you move forward faster and with less conflict toward your dreams than ever before.

Key #1 - Energy

Everyone needs physical, mental, emotional and spiritual energy to propel them toward their goals. It’s often been said that “fatigue makes cowards of us all.” What do you do that gives or robs you of energy? Make a list of 10 common actions in your day. Next to each, put a plus or a minus according to whether it gives or depletes energy. The mind, body and spirit go hand in hand. If one source is constantly drawing energy it will affect the energy in the other area. Do you ever feel so depleted mentally that physically you are just going through the motions?

Create an action plan to eliminate or greatly reduce all things that deplete your energy. Decide what your tolerance is. Successful and satisfied people create levels of tolerance for themselves and others who come in contact with them.

Key #2 - Enthusiasm

Ethos loosely translated means, “The Breath of God.” This means enthusiasm is contagious. It’s hard to get others excited unless you are excited. Nobody is excited all the time. We all have our ups and downs. What anchor do you have that will immediately connect you to the enthusiasm that you need to achieve the successful level of living that you want? Just by having a built-in and pre-arranged filter that detects when you are not at your peak level of enthusiasm will enable you to make corrections quickly. Without the filters you can become a zombie simply going through the motions until you or someone else makes you aware of your lack of enthusiasm.

Key #3 - Emotion

Do you live with emotion? You don’t have to be drama queen to live emotionally. Emotions are about feelings. Successful people tend to live in the moment. Stress, fatigue and worry detract from the joy of living in the moment. “Worry is paying interest on a debt not yet due.” Everyone experiences levels of depleting emotions that create a false and overwhelming sense of reality. How many times have you heard of people with near death experiences who now live with a greater sense of awareness and emotion?

Colors become brighter, jokes become funnier and experiences become richer. Your level of attainment in emotional living will increase your connection to others. To enrich your chances of success, you have to enrich others.

Key #4 - Humor

Nothing can bond people quicker than humor. Nothing can change your attitude, emotions, enthusiasm and outlook more than humor. Humor releases endorphins in the brain and creates a feeling of euphoria. Humor is an instant-on switch for changing your actions and outlook toward everything you face in your day. Experiencing humor is powerful. Being a conduit of humor for others is power multiplied exponentially.

Key #5 - Persistence

Persistent = consistent. Persistence is perhaps the most common denominator of successful living. Successful people keep moving when others quit. It’s been said that most of success is just showing up. Persistence is the key to showing up when other have quit. History is full of examples and testimonials to the power of persistence. Failure only occurs at the time when you quit. Those who live successfully know the power of persistent pursuit.

Persistent pursuit of goals and dreams creates a powerful sense of living unmatched by anything else. Persistence becomes a life force that creates self confidence for those who execute the power of persistence on a daily basis. In a world where the strong survive, persistence equals the playing field and gives the edge to those who apply its power.

Combining all the keys to success will create a sense of urgency needed for success. Examine the current level of each of the five keys to success in your life and create a personal game plan for successful living.

Great managers view themselves as coaches more than managers. There is an old adage: “Lead people and manage things.” There is a fine line between creating and utilizing systems and processes and micromanaging details without emphasizing the power of personal interaction.

Good systems and processes should allow employees to raise their performance by giving them confidence in their direction and lessening the burden of the manager and coach from having to constantly inform people of their expected actions.

The problems and obstacles for mangers and coaches happen when the process is elevated over the players who utilize those systems and an improper implementation training process is used. Great systems with poor people make for poor results. Great systems tied to poor coaching of people in the system results in poor results. Managers and coaches can’t give a process to their players and expect the process to work without consistently motivating and leading the players in the system.

Think of your process like a machine. A machine is created to perform the desired function. Once you create the machine, you test it and know it will work. It fails when the mechanics of the machine break or when the operator has an error in operating the machine. Your business process is much the same.

When you integrate a player into a system, you must explain what they are to do. Next, a coach must explain why the player must perform the tasks required utilizing the desired process. When the why gets strong, the how gets easy. If a player is clear about the why, the process will be performed with maximum results.

The third step is to demonstrate how the tasks and process work. Don’t just tell – demonstrate. If the player believes the process can be executed properly and has evidential proof that his or her coach or someone else can do it in the way that is expected, the player will emotionally buy into the process. The coaches must get the commitment or buy-in for anything to work. Therefore, coaches must have the trust and respect of the players. There is also a second part of the demonstration that must take place. The demonstration phase should move from the coach demonstrating to the player to the stage where the player performs the functions with close direction and inspection of the coach.

The last step of the implementation is never-ending. This stage is continual coaching and inspection. Players must know they are continually being coached, inspired and reviewed in their performance.

Recently, my daughter Erin secured a summer job after her first year in college. She is employed by the J. Alexander chain of restaurants. The process employed by J. Alexander’s is not only a good reference point for the steps of coaching that I have mentioned, but is a reference for excellence.

Erin was interviewed and profiled by three different managers on three different occasions. When Erin was hired, she had to complete detailed training that would make many businesses green with envy. Erin had to train with a study guide consisting of more than 100 pages. Erinhad to pass six written tests just to begin serving as a waitress or as they are called in their culture – champions. She had to be able to recite the company creed. Further training and testing was required to be able to serve on the weekends, which are their busiest days. Before being released to begin her position, Erin had to shadow another trained champion and then switch and have the experienced person trail her. Both Erin and I were amazed at the commitment to process, training and implementation.

Remember, the processes and dedication of J. Alexander’s produces a champion who can serve and produce an experience that is measured in small dollars. Your business may produce a product and experience that is measured in many thousands of dollars. Based on your process, training, implementation and coaching, are you a coaching champion?

Customers don’t buy vehicles, and sales people don’t sell vehicles. Customers buy solutions to problems they can feel emotionally. Sales people are the conduit that helps customers discover those emotional solutions.

People buy from people. Customers generally do business with people they like and trust. Your customers don’t walk out of your dealership telling you that they bought from you because you are a jerk. Customers can get vehicles anywhere. Most of you are not selling a rare commodity. Therefore the decision criteria of a customer are based upon money, me and machine. However, you are the secret ingredient. You have the power to influence the perception of the customer about you, the machine and the money.

A customer will move through three stages of the selling process – Character/Trust, Emotion and Logic. People have to like and trust you, then they allow you to guide them to emotions that eventually combine with logic. Emotion distorts reality. That’s why everyday customers walk out of F&I and tell you that they did not plan to buy a vehicle today.

