Self-Image determines more than sales

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How do you picture yourself?

Pretty powerful question when you think about it. Some of you are thinking handsome or pretty, some overweight or average, some successful or struggling. Some pictures are happy, some are not. Very not.

Tell me about the picture. Was it a physical picture (tall, pretty), or a mental picture (self assured, confident)? Was it a positive picture (great attitude, successful), or a negative picture (failing, in debt)? Did you picture the “now,” or “what you want to become?”

The interesting thing about picturing yourself, I have found, is that most people don’t want to see it. They don’t like it, or they don’t like themselves. And then there’s that ever-present, unavoidable, bathroom mirror.

Suppose I told you that the more vivid the picture, the more accepting of yourself you will be today, and the more you can see that tomorrow is the fast track to success. Would you at least take a peek?

FIRST TRUTH: The picture you have of yourself, combined with the self-belief structure that goes with it, is what you are likely to become.

If you look at (read) some of the books written on the subject of self-image and visualization, you’ll be surprised to find that they all have a common theme: the easiest way to get where you want to go is picture yourself there in advance.

The breakthrough book, Psycho-Cybernetics by Dr. Maxwell Maltz, is the classic example of what self-image is about. I read the book back in the early 1970’s, and continually read a few pages as part of my commitment to life-long learning.

Maltz says, “We react to the image we have of ourselves in our brain. Change that image for the better and our lives improve. Self-image is changed for the better or worse, not by intellect alone, not by intellectual knowledge alone, but by experiencing.”

This goes for any aspect of your life.
If you want success…
If you want wealth…
If you want a new home…
If you want to become a doctor…
If you want to win the game…
If you want to climb the mountain…
If you want to run a marathon…
If you want to become a great dad or mom…
If you want to make that big sale…
First picture yourself already doing it, or having achieved it.

SECOND TRUTH: You are in complete control of the beliefs and pictures that you put in your head.

Not only are you in total control of your mind, you can also alter (control) your environment to enhance that control. Where you are can affect the way you think.

HERE’S A DEEPER THOUGHT: If you don’t like your job, or boss, it will be real hard for you to have the positive mental picture necessary for achievement. You gotta love what you do (or at least like it a lot). How can you visualize success in a place you don’t like, or have a job you don’t like, or work for someone you don’t like? Answer: You can’t!

THIRD TRUTH: If you change your self-image in your mind, you will begin to achieve mental image, and live your thoughts.

In her book, Creative Visualization, Shakti Gawain says, “Imagination is the ability to create an idea, a mental picture, or a feeling sense of something. In creative visualization you use your imagination to create a clear image, idea, or feeling of something you wish to manifest. Then you continue to focus on the idea, feeling, or picture regularly, giving it positive energy until it becomes objective reality … in other words, until you actually achieve what you have been imagining.”

These two books, Creative Visualization, and Psycho-Cybernetics, are books you may want to add to your library as you seek to improve your self-image, build stronger self beliefs, eliminate self limitations, and block self-defeating thoughts. Just a thought.

If you would like a few words about each book mentioned above, just go to www.gitomer.com – register if you’re a first time visitor — and enter VISUALIZE in the GitBit Box.

“Jeffrey,” you ask, “Can I do all this just by reading?” Heck no! This is not about just thinking or visualizing. That’s the BEGINNING. You still gotta take action to make it happen.

Committed passionate, self-belief leads to action. Achievement action. Action (with a dash of passion and positive anticipation) leads to results. And those results will be your vision fulfilled.

The only way to achieve your desires and dreams is: ACT ON THEM.

About the Author

Jeffrey GitomerJeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].

How to Assess an Online Money-Making Idea

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StrategyDriven Alternative Selection ArticleAccording to Google, in December of 2012, 1.44 million people searched on some variation of the phrase “make money online.” Maybe you even found this blog post by searching for that phrase yourself. If you’re reading this, you’re at least probably interested in it.

I’ve been in the business of internet revenue generation for years. I’ve done the research myself to see what type of answers Google gives you when you search on such a phrase. Often, the business models that come up with that search promise a lot of money right out of the gate – from a few hundred dollars a month to a whopping $50,000 – with the use of this or that platform.

