What is selling?  In its simplest terms, selling is the process of helping a person to conclude that your product or service is of greater value to him than the price you are asking for.  Our market society is based on the principles of freedom and mutual benefit.  Each party to a transaction only enters into it when he feels that he will be better off as a result of the transaction than he would be without it.  In a free market, the customer always has three options with any purchase decision.  First, the customer can buy your product or service.  Second, the customer can buy the product or service from someone else.  Third, the customer can decide to buy nothing at all.

For the customer to buy your particular product or service, he or she must be convinced that it is not only the best choice available but he must also be persuaded that there is no better way for him to spend the equivalent amount of money.  Your job as a salesperson is to convince the customer that all these conditions exist and then to elicit a commitment from him to take action on your offer.

The field of professional selling has changed dramatically since World War II.  In a way, selling methodologies are merely responses to customer requirements.  At one time, customers were relatively unsophisticated and poorly informed about their choices.  Salespeople catered to this customer with carefully planned and memorized sales presentations, loads of enthusiasm and a bag full of techniques designed to crush resistance and get the order at virtually any cost.

But the customer of the 1950s has matured into the customer of the 21^st century. Customers are now more intelligent and knowledgeable than ever before.  They are experienced buyers and they have interacted with hundreds of salespeople.  They are extremely sophisticated and aware of the incredible variety of products and services that are available to them, as well as their relative strengths and weaknesses of those products.  Many of them are smarter and better educated than most salespeople and they are far more careful about making a buying decision of any kind.

In addition, they are overwhelmed with work and under-supplied with time.  Because of the rapidly increasing pace of change, down-sizing, restructuring and the competitive pressures surrounding them, customers today are harried and hassled.  They are swamped with responsibilities, impatient, suspicious, critical, demanding, and spoiled.  To sell to today’s customer requires a higher caliber of sales professional than has ever before been required.  And it is only going to become tougher and more complicated in the years ahead.

Now, here’s what you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

• Think continually about how you can convince your customer that your product or service is the very best available.

• Learn why he buys, or refuses to buy and develop strategies to turn non-buyers into buyers.

• Upgrade your knowledge and skills every day so you can sell more effectively. You always want to know more about your product or service than your customer.

About the author:

Brian Tracy is legendary in the fields of management, leadership, and sales.  He has produced more than 300 audio/video programs and has written 28 books, including his just-released books “Getting Rich Your Own Way” and “TurboStrategy!”  He can be reached at (858) 481-2977 or www.briantracy.com.

Salespeople often have mental blocks when it comes to prospecting. Low self-esteem and feelings of inferiority leading to the fear of rejection make some salespeople tense and uneasy about calling on prospects that they feel are “better” than they are socially or economically.  These salespeople will not call on senior executives or professional people because they don’t feel “good enough.”

An older salesman was telling me recently about several people he had gone to school with who were now senior executives in major corporations.  He was proud of his friendships with these people, which he had maintained over the years.  I then asked him how many of them were customers of his.  As you can imagine, the answer was none. His particular type of fear was holding him back from approaching them even though he knew they were buying large quantities of the service he sold from other companies.

Many salespeople are afraid to sell to their friends and associates for fear that they will disapprove of him or be critical of his career choice.  Sometimes, salespeople are ashamed of being in sales in the first place, and as a result they are afraid to call on almost anyone they know to offer their products or services.

The most common type of fear is that associated with approaching strangers, people that you don’t know and who you have never spoken to in the past.  This generalized fear of rejection is the greatest destroyer of all of promising sales careers.  It is the fear that a person will say something like, “No, I’m not interested.”

Some of your very best customers will be people who respond negatively to your first approach.  This is to be expected.  The average person in America is bombarded by hundreds of commercial messages every single day.  The television, radio, newspapers, magazines, mail and telephone are filled with solicitations for products and services.  Their initial reactions, because of message overload, will almost invariably be discouraging.  They are busy, if not overwhelmed with their activities and the demands on their time.  Your job is to be calm, patient and persistent, and to realize that nothing that a prospect says to you can affect you in any way, because it’s not personal.

