Challengers Are Confident

"WE GET PAID FOR BRINGING VALUE TO THE MARKETPLACE" JIM ROHN

1. Every sales professional falls into one of five distinct profiles.
Quantitatively speaking, just about every B2B sales rep in the world is one of the following types, characterized by a specific set of skills and behaviors that defines the rep's primary mode of interacting with customers:

• Relationship Builders focus on developing strong personal and professional relationships and advocates across the customer organization. They are generous with their time, strive to meet customers' every need, and work hard to resolve tensions in the commercial relationship.
• Hard Workers show up early, stay late, and always go the extra mile. They'll make more calls in an hour and conduct more visits in a week than just about anyone else on the team.
• Lone Wolves are the deeply self-confident, the rule-breaking cowboys of the sales force who do things their way or not at all.
• Reactive Problem Solvers are, from the customers' standpoint, highly reliable and detail-oriented. They focus on post-sales follow-up, ensuring that service issues related to implementation and execution are addressed quickly and thoroughly.
• Challengers use their deep understanding of their customers' business to push their thinking and take control of the sales conversation. They're not afraid to share even potentially controversial views and are assertive — with both their customers and bosses.

2. Challengers dramatically outperform the other profiles, particularly Relationship Builders.
When we look at average reps, we find a fairly even distribution across all five of these profiles. But while there may be five ways to be average, there's only one way to be a star. We found that Challenger reps dominate the high-performer population, making up close to 40% of star reps in our study.

(Please read the full article)

In sales, what is the best approach, to accept our potential customers or to challenge them? The above study has found that sales reps who challenge their customers get  more sales. Challenging potential customers doesn't mean being rude or condescending  but rather involves making the customer think outside his or her "comfort zone" to see the importance of using the product or service being sold. Sales reps or online marketers that don't "beat around the bush" are those that make more sales or get more referrals. Challenging sales reps and marketers know their products, services and customers and are confident they have solutions to the customers needs and desires and they "make no bones about it". Challengers are confident.

Social Media Marketing Is Not Selling

"We get paid for bringing value to the marketplace" (Jim Rohn)

I'm continually amazed at how people go barreling into social media sites like a bull in a china shop and then wonder why they aren't well received. They hear social media is changing the way people do business and they make the mistake of thinking it's changing it to something "new" instead of simply changing it back to the way things used to be. (Yes, I know Twitter is new, I mean in spirit.)

I hear people focusing on what's in it for them...and how they can benefit and completely disregarding the idea of participating because they might be able to give something back. It's like the person at a networking event who only wants to size up whether or not you can advance their business before moving on to the next person. It's clear they view people as commodities and stepping stones instead of...well, people.

That's a shame, because when it comes to business, there's nothing that matters more than people and how you treat them.

(Please read the full article)

   As business owners, resellers and affiliate marketers we do indeed have something to sell. We also have a lot of competition with others selling the same thing, especially on the Internet. Therefore the best way to sell something is by not selling but helping others with issues and problems they may have, even by just being encouraging and upbuilding. Offer something of value like time and effort to people other than what you sell and people will buy what you sell when the need, desire and time is right for them to buy what you sell. The essence of social media marketing is being sociable, i..e being helpful, not selling.

Just Do It

It’s absolutely dizzying, the number of different programs, training and lead generating systems there are out there.

And all of them claiming to be the absolute gospel, the end-all-be-all solution that you need to end all of your marketing woes!

You know you really can’t believe all of them, so how do you know what to believe? Which training system to buy? What is worth the money?

Marketing a system and marketing training and training to market are time takers that can never end if you let them control your calendar.

Marketing a system and marketing training and training to market are time takers that can never end if you let them control your calendar.


(Please click on the keyword "Marketing" to read the full article)


   When it comes to network marketing on the Internet there is always something to learn. There is always some Biz-Op, program or system that seems better than what you are currently involved with. The grass can seem always greener on the other side. Believing in  yourself is more important than believing in some product, service or system. Ultimately we invest in people and people invest in you. After learning all you can at the moment and with a clear vision of success for yourself and others, JUST DO IT!

The Money Is In The System

Why would you want to get inspiration from corporate marketing methods for your internet marketing efforts? Quite simply, they work. Without reaching out to prospective buyers regularly, a corporation will not be able to generate revenue and will not be able to sustain itself. Promoting a product is just as important for internet marketers as it is for their corporate counterparts, even though the internet marketer will likely be working on a smaller scale.
Three Components to Marketing
Corporations know that their marketing efforts can be broken down into three distinct components:

• Finding customers
• Satisfying the customers’ needs
• Keeping customers

(Please click on the keyword "marketing" to read the full article)

  Though we are simple home based online marketers there is much we can learn from successful corporate Big Business marketing focused on finding, serving and keeping customers. The key components of successful corporate marketing is the business brand and it's product or service. Coke and Microsoft for example are both a brand and a quality product in great competition with similar products. On a smaller scale we as online marketers are a brand and a product needing customers and referrals to have money making success in competition with millions of other online marketers. It still boils down to finding, serving and keeping customers and referrals.
   The best way to accomplish this marketing agenda is to have a system. Does the affiliate program you promote have a real "marketing system" that fulfills the objectives of finding, serving and keeping customers/referrals? If your affiliate program or home business doesn't have a system, then find or create one that does because when it come to both corporate businesses and individual home businesses indeed "the money is in the system" of finding, serving and keeping customers/referrals.

Too Much Info Kills

Have you ever felt as if too much was happening at the same time in your business sphere and that you were very likely to miss the golden opportunity of a life? Well this isn’t surprising; what with everyone thinking he is a guru and selling products and packages they swear will work. You are left feeling lost, unsure and eventually missing really good offers just because you didn’t notice them in the flow. So today I’m going to help you deal with information overload and understand where to start.

We’re all getting more and more wired into technological tools – tools we believe help improve personal productivity. I believe that many people suffering from information overload are allowing technology to run them rather than the other way around. More technology isn’t always the answer, no matter how well written or developed. We all craze over new software, claiming this one is better than that other one without even trying it out, basing ourselves only on their price, date of creation or team behind it.  So my idea is run free! Try the ones that appeal with you, buy the ones you fall for but don’t overdo it. Use only the necessary software and do the maximum yourself: No I’m not encouraging you to be an IT retard. I’m simply helping you remain free. Any good guru would tell you the same.

(Please click on the keywords "information overload" to read the full article)

We are all overwhelmed with information on the Web today, partly because of ever evolving technology available today and partly because of Human Nature's insatiable desire for knowledge. The big question is will informational technology take control of us or will we control informational technology? Too much of anything is bad. Essentially we need to place our own "information filters" up, screening out information that is not relevant to our job at hand, even within the social networking and online marketing niches. We can't join every social network, every great home business opportunity or use every advertising software on the Web because we are only human. As humans we must all follow our hearts when it comes to the information we take in and the programs we join or buy. Too much info kills the human spirit.