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.

We are going to be talking about the five critical mistakes that people make in their sales. I heard sales referred to, by a business person that I have a lot of respect for, as a moving target. It's ever-evolving. It's always changing. Markets are shifting.

The strategies that worked 5, 10, 15 years ago don't necessarily work today. There are principles of human influence at the core which remain the same, but the way that these principles need to be executed to remain effective is constantly changing.

The first mistake you need to avoid in sales is talking too much. Years ago, a good talker and a good salesperson went hand in hand. To some extent this remains true; a good talker with no structured sales approach will come across enthusiastic, but enthusiastically boring.

To be great at sales, you need to know how to string a sentence together. In my experience, the best salespeople are often the best listeners, not the best talkers.

Being able to listen intently, place yourself in another’s shoes, and emotionally relate to your client’s position, is infinitely more powerful than simply being a good talker.

The second mistake is in too much prescribing without enough diagnosing. It is always noticeable when a salesperson jumps the gun to tell someone about their product or service. I have heard it referred to on occasion as premature elaboration. The best salespeople quickly and effectively diagnose before they jump into a product presentation mode.

The third mistake you can make is selling to someone who isn’t a great fit for your product. They simply won’t yield good results, becoming dissatisfied with your product or service and going on to potentially write a bad online review. They’ll go around telling others about their negative experience as well, damaging your word of mouth reputation.

The fourth one is using clichés that put people off. What comes out of your mouth can win someone over or throw them away. Years ago, I had hired a colleague who used to say, “Let's talk Turkey.” It used to drive me nuts.

I don't know why that’s an acceptable term because what’s the general connotation of the word Turkey? It's not that positive. I just couldn’t understand that with the abundance of words available in the English language, there wasn’t a better way of describing the act of chatting to someone about business.

Words are either used constructively, adding to the experience, or destructively, subtracting from the experience. Clichés are worth avoiding. If you've got clichés in your industry, then avoid them. It makes you sound like everybody else, use words that distinguish you.

The fifth mistake is lying or not being genuine. This one will be the most detrimental to your sales if left unaddressed. Regardless of how good your sales system is, if you aren’t being yourself and don’t value your product and company, you will lose sales. You need to understand what you sell and be perfectly clear on your own value.

There is certainly a bigger list of mistakes a salesperson can make, but these are definitely some of the biggest ones. So remember, to be a great salesperson, you don’t have to be a great talker. Listen to your client, place yourself in their shoes, and diagnose the problem, before even thinking about prescribing a solution. Using your emotional intelligence to grasp the client’s situation is more powerful than any cliché driven pitch you can deliver.

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 followup 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.

We're going to be talking about how saying thank you for your time to a potential client when you go to see them, may actually kill the sale. We’re also going to tackle how business people unnecessarily subordinate their time, their positioning, and their value.

I see this a lot: as salespeople, we unnecessarily subordinate our value; and doing so really harms our positioning with our client, and the perceived value of our brand and what we sell. We tend to undervalue what we do.

We have continually drummed into ourselves that the “customer is king,” and that “the customer is always right,” because they're the ones that are paying us. These things are true to some extent. But our overall value in a transaction is often as high, if not higher, than the customer that we're buying from. After all, there are way more customers to sell to, than there are suitable businesses to buy from, let alone ones that offer great advice and great service.

There are a couple of common phrases that businesses and salespeople tend to use that devalue their position in the eyes of a client. The first one is: “You know, I'll just take 10 minutes of your time,” or “Oh, thanks so much for your time.” There's no reason for it. We're making ourselves sound less important than the people we’re selling to.

I remember a conversation that I had with one of my early mentors when I sold Quicksilver and Ripcurl. We were talking about a particularly prickly retailer who had a habit of speaking very rudely and abruptly to agents.

For a reason that I can't recall, I'd been on the rough end of one of this guy's rants. I remember my mentor saying something that stuck with me: “Sometimes we forget that our clients need us as much, if not more than we need them.”

If you think about it, what would happen if there were no longer any vendors? It’s pretty hard to run a retail store if all the vendors suddenly went away, so it should be an equal exchange of energy when two business equals meet.