Now, here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, prepare thoroughly for every call. Do your homework. This will give you greater confidence when calling on large or important prospects.

Second, remember that no one is better than you are. They just have different titles and positions. Be proud of yourself and what you sell.

Then, go out and call on everyone you can think of.

About the Author

Brian Tracy is a legendary in the fields of management, leadership, and sales.  He has produced more than 300 audio/video programs and has written over 40 books, including his just-released book “The Power of Charm.” Special offer: To receive your free copy of “Crunch Time!, just visit www.briantracy.com and click on the Crunch Time! icon.  He can be reached at (858) 481-2977 or www.briantracy.com .

I was sitting at my desk last week when my phone rang. I picked it up and said, “This is Ari with Unlock The Game.” The woman on the other end of the phone said, “Hi, my name is Julie Jackson, I’m with XYZ company and we are a…and we offer…”. As she continued to speak, I stopped her in mid-sentence and said, “Hi, Julie.”

There was dead silence on the phone.

I could sense her struggling to react to my spontaneous overture at making personal, genuine contact. She was so locked into her presentation or script that she had no idea how to respond to me.

The idea of just conversing with me in her most natural way was a completely foreign concept.

(She eventually took a deep breath and we transitioned into a very pleasant conversation about the possibility of us being a “fit”.)

What has happened to us?

Can’t we just strike up a conversation with people we don’t know and build a relationship that way?

It’s ironic that most of us take it for granted that spontaneous, natural communication is the right way to relate to our friends, spouses, relatives, and others in our personal lives — but, when it comes to selling, our language becomes, almost robotic.

Why the breakdown?

Because when we make a sales call, we want something. The people we’re talking with sense this immediately. They put up their guard. Our hidden agenda and their reaction immediately destroy the trust-building process of communication.

We go into our personal relationships wanting to simply know the other person. But we go into sales situations with agendas and assumptions.

And because we’ve been conditioned that a sale can happen only if we control the process, we never even consider the possibility that there can be total flexibility in how we communicate and build trust.

Quick self-assessment: When you pick up the phone to make a sales call, what are you hoping will be the outcome?

Let me guess:

* Get information

* Find the decision maker

* Schedule an appointment

* Make a sale

In other words, you want something even before the person you call says “Hello.”

It’s time to throw out your “selling” language and unlock your natural language.

Here’s how:

Be willing to challenge everything you have learned about selling up to this point. If you aren’t open to questioning conventional sales thinking, you’ll never have a chance to experience selling in a completely different way.

* Replace your goal-oriented agendas with trust-building agendas.

* Learn to enjoy the processing of building a new relationship.

* Build a dialogue.

* Avoid centering the conversation on you and your offerings.

* Enter the conversation without assumptions.

* Trade overconfidence for humility.

Any signs of overconfidence when you first make contact with a potential client will only set off “sales alarms.” Humility (not weakness) starts the trust-building process.

Visualize the person you are speaking with as a potential friend rather than a potential client. This will help you to converse rather than “sell.”

When you tap into your natural language abilities, it triggers the person you’re speaking with to tap into their own natural language as well.

Like you, they will abandon their “business language” and begin communicating with you in their most natural way.

Natural language is the crucial secret to transforming the outdated, ineffective “buyer-seller” role into a trust-based relationship based on open, natural communication.

Ari Galper, founder of Unlock The Game, makes cold calling painless and simple. Learn his free cold calling secrets even the sales gurus don’t know. To receive your 10 free audio mini-lessons visit http://www.UnlockTheGame.com

But think about what this does to your cold calls.  Before you even say “hello,” basically then, you have an agenda.   You want something.

Well, your prospects can sense this immediately, and they put up their guard.  As people, whenever we know that someone wants something from us, we automatically move into a defensive place.  You probably do, too, if you’re talking with someone who has an agenda.

Can you see that your sales focus actually destroys the possibility for a genuine, trusting conversation?  Because it’s focused on yourself – your desire for a sale – and not on the other person.

