Hidden Sales Pressure : 7 Ways To Make It Go Away

Try to imagine that your potential client is a friend. Look around you for successful people who sell but don't exhibit traditional sales behavior and thinking. You may even still hit your sales goals if you stick with traditional sales thinking, but what toll will this take on your self-esteem?

Keywords:

cold call, cold calling, sales training, phone selling, phone prospecting, sales prospecting, sales scripts, telesales, telemarketing, mortgage selling, mortgage cold calling, insurance sales

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How can you eliminate subtle form of sales pressure?

Here are 7 solutions:

*Stop carrying the burden of driving the sales process forward. Try to engage potential clients based on the problems they're facing rather than on the solution that you're trying to sell, no matter how much you believe in it. And, instead of asking questions intended to "extract" information that you can then use to move the sales process forward, listen for cues that tell you where potential clients want to take the conversation, so they feel understood. If you can let your conversation evolve to that point, they will move the sales process forward.

*Watch out for "sales"-type language. Statements like "When shall I follow up?," "Can I come by and show you what I have?" and "Do you still want to move forward?" are all examples of language that inevitably triggers sales pressure. Try to imagine that your potential client is a friend. How would your language change? I would bet that you'd communicate with spontaneous words and phrases that would spring out of you naturally and allow a trusting connection to emerge, in contrast to "me" language designed to make the sale.

*Become aware of your inner voice and what it's saying. So many thoughts run through our mind before we pick up the phone to call a potential client.: "I better have all the answers," "I'd better prepare myself for potential rejection," "I really hope I can get an appointment." These thoughts stem from traditional sales conditioning, which taught us that we always have to be prepared for disappointment and frustration. How about changing that inner voice to a more positive one that will not only make it easier for you to engage in conversations but will decrease your stress level as well? See how you feel when you tell yourself instead:

• "I'm not going to make any assumptions that my product or service is a fit until we both determine that there's a problem to solve."

• "Not being 'perfect' with a potential client isn't a sign of weakness but an indication that I'm human too."

• "I don't need to fear rejection because I'll use an approach that won't trigger it."

* Don't look at sales as a "game" but as a mission to help those in need. If you shift the way you think about selling, you'll begin to experience the relief that comes with shedding the burden of the negative sales stereotype.

*Find new role models. Look around you for successful people who sell but don't exhibit traditional sales behavior and thinking. You can learn from their positive example. Pay attention to how they build trust, dialogue with potential clients the same way they would with friends, and always, always, keep their own agendas in check, so that potential clients feel that their own needs --not the salesperson's commission at the end of the sale -- are priority number one.

* Be open to a new approach. You may even still hit your sales goals if you stick with traditional sales thinking, but what toll will this take on your self-esteem? And you will never know what opportunities you lost along the way because you exerted subtle sales pressure on potential clients.

*Find new ways to build trust. You know how to build trust. You do it all the time in your personal life. So why is it so hard in selling? Because traditional sales thinking only shows you how to outsmart your potential clients--and that kind of approach is totally incompatible with building trust.

If you're skeptical about being able to eliminate subtle sales pressure, you're holding yourself back from making a breakthrough in your sales life.

Find Hidden Money for Your Business Through Revenue Recovery

Want to increase your bottom line? You might have hidden money in your business that can only be discovered through proper investigation. Learn why revenue recovery is crucial to your business success...

Keywords:

revenue recovery, AmCorp Management, business idea, overcharges, consultant, small business, refunds, workers comp

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If you're searching for ways to increase your bottom line, starting a new venture or going after a new business opportunity might not be the answer. Your small business could have hidden money through overcharges that you're not aware of - and revenue recovery may be the answer.

Did you know that businesses lose approximately $250 billion per year through inefficient billing systems and practices? More than 80% of all businesses are overcharged annually without their knowledge! Your home business or small business could very well be within this percentage.

Don't become a victim of poor business management. Good business economics comes from smart management. Knowing about overcharges and how to prevent them will greatly improve your business finance management today and for the future.

What are Overcharges?