You might think, “Oh, you know, my business is so competitive that we have to try to sell at every opportunity we get.” I agree with that, but you don't have to unnecessarily disable your chances before you even get the chance to have the conversation.

So replace “Thank you for your time,” with “Hey, great to meet you.” You don't need to thank the person for their time because they could potentially be thanking you for your time too. Replace “I’ll only take 10 minutes of your time,” with “The process would typically take us between 10 and 15 minutes. Is that okay with you?”

Before, I've talked about a number of other phrases, words and overused clichés that you need to avoid at all costs in a client conversation if you want to improve your chances of starting and finishing a sales conversation that actually results in your client buying from you. I urge you to think about this: make sure that you understand that your time and your value is as valuable, if not more than the person that you are talking to - not to feel elitist or arrogant, but just understand that your time is just as valuable.

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 followup 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.

We're going to be talking about how saying thank you for your time to a potential client when you go to see them, may actually kill the sale. We’re also going to tackle how business people unnecessarily subordinate their time, their positioning, and their value.

I see this a lot: as salespeople, we unnecessarily subordinate our value; and doing so really harms our positioning with our client, and the perceived value of our brand and what we sell. We tend to undervalue what we do.

We have continually drummed into ourselves that the “customer is king,” and that “the customer is always right,” because they're the ones that are paying us. These things are true to some extent. But our overall value in a transaction is often as high, if not higher, than the customer that we're buying from. After all, there are way more customers to sell to, than there are suitable businesses to buy from, let alone ones that offer great advice and great service.

There are a couple of common phrases that businesses and salespeople tend to use that devalue their position in the eyes of a client. The first one is: “You know, I'll just take 10 minutes of your time,” or “Oh, thanks so much for your time.” There's no reason for it. We're making ourselves sound less important than the people we’re selling to.

I remember a conversation that I had with one of my early mentors when I sold Quicksilver and Ripcurl. We were talking about a particularly prickly retailer who had a habit of speaking very rudely and abruptly to agents.

For a reason that I can't recall, I'd been on the rough end of one of this guy's rants. I remember my mentor saying something that stuck with me: “Sometimes we forget that our clients need us as much, if not more than we need them.”

If you think about it, what would happen if there were no longer any vendors? It’s pretty hard to run a retail store if all the vendors suddenly went away, so it should be an equal exchange of energy when two business equals meet.

You might think, “Oh, you know, my business is so competitive that we have to try to sell at every opportunity we get.” I agree with that, but you don't have to unnecessarily disable your chances before you even get the chance to have the conversation.

So replace “Thank you for your time,” with “Hey, great to meet you.” You don't need to thank the person for their time because they could potentially be thanking you for your time too. Replace “I’ll only take 10 minutes of your time,” with “The process would typically take us between 10 and 15 minutes. Is that okay with you?”

Before, I've talked about a number of other phrases, words and overused clichés that you need to avoid at all costs in a client conversation if you want to improve your chances of starting and finishing a sales conversation that actually results in your client buying from you. I urge you to think about this: make sure that you understand that your time and your value is as valuable, if not more than the person that you are talking to - not to feel elitist or arrogant, but just understand that your time is just as valuable.

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 followup 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.

Naturally, the more time you’ve got that you can free up, the more time you can allocate to working with clients and generating revenue, which is exactly what we’re all about.

Back in the day, I had a mentor by the name of Chet Holmes, who sadly passed away a few years ago. He was always looking for ways to improve his time-management skills.

One day, he attended a time management course, where he was told to record everything that he did for three whole months… and that was just the first step of many. Unfortunately, this gives you no time to spend on high-impact areas like talking to clients, going through offers with people, writing emails that you can broadcast to your leads. All that stuff suffers, which means your sales results are either stagnant or will begin to go backwards.

So, faced with the irony of this process, he developed his own system to master your time-management.

You want a system that works. You don’t want something that’s going to take an hour to do each day because you know you could be spending that hour on something much more productive. What’s classified as high-impact? If you’re in sales, it’s creating sales, more customers, and more revenue with existing customers.

You can increase sales without working any longer. Work the same hours, make more money. The first thing that we need to do is look at where all our time is going.