Salesmanship vs. Relationship

So it’s time to re-think the way you approach cold calls.  When your strategy is to make a sale, then you’re someone who has to be “watched.”  You’re not weighing what’s important to the other person.  And so to them, you can’t be trusted.

It’s much better to build trusting relationship into your cold calling process.  When the other person feels that you’re relating to them from this place, there’s no need to be suspicious and defensive. There can be a pleasant, productive, truthful dialogue about whether what you’re offering makes sense for them.

So, really, it’s about trust and relationship.  Why?  Because when given the choice, people always prefer to do business with someone they can trust.

Here are two fundamental shifts you’ll need to make if you want to move away from the old “sale-focused” mindset.

1.  Release the Need for Control
Whenever you’re trying to control the outcome of your cold call, you’re not allowing the conversation to have a natural rhythm and flow.  You’re trying to maneuver things in a certain direction.

So you’re not building relationship, you’re trying to build sales.  You’re focused on things like getting information, finding the decision maker, scheduling an appointment, or closing the sale.
And all of this sets off “alarms” for the other person.  Prospects can sense that this kind of interaction is somewhat of an impersonal, pre-ordained process.  They know it really hasn’t much to do with them.

So how can you to shift into something more positive?  You begin by consciously surrendering to the outcome of your cold call.  When you do this, you’re no longer trying to manage things.  You can be relaxed and helpful.

This is subtly but powerfully felt by the other person.  When they recognize you’re not “pushing” for a certain outcome, there’s an opportunity for mutual exploration, and you can be viewed as someone who’s trustworthy.

2.  Focus on the Other Person
When you start your cold calls by talking about your product or service, most people “shut down” right away.  You’re talking to someone who doesn’t know you, and you’re trying to get them to step into your world.

Instead, try stepping into their world.  Think about what matters to them.  Put yourself in their shoes.

The best way to do this is to think about what kinds of problems they may be having.  For example, let’s say you provide invoice management systems.  You might start with something like, “I’m just calling to see if you’d be open to exploring new ways to solve revenue loss from unpaid invoices.”

Now you’ve started your cold call by focusing on the other person’s issue right away.  You’re not talking about yourself.  You’re “tuned into” their problems and difficulties.  This feels really good to them, and you’ll more likely share an open, trusting conversation.

When you don’t have strategies and “pitches” built into your cold calling agenda, you can be a real person talking to another real person.  Now there’s an opportunity explore together in a more trusting way whether what you’re providing is a fit for them.   And the difference will astonish you.

Ari Galper, founder of Unlock The Game, makes cold calling painless and simple. Learn his free cold calling secrets even the sales gurus don’t know. To receive your 10 free audio mini-lessons visit http://www.UnlockTheGame.com

Do you have an effective process to transform your site visitors and your prospects into paying clients? …. and into repeat customers?

Check out this short (2.22 mins.) video to learn about a simple, yet powerful way to set up your own sales funnel and start generating sales…, and repeat sales…

I found more and more marketing “gurus” claiming that the Sales Funnel is “dead” – that it’s obsolete, or otherwise out of whack.  Except they’ll describe or even promote something else that’s really similar, except now they call it something else. Fact is, it doesn’t matter what you call it, most businesses – online and offline – will ask for your contact info, then they’ll email you or mail you free offers, discounts, etc. You just got into their “funnel” and they’ll do their best to keep you engaged and a repeat customer. So why not you? Every successful business does it – small or large – and so can you…

Access step-by-step detailed tutorials  on how to develop your own sales funnel at http://www.getMoreClientsAcademy.com – includes sample email campaigns, lead generation training, and a ton of How-to videos, including “How to Create a Website that Attracts Clients” – 4-part Video Tutorial, ability to ask questions and get support, and much more….  You can access all this for only $1.00 – is that a good deal, or is it a super good deal? Pick one

Got questions or comments related to the Sales Funnel?
Post them below – all questions will be answered!

