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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].

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].

Thought dedication. You decide what to think, and how to react.

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What is the importance of attitude?

Every person, you included, wants to achieve more, earn more, find happiness, be successful, and be fulfilled. At the root of all these elements is attitude. Positive attitude. Your positive attitude.

Every person, you included, instinctively knows that. Yet most people, you included, don’t really possess a positive attitude. Oh, you may think you do, but I promise you, you don’t.

Most people don’t read about attitude.
Most people don’t study attitude.
Most people don’t practice attitude.
Most people don’t live the essence of attitude.
Most people don’t live the principles of attitude.
Most people are not dedicated to attitude.
You included.

In fact, you may have never read a book on the subject of attitude.

I believe I was born with a positive attitude, and I believe you were born with a positive attitude. It took 24 years for me to discover mine. I wonder if you have found yours yet.

Everyone, you included, has heard the expression, “Attitude Is Everything!”

Let me break down the elements of that expression for you – maybe for the first time. Attitude controls, rules, affects, and directs your career, your family life, your personal life, and you. It affects or can impact your relationships, your business success, and your health.

Attitude has power. Personal power. And the best part is: YOU CONTROL IT. You determine the way you think about, develop, and deliver your attitude.

In my Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude I explain the simple difference between “positive” and “YES!” When something great happens to you, you don’t scream “POSITIVE!” When something great happens to you, you scream, “YES!”

It’s subtle, but powerful, language when you come to that mental and verbal understanding.

What language do you speak? No, I don’t mean Spanish, French, or English. I mean positive or negative. Attitude language.

Ever look out the window when it’s pouring rain, and think to yourself, “It’s gonna be a rotten day”? Why don’t you walk away from the window where you can’t see outside and think about the day in terms of you, not the weather.

It’s the small wording of expressions like that, that lead to a “bad day” for anyone. Even you. A rotten day starts with the way you think about it, and the way you talk about it. It’s not about the weather outside. It’s about the weather inside – inside your mind.

How’s the weather where you live?
How’s the weather where you work?
How’s the weather where you play?
How’s the weather where you think?

One of the definitions of a positive attitude is: The way you dedicate yourself to the way you think. And you are in complete control of it.

Thinking positive is a self-discipline. A daily self-discipline. You control it. You make it happen. Or not. Taking positive actions is dependent on positive thought. If you don’t THINK positive, you will not BE positive, and you will not DO positive.

There are many definitions of attitude, and there are many ways to look at attitude. Books have been written on attitude that you have not exposed yourself to. All of them are helpful, all of them are good, and all of them must be studied if you want to achieve your positive attitude.

Books like Think and Grow Rich contain the philosophies, strategies, and the connected stories of men and women who have achieved their positive attitude – and can help you achieve yours. You should own them and read a few pages every day. (That’s one of the secrets of attitude: read and study attitude for 15 minutes a day). Positive attitude is yours for the taking, all you have to do is read, study, and apply – every day.

The challenge of positive attitude is for you to decide that you’re willing to dedicate the time, and that you have the desire to make it happen for yourself.

If you want some ideas for the achievement of attitude, go to www.gitomer.com and enter the words ATTITUDE STARTERS in the GitBit box.

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].

Value is the King of Sales, and the Queen of Service.

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Value is perhaps the most illusive word in sales.

Everyone will tell you how important it is, very few can tell you what it is. I’ve already gone on ad nauseam about my distaste for the words ‘added value.’

I recommend you leave them out of your sales lexicon forever.  ‘Added value’ has an evil twin:  ‘value add.’ Neither of which can be defined in terms of what the customer actually benefits or profits from.

Added value is usually some minor service or hard-to-define extra that the customer already expects, or takes for granted anyway. Things like: same-day shipping, or online ordering, or parts in stock, 24-hour service – those are not VALUE – those are A GIVEN. Those elements are expected. They are NOT incentive to buy – rather they’re just part of your business offering.

In order for you to understand the word ‘value’ as it relates to your ability to making a sale, put the word “perceived” in front of it.  If you think it’s valuable, and your customer doesn’t perceive it to be valuable, it ain’t value.

Your customer is looking to increase THEIR sales, THEIR customer loyalty, THEIR employee loyalty, THEIR productivity, THEIR morale, THEIR profit, and to have no problems.

Are those the values you bring to the table? No? Why not? Those are the value elements that any customer would consider worthy of the word. Your little add-on services are more of a bonus than a value.

And don’t just bring them one time – consistency is the key. My secret for delivering weekly value to my customers is this column. And throw in my weekly ezine, Sales Caffeine on top of that. Two weekly value messages. Throw in four tweets a day, that’s 22 value messages a week. Add LinkedIn, blog, Facebook, and a YouTube video, and it’s a value firestorm.

The value is missing from the MISSION. Most companies have a meaningless mission statement that was created by a marketing department. It’s all about being number one, exceeding customer expectations, and building shareholder value. Barf.

What’s your real mission? Is it different from your mission statement?

Where’s the value to the customer? Isn’t that the real mission?