The number one reason people buy a vehicle is and always will be confidence. Confidence they feel in the money, me and machine that you give them. Therefore the most empowering decision you can ever make as a sales person is accept full responsibility for every sale made or lost.

Once you accept full responsibility for winning and losing and eliminate the easily accepted notion that it’s about price, you become an incredibly powerful, winning sales person. If you allow one excuse for losing into your subconscious it opens the door for a million excuses. Weak sales people raise skinny kids. Eliminate all excuses such as price and watch your sales take off.

If price is the issue, what can you do to influence the price or the decision? Practice apples to oranges selling. If everybody else is showing the customer apples, you show them better apples and show them oranges, as well. Always think HFG – Hope for Gain. What is the customer trying to accomplish and how can I apply to their sense of HFG.

How will the first stage of your engagement with the customer set you apart and influence the customer? Most customers decide to buy from you in 15 seconds to two minutes. The decision is made about you long before they ever make a decision about price. Try this greeting: “Hi folks, are you out beginning to look and shop around?” What are they going to say, “No we are just looking and shopping?” Be proactive. Take the objection away up front and make the customer feel at ease while you do it. Nobody else is greeting the customer this way.

Most sales people operate out of the same gene pool. If you do this you eventually become a homogenized, generic sales person. What follows are bad results, lots of price shoppers, low sales, low incomes and eventually a bad case of excuses. Never forget that everything you do makes a difference.

Before any customer leaves, are you and your manager “walking the wheel”? “Walking the wheel” is a phrase I use to remind us to explore all avenues. Bigger car, smaller car, car to SUV, new to used, used to new, demo, longer term, cash back, delay payment, pay off the remaining lease payments on their trade, trade another vehicle, trade two vehicles, etc. How hard do you fight for every sale? Persistent = consistent.

Winning at sales is simply a choice. You can choose to win or choose to lose. Once you choose, you become the sales person you have decided to be at the given moment.

The managers in your dealership must have a written job description with clearly defined responsibilities and expectations.

Having specific goals for the department is required. Daily action plans for selling, training, appointments, one-on-one coaching, save-a deal meetings, deal structuring, follow-up, etc will increase sales by 20 percent without spending more for advertising.

If you read biographies of successful people or businesses, one common thread always seems to be a strong sense of passion fueled by big goals. When you write specific goals down on paper, you are committing yourself mentally, emotionally and physically to the attainment of those goals. Do your dealership and your employees set the long and short-term goals? As the dealer, have you committed your dreams to paper for the month, six months, a year, five years, 10 years, 20 years? Speed of the boss, speed of the crew, if you make the commitment, your employees will, too.

Once you have set your goals, plan your specific actions to reach them. Write a specific action plan for when to train, what to train on, who will conduct the training, how long the training will last and your expected goal of improvement for that area. Post a training schedule for the month and make it a monthly priority. Training is not a sometimes activity. It’s an everyday requirement.

Set goals for appointments and make action plans to reach those goals as a dealership. This requires goals and action plans for each sales person as to their activities to set daily appointments. Strive for and monitor appointments and watch your sales increase.

Every sales person should be coached daily in a one-on-one session. Set a game plan for who does this, when they do it and the expected results. Items covered in those sessions should be their sales pace in relation to their goals and their percentage of success for total seen contacts, demos, write-ups, closed and deliveries. Those items should be monitored for both yesterday’s traffic and month-to-date totals. Each sales person should have a day planner. The sales people should be required to have a plan for their day that is broken down into an hourly focus. To-do lists and follow-up systems should be reviewed for both sold and unsold customers. Review yesterday’s traffic for each sales person, walk back through what happened and listen for clues that would show breakdowns in their sale process. These activities alone can increase your dealership’s sales 20 percent.

To make more money, each morning the managers hold a save-a-deal meeting in the F&I office to review yesterday’s sold and unsold traffic. All deals in F&I should be reviewed. Review approvals to see if they have been delivered and if not, why? If delivered, have they been booked out and turned to the office? Review finance turndowns for reasons why and any possibilities to approve those deals. Review dealer trades and the status of those deals. Review heat sheets and contracts in transit for deals not funded and deals that have missing items, such as titles, etc.

It takes increased effort and focus to improve your sales 20 percent. Many dealers just increase their advertising in hopes of increasing sales, and in turn, make their sales people traffic junkies. The percentage of gain in bottom line and long-term benefits is what you are seeking, not short-term fixes. The first step is to get rid of the notion, that there are good and bad months. You either have good or bad goals, game plans, actions and reviews of actions. Good or bad months are directly attributed to those items and are not luck.

I was invited to be a guest lecturer for an entrepreneur class at the University of Cincinnati. In the question-and-answer portion of the program, the professor asked me to sum up what I felt was the most important message I could stress to the class. My reply was one word – ACTION.

At a sales seminar I was giving, I was going over low- to no-cost marketing strategies designed to increase leads for sales people. At the first break after the marketing section, one of the sales people in attendance who had fl own across the country to attend, got on the phone and called a list vendor I had suggested during the class. Before the break was over, he purchased a large list for a small cost, created an outline and had begun to write the letter based upon proven copy writing techniques and marketing strategies. Afterward he was able to express the value of the campaign to the dealership management and they agreed to cover his costs of his campaign.

At the end of the day, I was having a conversation with the promoter of my seminar and I asked him how many people would take action on that one idea. His answer was few, if any, other than the one sales person. He asked me why I thought that was the case, and my answer was simple and scary – I didn’t know.

From my days as a general manager and leader of people in dealerships to my now many years of training, consulting and sharing with people in dealerships all over the world, I have constantly been stumped by the lack of action by the masses. The truth is indisputable that a small minority will move through their fears and excuses and begin to take action on the necessary steps for success.

In the last few years, I have begun to unlock and share some of the secrets to taking action and achieving success. Unfortunately, even when I share these ideas and suggest simple steps that can guarantee massive self-improvement and eventual success, I know that most people are comfortable being comfortable. Even when that means being comfortable with below-average results. Is my statement negative or just recognition of reality?

Successful people create their own reality. Most people who would take the time to read articles like this are part of the minority of action-takers. For your action takers, let me share just a few ideas on action, the reasons for a lack of it and some corrective measures.

1. Write down the first 20 ideas and teachings that you learned about money. Did you hear these typical messages? “What do you think we are, rich?” “Money doesn’t grow on trees.” “We can’t afford that.” “Money is the root of all evil.” You are more influenced by early learning than you might believe. Many ideas and messages you hear from TV, teachers and even parents are negative and rooted in scarcity. The root of the word scarcity is scare. When was the last time you saw a movie or TV program in which the rich guy was the good guy?