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Sean works for a major telecom company.

During one of our coaching sessions on how to master Unlock The Game™, he told me, “I’ve been diligent about following the sales process that my company believes is required
to make a sale — but, for some strange reason, my prospects don’t want to fit into that process.

What am I doing wrong?”

Sean’s comment struck me because it spoke to years of traditional selling programs that promote linear selling — moving prospects along from one step to another until
they say yes – as a “guarantee” of sales success.

But there’s an inherent conflict here.

Linear selling says that you have to impose a predetermined structure on building a relationship — but that’s by definition an unstructured process!

Suppose that the “next step” isn’t what the prospect wants?

“Wait a minute,” you might say. “What matters most is that I put as many prospects as possible into my sales process, and hopefully some of them will turn into sales.”

If you’re thinking that way, it’s definitely time for you to consider a different way of thinking.

Of course you can make sales using linear selling — but you’ll never know how many sales you’re losing week after week because you’re wearing the “blinders” of traditional selling.

If we fail to tune in to the natural rhythm of trust-building when two strangers become involved in developing a relationship…or if we try to force prospects into our process, we make the relationship about us and not them, whether we intend to or not.

And prospects sense that and pull back, because structured, linear sales processes don’t recognize the human elements required to build the relationships that ultimately lead to sales.

Before a sale can happen, prospects need to feel that you’re comfortable moving at their pace and their process.

If you try to force changes in that process, you’ll only set off alarms that will pigeonhole you with the negative stereotype of “salesperson.”

That’s why I advised Sean to work on becoming aware of the milestones that prospects set and that will guide his path to a sale.

He needed to learn to build enough trust with prospects that they would feel comfortable telling him the truth of their process and their decision making path.

“I totally accept the principles behind what you’re saying,” Sean then told me, “but I need to know more specifics about what to say and do in a sales situation.” Here are some suggestions I gave him:

* Integrate trust-building language into your conversations with prospects
so they’ll feel comfortable telling you where they are at in their process.
For example, saying “Where do you think we should go from here?” invites
them to tell you the truth, while “Why don’t we set up a next appointment
to discuss our next  steps” gives the impression that you’re trying to take control.

* Rather than asking prospects overtly what their decision making process is,
use softer language that they can understand from their perspective, for example,
“What specific gates do you anticipate you’ll need to go through as you consider
the proposition of purchasing the software to solve the business issues we discussed?”

* Don’t probe or “fish” for prospects’ “pain” as part of your sales process.
Prospects have learned through long experience that the appearance of caring
is usually a verbal ploy designed to move the sale forward according to the
salesperson’s agenda. Instead, speak genuinely and with sincerity to what you
know their core business issues are. You can find out what these are by getting
in touch with customers who have already bought your product or service and asking,
“What three or four business issues drove your decision to buy our product?”
Chances are, your new prospect will be dealing with similar concerns.

Consider these ideas, and try these practical suggestions. They helped Sean
feel better about letting go of the old ideas he’d been taught.

Maybe they’ll do the same for you.

To Your Success,

Ari Galper, founder of Unlock The Game, makes cold calling painless and simple. Learn his free cold calling secrets even the sales gurus don’t know. To receive your 10 free audio mini-lessons visit http://www.UnlockTheGame.com

It never ceases to amaze me.

Powerful, fantastic, intelligent, well-respected, hard-working, independent, fiesty, determined and talented women….

will Hum and Haw when I ask them to review what they charge and see if it makes sense to raise them!

They get a little shaky, start consuming lots of coffee or herbal tea, look around the room anxiously and say…

” I don’t know Kim…I  just don’t know if my customers will still buy from me if I do that.”

You Are Worth It!!

Hey – I have been there too.  It we’re not careful we can all reach a level of complacency with our pricing if everything is going along Tickety Boo (OK – that phrase came direct from my mother!)

Fortunately – I have Diva Radar that lets me know when it is time to shake things up a little!

How You Can Have Diva Radar Too!