What you need is a value proposition and a value statement that explains fully how you help others, how they win, how you serve in terms of the customer, and how that leads to loyal customers and referrals. And a mission statement that matches it.

A value proposition states what you do in terms of how a customer benefits. For example: You might say, ‘we provide 4-hour service response.’ A ‘value proposition’ way of stating the same thing is, ‘when equipment is broken or needs repair, production stops. That’s why we instituted 4-hour or less service response. That way there is minimal loss of productivity and job profitability.’

Same words, stated in terms of how the customer wins.

Value is important to a prospective customer for three reasons:

  1. It differentiates you from the competition.
  2. It gives the customer understandable reasons to purchase.
  3. It gives the customer the peace of mind they need to move forward. To buy.

Value is important to an existing customer for three reasons:

  1. It builds real relationship. One based on value.
  2. It makes reorders more automatic and less bid driven.
  3. It eliminates competition. Most competitors thrive on “saving a customer money.” NOTE: Customers don’t want to save money as much as they want to produce more and make more profit.

At the end of any sales transaction, or when an existing customer has a need, that’s when ‘perception of value’ plays its heaviest role. If the customer perceives a difference in you, and perceives a reassuring value in terms of how he wins, the sale is yours. If not, the sale goes to the person with the lowest price.

Lowest price always means lowest profit.

The more you become proficient at stating value in terms of the customer, the more it will be perceived as value by the customer.  The more you put value in terms of how they win, how they profit, and how they produce, the more it will be perceived as true value, or real value.  And in the end, the value that you receive back will be the order.  That’s value.

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].

It’s been a long time coming – A new way to change change!

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Change is coming.

Got fear or joy? Got worry or positive anticipation?

Putting your head in the sand, or headed to the beach to relax and plan?

When you feel or fear that some form of change is coming, you have to define it in your mind as opportunity. Clear your head for “what will be” tomorrow, and not worry about “what is” today.

The way this is done is through a combination of faith and belief. These are very similar emotional attributes. And many of you reading this, have already misinterpreted them. I’m not talking about praying, I’m talking about planning.

Faith and belief in yourself.

Belief that you have the capability to withstand any circumstance and emerge both better and victorious.  And faith that whatever happens or is happening, happens for some reason and that reason is to benefit you, not harm you.

The prime questions to face are:

Do you believe in yourself?
Do you have faith in yourself?
Do you believe that you can create ideas that will make you better based on present circumstance?

One key action that will help you more than any other is to collaborate rather than commiserate.  Commiseration takes you backwards.  You may have heard it defined as a pity party. I define it as group whining that usually results in group blaming.

  • Collaboration is about tomorrow, and what can be done, and what needs to be done in order to create an amazing new outcome.
  • Collaboration requires a gathering of smart people with positive attitudes and positive outlooks.

Here’s what to do:

  • Make a list of your ten best attributes
  • Make a list of your ten best assets.
  • See how many of the same assets and attributes are on that list.
  • Make a list of your ten most positive connections, acquaintances, or friends.
  • Make a list of your ten most intelligent connections, acquaintances, or friends.
  • See how many of the same people are on that list.

Assemble a small group of people in a very short space of time and create an agenda for discussion that you pre-send so that people have some time to think about it. It can be both about you and about it (whatever the changing circumstance is).

Have the meeting in a positive place, and have all kinds of food on the table when people get there so that the atmosphere is both bright and festive.

Have a recording device and a flip chart in the meeting so that all thoughts and ideas are captured. Before everyone leaves, list the top ten action items or ideas to be implemented, and who owns them. And then thank everyone by giving them a book on creativity (see my recommended books here), a firm handshake, a smile, a hug, and a genuine, heartfelt thank you.

The results of this meeting will not only move you forward (see my article on change forward), but will also create a mindset that will move you away from the fear, doubt, worry, and uncertainty that pending change often creates.

REALITY: There are millions of words written on change. Very few of them only look for the positive. Very few of them mention the word “opportunity,” much less “positive collaboration.”

REALITY: When a significant event is about to occur that can alter both career path and income, the more time you spend moving forward by creating ideas and taking action, the less time you will have to dwell on the circumstance and fall into the pit of self-pity.

REALITY: Rather than go to the bookstore and buy a three hundred page book on change, take these seven hundred and fifty words, put them into action, change your outlook, keep your attitude positive, create ideas, take new actions, and generate results for yourself based on future.

NOTE WELL: This is a time to inspire yourself on a daily, even hourly basis. This might include a visit to an art museum, re-reading positive passages from books in your attitude library, listening to messages that inspire your thinking and give you new resolve and even new purpose, and surrounding yourself with the love of family and the love of friends that will encourage you to move on and move up.

THE SECRET: The secret key is to take responsibility to make this happen for yourself. You cannot dwell on ‘why.’ You are responsible for yourself FIRST.

You must focus on ‘now’ and ‘next.’
You cannot dwell on ‘woe.’
You must focus on ‘win.’

Change that.

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].