I want to give you a little bit of expert information about the sort of platforms we’re talking about – and some stern advice. The way these platforms work is to provide a product or service that is marketable. Usually, there’s an existing parent company that offers to let you use their product and their platform. In return, you provide the marketing muscle to make the sales.

In the online business world, marketing is almost always about creating an email opt-in list. Email addresses are gold in the internet marketing business, and there are various ways you can go about collecting them, most of which rely on content. You might put out a newsletter with compelling subject matter or create a series of video blogs (vlogs). Content is the lure that hooks those email addresses right onto your list.

Once you have amassed a decent-sized opt-in list, the next step is to send out marketing emails directly about the product you’re selling. With any luck, a certain percentage of those people will bite. Sounds simple, right?

If you read the testimonials of other entrepreneurs who have used the platform you’re considering, they probably sound pretty spectacular. But before you make a commitment, I urge you to do just a little bit of due diligence. Look at the testimonials of other entrepreneurs who have gone down this path before you, and contact two or three of them. Ask them these three specific questions:

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About the Author

Ken CourtrightKen Courtright, speaker and author of multiple best-selling Internet marketing titles, is the founder of Today’s Growth Consultant (TGC) – a two-time Inc. 5000 designee – that launched www.IncomeStore.com. TGC/Income Store partners with individuals, companies and private equity firms/fund managers procure, develop and manage revenue-generating websites at two times earnings. The company’s portfolio currently boasts over 400 websites that are seen approximately 100 million times each year. Ken may be reached online at www.TodaysGrowthConsultant.com.

Steps Along the Buying Decision Path

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As sellers we are taught to find prospects with a need that matches our solution and then find creative, professional ways to pitch, present, entice, push, market, or somehow introduce our solution to enable them to understand how our solutions will fix their problem.

Unfortunately, we fail to close over 90% of the time (from first contact) regardless of how well their need matches our solution. And it’s not because of our solutions, our presentations/pitches, or our professionalism. It’s because the sales model does not include the skills to facilitate the larger part of buying decisions – those idiosyncratic, behind-the-scenes, change-management-driven processes that are private and we can’t be part of. Yet until they go through this process and walk through each stage of decision making and change management they cannot buy. They will do this with us, or without us. It takes much longer without us, hence a protracted buying decision and closed sale.

Facilitating Change Is Not Selling

I’ve spent the last few decades coding and designing new tools to help sellers facilitate the pre-sales decision path that buyers go through without us. Using Buying Facilitation® with sales, sellers get onto the Buying Decision Team, facilitate the time to decision making/close, and eschew competition. Here are the steps I’ve discovered are what buyers – all change – need to address. As you read them, note that facilitating change includes some unique skill sets (Listening for Systems, formulating Facilitative Questions/Presumptive Summaries, etc.), goals, and outcomes. Remember to ask yourself: do you want to sell? Or have someone buy? They are two different activities, necessitating two distinct skill sets. Sales merely handles one of them.

  1. Idea stage. Fred has an idea that something needs to change.
  2. Fred discusses his idea with colleagues.
  3. Fred invites colleagues to meet and discuss the problem, bring ideas from online research, consider who to include, possible fixes, and fallout. Groups formed.
  4. Consideration stage. Group meets to discuss findings: how to fix the problem with known resources, whether to create a workaround using internal fixes or seek an external solution. Discuss the type/amount of fallout from each.
  5. Organization stage. Fred apportions responsibilities, or hands over to others.
  6. Change Management stage. Meeting to discuss options and fallout. Determine
    • if more research is necessary (and who will do it),
    • if all appropriate people are involved (and who to include),
    • if all elements of the problem and solution are included (and what to add),
    • the level of disruption and change to address depending on type of solution chosen (and how to manage change),
    • the pros/cons of external solution vs current vendor vs workaround.
  7. Add needs, ideas, issues of new members; incorporate change considerations.
  8. Everyone researches their portion of the solution fix (online research—webinars, etc., call current vendors or new vendors etc.). Discussions include managing resultant change.
  9. Consensus stage. Buying Decision Team members meet to share research and determine the type of solution, fallout, possibilities, problems, considerations in re management, policies, job descriptions, HR issues, etc. Buy-in and consensus necessary.
  10. Choice stage. Action responsibilities apportioned including discussions/meetings with people, companies, teams who might provide solutions.
  11. Meet to discuss choices and the fallout/ benefits of each.
  12. New solution chosen. Change management issues incorporated with solution choice.
  13. New solution implemented.