• Look Over Your Shoulder. Review the past 2 years. Did you increase your rates to keep up with your increasing costs? How has your business changed? The business-related expenses? How are your profit margins? Are you investing MORE in your company?  (You KNOW you need to charge more – I just felt that vibe from you all the way in Canada!)

• What Type of Client Are You Attracting? Are your clients choosing you because of your price? Service and price combined? Of course price is a factor – but they should FIRST be choosing you because of what you can do for them – and BETTER than anyone else.  If you are attracting “The Grinders” and you know who I am talking about here – then you absolutely do need to have a price increase strategy ASAP.

• How Are Your Quarterly Projections? How many clients do you currently work with? Has that number increased or decreased in the past year? Has it flat-lined?  How much time are you investing with these clients? Who are the Top 20% which are the fuel generators of your business and who are the ones who are secretly draining the tank??

Get Your Fabulous Self To A Coffee Shop! I Diva Dare You!

Some Diva Fun-Work for you.  In the next 4 days – print off this e-zine, grab a pad of paper and a pen and head to a coffee shop for an hour.   Go through the Diva Radar steps and you will be surprised at the clarity that will quickly SWOOSH in on you.

That’s A  Sales Diva Promise.

Copyright© 2010 Kim Duke, The Sales Diva, provides savvy, sassy sales training for women small biz owners and entrepreneurs. Kim works with clients internationally, showing them The Sales Diva secrets to success! Sign up for her saucy and smart FREE e-zine and receive her FREE Bonus Report “The 5 Biggest Sales Mistakes Women Make” at http://www.salesdivas.com

— 3 PART WEBINAR —

!!! Sign up even if you can’t attend  !!!

– You’ll have unlimited access to these coaching business-building recordings of each module, so you can refer back to this info whenever you need it !

 As a THANK YOU GIFT for investing your time to joining me on this webinar series (or listen to the recording), I’ll send you the Pdf of my soon-to-be published book “GET MORE CIENTS BY NEXT WEEK – 55 Proven Marketing Strategies for Coaches & Consultants”

Who should attend this training series?

If you are a coach, a consultant, or a speaker, and you need help with any of the following…

 Does your website attract at least 50 to 500 (or more) visitors per day?

 Do you have a solid marketing plan and marketing schedule that ensure a continuous inflow of website visitors, leads, prospects, and clients?

 Does your website contain the elements that will almost literally force prospects to share their contact info?

 Does your website generate at least 30 leads a day?

 Do you have a strategically set up marketing funnel that will ensure a smooth transition of your leads, into prospects, into paying clients, and into life-long repeat customers?

If you answered NO to any of the above questions, then this is a must-attend webinar training series. Not only will you learn what you need to put in place in order to have a smooth business operation, but you’ll also be able to ask all your questions you might have related to your coaching, consulting, or speaking business.

To register, simply fill in your contact info in the box at the right (top of page) and we’ll email you your call-in info before each training session. You’ll be able to view and listen to each session online, or call in by phone – your choice!

!!! Sign up even if you can’t attend – You’ll have unlimited access to the recording of each module, so you can refer back to this info whenever you need it !!!

Here’s what we’ll cover in this 3-part Coaching Business Building series:

PART 1: Thursday, December 29, 11:00 AM (EST)

 How to Develop a 90-Days/360-Days Marketing Plan 

Plus get accesses to these bonuses:

- Sample 90-Days Coaching Business Building Marketing Plan (Pdf. – Daily marketing strategy suggestions included)

- How to Select A Profitable Niche (short video & Pdf eBook)

- 7 Steps to Developing a Client-Magnet Elevator Pitch (short video & Pdf instructions w. sample elevator pitches)

PART 2: Thursday, January 5th, 2012, 11:00 AM (EST)

 The 12 Elements of a Client-Attracting Website/Blog  (How to create it for less than $25 in 90-minutes or less)

You’ll also get access to the following bonus materials:

- Pdf copy of PowerPoints (use it as a checklist to improve your website)