If you’ve got people that are coming to you throughout the day saying, “Hey, can I borrow you for a minute?”, Chet used to talk about giving them a notepad. They would list all their questions and they would nail them all in a half-hour. Something like that can make a huge difference – organizing time with people, rather than just giving them random access to you.

The other thing is to block out time. If you’ve got a bunch of telephone calls to make, then block out an hour. You’ll end up with voicemail about seven times out of ten, so you can make 20 calls, speak to six people, and get it over with within the hour.

Onto the important steps, step one is to touch it once. What does that mean? Don’t look at something, read it, put it aside and plan on coming back to it. If you’re going to touch it, smash it out and move onto the next thing.

Step two is to refine your lists. Rather than having 35 things on your to-do list, prioritize the six must-do's. You should ask yourself, which six things will be the most important to tick-off today?

The third step is to plan when, and how much time you’re going to allocate to each task. Once you know what you have to get done in the morning, your subconscious mind will work on it overnight and make it much easier to take-on once you’re up.

Another concept is one that I learned from Brian Tracy, in his book called, “Eat that Frog”. The idea behind this book is that you should do the thing that you least want to do, first. The reason he mentions the frog, is that if the first thing he had to do at the start of the day was eat a frog, then everything else would be pretty smooth-sailing after that. It would, by comparison, be pretty easy.

Step number four, plan the day then prioritize. Make sure that your six must-do's are high-impact things. We’ve sort of touched on this already, but prioritizing is massive.

Similarly, the final step relates to these statistics – 70-80% of all filing is never referred to again. Ask yourself, will I survive if I throw this away? Will I be able to get this information somewhere else?

If so, then it is junk. I urge you to put these steps into practice. We live in a world that is full of distractions. We need a system.

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 followup 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.

Naturally, the more time you’ve got that you can free up, the more time you can allocate to working with clients and generating revenue, which is exactly what we’re all about.

Back in the day, I had a mentor by the name of Chet Holmes, who sadly passed away a few years ago. He was always looking for ways to improve his time-management skills.

One day, he attended a time management course, where he was told to record everything that he did for three whole months… and that was just the first step of many. Unfortunately, this gives you no time to spend on high-impact areas like talking to clients, going through offers with people, writing emails that you can broadcast to your leads. All that stuff suffers, which means your sales results are either stagnant or will begin to go backwards.

So, faced with the irony of this process, he developed his own system to master your time-management.

You want a system that works. You don’t want something that’s going to take an hour to do each day because you know you could be spending that hour on something much more productive. What’s classified as high-impact? If you’re in sales, it’s creating sales, more customers, and more revenue with existing customers.

You can increase sales without working any longer. Work the same hours, make more money. The first thing that we need to do is look at where all our time is going.

If you’ve got people that are coming to you throughout the day saying, “Hey, can I borrow you for a minute?”, Chet used to talk about giving them a notepad. They would list all their questions and they would nail them all in a half-hour. Something like that can make a huge difference – organizing time with people, rather than just giving them random access to you.

The other thing is to block out time. If you’ve got a bunch of telephone calls to make, then block out an hour. You’ll end up with voicemail about seven times out of ten, so you can make 20 calls, speak to six people, and get it over with within the hour.

Onto the important steps, step one is to touch it once. What does that mean? Don’t look at something, read it, put it aside and plan on coming back to it. If you’re going to touch it, smash it out and move onto the next thing.

Step two is to refine your lists. Rather than having 35 things on your to-do list, prioritize the six must-do's. You should ask yourself, which six things will be the most important to tick-off today?

The third step is to plan when, and how much time you’re going to allocate to each task. Once you know what you have to get done in the morning, your subconscious mind will work on it overnight and make it much easier to take-on once you’re up.

Another concept is one that I learned from Brian Tracy, in his book called, “Eat that Frog”. The idea behind this book is that you should do the thing that you least want to do, first. The reason he mentions the frog, is that if the first thing he had to do at the start of the day was eat a frog, then everything else would be pretty smooth-sailing after that. It would, by comparison, be pretty easy.

Step number four, plan the day then prioritize. Make sure that your six must-do's are high-impact things. We’ve sort of touched on this already, but prioritizing is massive.

