Master Deal Maker Secrets

Visit http://JohnBlakeAudio.com to Learn How to DOUBLE Your Enquiry-to-Sale Conversion with The Lead Flow You Already Have.

Today we're going to talk about a really simple three-step formula to present information in a way that people understand.

Before I started in the consulting business I had a fashion agency. What I would do is, I would get a client and I would show them the range of clothing that was available for the season so they could decide which ones they wanted to sell.

First of all, it was very challenging to keep somebody's attention for the three hours we needed to get through this particular range, but there was another big issue.

What most of the other representatives would do is that they would present a 400-item range of clothing all at once. The clients had to decide which ones they wanted to sell, but often they would have to choose from 50 t-shirt prints, all up in front of them at the same time.

The situation was so confusing that I had to think up a completely different approach. What I had discovered was that there was a specific formula that I could use to maximise sales when a long presentation was required, I called it Chunk, Choice, Check.

I started to present just four items at a time, and I would say to them, "out of these four, which ones can you see yourself selling?" When I started to approach the clients this way, my results went through the roof!

Instead of choosing from fifty, they would only be choosing from four. And as we went, I would put the ones that they had chosen aside. In some cases, they ended up ordering two or three times more than what they would normally do because they were making selections from a smaller group.

Presenting the information in smaller chunks makes it easier for anyone to keep their focus, but the effectiveness of this formula has a greater extent once you integrate all three steps.

Listen to this episode to learn how this very simple strategy will allow you to make sure that the person you are talking to is understanding what you are presenting to them; and from a sales perspective, to make sure that you are bringing them along for the ride each step of the way. This formula works amazingly well regardless of the kind of presentation you are giving.

To DOUBLE your lead-to-sale CONVERSION with the leads you already have, go to http://JohnBlakeAudio.com for his exclusive, free, no-fluff, audio training and companion PDF guide.

Inside you'll get word-for-word email follow-up templates, phone scripts, and more that you can put to use today.

Visit http://JohnBlakeAudio.com to Learn How to DOUBLE Your Enquiry-to-Sale Conversion with The Lead Flow You Already Have.

Recently, I've been helping clients with a fundamental step. The transition from being the managing director or the business owner that does all the sales, to hiring the first person in sales or business development.

This is a pretty big step for any business, as you can imagine, there are some things that must be considered in order to have an excellent hiring process where you can make sure that you have the right people and also, that you know what to do with them after they've been hired.

What I've seen happen over the years is that people tend to make one or all of the four mistakes I'm sharing with you today when they choose to hire a salesperson.

Let's start from the very beginning of the process, which leads us to the first mistake. People often don't create a profile of the person that they want.

You are so much more likely to attract the type of person that you want if you can work out who they are. It's just like working out your ideal client. How old do they need to be? Are they male? Are they female? Are they already in a job? Are they working in the industry?

You have to put that profile together. That way, when you write the ad, that person is going to read it and they're going to go, "Wow! that's me". If the ad looks too generic it doesn't speak to anybody in particular, therefore, you are going to get all sorts of the wrong people, making the whole process a waste of time, which is obviously not what you want it to be.

Creating the profile of the person that you want makes it a lot more likely for you to attract that person. If you can attract them, you can hire them, but there are some intermediate and later steps that are usually done wrong as well.

You might have salespeople in place, you might have a sales team in place, and you might be wondering why they're not hanging around, or why they're not selling stuff. It might not just be because your sales process is flawed, it might be because you have a recruitment problem or a selection problem, rather than an actual sales training problem.

These four fundamental flaws that people tend to fall into when they go through the hiring process produce a lot of complications and issues. Listen to this episode to know what these four mistakes are, to identify if you are making any of them, and most importantly, to get over them having the tools needed to develop a hiring process that is reliable and consistent.

To DOUBLE your lead-to-sale CONVERSION with the leads you already have, go to http://JohnBlakeAudio.com for his exclusive, free, no-fluff, audio training and companion PDF guide.

Inside you'll get word-for-word email follow-up templates, phone scripts, and more that you can put to use today.

Visit http://JohnBlakeAudio.com to Learn How to DOUBLE Your Enquiry-to-Sale Conversion with The Lead Flow You Already Have.