2. Are you clear in your goal of what you desire? Have you written it down? Less than 5 percent of people will ever write their goals and begin to focus on their desires and action plans to get there. Clarity of thought creates questions that bring answers.

3. When you write a goal, you are making a conscious choice. Your actions, however, are often directed by your subconscious messages. Often the goals you have chosen with your conscious thought and the actions you take directed by your subconscious are in direct conflict and opposition. This is why at times you can feel such an enormous state of struggle. The only way to get past the struggle and create positive action is to remove the negative and opposing messages and images in your subconscious. When you write your goals, what are the limiting thoughts and feelings that pop up that are implanted in your subconscious? Once you have identified them, rewrite them to erase the limits and negatives. Create a conscious and subconscious that acts in unison.

4. Write down your top five largest fears. Fear can be described as false evidence appearing real. We can escalate fears or goals to reality. Both are simply a choice. What are your most dominant thoughts? Do your thoughts lean toward action, achievement, success and abundance or toward lack, scarcity and fear?

Only through action can you make the necessary mistakes that will lead to success, rewards and happiness. Nobody has ever sat and watched their way to success.

Have you made the commitment that automotive sales is your career choice? Unless you commit, it’s impossible that you will take the necessary steps to create the business you desire. Long-term thinking in addition to short-term goals are keys to continued success.

When you first enter into a sales position, 80 percent of your time is spent acquiring customers and 20 percent of your time is spent maintaining those customers. Eventually, with the right efforts, that model should be reversed. Eighty percent of your time should be spent maintaining your customers and 20 percent to acquire new customers.

You face a paradox of time management in building your business. The paradox is that you must work in the business and also work on the business. When you are face-to-face with customers you are working in the business but no matter how busy you are, you must find time each day to work on the business, as well. Working on the business includes marketing, prospecting, follow-up, networking, delegating, automating etc.

Insurance sales people, real estate sales people and sales people from many industries continually think and act on building their business. However, in the auto industry the majority of sales people seem addicted walk-in traffic. Eliminating this addiction is the key to long-term success.

Lead Generation = Dollar Creation. Begin to build multiple streams of leads by building a marketing web. List every way you presently acquire leads such as walk-ins, phone prospects, be-backs, referrals, repeat customers. Then begin to list new ways you could begin to acquire leads and how you can strengthen or add to your existing methods of generating leads.

Do you presently have a software program for following and managing your leads? Not the dealerships program, your program? Don’t trust anybody or anything to manage your most important resource – your customers.

Secondly, do you have a set follow up strategy? How often will you follow up? How will you follow up. What rewards will you give, and what special offers will you provide to bring them in for service? That creates the Law of Familiarity and Obligation leading to repeats and referrals.

E-mail follow-up and marketing is essential. Automate your follow-up using technology. E-mail, Autoresponder e-mail and Sequential Autoresponder e-mail are all ways to follow-up and add value that can be done while you sleep or on vacation. Video e-mail and personalization are keys to making a connection, removing the impersonal nature of e-mail and adding the wow factor.

All sales people need their own personal Web site. The site should include sign-up forms that collect e-mail addresses. The site should be personalized with your picture, family picture, your own personal story, rewards for visiting the site and helpful information for the customer. Your Web site should include an audio introduction link.

Do your business cards look like 99 percent of others sales people’s business cards? Don’t use a picture of a car, use your picture or caricature. Business cards also need the sales person’s Web site, e-mail address and slogan. Put a call to action on your cards for the customer to come see you, call you or visit your Web site.

Maximize traffic by creating a be-back CD. Create a CD that you give each customer who does not buy and invite them to play it on the way home. The CD should include information about you, your dealership and product that would benefit the customer. Include testimonials and a reward for the customer if they come see you.

Create coupon swaps with businesses around you. Visit a local restaurant and offer to build their business on their worst traffic day of the week for free. You can build their business by creating a coupon with an offer they approve and then pass these coupons out at work from the cashier, receptionist, and all departments to every customer who enters your dealership. In return ask that the restaurant pass out coupons from you approved by the dealership with a special offer to come see you.

Once you start the marketing web it will grow and take on a life of its own. Building a business first requires long-term thinking and a commitment to the industry as a career. When you commit, you have already created a business, only its shape is unfinished.

The first step in advancing the productivity of your staff in using the phones is a better understanding in the importance that the telephone can play and how it affects your business. Often a lack of the right attitude is displayed in the treatment towards the receptionist position. The receptionist is usually hired without any guidelines that would be used to hire for an important position. In your dealership do you have personality profiles, set interview questions and guidelines to hire an exceptional receptionist? Do you have a formalized training process and performance based pay? Often the receptionist is the lowest paid person in the dealership but is often the person who influences the customer first. Why not pay the receptionist a bonus based upon various criteria such as average time to answer a call, average hold time for a customer etc.

The sales people also need training on the understanding of the importance of both inbound and outbound sales calls and how this can affect their incomes. A sales person can sit around all day waiting for someone to come in, but they can take incoming sales calls and treat them like they are not important. The average dealership will spend a fortune on advertising to get people to call and come in but not pay attention to what is happening when the customers call or come in. Call a competitor or call your own dealership and mystery shop a few times and ask yourself if you are impressed with the results.

Let’s talk about a few things to improve the importance of sales performance in utilizing the phone. First of all, the dealership needs a formal call tracking process. Many dealerships know their floor traffic but not their phone traffic. Why? This sends the wrong message. You must quantify to qualify, meaning you must know where you are at to understand where you would like to go. Have the receptionist use a call tracking sheet that they are trained to use. Example: On an incoming sales call, the receptionist should positively remark that they will be happy to get a sales representative for the customer and then acquire the customers name by asking “and your name is?” The receptionist can then list the customers name on the log with the date and time received and page for a sales representative. Now the receptionist can write their name on the tracking sheet as well. The sales representative is responsible for putting remarks of the results on the log after the sale. The above process can be altered according to the technology you have established in your dealership. Managers can now include a review of the phone traffic in their daily one on one coaching sessions.

Sales people must have a formal tracking sheet they use when taking calls to assist them in remembering the right steps and collecting the information necessary. The first step in changing the view of a sales person towards the phone is to show them how easy it is to pick up several units each month just by having better phone skills. The Internet has increased the number of sale calls and the quality of customer calling.