Similarly, the final step relates to these statistics – 70-80% of all filing is never referred to again. Ask yourself, will I survive if I throw this away? Will I be able to get this information somewhere else?

If so, then it is junk. I urge you to put these steps into practice. We live in a world that is full of distractions. We need a system.

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 followup 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 how to increase your chances of success by 70%, because no matter what you’re doing, in life or in business, you should always be experimenting with new methods to increase your chances of success.

In our quest to increase revenue and attract more clients, we all get to a point where we really do have to start testing our ideas, the point where you've planned something – a new idea, a new product or a new strategy that you really want to implement, but you start to second-guess yourself, and then to second-guess your second-guesses.

I'm speaking from firsthand experience, I’ve been there. The most important advice I can offer is to just try something! Test it out, and see what happens, see what the market returns to you.

When you start to second-guess, that's when you know you've just got to try it out and see what happens.

I read this fascinating article recently, first published around 2005. The article recounts a study of patients who had severe medical conditions and required significant lifestyle changes in order to live.

The unfortunate result was that after only 12 months, 90% of the patients had reverted back to their old lifestyles, virtually guaranteeing an impending death. These were people that were super overweight and were drinking and smoking.

So, faced with the imminent threat of death, the vast majority of people, 90%, still failed to make more productive choices.

Contrastingly, there was another group, a much more successful one, which had an 80% success rate.

How did they achieve an 80% success rate? Well, here's what they did differently: they were involved in peer support sessions.

So essentially, they met on a regular basis and they discussed their progress, their struggles, and the things that they had been challenged within their quest to change. They encouraged each other and supported each other, and as a result, the majority of them stayed on track.

By having others hold them accountable and encouraging them, they increased their chances of success by seven times: a 700% higher chance of success. So what does this mean for us, and how can we learn from this study?

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 followup 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 how to increase your chances of success by 70%, because no matter what you’re doing, in life or in business, you should always be experimenting with new methods to increase your chances of success.

In our quest to increase revenue and attract more clients, we all get to a point where we really do have to start testing our ideas, the point where you've planned something – a new idea, a new product or a new strategy that you really want to implement, but you start to second-guess yourself, and then to second-guess your second-guesses.

I'm speaking from firsthand experience, I’ve been there. The most important advice I can offer is to just try something! Test it out, and see what happens, see what the market returns to you.

When you start to second-guess, that's when you know you've just got to try it out and see what happens.

I read this fascinating article recently, first published around 2005. The article recounts a study of patients who had severe medical conditions and required significant lifestyle changes in order to live.

The unfortunate result was that after only 12 months, 90% of the patients had reverted back to their old lifestyles, virtually guaranteeing an impending death. These were people that were super overweight and were drinking and smoking.

So, faced with the imminent threat of death, the vast majority of people, 90%, still failed to make more productive choices.

Contrastingly, there was another group, a much more successful one, which had an 80% success rate.

How did they achieve an 80% success rate? Well, here's what they did differently: they were involved in peer support sessions.

So essentially, they met on a regular basis and they discussed their progress, their struggles, and the things that they had been challenged within their quest to change. They encouraged each other and supported each other, and as a result, the majority of them stayed on track.

By having others hold them accountable and encouraging them, they increased their chances of success by seven times: a 700% higher chance of success. So what does this mean for us, and how can we learn from this study?

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 followup 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.

In a competitive market? Or are things slowing down?

No matter which one, you can smash your sales results with six ideas.

Businesses hit rough spots all the time. Forget about depressions, how can you compete when you’re being undercut left and right? Actually, these are some tactical opportunities that are passing you by.

When we break it down, our advice is all about shifting focus away from your price tag and placing it on your value.

We won’t lie to you; this isn’t a cheat button. But, if you follow my outlines, I’m sure you’ll see positive results.

The first one is to lead with value. While everyone else is pitching ideas, you be the ones to bring out a demo. Actions speak loudly.

We know there’s a balance—not everyone can work for free to provide this upfront value, but a free appraisal or consultation with some description should be an easy option. In most cases, someone may not be aware of everything your business offers.

In the “Book the Challenger” sale, I feature my one-day professional sales masterclass. Then, I highlight a study displaying how your sales process is actually more important than your product.