Getting in front of your dream clients may seem unreachable at first glance, more so if they haven't even heard of you before. You may think they are in another league, that they wouldn't be interested in doing business with anybody that isn't as renowned as them.

That couldn't be farther from the truth, there are quite some things you can do to get to them, and most importantly, to make yourself relevant to them.

Today, I'm going to share with you the six keys that you need to be aware of to get appointments with your dream clients. They are essential to get the job done.

Picture this, in most cases, businesses have got a list of clients that they would love to work with, but those clients are not beating a path to their door, they're not coming to them through their normal marketing. They know who they are, but they don't have a strategy to get in front of them.

Let's face it, your ability to get in front of people really determines the income and the turnover of the business. If you've got low appointments, it means low sales.

Unfortunately, there are some methods businesses use to get appointments that, to a large extent, can, and often do, destroy credibility. Cold calling is a good example of this. Only about 2% of cold calls actually result in an appointment, and the few that do get scheduled are very likely to get cancelled. This is why a lot of salespeople give up.

I know that you want a method that actually produces results.

These six keys will guide you through a more personal and fruitful path to getting appointments. I know from experience that they are amazing at making people interested in new business opportunities.

For instance, the first one of these keys is to be persistent. If you know that you can really add value to a particular business, then don't give up. Continue to show up with Valid Business Reasons to talk to them—I've done a podcast on this in the past so, if you want to know more about VBR's, go check that one out.

You want to add value, send them information that they would find useful, refer business to them, this will often position you very powerfully. Do your homework so you can provide them with something that they find helpful for their current situation, or their current needs.

I do teach several clients different strategies and different ways that they can use to get in front of their dream clients, and I can tell you that these six keys are fundamental if you want to succeed in the task. Listen to this episode to know how these can help you assemble an effective approach to getting appointments.

To DOUBLE your lead-to-sale CONVERSION with the leads you already have, go to http://JohnBlakeAudio.com for his exclusive, free, no-fluff, audio training and companion PDF guide.

Inside you'll get word-for-word email follow-up templates, phone scripts, and more that you can put to use today.

Visit http://JohnBlakeAudio.com to Learn How to DOUBLE Your Enquiry-to-Sale Conversion with The Lead Flow You Already Have.

Today we are going to talk about the difference between training alone and training with ongoing coaching. This is a particularly crucial topic if you're looking at training either yourself or your actual sales team.

I'm reminded of a conversation that I had with a retail client that I've worked with on and off. They were a client of mine in a previous business, and when I set up the training business, I used to do a retail sales masterclass. I used to call this guy every time I ran one because I had a really good relationship with him.

I remember ringing him one day and saying, "Is there anyone that you'd like to send along to the retail sales masterclass?" He said no. I did a lot of those masterclasses and I called him for every one of them but the same thing kept on happening so, one day, I said to him, "Look, I reckon I've rung at least eight times and offered you the chance to improve the skills of the people that you've got working on the retail shop floor, and every single time you said no, Is there a particular reason for that?"

His answer really got me thinking. He said, "I used to be a schoolteacher, and they used to send us to these professional development courses. And we would go and do them, but no one would ever implement it. No one that I ever went through the training with would even do it."

This is really interesting because it actually highlights something that I've noticed over the 17 years I've been in the coaching and training business.

If you train a group of people, if you do a one-day training you will almost certainly get an increase in enthusiasm, you'll get a spike in some short-term results, in energy, and in activity. After that, typically, the performance will slip back to a level just above where it was before they attended the training.

I'm not the only one who knows the possibilities and limitations of this kind of training. There is a study in which they had two groups, they just gave training on a particular skill to the first group whilst the other had training on a particular skill, plus ongoing accountability, and coaching.

The group that just did the training alone got a 22% shift in their results, but the group that had the training combined with ongoing coaching got up to 88% of a shift in their result. That is a massive difference!

Fortunately, nowadays, it is easier than ever to exploit these resources having an ongoing process in which you can really hold people accountable and give them real live coaching on what it is that they've done.

Listen to this episode to learn more about the differences between these two approaches to training and how you can easily implement training with ongoing coaching in your business to get a huge shift in your results.

To DOUBLE your lead-to-sale CONVERSION with the leads you already have, go to http://JohnBlakeAudio.com for his exclusive, free, no-fluff, audio training and companion PDF guide.