Sales people must be taught new techniques that match the marketplace of today. Sales people have been taught the importance of getting name and number so much so that they are jeopardizing the appointment and scaring customers away. Gone are the days of telling the customer you are out in service and not at your desk so you would like to get their name and number and call them back or that the customer just needs to come on down so you can show them in person. Customers are looking for ways to dismiss you as an option and outdated phone skills will make that happen quickly.

Review the telephone operations in your dealership and take steps to increase the skills of everyone using the phone. Better phone process and skills uncover hidden wealth.

What is hidden wealth? Hidden wealth is an unused, dormant or under utilized part of your business that contains great value. All businesses have at least one hidden wealth. Even the best businesses in the world contain hidden wealth. The key is to determine your hidden wealth and begin to mine the potential gold that lies therein. All businesses are different. Each business should require their leaders to conduct a concerted effort of introspection and egoless honesty to determine what their hidden wealth may be. One way to begin is to ask deeper and better questions about your business than you ever have before. What is the story of your dealership? How is that unique and more importantly, how does that benefit the customer?

Begin a journey to determine what your business does best. What does your business do better than anyone else? Then ask yourself these questions about that one thing, “How”, “Why” and how can I prove it to my customers in a way that benefits and motivates them? Once you determine the one thing that you do better than anyone else, then ask your customers why they think you do it best? See if what you feel and they feel are the same. If your business does something great but your customers don’t know, it won’t matter. If you customers don’t hold the same value in what you think you do great, it won’t matter. Better questions lead to better answers and better businesses. Ask yourself, what do you have that others don’t have? What do you have that is better than what others may have? Is your sales staff better? Is your service better? Is your location better? Is your inventory better? Is your pricing structure better? Is your process quicker? Is your facility better? When you determine what you have that’s better, you must ask yourself, why is that true?

You must also ask yourself, how can I explain what we do and how it’s better in very specific terms that the customer cares about? You can’t say you have a large inventory. It doesn’t mean anything. But you can say you have 500 vehicles worth ten million dollars in inventory and that no one comes close to your selection and because of that it takes the hassle out of shopping. What ever you decide is your strong point, ask yourself this question, “Who cares?” If you can’t tell your customer in a way that benefits them, they won’t care.

Some dealerships have a large database of untapped business. Some dealerships have a great location with many possible synergies with other local businesses that could be explored. Many dealerships have community relationships that could be utilized. Many dealerships have talented but untrained people. Many dealerships are either sending the wrong or mixed message to the market or sending a good message to the wrong market or utilizing either the wrong medium or not enough mediums to reach their market.

Each dealership has assets that contain vast riches if they can be explored and tapped.

You are who you decide to be at any given moment. It does not take money, a degree, a certain age, a certain appearance, tons of experience, knowing the right people, past success or any other qualifying factor that you may be currently using as a subconscious roadblock to your desired success. Your belief system creates your results both past and present. If your current belief system is not what it should be to support your success, you must fake it, till you make it.

If you currently don’t appear to be on the path that will create the level of success in the form you desire, you must begin to identify the mental programming that is limiting your success before you can change your resulting limiting actions.

You must pay close attention to your inner dialogue when you write goals or have thoughts about anything you desire. When thinking of your goals, if you repeatedly think of the specific reasons of how and why your goal may be hard to obtain, you are creating the “When-Then Syndrome.” Your subconscious identifies your current programming that tells you that for X to occur you must first have Y. If that is the case, your current mental programming is limited and will not allow you to break through your current barriers to further success.

Write down the first twenty mental images or messages you heard or were taught about money. When closely examined, most of the images and messages remembered will be limited, negative, and fear based. Those negative messages and images have taken a life of their own and have been accepted in your subconscious as absolute truths. To increase money, you must identify your current limiting messages and rewrite the messages to create accepted new truths.

Every person you come into contact with tries to define you based upon his/her own thoughts and beliefs. Your workplace is full of people with their own limiting mental programming that want to define you in a way that makes them feel better about themselves. People will create images such as “you are just lucky” or “the favorite of the boss” or “a weak sales person”. So often you act in your work environment in a role based upon the images and messages accepted by your subconscious. Unfortunately, your subconscious accepts all images and messages without filtering. However, you can overwhelm the negative messages with your own positive messages. Your conscious mind will choose and react to the strongest messages being given to it. Don’t allow others to create your destiny based upon their own limited beliefs.

Your subconscious can act as an automatic responder in a positive form just as it can negatively. You must bombard your mind with positive and repetitive images for your conscious mind to react with positive messages. Read and listen to the material that will support you in creating the images you desire, while reducing and eliminating the negative influences you encounter from relatives, co-workers, and the news. You create your own reality. It’s your responsibility to choose the right sources of information to saturate your brain.

To start manifesting your desires, you must become clear on your goals. Write what you want in present tense using vivid details of your emotions and thoughts at the time of obtaining those goals. The repetitive conditioning of your subconscious with the imagery you have created will begin to grow just as your muscles grow by the repetitive action of lifting weights. Soon your positive imagery will be so strong that your belief system will accept this as reality before it has ever transpired as reality. There will be no difference between your chosen reality and your current state. Your belief system will accept each step and each day as a part of your path to success. Dare today to choose what you desire and the actions that support those desires.

Thoreau once said, “Things don’t change, people do.” If things are to happen, you must make them happen. Good people and businesses always make things happen. Let’s look at the essential rules of making things happen.

Rule 1 – Always have a CEO attitude – You must start by taking responsibility for all things both good and bad. Accept that your company signs your check and you fill in the numbers. Your own personal philosophy, which is determined strictly by choice and your own free will, determines your first step in success or failure.

Rule 2 – Every business operates two businesses: People and Marketing. If you are great with people but don’t have people to speak to, you fail. Marketing has become essential to all sales people.

Rule 3 – Lead generation equals dollar creation – The more leads you generate the more money you earn. How do you create leads? Develop a marketing web – Draw a small circle on a piece of paper and put the name of your company in the middle. (Your company, not the one that signs your check). Now draw lines in different directions that look like spokes coming out of the circle. Label each spoke as a source of leads. (Example: walk-ins, incoming sales calls, referrals, repeats, be-backs, service, networking, prospecting etc.) Notice that each spoke can have multiple spokes that sprout from it.

Rule 4 – Add value first – The perception of price is always in relation to the value perceived. Perception is reality for your customers. What do they perceive to be the value in your offer, product, you, or the business? To create value you must TLC—think like a customer--and then take action.

Rule 5 – Give HFG - hope for gain. People always want something better than what they have. It’s human nature. Hope for Gain follows the pleasure versus pain rule of life. People act to either find pleasure or avoid pain. Hope for gain moves people toward pleasure.