Overcharges are additional charges that you may have paid unawares on certain types of bills. These "additional" charges are often accounting or typing mistakes, hidden fees that you were not informed about, or even fees tacked onto bills by a dishonest company. There are many types of overcharges. Here are just a few that are common with businesses.

Workers Comp Overcharges

If you have workers compensation issues at your workplace, then you may also have mistakes that are costing you money each year. These mistakes are often discovered in payrolls, experience modifications, classifications, or NCCI rules applications. There may also be insurance company overcharges. These "mistakes" can cost your company thousands of dollars per year if not caught in time.

Telecom Overcharges

Some studies show that almost 80% of telephone bills contain errors that cost American businesses millions of dollars per year. Telecom overcharges have become a major problem because of the variety of telecom services offered today. Many corporate businesses and franchises must keep up with long distance calling and toll-free calls, cell phones, answering services, telemarketers, and customer service calls. It's no wonder telecom overcharges are so common.

Telephone bills have become so complicated to read that many ignore the details and just write a check for the bill! What's the result? Businesses lose hard-earned money.

Income Tax Overcharges

Businesses can also lose money through income tax overpayments. This can occur whether it's an individual who owns a small home-based business or a small business owner with 5 to 100 employees. The IRS rules change almost every year, so keeping up with income taxes can be a difficult task - even for a financial consultant or accountant!

Tax overcharges can and do occur every year for individuals and business owners. What many don't realize is that these overcharges can turn into hefty refunds if submitted to the IRS as amended tax returns. Your business could have tax overcharges waiting to be claimed!

Rent, Leases and Utilities

Other areas where overcharges can occur are with business offices or building rent, leases, or utilities. In cases where the landlord includes utilities with your rent or lease agreement, he may be getting a discount on utilities, but charging you, the tenant, full price. Therefore, you might possibly negotiate a better rate if this is found to be true. This could result in tremendous savings every month for your business.

Revenue Recovery Solutions

There are many ways to investigate and recover lost revenue; however, it can be very time-consuming to audit all of your business information and bills each month. Luckily, there are many companies such as AmCorp Management that specialize in revenue recovery. They keep up with business news and investigate your bills for you to find overcharges and recover them for you. They provide business services that save you time so you can test new business ideas and possibly increase your bottom line each year through revenue recovery.

Consider revenue recovery to be a lifesaver, not a waste of time. You might be surprised at the money that has been hidden in overcharges year after year.

Grow Your Business By Finding Your “Hidden” Organization

Have you ever wondered what enables some entrepreneurs to exponentially grow their businesses while others go flat, or worse? Their secret lies in their ability to find and lead what I call their “hidden” organization. You may think you don’t have an organization, hidden or otherwise, especially if your business consists of a “gang of one” or there are only a few employees on staff. But the fact is that even the smallest businesses have an organization, and your success or fa...

Keywords:

Pamela Harper, business strategies, stakeholders, organization, resouce, flow chart,

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Have you ever wondered what enables some entrepreneurs to exponentially grow their businesses while others go flat, or worse? Their secret lies in their ability to find and lead what I call their “hidden” organization. You may think you don’t have an organization, hidden or otherwise, especially if your business consists of a “gang of one” or there are only a few employees on staff. But the fact is that even the smallest businesses have an organization, and your success or failure is determined by your ability to find it and then lead it in a way that gives you more of the results you want.

This may be a totally new concept to consider. It’s easy to think of giant corporations as having organizations. These are the “internal stakeholders” consisting of employees, departments and committees on the payroll. However, large companies are realizing that independent consultants, suppliers, outsource providers, alliance partners, customers and other “external stakeholders” also play a critical role in their organization’s ability to achieve high performance results.

Just as your business is part of your customers’ external organization, it also has external stakeholders of its own that make up your hidden organization. The better you become at recognizing and leveraging the power of these many relationships, the more likely it is that you’ll survive unexpected twists and turns in the economy, minimize problems, and take your business to the next level of growth.

Who makes up your hidden organization?