So, how can we capitalize on this?

In my questionnaire, I asked, “How many times do you follow-up?” Across the entire sales team, it averaged out at around three times.

Most non-converting sales are made during a fifth or sixth follow-up. So, it’s absolutely crucial to maintain a great procedure. Massive opportunities are left out in the cold because clients weren’t ready at the time, and the salesperson gave up too soon. Not to mention the pool of your consistent clients…

There is gold in a network. Build your lists, and one list you can’t forget is the list of potential buyers. Someone already thinking about purchasing is more likely to do so when you follow-up.

After the initial inquiry, I think 50% of your potential crowd will buy within 18 months. However, only 20% will buy within the first 90 days. The missing 30% chunk is the people spread out between those times.

The best way to start this converting process is by email. Ask them if they’re interested. More than likely, the answer is yes.

Last week, a client had a similar success story. One potential buyer was marked as no because they inquired a better service five months earlier. When they emailed her, she just needed that simple prodding and flipped to a yes!

Circumstances change for people (sometimes daily), and you must be on top of their mind when they do. Also, make sure you’re keeping their needs in mind. If you can help them avoid landmines, this can massively improve your credibility for them. Help with no strings attached is a great way to build trust.

This example can be shown through different changes: legislation, local laws, or competitors. You can’t put a price on a trusted network.

The next idea is “clean the shade.” When I was the National Sales Marketing Manager for Onnit Sunglasses, one thing I did exponentially more with retailers in slower markets was to visit each store, rearrange the displays, and clean the eyewear.

This simple process achieved several strategic goals, one of which is attracting people. Customers crowd around the displays, and often, I could sell a few pairs for the retailer.

This allowed us to take inventory, and we often found gaps. Now, I understand that’s not applicable to every business, but it should hold as an example for most. Here’s the key takeaway: how can you polish your act?

Find a valid business reason to contact a potential client and offer them something. This can be in the spirit of spontaneity, or you can simply give them something of value for free.

With our help, they’re avoiding costly mistakes. This tactic is also a great way to cut through the spam and grab someone’s attention. What better way to build a customer base than through trust and a spirit of cooperation?

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 followup 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.

In a competitive market? Or are things slowing down?

No matter which one, you can smash your sales results with six ideas.

Businesses hit rough spots all the time. Forget about depressions, how can you compete when you’re being undercut left and right? Actually, these are some tactical opportunities that are passing you by.

When we break it down, our advice is all about shifting focus away from your price tag and placing it on your value.

We won’t lie to you; this isn’t a cheat button. But, if you follow my outlines, I’m sure you’ll see positive results.

The first one is to lead with value. While everyone else is pitching ideas, you be the ones to bring out a demo. Actions speak loudly.

We know there’s a balance—not everyone can work for free to provide this upfront value, but a free appraisal or consultation with some description should be an easy option. In most cases, someone may not be aware of everything your business offers.

In the “Book the Challenger” sale, I feature my one-day professional sales masterclass. Then, I highlight a study displaying how your sales process is actually more important than your product.

So, how can we capitalize on this?

In my questionnaire, I asked, “How many times do you follow-up?” Across the entire sales team, it averaged out at around three times.

Most non-converting sales are made during a fifth or sixth follow-up. So, it’s absolutely crucial to maintain a great procedure. Massive opportunities are left out in the cold because clients weren’t ready at the time, and the salesperson gave up too soon. Not to mention the pool of your consistent clients…

There is gold in a network. Build your lists, and one list you can’t forget is the list of potential buyers. Someone already thinking about purchasing is more likely to do so when you follow-up.

After the initial inquiry, I think 50% of your potential crowd will buy within 18 months. However, only 20% will buy within the first 90 days. The missing 30% chunk is the people spread out between those times.

The best way to start this converting process is by email. Ask them if they’re interested. More than likely, the answer is yes.

Last week, a client had a similar success story. One potential buyer was marked as no because they inquired a better service five months earlier. When they emailed her, she just needed that simple prodding and flipped to a yes!