Rule 6 – Offer risk reversal - Take away your customers’ risk and it creates urgency in the eyes of the customer. You must lower the barriers of entry that discourage customer traffic. Risk reversal allows your customer to avoid pain.

Rule 7 – Provide leverage – Hope for gain and risk reversal provide leverage for people to take action. You must always be thinking of ways that your customers can get excited about contacting you now. Urgency, emotions, social proof, incentives and testimonials all provide leverage.

Rule 8 – Facts tell; stories sell- Stories add the most important element of sales and marketing. People think in pictures. People relate to stories that they can see themselves in the staring role. Make them the star. People will avoid advertising and marketing on purpose, but they will react to a good story.

Rule 9 – Utilize the law of obligation and reciprocation – In sales or marketing, you must be willing to add the wow factor. You must be willing to give people extra service, extra offers, extra emotion, extra humor, extra enthusiasm... extra everything, until the customer feels an overwhelming obligation to give you a chance.

Now let me give you some examples to create leads using these rules.

1. – Record a two to five minute be-back CD that you give to each customer who doesn’t buy a car and ask them to play it on the way home. On the CD, thank the customer for the opportunity, tell them your SDP--specific defining proposition- to get them excited about doing business with you and purchase your product.

2. Nice trade call – Every time you take a nice trade-in, call at least 20 of your sold customers and let them in on a secret. Let them know about the beautiful vehicle you now have and how it hasn’t been put all the way though service and clean-up yet. Let them know you’re calling a few of your preferred customers about the newly acquired vehicle. If they don’t want it, ask them who might be.

3. Create affiliations – Who does business with whom you want to do business? Always think of how you can add value to them first. What can you do to help their business? Offer coupon swaps. Offer to create a coupon for a two for one special at their restaurant. In return, ask that they distribute a coupon from your business.

4. Offer a free program – Offer a thirty minute program to some of the varying associations on how to buy a vehicle. Take brochures with coupons offering value that would make them take action to receive something of value from you. Create a lead first.

5. Postcards – Postcards are cheap. You can send to targeted markets, with a targeted message, such as, “Employee Purchase Program – Buy a vehicle for what I would pay!”

6. Val-Packs – Postcard advertising made even cheaper.

7. Orphan Owners - Call every orphan owner and offer them something of value. If you offer all the clients who’ve not been contacted the chance to do business with you, a large percentage will consider doing more business with you in the future.

8. FSBO call – Call everyone selling your brand of vehicle and ask them about their trade. Offer to get an appraisal and to help them purchase their new vehicle.

9. Create a Free Special Report – “How to buy a vehicle” – You could combine your postcards with this message and once you’ve created a lead through their response by fax, phone or email, you can follow up after sending your special report.

10. Create your own web site – Put your web site address on all your business cards, mailing, materials etc. Put your picture, biography, special offers, recipe of the month, etc. Make people go to your site for a special offer.

John Wooden said, “Don’t let what you can’t do interfere with what you can do.” You can’t change economies, but you can work daily to change your actions. A little extra effort put forth everyday will help build a successful business. Make it happen!

Sales people provide life for all companies. If everything starts with sales people, it only makes sense to make sure that you are recruiting the best potential sales people

Tip 1: Recruit from want, not need. Make recruiting an everyday activity, don’t wait until you need it.

Tip 2: Have a strategy to recruit people all the time. To orchestrate a successful ongoing recruiting program you must first have a game-plan. Plan and develop a flow chart of your desired results. Write down the obvious. You must know why you are looking to create a recruiting strategy. “When the why gets strong, the how gets easy.”

Tip 3: Know who is in charge of recruiting and his/her qualifications. People must be educated on creating and orchestrating a strategy that works. Don’t leave the who and how to chance.

Tip 4: Newspaper ads – the Sunday paper is full of ads for sales people. If you plan on using help wanted ads as part of your recruiting, you must write the ad with the mindset of the good sales person you are looking to recruit. Use two age-old formulas: WIIFM – “What’s in it for me?” and AIDA – “Attention, interest, desire and action” when creating your ads.

Tip 5: Try using several avenues to recruit such as full color newspaper inserts, business journal classifieds, a banner ad on your web site, local colleges, Internet job postings, radio ads, military bases, job fairs and employee referral program. Never leave the vitality of your company to just one avenue of marketing. You must build a marketing web that has many marketing branches to attract good people.

Tip 6: Have an “ideal employee” profile. Know who you are looking for before you find them. When you’ve developed a precise guideline of what the perfect recruit looks like, you can begin your process with that in mind and then remove the emotions involved in interviewing.

Tip 7: Payment plans satisfy base-level needs of the potential recruit. Pay all recruits during training and guarantee them a living wage during their learning curve. Many potentially good sales people are not given the chance to ever enter the business. Lower the barriers of entry in order to find the best people.

Tip 8: Have at least 50 written interview questions. Don’t you show a sales person how to profile customers? Preparation is key to a good interview. Be ready with sub questions to the interviewee’s answers that allow him or her to elaborate and communicate in detail. A good interview will follow the 80/20-rule and allow the recruit to speak 80% of the time.

Tip 9: Test and profile a potential sales person. Anyone who has interviewed people has come across a great interview, horrible employee. A good recruiting strategy must utilize many tools to reduce the emotion and help to make a more logical and quantitative selection. There are many tools today that can be used to gauge the personality, sales aptitude, emotional IQ, intelligence and just about anything else you want to know about a possible future employee

Tip 10: Don’t hire people based only upon resumes. If you want to hire good sales people, recruit and hire based on talent and attitude and teach them the necessary skills.

Recruiting and hiring effectively is a continuous process that is both part science and being creative. Having a consistent plan will make your recruiting a success.

Many times people say they don’t like to negotiate; yet, they still shop around and never pay full MSRP. Most people act in their own best interest. And most people who say they don’t like negotiating, actually still want to.

There are three things you should always listen to in this business:

1. What people say.

2. What people are trying to say.

3. What they really mean.

Often, what people are saying is they ‘hate’ to negotiate. What people are trying to say is they could do without the way auto dealers negotiate and what they really mean is they don’t want to make a mistake.

When people say they don’t like to negotiate, they are trying to say they don’t like the feelings of manipulation that occur when auto dealers overuse the ‘higher authority principle’ of negotiating. In other words, they dislike an improperly used desk system. You can still use a desk system, but you can decrease the back and forth, and keep the customer from feeling manipulated.

The first step is to have a written process that everyone understands. The second step is to make the process the same for each manager and each deal every time. The third step is to train your sales people how to negotiate, handle objections and assist the buyer to finalize a buying decision.