The sales model handles steps 10-13. Marketing, marketing automation, and social marketing may be involved in steps 3 and 8, although it’s not clear then if the decision to choose an external solution has been made, the full fact pattern of ‘needs’ has been determined, or if the appropriate decision makers and influencers are included. Buyers muddle through this but we can enter earlier to help by adding new skills of facilitation.

I started up a tech company in London 1983-89 and developed Buying Facilitation® to teach my sales folks to navigate buyers through their decision path, change management, and buy-in BEFORE they began selling. We increased sales 5x within a month. I’ve been teaching this model (and coaching and consulting) since 1989 with similar results.

My book Dirty Little Secrets: Why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it discusses these steps and how Buying Facilitation® can work with sales and marketing to enter the buy path earlier. Note: adding the above stages to typical sales/marketing thinking, outcomes, and skills, will not benefit either sellers or buyers. This model is solely for the benfit of the buyer. It’s truly a change management skill that makes a seller a real consultant, and needs/solutions are irrelevant until buyers understand how any change will affect their status quo. Read the book :)

About the Author

Sharon Drew Morgen is a visionary, original thinker, and thought leader in change management and decision facilitation. She works as a coach, trainer, speaker, and consultant, and has authored 9 books including the NYTimes Business BestsellerSelling with Integrity. Morgen developed the Buying Facilitation® method (www.sharondrewmorgen.com) in 1985 to facilitate change decisions, notably to help buyers buy and help leaders and coaches affect permanent change. Her newest book What? www.didihearyou.com explains how to close the gap between what’s said and what’s heard. She can be reached at [email protected]

Your Missing Power: Master Mind

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Perhaps the most powerful principle Napoleon Hill wrote about, and certainly the most enduring, is the 9th step towards riches: Power of the Master Mind. The idea of a Master Mind group was created, put forth, and expounded upon by Napoleon Hill in his two classic books, Think and Grow Rich, written in 1937, and “How to Sell Your Way Through Life, written in 1938.

If you want to have a better, easier, more fun, more productive, less frustrating (sound good so far?), more bountiful, and more profitable life: Create a Master Mind. A Master Mind group can help you and your business succeed far better and far faster than you can on your own.

Hill defines Master Mind as, “Coordination of knowledge and effort, in a spirit of harmony, between two or more people, for the attainment of a definite purpose.”

In other words – people working together in harmony to get to ‘best answer,’ ‘best response,’ ‘best ideas,’ or ‘best strategy’ to any situation or issue.

You have problems, issues, and concerns. Do you think you’re the ONLY person facing your issues and concerns? Come on, really now? My bet is that every one of your colleagues and connections have exactly the same issues. So, eh, why are yours reoccurring?

Why didn’t that deal go through? Why aren’t your calls getting returned? Why are you having a challenge to set a meeting? Why are you having major blockage to get to the decision-maker? Huh? Why?

Because you have not yet created your own Master Mind. A group of peers facing the very same issues in their life.

Hill stresses and uses the word POWER in conjunction with MASTER MIND. Hill says, “POWER may be defined as ‘organized and intelligently directed KNOWLEDGE.’ Power refers to ORGANIZED effort, sufficient to enable an individual to transmute DESIRE into its monetary equivalent.

ORGANIZED effort is produced through the coordination of effort of two or more people, who work toward a DEFINITE end, in a spirit of harmony.” He goes on in all capital letters to say, “POWER IS REQUIRED FOR THE ACCUMULATION OF MONEY! POWER IS NECESSARY FOR THE RETENTION OF MONEY AFTER IT HAS BEEN ACCUMULATED!”