Inside you'll get word-for-word email follow-up templates, phone scripts, and more that you can put to use today.

Visit http://JohnBlakeAudio.com to Learn How to DOUBLE Your Enquiry-to-Sale Conversion with The Lead Flow You Already Have.

Today, we are going to talk about a two-step process that you can use to generate referrals from your existing clients. This is a really simple strategy that you can use to produce amazing results.

The people that you want to get referrals from are your better clients. Think about it, your long-term clients, the people that are the easiest to deal with, the people that give you the least amount of grief and drama are the ones that you would ideally love to refer some business to.

It happens both ways. It is most likely that if you have a long and ongoing relationship with your clients is because they appreciate what you do and how you work with them so, it is easier for them to refer somebody that is struggling with something to you if you are the right person for the job.

Having good business relationships and keeping constant communication with your clients is great but it's not enough to get referrals. There is a statistic that says that 91% of clients state that they will refer but only 9% or 10% actually do, the reason why only a small amount of people does it is we don't ask.

This is an easy fix, it is as simple as saying to one of your better clients, "we really appreciate the business, and what we also realise is that birds of a feather flock together. What we would ideally love is if there was anyone that you know, that you think we should be talking to, that we could potentially help in the same way that we've helped you, we'd really love to get a hold of them."

You could literally keep going on for quite some time and you might walk out of that conversation with maybe five or six different referrals.

It's a simple process, however, you have to be careful with how you do it. If you don't paint the picture of the type of client that that person would ideally be best to refer to you, you'd probably end up talking to a client that doesn't fit your business's needs.

Listen to this episode to know how you can start implementing this simple but amazing strategy into your business right away. You will be surprised by the possibilities that can be opened to you if you know how to properly ask for referrals to your existing clients.

To DOUBLE your lead-to-sale CONVERSION with the leads you already have, go to http://JohnBlakeAudio.com for his exclusive, free, no-fluff, audio training and companion PDF guide.

Inside you'll get word-for-word email follow-up templates, phone scripts, and more that you can put to use today.

Visit http://JohnBlakeAudio.com to Learn How to DOUBLE Your Enquiry-to-Sale Conversion with The Lead Flow You Already Have.

First, I want to elucidate why this episode is named like this. I know that it sounds awesome and it's accurate, but not completely. I was never in the SAS, I didn't train with the SAS, but what I did do was train in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with three guys who were in the SAS.

Some of you may be asking, what is this SAS? The Special Air Service is a special forces unit of the British army. These fellows are as tough as nails, and relentless when it comes to completing the task. They stop at nothing.

I learned three really big lessons from those guys, and I think it's worthwhile sharing them with you because they are directly applicable to a sales context.

An important part of the training they do in the SAS happens in what's called a Killhouse. If you are not familiar with what it is, it's basically a scenario designed to simulate a hostage situation or a situation where they are looking to take over a particular building and gain a position in battle.

Probably, all of this sounds like it has nothing to do with business. How does a Killhouse simulation relate to a sales context?

There was one thing that one of these guys that I trained with said that really stuck with me, "if it's exciting, you haven't trained enough".

From a sales perspective, if you're with clients, and you feel nervous, it means that you haven't drilled the scenario of you talking to a client enough, you haven't done enough role plays, you haven't used the actual framework and a script enough to a point where you can actually feel comfortable in that situation.

It's the same for public speaking, what I found is when I first started speaking in front of groups of people, I was nervous. Now, I can talk in front of a group of 500 people and because I don't have that high level of anxiety, I can think more readily on my feet, I can come up with ideas, I can move in a particular direction in terms of my talk, and I can adapt and respond to what's actually happening in the room.

So, if you are nervous and don't have enough confidence to deal with the situations that develop in a sales context, it is essential that you ask yourself, "What do I need to do to get my reps up enough so that I can be more responsive, more present, and more effective and more productive in a sales-type role?".

This lesson taught me to keep working on my abilities, it really has played a big role in my career and I know you can take full advantage of it, as well as you can with the other two I am going to share with you.

These three lessons in particular are great guidelines if you want to master handling sales situations. In this episode, you'll learn what it takes to dramatically increase your chances of success while having control across the entire process. These lessons have done great things for me and they can do the same for you.