A written, detailed negotiating process that all sales people and managers understand is essential. Many dealerships seem to operate by the seat of their pants when dealing with the negotiating process. All proposals should be started in the same fashion. Although each deal can vary differently as you begin to negotiate, they should all start the same way to eliminate emotional, bad decisions. Having a precise, written and clearly understood process can eliminate different managers from working proposals in completely different directions that confuse sales people. Sales people should know how to handle any and all objections, verbally and written, without having to think or blink.

Sales people often give a proposal and when a customer objects, their first reply is, “Mr. Customer, what figures where you thinking?” Unfortunately, it may be the worst thing that could be said to a customer. Asking a customer what they are thinking without verifying and validating why you asked for what you proposed, will bring an uneasy feeling to the buyer and usually result in one of two answers, both of which aren’t good. The buyer will usually respond with a low-ball offer or say, “You’re the sales person, you tell me.” In this example, a sales person has violated simple rules of negotiating by asking the customer to set the bottom parameter of the negotiations. This usually will create a shopper from a potential buyer, because they can no longer have confidence that they have reached their best and lowest possible deal. Confidence creates the feeling of ‘hope for gain’ and eliminates the emotional fear of making a mistake.

When a customer asks for a lower price, the sales person must validate the MSRP by explaining the value pricing policy. “Mr. Customer, the vehicles are value priced today, which means they have a much smaller and more reasonable markup than in the past, to eliminate the back and forth and bring a more realistic pricing value to the customer.” If the customer persists for discounts, you can offer the potential of an additional percentage discount on the optional equipment of the vehicle. This validates your MSRP proposal and allows the customer to have feelings of victory by gaining a concession while establishing the bottom parameter of negotiations.

All customers are looking to satisfy certain emotions. Knowing how to professionally negotiate can satisfy all the emotions a customer desires and eliminate the negative feelings of manipulation that are prevalent when many customers leave a dealership after a negotiating process.

The cross promotion ad, It Comes Standard produced by Will Ferrell, touts all the great features of the glove box, and has been picked by AdWeek as one of their top ten for the week. I'm still partial to the ad that picks on the horse. Great marketing campaign! 

Most Internet marketing experts will agree that driving traffic to your website results in the most valuable leads you can get – if you can convert visitors into leads. Just like the old adage, “volume is vanity, gross is sanity,” your website traffic is only worthwhile if you’re effectively converting it into sales opportunities.

According to an advertising efficacy study by Dataium, an average of 55 percent of dealerships’ online advertising budgets are devoted to paid search engine marketing, but just six percent of dealership website traffic is referred by paid search keywords, and less than one percent of this traffic resulted in email form leads submitted on dealership websites. While effective SEO/SEM campaigns are necessary up to a certain point, eventually the law of diminishing returns kicks in. How much more are you willing to spend for a search term that attracts 100 more unique visitors when only one or two of those visitors will convert into leads?

Compounding the challenge of effective SEM campaigns is the cost. Many website vendors and Internet marketing gurus push dealers to pay more for “their” search terms because other parties-- competitors, independent lead providers, auto shopping websites-- are all buying up the search terms and bidding up prices. To some extent, this is true: it's open competition, and automotive retail isn't the only industry subject to it. Companies in every industry must aggressively compete to attract online customers with increasingly sophisticated SEM campaigns.

Since search is now integrated into the consumer’s everyday experience, it’s also important to pay attention to changing consumer behavior and modify your campaigns accordingly. According to a study by Slingshot SEO, more than 80% of search terms today use five or six keywords. Users are becoming more sophisticated with their search terms and demanding results that deliver exactly what they're looking for. If you are a Toyota dealer in Chicago and you think you can attain a page one search engine ranking simply by paying a lot for the terms "Toyota" and "Chicago," or your website content is the same as it’s been since you optimized it for search 5 years ago, you will be disappointed.

As the competition, sophistication, and challenges increase, your ability to convert precious, valuable search-generated traffic must improve. The average conversion rate for dealership websites is estimated to be between two and four percent. Some dealers claim conversion rates more than double this percentage. What if you could double the number of leads you receive from your dealership website, without spending a penny more on SEO/SEM campaigns? Increasing conversion is the key to achieving this goal.

To convert more visitors, try this three-pronged approach:

1) Content. Keep the content on your website engaging, up-to-date, educational, and include "calls to action" on every page. Also be sure that your content supports your brand consistently. If you're a family-owned business heavily involved in your community, ensure that your website content reflects and promotes this.

2) Conversion Tools. An increasing number of tools are available that are designed to engage visitors and keep them on your website. Chat applications are one of the most successful conversion tools; so are payment marketing tools like trade-in calculators and shop-by-payment tools like Payment Pro. Incentives and coupons have all been shown to increase conversion rates.

3) Marketing. Conversion tools will convert, but only to the extent that your website visitors know about them and use them. Don't expect them to just stumble across the latest tool or gadget on your site and start using it, unless they know what to expect. For instance, if you have a payment marketing tool, create a marketing campaign to educate your customers about their credit score and to let them know they can get accurate payment quotes without affecting their credit score. A full-blown marketing campaign might include the following elements: e-mail, a dedicated area on your website landing page featuring the benefits of shopping by payment, a blog, a video of one of your salespeople explaining the benefits, geo-targeted banner ads, and more.

If you have found that funneling more of your budget into SEO/SEM campaigns isn't getting you a proportional increase in website visitors, try focusing on increasing your conversion rate. Customers will stay on your site if they find what they are looking for, so figure out what that is and provide it to them to increase your website lead count and quality.

http://www.dealersynergy.com 856-546-2440

Joe Cala (When He Worked For Autotrader.com) Talks About "Vendors" For Dealerships...

Prospecting Advice From A 30-Car Guy

Last year I wrote an article that I received literally HUNDREDS & HUNDREDS of emails, calls, social media messages from OEM reps, Dealer Principals, GMs, Sales Consultants, Automotive Professionals from all over the country.  The article was so popular that I created a webinar that over 500 dealers signed up for. I then uploaded that webinar to www.automotiveinternetsales.com  (Via YouTube) and that has almost 6,000 views. Because of the huge success of the article and the webinar I decided to create a curriculum for Associations such as the Detroit Auto Dealers Association (DADA) And the Greater New York Auto Dealers Association (GNYADA).  Here is part two of that article. I am going to go deeper on ideas of prospecting in 2013, 2014 and beyond.  