Circumstances change for people (sometimes daily), and you must be on top of their mind when they do. Also, make sure you’re keeping their needs in mind. If you can help them avoid landmines, this can massively improve your credibility for them. Help with no strings attached is a great way to build trust.

This example can be shown through different changes: legislation, local laws, or competitors. You can’t put a price on a trusted network.

The next idea is “clean the shade.” When I was the National Sales Marketing Manager for Onnit Sunglasses, one thing I did exponentially more with retailers in slower markets was to visit each store, rearrange the displays, and clean the eyewear.

This simple process achieved several strategic goals, one of which is attracting people. Customers crowd around the displays, and often, I could sell a few pairs for the retailer.

This allowed us to take inventory, and we often found gaps. Now, I understand that’s not applicable to every business, but it should hold as an example for most. Here’s the key takeaway: how can you polish your act?

Find a valid business reason to contact a potential client and offer them something. This can be in the spirit of spontaneity, or you can simply give them something of value for free.

With our help, they’re avoiding costly mistakes. This tactic is also a great way to cut through the spam and grab someone’s attention. What better way to build a customer base than through trust and a spirit of cooperation?

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 followup 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.

Say we have a friend that owns a business, and they might have one or two sales employees. Perhaps that business owner has been selling their own product for years, and they've found success in working hard.

Soon, they reach a spot where they have both a warm market and a successful network for referrals.

In this lucky example, our friend has happened upon a sales type that everyone dreams of: effortless high conversion rates. When they meet, they transform those clients into buyers.  But be wary, every success story comes to a tipping point—and it’s crucial to recognize it.

Time and again, I’ve had to fix this mistake because most people just don’t see it coming.  Successful business owners say, “Right, I’m going to hire another salesperson.” And they do, but then the salary for a competent sales executive is upwards of a hundred grand. Sometimes, depending on your industry, they’re even more expensive.

Now, the employee’s salary isn’t the problem. The big mistake I see is the lack of systems. When I say “system,” I mean: what is your business’ sales process that your newly hired employee is meant to use?

Often, a fresh employee will implement their own habits, or they’ll try to use skills they learned at their previous job. This can be a huge problem. So, you want to have this conversation with your new employee soon, or even apply this during your selection process.

Don’t hire the wrong person simply because you lack a system. If you have a strong one in place, then it makes it easier to choose a new team member. This goes especially for Australia. I’m always saying to people: if you’re going to pay for a full-time employee, you want to make sure that you have got the best person, right?

As a business owner, time is money. And you need a fresh hire that can be brought up to speed with product confidence quickly, so that they can exceed company goals.

There’s nothing worse for a salesperson than to not find success. It’s soul-crushing to be in a new job for months and come up empty-handed. If you can help, then you’re investing in your new employee.

The best way to assist is with a system.

Every good business needs one to help train employees and get them to the “I am exceeding sales goals” point. This would be even better if it happened during an approved time period. Frame it like this: “This is your induction program. For the first 30 days, we’re focusing on product knowledge. The next 30-day period will be client introductions.”

In worst-case scenarios, a new employee will spin their wheels and then make excuses for not selling. One thing leads to another, and a year later, you’ve invested too much time in this person for no profit.

However, I’ve seen a pattern. There is a specific transition period between “I need a new salesperson” and “I’ve hired the perfect employee.”

The key here is that you must have an ongoing motivation and management system throughout the hiring and onboarding process. Otherwise, bad habits might develop that neither you nor your new hire will benefit from. But what is the easiest way to set up this system?

To start, your best first step is a map.

Unfortunately, most people don’t even realize their process because success often comes from an innate skill set. This makes it harder to map out.

The next part is differentiating between what you as a business owner can do that your new salesperson cannot.

My number one focus is helping you navigate areas like these so that you can hire someone and have the confidence that they’ll succeed. You need reliability first and foremost.

With my help, you’ll not only confidently hire a salesperson, but you’ll also invest well in marketing. This way, your company funds will be placed in the right spots. Everyone wants two or three salespeople for every 10 leads and three to four conversions from these leads.

Having awareness will take you from “I need a salesperson” to “I’ve got a great new employee, and they’re exceeding all expectations.” Remember, a system is your best friend.

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 followup templates, phone scripts, and more that you can put to use today.