To DOUBLE your lead-to-sale CONVERSION with the leads you already have, go to http://JohnBlakeAudio.com for his exclusive, free, no-fluff, audio training and companion PDF guide.

Inside you'll get word-for-word email follow-up templates, phone scripts, and more that you can put to use today.

Visit http://JohnBlakeAudio.com to Learn How to DOUBLE Your Enquiry-to-Sale Conversion with The Lead Flow You Already Have.

Today, we´re going to talk about the three core elements of a high-performing sales management system. This is something that I get called in to do for businesses a lot and it is a really big step to get this right.

Here is the standard scenario I've seen in my 17 years of training and coaching sales teams, when you find businesses that have a sales team it is pretty common to see horrible culture among their members.

For instance, some businesses can have a sales manager in place who is thought to be particularly skilled, highly empathetic, and with great emotional intelligence to be able to manage a sales team when the truth is, that's not the case. The mismatch between the job profile and the personality of a sales manager is a big issue that can be traced way back to the hiring process, and it has great consequences.

What you often find is high turnover; people coming and going. Maybe there are one or two top performers on the team and one or two mediocre ones. Sales managers can deal with this situation in a couple of different ways, but most of the time they don't handle it correctly.

Actually, it is quite common for the sales manager to be the reason why people leave; it has rightfully been said "people don't leave businesses they leave bosses. Fortunately, this can be avoided.

In this episode, I am going to give you tools to deal with these issues so that your sales management encourages people to stick around and deliver their best results.

We are going to go through the different stages of the process, from selecting your team and inducting them into a new work environment to establishing good training, managing them, and motivating them on a regular basis.

Once they are in, we can talk about the Three Core Elements of High Performing Sales Management: goal setting, praise, and reprimand.

There are specific things we have to look at in each one of these elements to get them to work together. They will allow you to create a healthy environment as a foundation for building a great sales team culture in which you and your team can work together in a profitable, respectful, and long-lasting relationship.

I have touched on this in previous podcasts, but I hadn't gone into it in quite as much depth as what I'm going to today.

Listen to this episode to know how these Three Core Elements can fix the management issues of your sales team, it does take a few things to get it right, but the rewards are totally worth it.

To DOUBLE your lead-to-sale CONVERSION with the leads you already have, go to http://JohnBlakeAudio.com for his exclusive, free, no-fluff, audio training and companion PDF guide.

Inside you'll get word-for-word email follow-up templates, phone scripts, and more that you can put to use today.

Visit http://JohnBlakeAudio.com to Learn How to DOUBLE Your Enquiry-to-Sale Conversion with The Lead Flow You Already Have.

Today we're going to talk about two big blockages that you may encounter in your sales process, and what specifically you can do about them.

Having a potential client make the decision of moving forward with you and whatever solution your business is offering to them is easier said than done. You probably have talked to some of them that are reticent about taking the next step, they may even argue that they're afraid to do so, or that the price you are charging is too high.

If you're getting the same objections coming up over and over again, there are specific reasons that you're getting those objections.

You are experiencing blockages, and I'm pretty sure you've wondered what you need to do when they happen to break the streak. In this episode, I want to talk about two of these blockages, what causes them, and what you can do to stop them from happening in the first place.

As mentioned, one of them occurs when somebody says to you, "it's too expensive, it's more than what I plan to spend"

Your price may be high, and if that's the case, the value your business is offering has to keep up with that price. Essentially, if you listen to this objection, it means that you haven't established sufficient value before they know what the price is.

Value exists in a couple of different forms. A lot of people think about it in terms of features, advantages, and benefits. They explain to somebody why a particular product is different, how it's going to work in that person's life. Don't get me wrong, that has merit, especially if what they are saying is relevant to that person's situation.

However, there is another part of establishing value that people often forget about or just ignore, and that is the cost of inaction.

If you're fixing a costly enough problem that is valuable, and then the value of fixing that costly problem becomes greater than the investment in your particular product or service, the person will actually buy because they've realised the cost of doing nothing is greater than the investment they're making in your solution.

That problem can be either costing them too much money, time, or energy; it can also be exceedingly annoying for them. That's why you need to create an environment where they understand and discover for themselves how their challenges are affecting their business, and how you can help them.

I'm going to give you the elements required to build this environment. I'm sure that knowing this will help you overcome those apparently dead-end situations. You'll find that it is actually possible to prevent these objections from happening if you have a well-organised process.