- Transform your  Wordpress site into a power house with these Plugins… (short video tutorial)

by Jim Rohn

Let me pass on to you these four simple steps to success:

Number one is good ideas. Be a collector of good ideas. My mentor taught me to keep a journal when I was twenty five years old. I’ve been doing it now all these years. They will be passed on to my children and my grandchildren. If you hear a good health idea, capture it, write it down. Don’t trust your memory. Then on a cold wintry evening, go back through your journal, the ideas that changed your life, the ideas that saved your marriage, the ideas that bailed you out of bankruptcy, the ideas that helped you become successful, the ideas that made you millions. What a good review. Going back over the collection of ideas that you gathered over the years. So be a collector of good ideas for your business, for your relationships, for your future.

The next step to success is to have good plans. A good plan for the day, a good plan for the future, a good health plan, a good plan for your marriage. Building anything is like building a house, you need to have a plan. Now here is a good time management question: When should you start the day?

Answer: As soon as you have it finished. It is like building a house, building a life. What if you just started laying bricks and somebody asks, “What are you building?” And you say, “I have no idea.” See they would come and take you away to a safe place. So, don’t start the house until you finish it. Now, is it possible to finish the house before you start it? Yes, but it would be foolish to start before you had it finished. Not a bad time management idea. Don’t start the day until it is pretty well finished — at least the outline of the day. Leave some room to improvise. Leave some room for extra strategies, but finish it before you start it.

And here is the next piece that is a little more challenging: Do not start the week until you have it finished. Lay it out, structure it, then put it to work. Then the next one is a little tougher yet; do not start the month until you have it finished.

And finally the big one, don’t start the year until it is finished on paper. It’s not a bad idea, toward the end of the year, to sit down with your family for the family structure plans, sit down in your business for the business plans, sit down with your financial advisor for your investments and map out the year… properties to buy, properties to sell, places to go with your family, lay out the year. I finally learned to do that. It was also helpful for my family to show them where they appeared on my calendar. You know I used to have my business things on there and I used to have my lectures and my seminars all laid out on my calendar, and guess what the children said, “Where are we on the game plan, please show us our names on the game plan.” So you need to do it for your children, for your spouse, for your friends.

Now, here is the third step to success, and it can be really challenging. Learning to handle the passing of time. It takes time to build a career, it takes time to make changes, so give your project time, give your people time. If you’re working with people, give them time to learn, grow, change, develop, produce. And here is the big one, give yourself time. It takes time to master something new. It takes time to make altered changes and refinement in philosophy as well as activity. Give yourself time to learn, time to get it, time to start some momentum, time to finally achieve. It is easy to be impatient with yourself. I remember when I first tried to learn to tie my shoes. The shoe strings, it seemed like it would take me forever. Finally I got it and it didn’t take forever, but it seemed like for a while I’d never learn, I’d get it backwards; the bow goes up and down instead of across. How do I straighten that out? Finally I got it, it just took time.

Mama taught me a little bit about playing the piano. “Here is the left hand scale”, she’d say. I got that, it was easy. Then she said, “Here is the right hand scale.” I got that, that was easy. Now she said, “We are going to play both hands at the same time.” I said, “Well, how can you do that?” Now one at a time was easy… but at the same time? Looking at this hand and looking at that hand, finally I got it. Finally I got where I could play the scales with both hands. Then I remember the day she said, “Now we are going to read the music and play with both hands.” I thought, “You can’t do all that.” But you know, sure enough I’m looking at the music, looking at each hand, a little confused at first, but finally I mastered it. It took a little time to read the music and play with both hands. Then I remember the day she said, “Now we are going to watch the audience, read the music and play with both hands. I thought, “Now that is going too far!” How could you possibly do that? But see adding them one at a time and giving myself time to master one before we went to the next one; sure enough I got to where I could watch the audience, read the music and play with both hands. So the lesson here is: Give yourself time, you can become a better pro, you can better master the art of parenting, you can better master the art of managing time, conserving resources, working together as a partner. Give yourself time.