Remember the saying “Car Sales is like owning your own business”…? Then act like it! It is NOT 1983, its 2013. Don’t prospect like you did 30 years ago, like you did 20 years ago or even like you did 10 years ago! You need to get with the times and prospect with resources and strategies of this Millennium! 

First and foremost, 92-99 percent of Americans go online BEFORE they ever step foot into a dealership! So, if you were going to go fishing, would you go to the beach and cast your fishing line in the sand? No, of course not! Then why would you do it at the dealership? You need to fish, where the fish are. So, lets start there.

Here are the MOST powerful online (Not the ONLY, just the most powerful) places to prospect for an Automotive Sales Professional:

• Google
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Twitter
• YouTube
• Online Classifieds
• Blog Sites

It is important to create a strategy for each of these areas and stick with it. It is counter productive to start initiatives in multiple areas without a strategy, without consistency.  In other words, either do it or don’t do it.

Lets start with the big (fishing) pond… GOOGLE!

If you know that almost every single person goes online BEFORE they step foot into the dealership, then you need to show up NUMEROUS times on the first page of Google. Think of your dealership, your OEM. They must have a Google strategy. So, if they have one and you believe “Car Sales Is Like Owning Your Own Business”. Then you too need to dominate Google.

Are you even showing up on Google? I am NOT talking about if someone types in your name into Google, do you show up. I am talking about if someone is searching for:

• New Car Sales
• Used Car Sales
• Trade-In information
• Aftermarket Sales
• Bad Credit / No Credit Car Loans
• Service Repairs, Oil Changes etc…
• Car Buying Tips
• Car Maintenance Tips
• Car Reviews
• Tips, Advice, Secrets
• “How To Buy A Car”
• The specific franchises you sell…

I can go on all day long but think about it PLEASE! Most people go online to research, find & surf, compared to people who go online to BUY. So, you should be coming up in Google (And other search engines) for the “Point Of Interest” shopper and for the “Point Of Purchase Buyer”.

Here are ways / strategies that you NEED to be enveloped in to dominate Google:

• A Professional Website –Yes, that is right I suggest that ALL Sales “Professionals” have their OWN “Professional” website.
• Search Engine Optimization – That website needs to have BOTH “onsite” and “offsite” SEO strategies. Just because you have build or purchased a professional website does NOT mean that site is optimized. Also,  websites need continuous optimization.
• Video Search Engine Optimization (VSEO) -  VIDEO, VIDEO and MORE VIDEO! Sales Consultants can dominate Google with Video SEO. It is EASY and FREE!!
• Online Reputation – Sales Consultants MUST have a POWERFUL online reputation strategy.  Reviews INDEX on Google! The more reviews that you have online, the more times you and your name can show up on the first page of Google. There are also numerous online reputation sites that you can focus on:
•  
  • Google Reviews
  • Yelp Reviews
  • Dealer Rater Reviews
  • Yellow Page Reviews
  • Edmunds.com Reviews
  • You can create your own review site or review blog
  • Pictures – Believe it or not but images index very well on Google. They can be straight images or within an image sharing site or engine like:
    • Flickr.com
    • Pinterest.com
    • Photobucket.com

** Here is an AWESOME strategy:

• Create an LLC (Legalzoom.com is CHEAP). The LLC can be something like “Philadelphia Car Sales” or “Cherry Hill Used Car Sales”
• Make sure the “company” name is “Geo” (geographically targeted”)
• Now that you have an OFFICIAL “LLC” or Corporation… you can create a BUSINESS page on Google!!
• I would also create BUSINESS Social Media Accounts (rather than personal ones).

If you believe that car sales is “like having your own business”. Then you need to act like it! You need to seriously make it your own business. I do suggest that you ask your Dealer’s permission and or advice on anything you see in this article, before you just run and do it. These strategies are powerful and serious. 

Stop Stressing Credits, Focus On Selling Cars

I am seeing a disturbing trend happening in our industry. A lot of dealers are focusing way too much on getting credits from 3^rd party providers instead of focusing that energy on selling cars. Now, before you react. Please read the rest of this article.

Remember that I was an Internet Director (5+ years) before I started my company. Now for almost 10 years now I have been building Internet Sales departments and Business Development Centers. I say this just to show that I am not “pro vendor or anti-dealer”. I am a Car-Guy and all I care about is selling cars. And it seems that there is a trend with Dealers that are so focused on getting credits with leads. Some dealers spend so much time trying to track down credits it diminishes the amount of time following up with actual prospects. I am NOT suggesting that you should not be compensated for leads that are invalid or duplicates. I am just expressing my concern with Dealers that spend so much time focusing on trying to get credit for leads. Actually grinding their reps for more credit(s). I have clients that do it sometimes for sport. I said clients, so I know it’s a fact. Some dealers demand credits because they know that most lead source providers will concede rather than argue with a dealer or possibly lose a client over something as silly as a credit. There are dealers that sometimes not choose a particular lead source provider because of their “Lead Credit Policy”, or worse even cancel a 3^rd party lead source provider or aggregator because they didn’t get a credit or the amount of credit back they thought they were owed. 

This blows my mind because the average cost per lead in the United States is only $20 (give or take a couple of dollars).  The upside is off the charts. If a dealer buys 100 leads at $2,000 and sells 10 percent (10 units) with an average Front and Back, total gross of $2,000 per copy. That is $20,000 Gross. The Return On Investment (ROI) is SICK!! We are talking about a Net profit of $18,000 from 1 lead source provider. Especially when you compare it to traditional advertising. NADA says that the average cost per sale in advertising is $640+ per car. In the model I just mentioned, 10 units sold out of 100 leads at $2,000 per copy means that the 3^rd party lead source provider model is ONLY $200 per car sold. That is less than 1/3 of what the AVERAGE dealership in this country sells cars for.

Here is the problem; most dealers forget that leads are NOT magical beans or silver bullets. They forget that they have to work at these leads. And when I say “work”, I mean WORK and work them hard. Dealers need to have the following:

• A Follow Up Process – Dealers need to have a realistic follow up process for email, phone and social media (Yes, I said social media. Social Media is the #1 form of communication on this planet).  They need to not just say “we need to follow up via email, phone and social media”. There needs to be an EXACT formula mapped out. The formula needs to be realistic and logical and take into account that the average buying cycle is 45-90 days. NOT 37 days. Also, the follow up process needs to be tailored to the fact that the average Internet sales prospect is also engaging 5-8 other dealers or websites… 

• Content – Dealers need to have a powerful library of content. Email Templates, Phone Scripts, Word Tracks, Objections / Rebuttals, Value Package Proposition (Why buy from us message).