Hill says, “POWER comes from accumulated and organized knowledge.” That’s what the Master Mind helps build. He also says, “If POWER is accumulated and organized knowledge, let’s examine the sources:

INFINITE INTELLIGENCE. This source of knowledge may be contacted through the procedure described in chapter 6, with the aid of Creative Imagination.
ACCUMULATED EXPERIENCE. The accumulated experience of man or woman, (or that portion of it which has been organized and recorded), may be found in any well-equipped public library. An important part of this accumulated experience is taught in public schools and colleges, where it has been classified and organized.
EXPERIMENT AND RESEARCH. In the field of science, and in practically every other walk of life, people are gathering, classifying, and organizing new facts daily. This is the source to which one must turn when knowledge is not available through ‘accumulated experience.’ Here, too, the Creative Imagination must often be used.

Knowledge may be acquired from any of the foregoing sources. It may be converted into POWER by organizing it into definite PLANS and by expressing those plans in terms of ACTION.”

Who Should You Ask To Join Your Master Mind?

Smart, positive, successful people that you know and trust. People with BOTH wisdom and knowledge. Wisdom is knowledge and experience applied. Someone you respect. Someone willing to be open and contribute.

A Master Mind has to be content-rich, to the point, value-based dialog – and it’s each participant’s responsibility to bring their gold to each meeting, and share it freely.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey GitomerJeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].

The 5 Key Pieces Of Your Digital Marketing Puzzle. Are You Missing One?

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Digital marketing is a vast and complicated web of interlinking strategies. A full marketing plan should incorporate many different elements, and ensure they work together. If your off-page seo strategy doesn’t correspond with your core services or brand strategy – you may be missing conversion opportunities and wasting your spend. If it sounds tricky, that’s because it is! On the plus side, it is incredibly effective.

Digital marketing gives you unprecedented access to your customers. It’s an opportunity to connect with them in ways that traditional marketing simply didn’t allow. You’ll also find that digital marketing is much more cost-effective. These marketing tips are highly targeted, meaning that you only need reach the people who really care about your product. If you’re new to the game, here are the five most important pieces of the puzzle.

The 5 Key Pieces Of Your Digital Marketing Puzzle. Are You Missing One?
Photo courtesy of Joe The Goat Farmer

1. A website

A website should be the first thing on your list. It’s the heart of your online presence, and should act as the sun in your digital marketing solar system. All the other elements revolve around it, and feed back into it. All elements of your digital marketing strategy should lead back to just one thing on your website. That’s a product or service that you will sell. Your website will also host all the necessary information about your business.

2. Content

Your website should also host some useful and compelling content. It can be as simple as a blog that comments on your industry. If you’re feeling more creative, you can use video content, infographics, and podcasts too. Content is one of your most important tools in digital marketing. It helps position yourself as an expert in your field, and allows you to connect with others. Most importantly, good content will be shared all over the web. It will reach new leads, and entice them onto your website.

3. Social media

We like to think of social media as the smaller planets that revolve around your website. Each one acts as a beacon to attract new leads and customers. By sharing your content on your social media sites, you’ll reach new people. You can interact with your existing customers, and keep drawing them back to your site. It’s all about using these satellites to send visitors back to your main hub. The most effective social media sites include Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter.

4. SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the arguably the most confusing piece of the puzzle. To get the best results, it’s often worth partnering with a digital marketing company. SEO is a series of tweaks and adaptations that make your site rank higher on Google searches. After all, the higher up on the Google results page your website gets, the more people you reach. More specifically, you can use keywords to make sure you appear in front of the right people. That’s the essence of good marketing!

5. Email marketing

According to the top marketers, emails are still the best way to reach out to customers. They’re personal, direct, and private. Most importantly, you’re sending information to people who are already interested in your product or services. Statistics show it’s the most effective form of repeat marketing.

That’s all for today, folks! Are you missing any key parts of the digital marketing puzzle?