And here’s the last one; learning to solve problems. Business problems, family problems, financial problems, emotional problems, etc. — challenges for us all. Here’s the best way to treat a problem: As an opportunity to grow. Change if you have to, modify if you must, discard an old philosophy that wasn’t working well for a new one. The best phrase my mentor ever gave me was when he said, “Mr. Rohn if you will change, everything will change for you.” Wow, I took that to heart, and sure enough the more I changed the more everything changed for me.

So learn to master good ideas, have good plans, handle the passing of time and solve problems, and you will be on your way to more success than you could ever imagine!

To Your Success,

Jim Rohn

Haven’t you noticed that the old “tried and true” cold calling techniques that were once successful in cold calling have now completely lost their effectiveness?

That’s why I’ve developed a new cold calling approach that will automatically put you ahead of the game and in a league above your competition quickly.

OLD SALES GURU MYTH # 1   “Cold Calling is a Numbers Game”

When all you know is the traditional way of cold calling, selling is indeed a numbers game.  Yes, you can call people over and over.  You can also chase them until they listen just so that you go away.

Have you ever wondered how someone came up with the “numbers game concept?”  It was really about the rejection we constantly experience when making cold calls.  The boss just said to call someone else, and so we did.  The idea is that if we call a hundred people a day, then we should squeeze out at least a few good leads.  However, there’s a better and easier way of getting your product or service message across — all on one call.

If you simply change your cold calling approach, you’ll make fewer calls and more sales.  How?  By engaging in conversations. Yes, that’s right.  Just talk to people…in your normal tone of voice, and without the usual sales pitch approach.  When we focus on relationship rather than salesmanship, we’re calling with the anticipation of meeting someone new.  We’re looking forward to a pleasant conversation to find out whether we can be of service.

The other person subtly but powerfully feels this mindset. You’re no longer meeting with defense and resistance right from the start.   That will dramatically change the way people respond to your cold calls.

OLD COLD CALLING GURU MYTH # 2  “Use a sales script”

People can tell when you’re reading from a script, even if you think you’re pretty good at it.  There’s just nothing personal about a sales script, and people pick up on that.  Being artificial immediately tags you as a typical salesperson.  Therefore, if you can learn to get your message across in a different way, then you’ll eliminate the negative triggers that can lose your sale within seconds.

So once again, the best way is to begin with a conversation.  Anticipate a dialogue, not a monologue.  People will respond much more positively.  When you allow a conversation be natural and to “breathe,” they know you’re present and listening.  T hat feels good to someone who is having to “fend off” salespeople who are really just talking billboards.

OLD COLD CALLING GURU MYTH # 3  “Focus on closing the sale”

Are you “going in for the kill” with your closing sale technique? If you are, you could end up killing your deal instead.

Old cold calling sales techniques do nothing more than pressure potential clients. They feel like they’re being chased. What do most people do when they feel chased?  They run!  They naturally want to retreat away from that pressure — and that pressure is you.

So learn to avoid the “push-pull” dynamic between you and the potential client. You’ll actually find the sales process moving forward much more naturally (and more often) than when you’re forcing things.

In this old myth, the idea is that if a sale is lost, it’s usually at the end of the sales process.  The truth is that it’s often lost at the beginning of the cold call. When all you’re doing is going for a sale, the other person can sense it, no matter how well you think it’s camouflaged.  When someone senses this sales pressure, “The Wall” goes up and the defenses come out.  So stay away from focusing on making the sale. Rather, your goal is always to discover whether you and your potential clients are a good fit.

I can’t tell you how useful these new ideas have been in my own life, and in the lives of hundreds of others who have tried it.  It’s not always easy to shed the old cold calling myths. Nevertheless, it’s worth it. With a little practice, you’ll come to a place of actually enjoying your cold calls and getting better results.

Ari Galper, founder of Unlock The Game, makes cold calling painless and simple. Learn his free cold calling secrets even the sales gurus don’t know. To receive your 10 free audio mini-lessons visit http://www.UnlockTheGame.com