To DOUBLE your lead-to-sale CONVERSION with the leads you already have, go to http://JohnBlakeAudio.com for his exclusive, free, no-fluff, audio training and companion PDF guide.

Inside you'll get word-for-word email follow-up templates, phone scripts, and more that you can put to use today.

Visit http://JohnBlakeAudio.com to Learn How to DOUBLE Your Enquiry-to-Sale Conversion with The Lead Flow You Already Have.

One of the biggest pieces of leverage that you've got available in your business is to create an offer. Many people think that making an offer is the same as making a product more appealing to clients by reducing its price.

Although that is indeed a way of offering a product, I don't think this method is the way to go, and I'm sure you will second me on this thought after you listen to this episode.

Creating an offer is such an overlooked area, we often get locked into making the same one over and over again. I have been guilty of this previously, and I know it is vital to talk about this topic so that you know the wider spectrum of possibilities you can exploit.

Today I'm going to give you the 4 Key Elements of Creating an Offer That Will Convert.

To get started, an offer is basically the product you are selling, the price that you are asking for it, the payment terms, and the bonuses altogether.

A lower price can be one of them, but if you can be creative with the bonuses you give, you can actually make the bonuses a product.

It can be something that will enhance the product, protect it, or complement it. If you throw in a case, a set of cool headphones, and a portable battery you are instantly offering a better deal for a smartphone, but there is a whole lot more that you can do. The bonus doesn't have to be something related to the product itself but something that is appealing regardless of the product you sell.

We are going to go through every element so you can see the tools required to create better offers. Even if you have a dead product, by changing the way you offer it, you can get positive results.

I wish I knew about this earlier in my career and I'm thrilled to be able to share it with you today. Listen to this episode to maximise your sales through the offers you make.

To DOUBLE your lead-to-sale CONVERSION with the leads you already have, go to http://JohnBlakeAudio.com for his exclusive, free, no-fluff, audio training and companion PDF guide.

Inside you'll get word-for-word email follow-up templates, phone scripts, and more that you can put to use today.

Visit http://JohnBlakeAudio.com to Learn How to DOUBLE Your Enquiry-to-Sale Conversion with The Lead Flow You Already Have.

Last week I did a LinkedIn post that had the most incredible response to it, you should go and check it out. It is about the whole idea of getting leads, maximising, and extracting every single drop of value out of them.

I'll describe it so you understand what this is about. It is a drawing of a funnel that's got all these holes in it, and there's water spurting out of it. Each one of those holes represents something different, one of them is leads not contacted, another one is leads not converted, another one is leads not followed up, there are about six of them.

Let's think about it. If there are at least six holes in a funnel, how much water is coming out from the bottom end? where it's supposed to come out. One thing's for sure, not as much as it should.

What I'm going to do today is go through a checklist that people requested from me, I'm going to give you 11 things that you can do to plug the holes in your sales funnel so you can make sure you are not missing out on anything.

I'll give you a couple of examples so you know what the purpose of this list is.

The first thing you can do is contact every lead within five minutes of their inquiry. The data tells us that if you respond this quick, your chance of converting those leads goes up by 900% That is simply astonishing!

Another bit of data tells us that 50% of sales go to the first company that contacts a lead so, time is of the essence here. If you want to maximise your opportunities of converting a lead you better be ready to get in touch with them as soon as they contact you.

There is a different issue that's introduced when people try to contact leads just a couple of times and then give up. Just because they didn't take your call the two or three times that you rang them this week, it doesn't mean that they're not going to take your call next week or the week after.

Try harder to actually talk to each lead in the first place, and if you have a sales team that follows up on them it is essential that you use an effective sales meeting framework to make sure that each salesperson has accountability for all of his or her opportunities.

There is a whole lot of things on this list that will help you fix the problems in your conversion process. Listen to this episode to stop missing out on big opportunities and to get the most out of your time and efforts, I'm sure you will know how to exploit these resources to your advantage.

To DOUBLE your lead-to-sale CONVERSION with the leads you already have, go to http://JohnBlakeAudio.com for his exclusive, free, no-fluff, audio training and companion PDF guide.

Inside you'll get word-for-word email follow-up templates, phone scripts, and more that you can put to use today.