• People / HR – Dealers need to have the right amount of people in the department or the right amount of people in the dealership that are working the Internet Leads. A lot of dealers have too many leads and not enough people or the opposite… too many people and not enough leads. Both are bad problems (That can be fixed). But its not just not having the right amount of people. Dealers need to have the RIGHT people in the right positions. The right scheduling and pay plans are also imperative for success within an Internet Sales Department or BDC.

• Training – Dealers need to train their people with what to do, when to do it, how to do it and most importantly why they are doing it.

• TO protocol- There needs to be a 100% “TO” process in place with ALL Internet prospects. Just like most dealers and all successful dealerships believe in a 100% TO protocol for showroom prospects. So should the Internet department. Too many times dealerships “burn” through Internet Ups without any accountability.

• Culture – Dealerships that instill a culture that ALL leads are good leads. ALL 3^rd Party leads are AWESOME will be tremendously successful. It’s the dealers that allow Internet or BDC reps to “pre-qualify” leads or allow reps to say that a certain lead “sucks”… those dealerships will be inundated with “bad leads” that suck.  Dealers that teach their Internet / BDC teams that a lead is ONLY a “lead” it is an opportunity to sell an automobile. NOTHING MORE. It is a name, sometimes a phone number, sometimes an email address. BUT if you receive a lead without an email address or phone number instead of worrying about a credit (at first). FOCUS on trying to ascertain that contact information. For example dealers can:

•  Open up the original lead within the ILM /CRM and see if the lead didn’t parse
• Reverse look up via 411
• Reverse look up via www.anywho.com or www.whitepages.com
• Thorough reverse look up with www.spokeo.com
• Reverse look up via social media (cut and past prospect’s email address into Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin etc…

Bottom line is that 3^rd party providers have tremendous value. To realize that true value, dealers need to be prepared for these leads and have a proactive mindset that leads are gateways to opportunities to sell an automobile. Its not a guarantee, only an opportunity to do business. It is up to us how we maximize that opportunity.

If you have any questions about this article or if you would like me to review your Dealership’s Internet or BDC lead follow up process. Please email me at sean@dealersynergy.com or call me on my cell at 267-319-6776.

I look forward to seeing you at the upcoming www.internetsales20group.com that AutoUSA is a Platinum Sponsor in Los Angeles, November 12-14 

It's that time again! AutoUSA is collecting responses to its annual Fall Internet Marketing survey. Sales Managers, Sales Directors, Internet Sales Managers, BDC Managers, Internet Directors, General Managers, dealer principals and others involved in auto dealership Internet Marketing are invited to participate.

The survey is just 15 questions and will take less than 15 minutes to complete. When all responses are collected, we will randomly select one survey participant to receive a $300 Visa gift card. But you can't win if you don't answer the questions! Please click on the link below to get started, and in less time than it takes to finish your cup of coffee, you will be entered into the prize drawing. In order to be eligible for the prize, you must work at a dealership and be a resident of the U.S. or Canada.

Thank you so much for your time and participation!

Click here to get started:http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/AutoUSAFall2013AIS

Did you watch some of the Olympics or hear news reports from the games? The Olympics are always fascinating for two reasons: The performances are amazing, and the back stories for each and every Olympian are just as amazing, if not more so. My question for you is, are you an Olympian?

One definition of an Olympian, of course, is someone who competes in the games. Other parts of the definition can be:

• Majestic in manner

• Superior to mundane affairs

• Surpassing all others in scope and effect

If you are great at what you do, you are truly majestic. If you are great at what you do, you are definitely superior to mundane affairs, and you will surpass all others in scope and effect. If you are producing great results, you are an Olympian; if not, it is simply a choice to be so if you choose.

Often, through fear-based and limited thinking, people make excuses for their lack of performance by saying why they are not getting results or cannot get results. You will also hear people make excuses as to why others are having those results when they are not. The key word is excuses.

Whenever you hear an Olympian interviewed, you often hear the same components. First, they set a goal. Next, they began a course of intense action that involved extraordinary planning, practice, coaching, mental preparation, persistence, perseverance and adjustment to set-backs. You often hear of breakthroughs that come through tragic conditions.

You can be an Olympian at anything you choose if you are willing to set a strong goal and create Olympian habits. Listen to the stories that are told about the athletes. They all get up early every day and follow a habitual course of intense training. The athletes are continually seeking advanced coaching, where massive gains can sometimes come from slight adjustments. The athletes are always seeking even one slight change that can make a difference. Every single athlete can describe conditions of self-doubt, or times where their will seems to be lacking, but they persevere and can see what has come from their persistence.

When you watch a swimming event and examine the time difference between the first and third-place finisher, it can be shocking how close they are. If you watch a volleyball match, you can see a long, grueling match often come down to one play. Watch a judo competition and you may see the winner get their result from one perfectly executed maneuver. In all of these examples, the difference between winning and losing can be slight. In business, if you were to put forth the effort demonstrated by the Olympic athletes, you will always win in the long run. You cannot be denied — it is as absolute as turning on a light. Would you do what it takes habitually if you knew you could not fail? So, go do it. Be an Olympian.

If you would like my free Special Report “Ten Things You Can Do to Become an Olympian,” e-mail me at the link below with the “Olympian” in the subject line.

“In the mind of the beginner there are many possibilities, and in the mind of the expert there are few.”-Suzuki Roshi

What would you do in your sales career if you did not have limitations? Everyone has self-imposed limitations. These limitations can stem from several strong forces – environment, childhood experiences, workplace profiling, etc. Never allow anyone to pigeonhole you into who you supposedly are or who you are not.

People in your work environment continually judge you as to what your strengths and weaknesses are, and what you can or cannot do. You must realize that all of these evaluations are subjective. Opinions of you are simply that, opinions. What someone thinks of you does not necessarily have to have anything to do with who you are. The opinion that matters most is your own.

You create your own reality. Who you believe you are is who you will become. You are who you decide to be at any given moment. You really don’t need anything that you might be telling yourself you need. I call this the “When – Then” syndrome. Example – When I get this, then I will do this.” Imagine your limitations are written on a dry erase board. Simply erase them and then take action.

You must continually feed your subconscious mind with the images and messages of who you want to be. Your subconscious does not reject any images or messages. Therefore, what you impress, you express. The dominant messages and images win out, good or bad. Write down what you desire. Write it again and again until you can see it in your mind’s eye. Picture your desires in present tense, as if they have already occurred. Don’t let anyone detract from your mission.