It can be challenging to identify the many stakeholders who impact your business. While some of these relationships are obvious, it’s easy to overlook and underestimate the impact of others. However, if you think of an external stakeholder as any person, group or organization that has a stake (whether they recognize it or not) in the success of your business, your organization includes, but is not limited to:

•Customers
•Suppliers
•Outsource providers (payroll services, virtual assistants, etc.)
•Advisors (attorneys, accountants, bankers, business coaches, consultants, etc.)
•Alliance partners
•Subcontractors
•Competitors
•Business and trade associations to which you belong
•Advisory boards

When you uncover the wide variety of support, knowledge, skills, capabilities, and resources that are available through your stakeholders, you can offer services and products in ways that you may never have considered before. For example, a specialty-clothing designer with one store location teamed up with an online distributor so that she now runs a global business, reaching customers around the world. Even competitors have found that there are a number of ways to benefit through limited collaborations. The possibilities for growth are there if you look for them.

While large companies have organizational charts that map out functions of departments and roles of employees, you can also create your own “organizational chart” to map out how external stakeholders fill essential functions and roles that are essential for conducting business. For instance, your accountant, attorney, and insurance agent are important parts of your “executive team.” Your organization also includes your customers, along with the alliance partners, outsource providers, and sub-contractors who may work with you to deliver products and services.

As you continue to identify stakeholders, be sure to update your organization chart on a regular basis. Depending upon, your own goals, customers’ objectives and needs, new technology and shifts in the economy, some stakeholders will take on increased importance while others play a less important role for a period of time.

Realigning your vision of your organization so it includes these and other external stakeholders will enable you to think about new ways to reach your customers, expand your capabilities, and discover new opportunities for increased revenue and profitability.

Leading and managing your hidden organization
Now that you’ve discovered your hidden organization, the next challenge is to lead and manage it so that you are achieving your growth objectives.

Clients often tell me that unexpected and persistent problems seem to come out of nowhere (this is what I call “strategic gridlock”). However, when we look back, it’s possible to trace the source of problems to one or more common but mistaken assumptions that we all make about our organizations, based upon our individual perceptions of reality.

As you lead and manage your hidden organization, here are three questions to ask yourself on a regular basis to begin to uncover assumptions, avoid gridlock, and grow your business:

• What is the uniqueness of each stakeholder? Just as no two people are alike; no two stakeholders are alike. Yet it’s easy to adopt an approach to dealing with others that doesn’t allow for these variations. This can lead to persistent problems, especially if their values and practices are different from yours. Understanding the uniqueness of each stakeholder will help everyone get the most out of each relationship.

• Are my stakeholders capable of doing what I want? Since external stakeholders have other priorities outside of yours, unexpected changes in direction can easily happen. Consistent communication with your external stakeholders minimizes the risk of being blindsided by these issues, and allows you to make contingency plans. It also alerts you to developments that could result in new opportunities for your growth.

• Are my stakeholders willing to do what I want? External stakeholders don’t always share your objectives or sense of urgency. The more that you understand how they perceive your objectives and what their needs are in relationship to yours, the more likely it is that you can head off conflicts, improve decision making, and negotiate solutions that represent a “win” for everyone.

To fully meet organizational challenges and lead your organization to high performance results, it’s essential to know not only who your stakeholders are, but also what issues they face and the impact those issues may have on you. When you seek out the perceptions of your stakeholders on a regular basis, you’ll be able to address any potential challenges from a position of organizational reality, not individual assumption.

Discover the power of your hidden organization

Many entrepreneurs, especially those who are used to working as “gangs of one”, overlook and underestimate the many ways that they can leverage and grow their businesses by working in collaboration with their external stakeholders. .

Once you recognize that you are the architect of your own organization, the issues of leading and managing organizations of all sizes are the same; the same organizational principles apply to mega-corporations as well as to solo entrepreneurs, because even the very smallest businesses have “hidden” organizations within them.

Harnessing the power of your hidden organization will help you to discover untapped opportunities, avoid organizational jams, and grow to new heights of success.